Part 3: Creating B2B Marketing Strategies - Workshops and Parking Lots

Congratulations! You’ve made it through the first two parts of our miniseries, Creating B2B Marketing Strategies. In Part 2, Ryan shared expert tips on preparing an effective workshop. In the final part, Part 3, he explores how to keep the meeting on track with agendas and the famous “parking lot.”

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Welcome back. I'm Ryan Draving with The Moving Company, and I may be on a stationary bike, but I'm here to help your business move forward. Now that you've identified your target market, positioning and messaging, it's time to get all stakeholders in the room for a planning workshop. A workshop is a great way to level set among every one of your stakeholders,

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share a discussion about marketing and ensure that everyone has a consistent outlook on where the company is at and where it's going. The alternative to holding a workshop is conducting individual interviews or conversations where you might receive widely ranging opinions. This can put you in a position to become the political middle person, which is not ideal. By throwing everyone into a room together,

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it becomes a group exercise to get alignment. When conducting your planning workshop, it's essential to have a framework of what topics you're going to cover and what decisions need to be made. This is a powerful opportunity to gather and have the best minds in your company. But unless the session is highly structured, it can quickly devolve into chaos.

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To keep the workshop on track, create an agenda that identifies all the key topics that you want to cover with a specific amount of time allotted to each one. When the time is up, move on to the next topic. However, being strict in this kind of situation is not always easy, especially when dealing with senior people. One useful and diplomatic tool that you can use to keep discussions focused is the parking lot.

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Put a big piece of paper on the wall and any idea that people would like to continue talking about beyond its time limit is parked so that it can return to you later with the whole team. Remember, the planning workshop is an opportunity to gather and tap into the best minds in your company. With a structured agenda and the parking lot tool,

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you can keep discussions focused and ensure that everyone is on the same page. Use this workshop to create a marketing strategy that works for your company. Starting with strategic marketing can be overwhelming, but the most important thing to do is to start. You won't be perfect right out of the gate, and that is okay. The point of the strategic marketing plan is that it's backed by a plan and guided by a plan.

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So, it's essential that you start somewhere. The key to successful strategic marketing is knowing where you're starting and where you want to go. If you're still determining the emerging needs of your target market, figuring out what your customers think of you or deciding where you stand in reference to your competitors, that's okay. What's important is being open with yourself and your team about the gaps.

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If you need more information, do some additional work to figure out your three C's. This can include customer research, competitive intelligence, and understanding what your company does best. However, research doesn't have to be all consuming. You can get tremendous insights from a relatively informal effort like talking to a handful of customers to understand how they would best describe your company and how it compares to the competition.

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This can be a great way to flesh out the knowledge you've gathered in your workshop and then build on it. The key is to aim for good, not for perfect. If you aim for perfection, you're never going to get started and you'll never improve or finish. Starting with a strategic marketing plan is a process, and it's okay to make mistakes along the way.

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Just remember to be open with yourself and your team about where you're starting and where you want to go. And don't be afraid to do some additional research to fill in any gaps in your knowledge. From my bike to your business. Let's keep moving forward. I'll talk to you next time.