Scale vs Precision

I credit my good friend Jason Martin for introducing the language of ‘scale’ and ‘precision’ marketing into my lexicon. Though they’re not universally adopted terms – at least, not yet based upon a quick Google search – the idea behind these two mindsets of marketing execution will be readily recognised by most marketers and are succinctly self-descriptive. Scale marketing is the exercise of doing work to deliver maximum breadth of impact. This typically means leveraging digital platforms, automation, standardisation and a focus on driving efficiency through the process. For this reason, scale is best applied to the marketing priorities, audience segments and solution types that are shared most commonly across functions and teams. Success at scale means optimising to do no more than is necessary to drive the right impact against tightly defined KPIs. Those KPIs will likely centre around refined brand consistency, improved cost control, centralised decision making, reduced cost per lead, enhanced process development and optimised content value.

Precision marketing is the opposite. Precision is the exercise of targeting a very specific objective, customer, scenario or region, and building a marketing approach with no attempt to drive breadth. Precision is highly targeted and may have minimal reuse – at least at the point at which it is planned. Account-based marketing (ABM) is a prime example of precision marketing. As with ABM, it’s possible to scale precision activities retrospectively by templating effective approach to use across multiple accounts, but doing so can also result in what made them effectively initially being diminished or lost.

Scale programs are most effectively applied at stages of the customer journey where a customer’s engagement can be standardised. Sales models will impact to what extent this can be applied, so while scale may work effectively through the end-to-end customer journey for some organisations or solutions, and is more common in business-to-consumer marketing, it may not for others. Because scale intentionally aims to drive efficiency in the marketing value chain, precision needs to focus on effectiveness. activities to complement scale programs may be necessary to activate an integrated customer experience, so these two types need not be seen as mutually exclusive.

Scale	Precision
Measure impact by breadth and efficiency Strive for repeatability and templated approaches Align to the biggest opportunities with consistency across the organisations Minimise regional / account level customisations without impacting performance	Measure impact by focus and effectiveness Template where possible but expect customisation will be required in other uses Align to the most important opportunities to areas, business units or solutions (i.e. must-win deals)

Clear divisions of responsibility are the foundation stones of a model like this, but partnership and cooperation are the mortar that holds it together. Effective integrated teams value cross-functional collaboration over functional silo’s and hierarchy meaning that scale needs to be planned and understood together, even if they are delivered separately. Data needs to be shared, not owned by one team, and objectives cannot be fully realised unless they are collaborated upon jointly. Success or failure is shared by the entire team.

Consider the below example of integrated go-to-market motions across teams:

Marketing objective	Global scale	Geo scale	Area precision
1. Build Mindshare	Blog content, including localisation for activation on local blog sites Brand media investment, including sponsorships Thought leadership with Geo and Area cuts of data for use in other channels Brand media and guidelines Web content and experiences	Geo blogs, including localisation for activation on local blog sites, additive to global blogs	Local area blogs, covering specific local topics, additive to geo and global blogs Promotion of geo and area cuts of thought leadership through local industry watering holes (the places where customers go to find information)
2. Acquire and Nurture Contacts, and Create Opportunities	Demand content offer asset development and localisation, including web marketing pages Digital demand generation for through globally scaled vendors and publications (i.e. LinkedIn, Facebook, Content Syndication vendors) Integrated lead and opportunity nurture	Digital demand generation through regionally specific partners Content development for Geo-level topics Geo webinar content (where they may be common language requirements across areas)	ABM Digital demand generation through local channels and partners (Xing) Local partnerships and promotions Content development for local area topics
3. Nurture, Engage and Convert Pipeline	Global event content and keynote creation. Event experiences and tech stack Pre- and post-event comms asset development Event kits		Area events, workshops and seminars. EBCs ABM
4. Drive Adoption and Usage	Integrated email nurture Customer success asset development and promotion	Customer success Customer story development and promotion	Customer success local events
5. Increase Renewals	Integrated email nurture

As leaders make decisions on whether work will be delivered by scale or precision motions, clear parameters and structured communication must be coordinated from the outset. There should be a strategy for global, geo and local marketing that everyone should be informed of. Strategy informs derivative decisions. Whether Marketing is going through extensive transformation, or whether it is running as business-as-usual, reiterating the ‘why’ behind a strategy prevents teams from deviating from their charter and digressing to deliver what they want to do versus what their success measures should dictate.

For example, consider how you may choose to build mindshare. In an organisation without clear scale vs precision delineation, multiple teams will likely feel like they need to own the problem. Global brand teams will invest. Geo teams may invest. And local teams may invest. Global teams may deprioritise a particular region as no longer being of strategic import. Geo teams, understanding the strategy behind this decision may likewise pull back investment and focus on other goals. But the area team may continue to believe they need to augment their investment to fill the gap. But why did the global team stop in the first place? Investing in true brand development requires both significant budgets for media activation and strong, repeated investment in measurement of brand health. A few larger markets may benefit the organisation more with a better return from consolidated investment than spreading brand budget to cover as many territories as possible. If the Area Marketing lead does not understand this strategy or does not feel empowered to communicate it to their Area Sales leader they may elect to use local marketing funds to fill the gap. But this investment is unlikely to result in any meaningful impact. It will divert funds away from the activity they should be investing in and will take effort from the local marketing team to activate.

Marketing’s effectiveness is sapped by the vampire of random acts of marketing from teams not working together effectively.