Achieving consistent, long-term marketing results requires a strategic approach that aligns with natural patterns of prospect behavior. My Marketing Swell Theory likens marketing efforts to ocean swells: natural, rhythmic and powerful forces that, when harnessed effectively, can propel a brand forward. When marketing teams – the hired firm and the internal company team jointly – recognize and ride these swells through structured, phased marketing actions, prospects take notice and act month over month, quarter over quarter, for predictable results that executives, investors and stakeholders want to see.

Understanding the Marketing Swell Theory

The Marketing Swell Theory conceptualizes a long-term strategic marketing plan as a series of consistent, wave-like actions. Each wave represents quarterly marketing initiatives that, together, create a sustained momentum toward achieving business objectives. Marketing opportunities are continually in motion, much like ocean swells, and the marketers’ role is to identify and adeptly capitalize on these opportunities. 

A Collaborative Approach: Guidelines for Client Engagement and Feedback

Effective execution of the Marketing Swell Theory necessitates a collaborative partnership between the marketing firm and its clients. Timely and precise feedback from clients is essential to maintain the momentum of each marketing wave and ensure that strategies are aligned with business goals.

To facilitate a seamless workflow and optimize the impact of marketing initiatives, I encourage my clients to adhere to the following guidelines. I share them with you in the hope they will support you in clearer communication with your firm.

Structured Text Feedback Process

At my firm, clients receive initial drafts of marketing materials in a text-only format. This approach allows for focused review and minimizes changes at the design phase, which takes more time. Clients directly provide feedback by making direct, decisive edits in the document, using track changes to highlight modifications. They are encouraged to minimize comments and questions. This ensures clarity and facilitates efficient revisions.

Timely Responses

To maintain the rhythm of the marketing swell, clients typically return their feedback to my firm within two business days of receiving the draft. Prompt responses enable my marketing team to swiftly implement changes and keep the project on schedule.

Design and Visual Elements

After client edits have been finalized and the text has been client-approved, my marketing team goes to the design phase to bring the project to life. In a marketing swell, this typically includes adding blogs to the website with headers and designing emails and social posts to be delivered via automation software. Clients review designed assets and provide feedback again within two business days of receiving the project. This two-step process ensures that both content and design meet the established brand standard, marketing strategy and mutual client-firm expectations.

Approval Milestones: Each quarter, clients are responsible for providing final approval on a batch of up to one eBook, three blogs, twelve emails and twenty-five social posts via the firm’s online approval portal shown here. The two-part review and feedback process leading up to this point make final approval easy.

Benefits of Adhering to the Feedback Process

The benefits of this collaborative approach to feedback are threefold:

1. Clear and timely feedback reduces the need for multiple revision cycles, accelerating the quarterly marketing swell’s progress. I always say marketing only matters when it’s out to market.
2. Specific input allows the collective marketing team to fine-tune materials to better reflect the brand voice and company objectives. Quarter over quarter, the team gets stronger and stronger at nailing the voice, objectives and rhythm.
3. Aligning feedback with the phases of the marketing swell ensures each initiative builds upon the previous one, creating a cohesive and compelling narrative for the target audience. I have clients who have stayed with my firm for ten years or more. That’s at least forty quarterly marketing swells!

When marketing efforts flow like swells, each action building on the last, we create a rhythm that turns marketing from a task into a transformative force. The difference between campaigns that barely ripple and those that generate waves of success lies in one thing: collaboration. Timely, thoughtful feedback creates efficiency, yes. What’s more, it amplifies the company’s brand voice in the market. When both sides commit to riding these swells together, the results are predictable success and momentum that carries the company to new heights with each passing year.

Wendy O’Donovan Phillips
CEO, Big Buzz

Since 2007, Big Buzz® has helped Stage II to Stage III organizations systemize marketing to achieve growth goals. Founder and CEO Wendy O’Donovan Phillips is the author of two books available on Amazon, Kaboom and Flourish, multiple data-driven eBooks, has been published in McKnight’s, in Forbes, and has been quoted in The Washington Post, ABC News and Chicago Tribune. She has lectured dozens of professional organizations in front of audiences ranging in size from 25 to 6,000. She has been honored by the American Marketing Association for excellence in her field and has been named a Gold Key Award Winner by the Business Marketing Association. In her two-decades-long career, she has consulted with hundreds of organizations globally to support improved marketing clarity, strategies and outcomes. Get details: visit www.bigbuzzinc.com and follow Wendy.