How Can Marketing Propel Your Brand to New Heights of Growth?

As marketers, we are all in pursuit of the same thing

“The only thing the team should be focused on is delivering Q1 revenues”

After 20 years of leading marketing teams for some of the world's most iconic brands, I’ve witnessed the impact of the increasing emphasis on delivering short-term sales on the effectiveness of marketing teams to contribute to brand growth. While quarterly targets are important, research by the IPA and EffWorks reveals that campaigns focusing on long-term brand building are 3x more effective in driving market share growth.

To help marketing teams overcome the "short-termism" challenge, I worked with former clients, teammates, and peers to develop the Brand Growth Accelerator. It is a framework designed for marketing leaders looking to build a foundation that empowers their teams to deliver both short-term sales impact and long-term brand equity—ensuring marketing becomes a true driver of company growth.

It is rooted in the principles and practices that helped my teams deliver growth for companies including The Walt Disney Company, Hilton, MillerCoors, and The Chamberlain Group. 

The five pillars that make up the Brand Growth Accelerator include:

1. Customer Intimacy: Developing a deep understanding of your audience to align products, messages, and experiences with their needs. This can be achieved through surveys and interviews, persona development, and leveraging CRM platforms to gather and analyze behavioral data. Regular customer feedback loops and social listening also provide valuable insights.

   
   

2. Journey Understanding: Mapping and optimizing the key moments that shape customer decisions and loyalty. This can be achieved through customer journey mapping, heatmaps to track user behavior, and analytics platforms to identify drop-off points and conversion paths. User shadowing and focus groups can also provide valuable qualitative insights.

   
   

3. Brand Equity & Alignment: Building a strong, clearly defined brand foundation that inspires all corners of the organization (not just the marketing team), will inform a compelling, ownable brand platform with the power to ignite an entire ecosystem. 

   
   

4. Data-Driven Decision Making: Data collection is only valuable if it can be actioned. Creating a learning plan and enrolling a cross-functional team ensures informed decisions on messaging, channel selection, audience prioritization, formats, and budget allocation are happening in real/near time.

   
   

5. Continuous Improvement: Adopting a culture of experimentation and optimization ensures marketing efforts remain effective and innovative. Organizations can foster this culture by encouraging team collaboration, rewarding innovative thinking, and establishing processes for regular testing and iteration. 

In the coming weeks, I’ll share posts diving into these pillars, exploring actionable steps and real-world examples to help teams overcome the short-term vs. long-term challenge.