TL:DR, yes, but only this one! SOPE – a common-sense and pragmatic marketing framework for start-ups and scale-ups.
There are dozens of marketing frameworks available already – some have been around for decades, some are specific to sectors or segments, and some are so complicated you need a framework to deal with the framework.
I didn’t set out to create a framework which fitted a neat acronym, but I’m a marketer and acronyms are our currency. What I did set out to do was to organise the elements I need to understand quickly when I go into a business as a consultant or as a fractional CMO.
I needed to get up-to-speed with lots of facets of the business super fast. The SOPE Framework® helps me do that. The long and short of it is, I know this works because I created it for myself and have used it in multiple businesses.
And applying the SOPE Framework to your business can help you too.
I also wanted to create a framework based on common sense, understandable to business founders as well as marketers. Marketing is really about common sense – but common sense, as my father loves to say, isn’t very commonplace these days. The Framework will present the areas for work understandably and sensibly.
If we want to really create change, a framework has to be practical and pragmatic – the common-sense approach does exactly that.
The Framework has four core sections:
- Strategy
- Organisation
- Process
- Execution
Each section has thematic areas, broken down into several elements.
By listing out and grouping all the elements of your marketing, you immediately start to see where the gaps are.
But the volume of gaps can be overwhelming – where should you start?
The SOPE Framework uses a scoring mechanism which allows you to dispassionately rank the importance of those gaps (and yes, I love a split infinitive).
None of us have time to fix everything and we need to be able to prioritise our work. The scoring enables you to rationally and dispassionately focus activity on the most valuable work.
>> The SOPE Framework® is available as a workshop with a report and roadmap. I also offer a coaching programme on it.
Strategy
Everything starts with strategy – but it’s not just about the ‘marketing’ strategy.
What’s much more important is aligning marketing with the rest of the business strategy. So here, we look at business strategy elements such as your vision, mission, North Star metrics and more. We need to understand where the business plans to be in 1, 3 and preferably 5 years to build the right marketing strategy to meet that plan.
It’s surprising how many businesses have misaligned strategies when it comes to marketing.
So then we move on to identify how the brand aligns – specifically around ideal customer profiles, messaging, positioning statements, tone of voice and more.
We also look in-depth at the channel strategy.
Organisation
We need to understand the human element of the organisation so we can see where gaps need to be plugged – is that around creative, content, data analysis, production, management?
How are you set-up to manage marketing? It’s hard for many founders to manage marketing people because they (we) are fundamentally different to everyone else (that’s what makes us marketers).
How does the marketing team work with the sales team? How do they fit into the wider Go To Market team?
We also need to have a handle on the tech infrastructure – so websites, CMS, CRM, marketing tools and channel set-up. And not just the technology but the all-important data in it – particularly in that CRM (where there is usually untapped opportunity lurking!)
Process
Process is often the weaker part of many marketers’ game (I have to work hard to adhere to process sometimes myself). It’s why many larger marketing teams will have Marketing Ops members.
Process is what makes marketing efficient, repeatable and, eventually, scalable.
That process might be a simple marketing brief (spending 20 minutes on a structured brief can save hours and hours later). It could also cover the whole process of the growth team.
Process is also where you get into the nitty-gritty of managing the marketing team – setting a cadence for milestone, KPI and OKR measurement and management.
Execution
The fun part. The bit people actually think of when they think about marketing. The colouring-in part.
But here we assess not just how effective the execution is, but its weaknesses, and importantly how it meets the strategy we set out above.
Framework flexibility
Marketing Frameworks have to have a degree of flexibility. No two businesses are the same and of course markets, customers and products all have different properties.
So the SOPE Framework is there as a guide, importantly not as either some sort of esoteric academic MBA ideal nor as a lazy consultant cookie-cutter 90 day plan.
It’s there to help businesses grow sustainably and for the long term.
The whole SOPE Framework is there to enable us to scale, fast.
The SOPE Framework® in practice
The SOPE Framework can be adapted to use in any business situation – B2B or B2C, profit or non-profit. The checklist items may differ slightly but the approach is essentially the same.
In its purest sense, the framework can be completed as a checklist then, using in-built weighting, turned into radar-charts. This allows a simple dashboard type approach to enable business decision-makers quickly identify the most important issues to fix.
The framework is something I use in every business I go into as a fractional CMO, but increasingly, I also use it in my coaching work and mentorship. It helps marketers and business leaders quickly understand what they can practically do in their business to improve their marketing and growth potential.
Let me know if you’d like to discuss how the SOPE Framework could work within your business.
A version of this article first appeared on MentorCruise
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