Defining your company purpose is more important than any marketing channel

The idea of getting the right message, to the right person at the right time has long been seen as the holy grail of marketing. 

In recent years we’ve seen an explosion of new channels open up as companies add investment in chatbots, live video, influencer marketing, interactive signs, podcast placement and much more to their communications mix.

At first glance, that sounds like great news for marketers. With more channels there must surely come more opportunities to get the message to the target audience and, what’s more, in a format that will speak most to that individual. 

But in a world where options seem like everything, it’s vitally important that marketers don’t become blind to the thing that should truly shape everything they do…. purpose.

Paradox of choice

In modern society we’ve been raised on the assumption that choice is good and the more choice the better.

However, in his famous book ‘The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less’, Barry Schwartz argues that having too many options causes paralysis and makes it hard for the consumer to decide what to do.

If we apply this theory to the marketing world then it’s easy to imagine how many professional communicators might feel similarly overwhelmed by the huge choice of channels at their disposal. The risk of that feeling is that it could cause some marketers to switch off from many of their options and stick with what they know or, just as damagingly, to focus all of their energies on selecting the channels, and not enough on the message that they’re trying to communicate and the audience that they’re trying to reach.

Start with the purpose

In the past, I’ve been in many marketing meetings where the starting point of the activity was to allocate budget to particular teams or channels.

However, the belief that ‘you get out what you put in’ doesn’t apply to all areas of marketing spend, as a great idea can massively outperform its allocation. And, as marketers, that’s what we all want - to make an impact with our work.

That’s why it’s always better to start with the idea before drilling down to delivery, and, before that, we need to have real clarity on the purpose of the organisation, as that is what the idea should be developed around.

The importance of purpose

It’s 50 years now since Nobel prize-winning economist, Milton Friedman, wrote that the “social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.” Times have really changed since then, especially in recent months!

As we head into this deep financial crisis and the huge social unrest that has come with and alongside it, it’s worth noting that companies that were focused on doing social good at the time of the last one were found to have been 63 percent more likely to survive than other companies of a similar size.

Focusing on this time around, The Edelman Trust Barometer recently reported that 71 percent of people agree that if they believe a brand is putting profit before people at this time, then they will lose trust in that brand forever.

In a recent McKinsey & Company report, the management consulting firm outlined a series of actions that businesses need to take to respond effectively to Covid-19. ‘Demonstrating purpose’ was described as key, as was protecting employees, stabilising the supply chain and staying close to customers.

Defining your purpose

We’ve previously written about how health brands have a social duty to use their expertise to improve people’s health, over and above selling their products and services. As a communications consultancy that works exclusively with healthcare providers, that’s something that we at Evergreen PR help them to achieve.

When defining your company’s purpose, it’s important to consider how you can use your collective expertise to have the most positive impact on the world around you. If your purpose is built around your employees then everything you do, from recruitment policies, to employee wellbeing programmes, to staff benefits, should all be guided by your purpose.

But that’s what’s great about having a purpose - it makes all of your other decisions super-easy, as they all just tie back to your overarching goal.

Putting your purpose into your marketing efforts

Putting your purpose at the centre of your marketing efforts will make it easier to define your strategies and tactics. It will inform your campaigns, uncover the stories you want to tell, and help you to select the channels that will be most effective in putting those across.

Organisations that we work with have put their purpose of improving people’s health at the centre of their strategies. We’ve been helping them to communicate their purpose across a variety of channels, including media relations, content marketing, social media, influencer engagement and partnership marketing. The upshot has been an increase in sales, improved reputation, better SEO visibility and more engagement. That’s why our recent client survey gave us a world-class Net Promoter Score of +80 (that’s better than Apple!). We have used many channels, but we put purpose at the centre and, we believe, that’s the key to success - now more than ever.