Scale-Up Marketing Strategy

Clarity & Control.

Empowered, elevated and in greater charge of the organisation’s destiny. Greater clarity on what to do next, more informed, more increasingly aware. A stronger control of all the moving parts, each and every variable that affects performance. More rapid growth, more effortless progress and ever greater alignment with the company’s overall direction.

At THE LOFT we produce specialist marketing strategies, exclusively, for companies with genuine scale-up aspirations. Highly tailored, well-resolved and carefully thought-through brand, marketing and sales directions that deliver almost instant-impact. High velocity moves with the power to resolve multiple challenges simultaneously. More customers, better leads, stronger leverage in deals, greater loyalty and so much more.

Our scale-up marketing strategy exercises are fast, insightful, good fun, highly imaginative and extremely collaborative. They’re sympathetic to existing cultures, carefully weigh up commercial challenges, the benefits and risks of various moves and are always centred in innovation and ‘best practice.’

If you’d like to find out more about our specialist scale-up marketing strategy exercises, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

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Scale-Up Marketing Strategy FAQs

Scale-Up Strategy Versus More Traditional Approaches >>>>>

Scale-Up Strategy Processes >>>>>

Ensuring Success >>>>>

Scale-Up Strategy Versus More Traditional Approaches

What’s the difference between your scale-up marketing strategy exercises and more traditional marketing strategies or reviews?

Our scale-up marketing strategies have an entrepreneurial foundation. We believe in shorter, sharper and more impactful brand, marketing and sales moves that deliver faster and more impactful results.

More traditional strategies or marketing reviews are more ‘long-term,’ they involve taking a bigger step into the future and the advocating of ideas that take longer to deliver real commercial progress. They are neither as efficient or as impactful.

And the more tangible advantages of this difference approach?

Our scale-up marketing strategies minimise risk, maximise budgets and provide more rapid gains. The moves suggested are lighter, faster and therefore work in greater harmony with the overall direction and agenda of the organisation and their leadership team.

The more traditional approach is slower. Marketing actions can be almost out-of-date by the time they’ve been proposed/acted upon/delivered and ROI takes longer. Also the more traditional marketing exercises themselves are significantly more costly than our leaner approach.

What do you mean when you say marketing ‘moves?’

‘Moves’ can be singular or combinations of brand, marketing and sales activities designed to accelerate growth. Whether that is by accelerating sales cycles, building ‘good will’ with employees, simplifying complex deals, strengthening brand positioning, maximising project budgets, etc.

Activities can include anything from proposing a thought-leadership event, to creating a campaign to producing specialist content for digital channels or producing a new brand, etc.

We always endeavour to create ‘moves’ that can solve multiple commercial challenges simultaneously for greater efficiency and improved ROI.

More traditional marketing strategies consequently and deliberately provide answers to challenges such as ‘brand positioning,’ ‘customer-value-propositions,’ ‘budget planning,’ etc – do your more ‘scale-up’ focussed approach provide the same answers?

Yes and in an even greater way.

Our process starts with those topics mentioned – ’stronger brand positioning,’ ‘a more effective customer-value-proposition,’ ‘more comprehensive budget planning,’ etc and we then create ideas for activities accordingly.

However, the answers to these questions, for us is more than theoretical – they are embedded in to the work we propose. Thus, resulting in better, more commercially effective ideas.

Scale-Up Strategy Processes

What is the process for these scale-up marketing strategies?

Our scale-up marketing strategy exercises are carried out in 4 parts.

Part – 1, Discovery Meeting | We get to know the company, what it does, how it does it, where it stands in the marketplace and how it currently wins business. This in-person meeting is generally complimented with additional reading materials for us to study.

Part – 2, Submission of Draft-1 of ’Strategic Document’ | THE LOFT team leans on existing best-practices for the sector, other innovative ideas being used in similar businesses across different sectors and our own experiences. We are then able to draft a number of initial ideas/directions. These are shared with the client/s remotely for feedback. ‘E-Mail’ is selected over a formal meeting to give the client/s the best opportunity to digest the information in their time and at their own discretion.

Part- 3, Development of Draft-Document | We work closely with the client remotely to develop and scope out the 3-4 preferred directions in more detail. This phase may include a number of back and forth conversations.

Part-4, Final Scale-Up Strategy Meeting | The final part of the process is a formal meeting on/off-site to discuss the best possible way forward for the client. This concluding phase also sees THE LOFT submit a final physical ’strategy booklet’ to the client.

How long do these scale-up marketing strategies take?

We move fast, depending on the size of the organisation and client availability, from start-to-finish, we like to have these exercises complete within a couple of weeks.

What happens at the end of the exercise?

As mentioned, exercises tend to conclude with an in-person group meeting with ourselves and all relevant stakeholders. For the client – this may include leadership personnel, key staff members, board members, advisers/mentors and/or investors, etc.

Throughout this meeting, we will discuss which activities may be best to cary out and when. The client is then free to carry out this work with at their own discretion – with ourselves and/or with a third-party provider.

What ‘deliverables will we have at the end of the process?

Tangible deliverables include your ’Scale-Up Marketing Strategy’ booklets which include multiple brand/marketing moves that can be put into action straight away as well as our suggestions about which actions may be the most useful at any particular time.

Our strategy booklets include estimated costings for activities, benefits of each move, potential risks and some of the intricacies in making each action work successfully.

Intangibly, what we’re really offering is real ‘intelligence.’ Bespoke marketing information of the highest level that can help companies scale and scale quickly.

Are you able to assist us after the completion of the scale-up marketing strategy?

Yes, THE LOFT is a full-service integrated brand-marketing company, we have a vast range of services/solutions to assist companies with all parts of the brand, marketing and sales journey.

Ensuring Success

Can you work with companies in my sector?

There generally isn’t a sector that we can’t or haven’t worked with in the past. We have exceptional cross-sector and cross-disciple experience and expertise.

However, if we have doubts, we will let any client know before we start an engagement.

What will our level of involvement have to be?

We welcome as much ‘quality time’ with our client’s staff as possible but we are aware that successful companies have busy teams and do our best to work around that.

For ourselves is it important that we can understand what the business does, where it’s at commercially and which marketing actions are currently being carried out. Whether that is with in-person meetings or through online/offline documentation.

There are only two formal parts that require ‘face-to-face’ time (either digitally or in-person.) Firstly, the introductory meeting which can take anything from half-a-day to a couple of days with a person/team that knows the business well.

Secondly, the group marketing meeting which concludes the exercise.

Both parts mentioned tend to be ‘half-day’ activities although there may be a requirement for further ‘discovery’ sessions.

Can you work with existing marketing teams?

Yes absolutely, the input of in-house marketing professionals can be really invaluable for these exercises.

How can you guarantee that the work will be tailored towards our own culture and values?

This is a great question and generally our biggest USP. We put forward and (only) advocate activities that our clients feel comfortable with. Moves that are a culture fit.

For example – if an organisation doesn’t like the impersonal nature of ‘digital,’ we may suggest more in-person activities. Or, if a company’s team consists of ‘digital natives’ that enjoy the more technical aspects of ‘delivery,’ we may suggest SEO or optimisation for ‘AI.’

Similarly, if a client’s brand is more about ‘brand’ and ‘relationships,’ we will ensure sales activities proposed aren’t too forward. Again, conversely, if the company has people that love sales, we’ll put forward ideas that can get them in front of more prospects, etc.

As stated, we have a wealth of cross-sector and cross-discipline experience and expertise. We know what works and more importantly for which types of clients. Our overall approach is centred around an appreciation and respect for existing clients, what they do and the systems they’ve already built.