By Senga Kean, Marketing Director & Principal Consultant at dodio
I’ve worked in marketing for more than 20 years and one thing I still see all the time is organisations approaching marketing through one-off activities.
They need a new website, want to focus on social media, decide it’s time for a flashy campaign or think they should suddenly be investing in SEO. Sometimes these are perfectly reasonable decisions , but what I’m always more interested in is asking what they’re trying to achieve and whether that particular activity is actually the best way to get there.
Organisations constantly change. They grow, introduce new services, reach different audiences, restructure teams and shift their priorities, but their marketing doesn’t always evolve at the same pace. Sometimes that’s obvious because the website no longer represents the organisation, but it can also show up in inconsistent messaging, disconnected campaigns or money being spent across different channels without anyone really looking at how they work together.
Some of the most valuable conversations I have with clients happen before we decide what any of that activity should look like. When I sit down with a leadership team, we’ll look at where the organisation is now, where it wants to go, who it needs to reach, what the data is telling us and what resources and expertise already exist internally. Those conversations often go much wider than marketing because customer journeys, internal communications, systems, capacity and wider business priorities can all affect what marketing needs to do.
It’s why UNDERSTAND. CREATE. has become such an important part of the refreshed dodio brand. Understanding comes first because there’s little value in driving more people on a customer journey that doesn’t work, creating more content when the message isn’t clear or investing in a new website without knowing what you need it to achieve.
It also reflects why we increasingly work with organisations as a Strategic Marketing & Communications Partner rather than simply delivering individual services. For us, that means becoming integrated with the organisation, working closely with leadership teams, understanding the wider priorities and having the context to see how marketing and communications can support them. It means we’re not simply responding to individual briefs as they arise, but helping to shape priorities, connect activity and identify where investment is most likely to have an impact.
For me, this isn’t about encouraging organisations to spend more on marketing. It’s about making sure the budget, resources and expertise they have are being used effectively, with activity that connects back to what the organisation is trying to achieve. That’s where I believe a genuinely strategic partnership can make the biggest difference.
After more than 20 years in marketing, that’s the bit I probably enjoy most, getting under the skin of an organisation, asking the right questions and working out where marketing can genuinely make a difference.
dodio.co.uk