“Oh, so you are ‘in’ marketing; so what do you specialise in?

I must get asked that question every time I am asked what I do for a living – which believe me is a lot!

It is a reasonable question and one that also makes me sad; just how fragmented has our thinking become? One egg wont make a cake… you need the full recipe for success in marketing…

Every time I hear someone say to me that they are ‘giving x a go’ to market their business and it is a stand alone strategy I worry.

To plan for success you have to think holistically; success is unlikely to come solely from a fantastic social media campaign, a great advert, brilliant leaflet, fascinating website, tantalising blog, by networking your heart out or any of the other single marketing channels open to you today; but build the combination and you start getting the recipe right for creating success.

Think about how many times you have met people and rushed back to check out their website, LinkedIn profile or just plain Googled them? What are you looking for?

My guess is that you are looking for confirmation that they are what they say they are, that you will get what you want if you use them, you are looking for a professional looking company, one that can fulfil your needs, a company that understands you; who can offer you the customer service that you want at a price you are prepared to pay… you are looking for the bigger picture. You want to see the ingredients that make up that company!

So, next time you think about specialisms and how they can help, be sure to put them into the context of the wider strategy and what you need to make your company successful. Success is a big complicated recipe and using just one ingredient is unlikely to deliver you the whole dish, but using specialisms together as part of a recipe, carefully concocted to suit your business, can deliver the dish you want.