Does Your Marketing Strategy Have This?

A plan for sharing knowledge and gaining knowledge!

As 2015 is unfolding, I keep being reminded of my one word goal for 2015. My word is “relationship.”

Any great marketing strategy has to include relationships as a part of that goal. To do this, I am also being reminded of some key concepts based around the word knowledge:

((sharing knowledge)) and ((gaining knowledge))

It is critical that more information be shared with our own associates and the clients we work with. There are a number of great people with a wealth of knowledge in our own companies that we are overlooking and not tapping. I think about this everyday. Many people are gaining tremendous amounts of “head knowledge” regarding their position and the information they may share with a few people. It is critical that people be given opportunities to learn and grow in their work and outside of their work through other interests.

In addition, companies need to do a better job of sharing this information with others. A few years ago, this was not happening at our company and as a result the information was being siloed and the best decisions for the company were not being made. The company suffered through a lack of communication and poor decision making.

As marketers look for ways to grow your company in these two areas:

Sharing Knowledge

• Host a webinar or develop a brochure on a particular topic.


• Consider writing an e-book.


• Attend a tradeshow and plan to talk about certain topics.


• Start making it easier for people to share more about their topics.

Gain Knowledge

• Seek out great speakers and send a personal letter to them on a topic.


• Connect with great people online – (Linkedin is a great platform).


• Look for those people who share a lot of good information.


• Consider bringing in outside companies to talk about a particular topic.

Summary

Here are some questions to think about:

• What value is knowledge if it is only held by a few people?


• If I gain all kinds of knowledge but never share it, what have I gained?


• What information should be collected and shared internally?


• What resources outside of our company could help us in the areas of Accounting, Law, Marketing? What knowledge would they bring?


• What information do clients keep asking us for? Do we have that information documented in an Frequently Asked Questions Document?

It is time to take a closer look at how we acquire and share knowledge in our companies and with our clients. It does circle back to building better relationships and the only way to effectively do this is by listening to clients ((gaining knowledge)) and being more transparent with clients ((sharing knowledge)).

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Does Your Marketing Strategy Have This?