Insights From Our Experts

At Liger, we’re fans of “big picture thinking.” We view marketing as a growing, thriving, sales-driving machine, so when we’re building out the details of our next strategic marketing initiative, we’re thinking about how every email campaign, every ad, and every social media post contributes to our broader corporate goals. Without this ability to zoom out and see the way our work supports our business as a whole, we’d run the risk of total marketing misalignment.

What about your brand? Are your business goals and your marketing efforts two pieces of the same puzzle, or are they starting to grow apart? If you worry that it’s the latter, you’re not alone. According to the Harvard Business Review, you’ve made a common marketing mistake. While 82% of companies think they have brand alignment figured out, in actuality only 23% of companies do. This is a topic where it’s easy for business leaders to lose sight of the problem. 

Let’s get you aligned again, shall we? We’ll share typical signs that your brand has gone awry plus practical tips for getting your strategic marketing back on track. 

Red Flags to Watch Out For

When marketing and business goals are aligned, you can focus on your company’s priorities, measure success more accurately, and create a cohesive, strategic approach. The results? Resources aren’t used efficiently, internal teams communicate better, and overall marketing performance steadily improves.

Begin with the basics: what are your business goals? How does your business make money and, more importantly, how and where does it connect with customers? Reconsider and redefine these foundational elements and compare them to your marketing team’s goals. Then, determine if any of the following red flags are popping up across your efforts in strategic marketing:

Sad, Sad Sales Numbers

Maybe it’s the economy…or maybe something is wrong. If sales aren’t meeting your short- or long-term goals, it’s time to re-evaluate strategic marketing from every angle. 

How to Address It: Start by assessing which channels are underperforming. With this information in hand, you can revisit your value proposition to ensure your products and services are still meeting customer needs and that your messaging matches what your business has to offer. This is also the perfect time to experiment. Try new marketing channels! Develop a loyalty program! Just keep a close eye on what’s working and what’s not. 

Reactive vs. Strategic

Which one are you? Scrambling from one marketing initiative to the next and viewing each new quarter as a marketing emergency (as opposed to a marketing opportunity) are red flags that suggest you’re reacting rather than planning.  

How to Address It: Build a roadmap! Goals, objectives, and gaps for strategic readjustments can span the next few months or the next few years, but as long as they align with your overall business goals, you can begin to shift into a more calculated and successful marketing approach. 

Low Engagement & Conversions

Whether it’s open and click-through rates or website analytics, if your customers aren’t showing up, you’re likely making some key marketing mistakes. It’s possible that your audience is shifting, but it’s far more likely that you’re failing to make the genuine connections that turn leads into loyal customers. 

How to Address It: Your target audience holds the answer to this one. Ask for customer feedback and consider personalizing your marketing content, particularly on social media. When you truly understand your audience, they’re more likely to engage and keep engaging, driving sales, awareness, and a more aligned marketing strategy. 

Competitors Are Too Close for Comfort 

Sure, there will always be similarities between you and your competitors, but when you visit their websites or browse their social media, it shouldn’t feel like you’re looking in a funhouse mirror of your own strategic marketing content. What’s unique about your brand, and why isn’t it being made obvious to your customer? 

How to Address It: Give industry norms and standards a break and try something new. Dare to be creative with your messaging and don’t be afraid to stand out.

Your Marketing Senses Are Tingling

Call it a gut feeling. Call it intuition. No matter what your key performance metrics are saying, that sneaky feeling that something isn’t quite right may be your most reliable indicator that your brand alignment isn’t where you need it to be. 

How to Address It: Get in sync with your marketing strategy by triple-checking campaign analytics and connecting with your team. Do they share your suspicion that your marketing efforts are misaligned? If so, you can work together to create solutions that tackle the areas where you’d like to improve. 

Rethink Your Messaging Framework with the Right B2B Marketing Agency

Liger knows a thing or two about brand alignment, and we’d love an opportunity to share our insights with you and your team. We bridge marketing with sales acceleration to generate leads and deliver bottom-of-funnel, sales-ready prospects who recognize your brand and your product for all the right reasons. 
Ready to get realigned? Contact our marketing experts today.