Overview
Our First Call
We can do almost everything marketing related. The stuff we don’t know well, we know the right people to hire to get it done.
No matter what the work looks like, we must have chemistry with our clients and partners. We use the first meeting to determine if there is a possible fit.
These are the questions that we are asking when we have our first meeting:
- Is the business interesting?
- Is this person passionate about what they do?
- Before making money, does the organization aspire to a greater sense of purpose?
- Why you or why your company as opposed to others? What’s the special sauce?
- Does this business have a marketing strategy based on some market research?
You have to get us pumped about your business. If marketing (or working with us) feels like a burden to you, then it will feel like a burden to us. We are not looking for something that feels like an obligation. We want to be selective and put our energy towards only special projects and clients.
For some of our clients, just expressing this can be a deal breaker, so let’s get them out of the way first so we don’t waste anyone’s time.
Discovery
One thing that sets BEKS Marketing apart from other marketers is our background in market research. We find that working on anything without a plan, strategy, or research is like shooting in the dark: you’re unlikely to get the results you want, and you’ll end up frustrated.
Our new clients generally fall into one of four categories:
- You have a marketing plan and have the research to back up that plan. You can make that plan available to us.
- You don’t have a plan or any market research. You can afford to hire us to do it for you ($15–20K budget to start).
- You don’t have a plan or any market research. With our guidance, you are willing to develop your plan internally ($1K / m budget to start).
- You feel that planning and research is a “nice to have,” but you prefer to work off your “gut feel.”
Choose Your Own Adventure
Together we decide if we will move forward by either following a plan or not. If we choose not to follow a plan, we use this time to detail the one or two “test” projects we will execute for you. We should have enough detail to develop a creative brief, a cost estimate and a good sense of how these projects fit into your overall strategy.
Marketing Plans
We do it for you
At Beks Marketing, we develop marketing plans to include four key components:
- Market Research: To best determine your market, we conduct stakeholder interviews; evaluate industry trends and competitor positioning; analyze existing marketing and customer satisfaction data, and assess brand expressions and alignment to optimize your current marketing.
- Brand Strategy: We devise a brand narrative for you by telling the story of your business. Our team sets basic brand guidelines and develops your brand story.
- Recommendations: Our team will identify and clarify your marketing objectives. We provide strategies to get the right message to the right market using the right mediums. We also give you recommendations on how to measure the effectiveness of your marketing.
- Marketing Schedule, Budget, and Resourcing: This final segment will establish a marketing budget that works for you. We recommend resources, contractors, suppliers, and partners to help you execute your business goals. We will toss our hat in the ring to do it all for you if appropriate.
You build your own plan. We guide you.
You build your own plan. We help you.
We’ve developed an effective and affordable planning system for small businesses and entrepreneurs to develop their own marketing plans. This system uses the same templates and tools that we use for our clients. Instead of us doing the work, we coach you through the process of applying the templates to your business. We review your work so you can feel confident that you are getting it all right. Here’s what it looks like:
- Online Coaching: We give you one-on-one expert guidance. Meet with us for 1-hour weekly online coaching and review session (6-8 weeks).
- Templates: We send you the same templates we use to develop marketing plans for our clients and teach you how to use them.
- Assignments: In each coaching session, we review the work completed and then provide feedback to help you further refine and finalize each section of your plan.
- Accountability and Support: Get the inspiration and motivation from us to stay engaged and complete your marketing plan.
Remember, you are doing all the work under this plan. Coaching sessions happen every week, so you need to be available at the same time for one hour once a week. There is usually at least four hours’ worth of work to do in between sessions. It’s ideal for you to set aside the time to take this critical step for your business.
Marketing Projects
Working on a project-by-project basis with Beks Marketing is a fit for clients that want to own the strategy and need a focused, finite engagement. No overarching strategy is required from us—just good organized execution.
Projects have start and end dates. We work off an estimate you approve, and then we get started after the first 50% of the project invoice is paid.
Pull a project out of your marketing wishlist and assign it to us. You own the overall strategy, and as projects come and go, they’ll depend on our workload at the time.
Our team can work on almost anything marketing related. Here are some examples of what we can help you with:
- Identity and branding
- Brand development
- Website design, development and maintenance
- Proposals and presentations planning
- Full marketing campaigns
- Internal employee onboarding and training
- Internal and recruitment campaigns
- Print and digital design
- Social media strategy and planning
- Digital advertising
- Content plan and strategy
- Content development (any medium)
Marketing Management
After the first project, we might discuss a more ongoing relationship where we take full responsibility for your marketing program. In this scenario, we would take care of everything required to execute your marketing program.
The project list or marketing plan has to be enough to warrant at least 10 hours of work a month ($1250 / m). That time is dedicated to your account and paid to our team as a minimum retainer. Hours over and above are just charged out at our hourly rate.
