Marketing Strategy

08 10 2026

I Don’t Understand What Marketing Is Working

Effective marketing has a significant impact on business growth and longevity. However, there are many ways to plan and execute a good marketing strategy – there is no one-size-fits-all formula. Therefore, it can be difficult to really understand what works for your organisation and what is wasting your time and money.

Regardless of your business size, location, industry or objectives, it is essential that your marketing plan is tailored to you. It should directly reflect your customer preferences, your business goals, your budget and the resources available to you. It should also adapt to your changing needs as you grow or as your objectives evolve.

The fluid nature of your marketing needs makes it more challenging to know exactly where you stand at any given time. As such, constant review and ongoing monitoring are crucial if you are to understand what marketing is working for you.

Get started with a marketing review

A full marketing review requires a number of steps. The first is to identify exactly what you do. This will include all your current activities, the channels you use, the messages you communicate, the audience you target, the budget you allocate, the time you spend and the results you achieve. Though it may seem like a massive project, the review can often be simplified considerably with the effective use of AI, inbuilt platform reporting systems and automation. Once set up, this can make ongoing monitoring quicker, easier and more useful to your entire team.

It is essential to have defined your marketing goals before reflecting on any data. What you measure and how you interpret success will rely heavily on these goals. For instance, if your objective is to increase sales, then you will need to look more closely at the financial data. If your goal is centred on improving brand awareness, then data demonstrating reach and engagement may provide more appropriate insights.

What marketing data is important?

When deciding which data will build an accurate representation of your current marketing strengths and weaknesses, it’s necessary to eliminate any vanity metrics. Some numbers can distort outcomes and exaggerate the success of a marketing strategy. For example, a high follower count for a specific social media account may seem positive. However, if your goal is to increase sales and your social media content has zero engagement, then even a massive following is likely to have very little – if any – impact on business revenue.

All of this emphasises the need to consider data in context and not focus on any numbers in isolation. A combination of the below would be a good starting point for most organisations:

General

Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
Cost per lead (CPL)
Conversation rate
Customer retention rate (CRR)
Customer lifetime value (CLV)
Churn rate
Return on marketing investment (ROMI) – more below

Social media

Reach
Engagement rate
Click-through rate (CTR)
Follower growth rate

Paid media

Impressions/views/reach
CTR
Cost per click (CPC)
Cost per acquisition (CPA)
Return on ad spend (ROAS)

Website

Monthly traffic
Traffic sources
SEO score
AI visibility score
Checkout conversation rate

Email marketing/Newsletters

Open rate
CTR
Placed order rate
Revenue generated
Unsubscribe rate

SEO/AEO

SEO score
Keywords ranking
Backlinks
AI visibility/authority scores
AI referral mentions
AI referrals

By establishing some of the above for your business, you will be able to identify the highest performing marketing channels for you.

You can see which activities are driving traffic to your website, whether campaigns are targeting the right people, if campaigns are generating the desired leads or sales and how much revenue each channel is bringing in.

Data-driven marketing decisions

Once you have access to the above data, you will have direct insights into how well each area of your marketing is working. This information should be used to drive all future decisions, ensuring that any changes or new marketing plans are implemented in the most effective and cost-efficient way.

Ineffective campaigns or channels should be removed from your plan or adapted to improve outcomes and better align with your marketing objectives. Activities that have performed well and delivered a strong return should be prioritised as you move forward.

And if all of this still feels overwhelming, or if you are simply looking for experts in the field to provide specialist insight and objective recommendations, we offer a comprehensive marketing audit at We Do Marketing. We will evaluate every aspect of your marketing to determine exactly which channels and campaigns are doing well for you, and which could be improved. We offer data-driven, strategic guidance with instantly actionable advice that will strengthen your marketing and business development from day one.

Discover how a Marketing Growth Audit could propel your business forward today!

Start a Marketing Audit

Written by Sophie Chalk

Client Marketing Manager

Sophie has been in marketing for more than 15 years, providing support to all types of organisations in different industries from healthcare to renewable energy. From marketing strategy to social media and content creation, Sophie enjoys all aspects of the sector and is keen to maintain consistency across multiple platforms to help clients get genuine results. She works with the entire We Do team to ensure that deadlines are met, opportunities are maximised and high quality standards are achieved every day.

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Written by
Sophie Chalk

Client Marketing Manager

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08 10 2026

My marketing doesn’t align with my level of growth; what’s next?

Tino Marketing Strategy

If your business has grown in the past year, but your marketing hasn’t developed at the same pace, you’re not alone. Business owners commonly find themselves in this situation, especially when establishing a startup or entering a new market. Accurate growth forecasting and sufficient data can be used to help new organisations expand rapidly. It can also happen to more established companies – a change in products, your team or societal trends could spark demand for your products or services and suddenly propel your business forwards at an accelerated pace.

While this is a fantastic position to find yourself in, it’s important to take stock and build a comprehensive marketing strategy designed specifically to maintain momentum and unlock the next chapter.

How do you know if your business has outgrown its marketing?

There are a number of indications that your marketing is lagging behind your business evolution. On the website, maybe only a small proportion of the products or services you offer are actually visible. You may have introduced package options or solutions for new industries but these are not yet presented on your site. Your team might have grown considerably. You might have exponentially more case stories to share than what’s on the website. Rapid growth can also make it difficult to keep the brand consistent. New events, milestones or products can dilute your original messaging because you haven’t had the time to integrate fast-paced changes within your broader business plan in a strategic way.

Another way to assess whether your marketing is keeping up with your business is to look at your finances. If you allocated 10% of your revenue to marketing last year, but your revenue has since increased by 130% while your marketing budget remained exactly the same, you could be significantly underinvesting in the future of your organisation.

For example, if your revenue last year was £250,000, at 10% you would have had a £25,000 marketing budget. With revenue of £575,000 this year, a £25,000 investment in marketing might not be enough. Should it be the full 10% of today’s revenue? Not necessarily. But if continued growth is the goal, then the marketing budget should increase proportionately to reflect the greater range of products you sell or the broader audience you are attempting to reach.

Why does it matter?

So, why does it matter? What impact does it have when your marketing is misaligned with your current business trajectory?

Firstly, this can slow momentum and inhibit growth. If you’re not reaching a big enough audience, you may not be attracting enough new customers to maintain your current pace of growth. An out-of-date website may also hinder customer acquisition in new industries or prevent new commercial partnerships that could otherwise prove fruitful.

Your reputation may also suffer as a result of not developing your marketing. Your messaging may be outdated so that modern audiences don’t resonate with it as much as they used to. Your website functionality could be poor, or the lack of new products might suggest that the organisation is much smaller than it is, or simply not at the forefront of the sector. This can negatively affect new customers’ first impressions, reduce conversion rates and undermine your credibility. All of this could occur despite you continuing to deliver exceptional products and customer service – prospects may not get the opportunity to experience the true quality and value you offer if they develop an inaccurate perception of your company.

Finally, there can be internal consequences of misaligned marketing and business growth. Sales teams might lack the materials or resources they need to target bigger clients and maintain high conversion rates. Functionality between sales, marketing and operational teams may also become disjointed.

This is why it is so important to keep your marketing aligned with your business as it evolves. If you don’t, small discrepancies can sow much bigger issues. This often requires more time and money to reverse than is needed to prevent them in the first place.

Next steps

If any of this sounds familiar, it might be time to reassess how your marketing aligns with your business as it is today. This is a vital step – jumping straight into a rebrand or a new website build is not always necessary or productive. Rash decisions (and considerable investments) like this could actually cause you to stray further from the intended path.

Instead, it’s important to take stock and really understand your current business position in relation to your marketing. You need an objective, data-driven approach that will reveal your situation exactly as it is right now. A marketing audit is ideal as it provides a systematic, evidence-based and measurable way to determine how each of your marketing activities is performing. The data uncovered should be evaluated alongside your broader business growth targets and marketing goals to determine if you’re on the right path or you need to get back on track.

This creates a strong position from which to make data-driven decisions about your next steps. At We Do Marketing, we use the Marketing Audit to form the basis of every marketing strategy, campaign plan and personalised recommendation we offer our clients. That’s how we consistently improve marketing performance and deliver results that can be measured in real-time.

Find out more about our Marketing Audit today to realign your marketing with your business growth!

Start a Marketing Audit

Written by Lydia McKeown

Marketing Director

Lydia founded We Do Marketing in 2016 and has chartered marketer status. Lydia acts as a Marketing Director for a select few of our clients and works with the team on the client’s strategies. She does lots of consultations with new clients and runs our discovery sessions. She also writes client marketing plans and strategy which feeds into all of the marketing we produce or plan for our clients.

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Written by
Lydia McKeown

Marketing Director

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10 09 2026

Why Marketing Fails When You Can’t See The Bigger Picture

Lydia Marketing Strategy

A few months ago, I was sat with a business owner who said something I hear all the time.

“I think we just need to do more marketing.”

It’s an easy conclusion to reach.

Sales have slowed.

Enquiries aren’t where they used to be.

A competitor seems to be everywhere online.

So naturally, the conversation turns to…

“Should we be posting more on LinkedIn?”

“Do we need Google Ads?”

“Should we invest in SEO?”

They’re all sensible questions.

But they’re usually the wrong place to start.

Because before you decide how you’re going to market your business, you need to know what your marketing is actually trying to achieve.

Far too often, businesses jump straight into tactics without ever stepping back to look at the bigger picture.

And that’s where things begin to unravel.

More marketing doesn’t always mean more growth

One of the biggest misconceptions in business is that more marketing equals more results.

It doesn’t.

I’ve worked with businesses posting on social media every day without generating meaningful enquiries.

I’ve seen companies spending thousands on advertising while having no idea which campaigns were actually bringing in customers.

I’ve also worked with businesses doing very little marketing at all, but because everything they did had a clear purpose, they consistently outperformed competitors with much bigger budgets.

The difference wasn’t budget.

It wasn’t resource.

It wasn’t luck.

It was clarity.

Every decision they made supported a wider business objective.

Marketing wasn’t something separate from the business.

It was helping drive it.

Marketing shouldn’t feel disconnected

Over time, every business adds more marketing.

A website gets redesigned.

Someone starts posting on LinkedIn.

Google Ads are switched on.

A CRM is introduced.

An email newsletter appears.

Perhaps there’s some networking, a new brochure, maybe a video or two.

Each decision makes sense at the time.

None of it is wrong.

But very few businesses stop to ask one simple question.

How does all of this fit together?

Your customers don’t experience your marketing in separate pieces.

They don’t distinguish between your website, your social media, your emails or your sales process.

They simply experience your business.

If each part tells a different story, your customers notice.

Maybe not consciously.

But they notice.

That’s when marketing starts to feel expensive.

Complicated.

Reactive.

And frustrating.

What we mean by “The Bigger Picture”

At We Do Marketing, we talk a lot about The Bigger Picture because that’s often what’s missing.

It’s not a campaign.

It’s not a report.

And it certainly isn’t another marketing buzzword.

It’s a way of looking at your business before making marketing decisions.

Instead of asking which platform you should be using, we start somewhere completely different.

Where do you want the business to be?

Who are the customers you really want more of?

Why do people choose you over your competitors?

Where are opportunities being missed?

What does success actually look like?

Only once we’ve answered those questions do we begin talking about channels, campaigns and tactics.

Because choosing the route is much easier when you know the destination.

Turning strategy into action

When clients spend the day with us, we’re not there to deliver a presentation.

We’re there to challenge ideas, ask questions and uncover opportunities that are often hidden by the day-to-day running of the business.

Together, we build a Marketing Growth Plan that’s completely bespoke to the business.

It starts with a Marketing Growth Audit to understand where things stand today.

From there, we map the customer journey, identify the most effective marketing channels and develop campaign ideas that support the business objectives, not just the marketing objectives.

Everything is then prioritised into a practical 90-day action plan, before bringing it all together into what we call The Bigger Picture.

It’s a visual representation of how every part of your marketing connects back to your business goals.

Finally, we return for an accountability session with you and your team.

Because strategy isn’t valuable simply because it’s written down.

It’s valuable because it’s implemented.

The best plans are the ones people actually use

We’ve all seen strategy documents that look impressive.

Beautifully designed.

Full of insight.

Presented with enthusiasm.

Then quietly filed away.

That’s never been our approach.

A marketing plan shouldn’t be something you revisit once a year.

It should become the reference point for every marketing decision you make.

When a new opportunity comes along, you should be able to ask:

“Does this support the bigger picture?”

If it does, fantastic.

If it doesn’t, perhaps it’s not the right opportunity.

That simple shift in thinking helps businesses become more focused, more consistent and far more confident in the decisions they make.

Seeing the bigger picture changes everything

One of my favourite moments is when a client realises they don’t actually need to do more marketing.

They simply need to do the right marketing.

Sometimes the biggest win isn’t adding another marketing channel.

It’s removing one.

Sometimes it isn’t increasing the budget.

It’s focusing the budget.

Sometimes it isn’t shouting louder.

It’s telling a clearer story.

Growth rarely comes from doing more.

It comes from making better decisions.

And better decisions start with seeing The Bigger Picture.

Ready to take a step back?

If your marketing feels busy but disconnected…

If you’re investing time and money without complete confidence it’s taking you where you want to go…

Or if you’re simply looking for a clearer direction…

It might be time to step back before taking the next step forward.

That’s exactly why we created The Bigger Picture.

If you’d like to explore what it could look like for your business, we’d love to have that conversation.

Book a Discovery Call

Written by Lydia McKeown

Marketing Director

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Written by
Lydia McKeown

Marketing Director

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24 08 2026

What Is A CIM Membership? The Importance Of CIM In The Marketing Industry

Lydia Marketing Strategy

A CIM (Chartered Institute of Marketing) membership connects marketing professionals to the world’s largest community of marketers. It provides access to industry-recognised training courses, CPD (Continuous Professional Development), networking opportunities, and a pathway to achieving “Chartered Marketer” status. In an unregulated industry, holding a CIM membership demonstrates a marketer’s commitment to ethical standards, continuous learning, and professional excellence.

The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) plays a crucial role in the marketing industry, especially in an era characterised by rapid technological advancements and a proliferation of marketing channels. As the industry becomes more complex with the advent of new platforms, algorithms, and artificial intelligence, the need for professionalism and ethical standards becomes increasingly important.

Learn from our team of marketers why the CIM is important to us, plus this article will cover:

What is CIM?
The Different Levels of CIM
Marketing Isn’t Regulated*
The WDM Team & CIM
CIM’s Mission
Global Professional Marketing Framework

What is CIM?

CIM stands for the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

It is the world’s largest community of marketers, dedicated to helping businesspeople recognise the crucial importance and value that marketing can bring to their organisation, the economy, and wider society. Approximately 18,000 marketers in the UK are CIM marketers. Only 3,000 of these are Chartered Marketers. That is, respectively, less than 2% and 0.3% of the total number of marketers in the UK.

The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) is committed to supporting, developing, and representing marketers globally, regardless of their level of experience. Their offerings contribute significantly to the long-term success of businesses.

What the CIM offers:

Training courses
Qualifications
‘Chartered Marketer Status’
CPD
CIM Membership
Strategic partnerships

Different levels of CIM

There are four different levels of membership that you can gain throughout your marketing career. These are based on your level of experience and qualifications. These levels are:

Affiliate Professional
Associate (ACIM)
Member (MCIM)
Fellow (FCIM)

Becoming a Chartered Marketer is an additional step and demonstrates an individual’s continued commitment to CPD and development.

To progress your membership you should be doing regular CPD, this will help you to stay on top of industry trends, changes and key insights that will be important to helping businesses with their marketing.

The marketing industry isn’t regulated*

We mentioned it earlier, but marketing is not a regulated industry in the UK, per se. There are regulations that affect advertising to consumers and businesses. For example, ‘Unfair Trading Regulations’ are designed to protect consumers in the UK from unfair, misleading or aggressive business practices. They stop organisations from harassing consumers or sharing deliberately inaccurate or dishonest information.

Unlike many industries there are no required qualifications to implement or advise businesses on social media, websites, or any other marketing strategy.

Over half of marketers in the UK have no marketing qualification

A 2019 study conducted by Marketing Week found that over half of marketers, 53.8%, had yet to study a marketing-related academic or professional qualification of any kind. A 2026 study by Ipsos painted an even more worrying picture, reporting that just 35% of marketers meet the basic benchmark of foundational marketing knowledge.

Without clear progression pathways and regulated education – both of which are well-established in most other fields like accounting or HR – the marketing world features much greater variation in skill, experience and professional standards.

By offering qualifications, courses and resources for individuals to continuously update their knowledge and skills, the CIM sets a standard for everyone to work from. The resources level up marketers’ ability to make a genuine difference to the businesses they work with. Being a CIM member and progressing through the membership levels shows a marketers’ dedication to life-long learning and providing truly informed support services to clients or employers.

Choose your marketing team wisely.

Our team are dedicated to being the best marketers; with certifications, qualifications, CPD and years of real-world experience.

CIM and We Do Marketing

Marketing is continuously evolving. Social media is changing daily, technology is developing and people’s behaviours are evolving, so it’s crucial to stay up to date with the latest information and trends. To achieve all of this, and to showcase the quality standards we hold ourselves to, it is essential for us at We Do Marketing to be a part of the CIM. It keeps us accountable, maintains our training and gives our clients confidence in our ability to deliver on our promises. It also enables us to take a design and implement marketing strategies that align with our clients’ business objectives and help them drive tangible growth that they can actually measure over time.

Being a member of the CIM holds value for us both individually and as a team. Here’s why we believe our CIM memberships are crucial and why we encourage all marketers to be a part of it.

Lydia

“I am passionate about GOOD marketing; ensuring the fundamentals are right before we get started on any ‘tactical’ marketing activities. The CIM provides marketers a platform to learn and grow; I have been on my CIM journey for many years now, I’ve gained L6 and L7 qualifications, been awarded Chartered Status and hold an MCIM membership, It is important to me and for the WDM team to be part of CIM.”

Only 1% marketers are Chartered. There are only 3,000 registered Chartered Marketers in the UK.

Sophie

“Even after a decade in the industry, there are always new ideas to discover, digital solutions to explore and approaches to consider. CIM membership keeps my knowledge fresh, helping me develop tailored marketing strategies that deliver real results for clients. Having completed my CIM Level 6 qualification, I continue to use the CPD resources available to stay on top of emerging trends and bring the latest thinking to my everyday work.”

Chartered Institute of Marketing’s Mission

CIM’s mission to uphold high standards of professional skill, ability, and integrity is particularly valuable for several reasons:

Professional Development: CIM offers a range of certifications and training programs that help marketers stay updated with the latest trends, tools, and best practices. This continuous learning is essential in an industry that is constantly evolving.
Ethical Standards: With the marketing landscape often perceived as a “wild west” due to its lack of regulation, CIM’s emphasis on ethical behavior provides a framework for marketers to operate with integrity. This is crucial for building and maintaining trust with consumers, who are increasingly concerned about issues like data privacy and transparent advertising.
Credibility and Trust: For businesses and individuals, being associated with CIM or holding its qualifications can enhance credibility. It signals a commitment to professionalism and a recognized standard of expertise, which can be a significant differentiator in a crowded marketplace.
Networking and Community: CIM provides a platform for marketers to connect, share knowledge, and collaborate. This community aspect helps professionals stay connected and informed about the latest industry developments.
Advocacy and Representation: As a representative body, CIM advocates for the marketing profession, influencing policy and setting standards that benefit both practitioners and consumers. This advocacy helps ensure that marketing practices evolve in a way that benefits society as a whole.

Global Professional Marketing Framework

As the chartered body for marketing, CIM has developed a skills and behaviours-based framework that sets the industry standard. This has been created by working with business leaders, recruitment agencies, and marketing professionals globally to identify the critical skills, behaviours, and attributes of an outstanding marketer.

These skills and behaviours are considered extremely important to us here at We Do Marketing and is something we review regularly to ensure we are staying on track and see if there are any areas which we could improve on for our clients.

Written by Lydia McKeown

Marketing Director

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Written by
Lydia McKeown

Marketing Director

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28 07 2026

Marketing Audit: Is Your Marketing Helping Your Business Grow?

Lydia Marketing Strategy

If I asked you whether your finance function was performing well, you’d probably have the numbers to answer.

The same goes for sales.

Operations.

HR.

But what about your marketing?

Can you confidently answer these questions?

What’s working?
What’s not?
Which activities are generating the best enquiries?
How do you compare to your competitors?
Are you investing your budget in the right places?

For many business owners, the honest answer is…

“I’m not sure.”

And that’s completely understandable.

Marketing has become more complex than ever before. There are more platforms, more data and more opinions about what you “should” be doing.

It’s easy to become busy.

It’s much harder to know whether you’re actually making progress.

That’s why a marketing audit is one of the most valuable exercises a business can undertake.

What is a Marketing Audit?

A marketing audit is exactly what it sounds like.

It’s an opportunity to step back from the day-to-day and take an honest look at your marketing.

Not to find fault.

Not to produce another report that sits in a drawer.

But to understand what’s helping your business grow—and what isn’t.

A good marketing audit looks at the bigger picture.

It considers your business objectives, your customers, your competitors and your current marketing activity to identify where your biggest opportunities lie.

Why Benchmarking Matters

One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is measuring their marketing in isolation.

They celebrate website traffic without knowing whether it’s the right audience.

They focus on social media followers without knowing whether those people ever become customers.

They look at enquiries without understanding which marketing activity generated them.

Benchmarking changes that.

It gives your marketing context.

Instead of asking…

“Did we get more website visitors?”

…you start asking…

Did we attract the right visitors?
Did they become enquiries?
Did those enquiries become customers?
How do we compare with competitors?
Are we improving month after month?

Those are the questions that lead to better business decisions.

Why This Matters

There are approximately 5.7 million private sector businesses in the UK, with 99.8% classed as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Competition has never been greater.

Yet according to the UK Government’s Business Population Estimates 2025, SMEs continue to dominate the UK business landscape.

At the same time, the SME Marketing Report 2025 found that 46% of SMEs don’t have a documented marketing strategy.

Without a strategy, it’s difficult to know:

What’s working.
What’s worth investing in.
Where opportunities exist.
Whether your marketing is delivering a return.
Marketing shouldn’t be based on guesswork.
It should be based on evidence.

Sources

UK Government – Business Population Estimates 2025
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/business-population-estimates-2025/business-population-estimates-for-the-uk-and-regions-2025-statistical-release

SME Marketing Report 2025
https://smemarketingreport.com/

What Does Our Marketing Audit Include?

Every business is different.

Your goals are different.

Your customers are different.

Your competitors are different.

That’s why every marketing audit we deliver is bespoke.

We spend half a day with you and your team, understanding your business, your ambitions and what success looks like.

We’ll then provide a tailored report including:

Marketing Audit

A strategic review of your current marketing, highlighting strengths, weaknesses and opportunities.

Competitor Analysis

Understanding where your competitors are visible, how they position themselves and where opportunities exist for your business.

Target Audience Analysis

Ensuring you’re speaking to the right people, with the right messages, at the right stage of their buying journey.

Quick Wins

Practical recommendations you can implement immediately, alongside medium and longer-term priorities.

Expert Recommendations

Clear, prioritised actions designed to help your marketing better support your business objectives.

A Marketing Audit is Just the Beginning

A marketing audit gives you clarity.

But marketing doesn’t stand still.

Your competitors change.

Your customers change.

Search engines change.

That’s why many of our clients continue working with us after their audit.

Bespoke Marketing Dashboards

One thing we hear time and time again is:

“We’ve got lots of reports… but we don’t really know what they mean.”
Sound familiar?

We believe reporting should help you make decisions—not create more questions.
That’s why we build bespoke marketing dashboards around your business objectives.
Rather than filling a dashboard with every available metric, we focus on the information that genuinely matters.

Depending on your marketing activity, your dashboard might include:

Website performance
SEO
Google Ads
Social media
Lead generation
Conversion rates
Email marketing
Campaign performance
Return on investment

Every month, we review your results, benchmark your performance and provide strategic recommendations based on what we’re seeing.

Because data is useful.

Understanding what to do with it is even more valuable.

Is a Marketing Audit Right for You?

A marketing audit is ideal if:

You’re investing in marketing but aren’t sure what’s working.
Growth has slowed.
You’re planning the next stage of your business.
You want an independent view of your marketing.
Your marketing feels reactive rather than strategic.
You haven’t reviewed your marketing in years.
You want to understand how you compare with your competitors.

Sometimes the biggest improvements don’t come from doing more marketing.

They come from doing the right marketing.

Find Out How Your Marketing Scores

If you’re not quite ready for a full marketing audit, start with our free Marketing Score.

It takes just a few minutes to complete and gives you an instant overview of where your marketing is performing well—and where there may be opportunities to improve.

Take the Free Marketing Score

Get your marketing score

If you’d like to discuss your results, we’d love to spend half a day with you, benchmarking your marketing and creating a practical roadmap for growth.

FAQ

What is a marketing audit?

A marketing audit is a strategic review of your marketing activity, helping you understand what’s working, what’s not and where opportunities exist to improve performance.

Why is benchmarking important in marketing?

Benchmarking helps you compare your marketing against your business objectives, competitors and previous performance, giving you the context needed to make informed decisions.

What does a marketing audit include?

Our audits include a marketing review, competitor analysis, target audience analysis, practical recommendations and a prioritised action plan.

What is a marketing dashboard?

A marketing dashboard brings together the key metrics that matter to your business. Ours are bespoke and include monthly recommendations, helping you understand not just what’s happening, but what to do next.

How often should I review my marketing?

We recommend carrying out a strategic marketing review at least once a year, with regular performance monitoring throughout the year.

Written by Lydia McKeown

Marketing Director

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Written by
Lydia McKeown

Marketing Director

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20 07 2026

Font Pairing: How Typography Can Affect a Design

Hannah Marketing Strategy

Introduction

Choosing fonts? Sounds simple! Just have a look through the standard fonts and pick one you like the look of, right?

Not quite.

The fonts you choose can completely change how people see your brand, website, or marketing materials. Typography isn’t just about making text look good. It’s about creating the right first impression, guiding your audience through your content, and making sure your message is easy to read.

Whether you’re designing a website, creating social media graphics, or putting together a brochure, choosing fonts that work well together is an important part of the design process. A good font pairing creates visual hierarchy, reinforces your brand personality, and helps your content stand out for all the right reasons.

In this guide, we’ll explain what font pairing is, why typography plays such an important role in design, and share practical tips to help you choose font combinations that not only look great but also improve the overall user experience.

Why Does Typography Matter?

First impressions count. Whether someone is looking at your website, a business card, a social media post or a brochure, your typography is one of the first things they’ll notice.

The fonts you choose do more than make your content look attractive. They make text easier to read, and ensure it’s accessible to as many people as possible. Typography plays a big role in the overall user experience, guiding readers through your content and creating a visual hierarchy that makes information easy to scan.

Further still, the fonts you choose help to communicate your brand’s personality, evoking emotions in your readers and strengthening your relationship with them. Some are associated with formality and authority, others with fun and excitement, anger, tranquility – the list is endless. Selecting fonts that accurately represent your organisation and how you hope customers will perceive you is a powerful extension of your brand.

What is Font Pairing?

According to Canva, font pairing is the process of combining fonts that complement each other to create a balanced, visually appealing design.

Effective font pairing helps establish hierarchy, improves readability, and supports the overall message or brand identity. Getting it right makes a design feel modern, inviting and professional, while the wrong combination leaves it looking cluttered, confusing, inconsistent and difficult to read.

Principles of Good Font Pairing

There are several principles or rules around font pairing:

Create contrast – Pair fonts that are different enough to be distinguishable, such as a serif heading with a sans-serif body text. Contrast helps create visual interest and hierarchy.
Maintain harmony – While fonts should contrast, they should also complement each other. Fonts with similar proportions, mood, or style tend to work best together.
Establish hierarchy – Use different fonts, sizes, or weights to guide the reader’s attention. For example, use a bold display font for headings and a simpler alternative for body text.
Prioritise readability – Choose fonts that are easy to read, especially for body text. Decorative fonts should be used sparingly and mainly for titles or accents.
Limit the number of fonts – Most designs work best with two or three fonts. Using too many typefaces can make a design look cluttered and inconsistent.
Match the purpose and tone – Select fonts that reflect the message or brand personality. For example, a formal report may use classic serif fonts, while a modern brand may favour clean sans-serif fonts.

Real-world Application

With so much riding on your choice of font, how do you make the right decision for your organisation?

When getting started, it’s helpful to understand the basics of common fonts and font pairings already in circulation. For instance, serif fonts often feel traditional and trustworthy, while sans-serif fonts are associated with simplicity and clarity. To convey elegance and creativity, script fonts may be more appropriate, while bold and expressive brands should consider display fonts.

A popular font pairing is serif + sans-serif. This combination provides a clear hierarchy, with a good balance of visual contrast and cohesion.

A similar effect is achieved by different weights within the same font family, or combining a display font with a neutral body font. The former is often used to manage hierarchy between key information and body text, while the latter can be perfect for landing pages and artistic editorial pages. For more technical content that features code or data, logs or raw numbers, monospaced fonts – which maintain uniform horizontal spacing – may be more effective.

Font Pairings That Work

There are many examples of effective font pairings and here are some common combinations…

Serif + sans-serif combos:

Libre Baskerville + League Spartan
Playfair Display + Source Sans Pro
Merriweather + Montserrat
Lora + Open Sans
Roboto + Bebas Neue

Different weights in same font family:

Montserrat
Inter
Roboto
Playfair Display / Black

Display + neutral body combos:

Koulen + Kapakana
Julius Sans One + Archivo Narrow
Oswald + Open Sans

Monospace fonts:

Courier
Space Mono
GT Pressura Mono

Rules of font pairing

Rule 1: Contrast is King (Combining Serif and Sans-Serif)
Rule 2: Establish a Clear Hierarchy (Heading vs. Body)
Rule 3: Limit Your Palette (Stick to 2–3 Fonts)
Rule 4: Avoid Font Conflict (Don’t use two fonts that look *almost* identical)
Rule 5: Start with an anchor font – build your others around this for cohesion
Rule 6: Avoid decorative fonts for body text

Conclusion

In summary, typography does much more than just look nice. An effective font pairing is a powerful tool in elevating the user experience, connecting with your audience and strengthening your brand. It is the bedrock of good communication and should be considered carefully. Use the fundamental principles as a guide to experiment, be unique and find your fonts.

Not sure how well your fonts reflect your brand? Or is this just one of several areas in need of review as your business scales up? Put it all in perspective by building ‘The Bigger Picture’ with We Do Marketing. Our tailored marketing audit and strategic growth plan gives you a clear, objective view of your entire marketing approach. We’ll identify what’s working, what’s holding you back and what opportunities are available for growth. Can you afford not to see the bigger picture?

Learn more about how ‘The Bigger Picture’ can help you.

Book in with our team

Written by Hannah O’Toole

Social Media Marketing Manager

Her day-to-day role at We Do Marketing consists of Social Media Management, Content Creation, Campaign Generation and Digital Marketing. She has worked in Marketing for the past 14 years, in many different countries and across a variety of industries. She has gained broad knowledge in all aspects of Marketing, from long term strategy and marketing plan to social media campaigns and content creation.

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Written by
Hannah O’Toole

Social Media Marketing Manager

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24 06 2026

Brand Guidelines: What are they, and why are they important?

Denham Marketing Strategy

Effective marketing is multi-faceted, relying on a number of different people, activities, and resources. However, no matter the size of the organisation, the budget, the objectives, or the timeframes, consistency is key to success. As such, your brand guidelines are the foundation on which all of your marketing activities should be built.

What are brand guidelines?

Put simply, brand guidelines govern how your business, services/products, and people are represented in everything that you do. They include rules for how the logo is used, the colours associated with your business, the types of images or videos published, and so much more. Each one helps to build the visual identity of your company and establish common themes across multiple marketing channels.

In addition to visual cues, your guidelines will help you to maintain a consistent tone of voice in all messaging. You can specify the type of vocabulary you would like to associate with the brand, as well as the emotional response you’re hoping to evoke in customers. This concept extends beyond digital or traditional marketing materials and can be incorporated into team induction or training events to ensure that the same brand consistency is reflected within all customer interactions.

Why are brand guidelines important?

First and foremost, there is a strong commercial case for maintaining brand consistency. Research suggests that coherent brand representation increases revenue by an average of 10-20%, reaching as high as 33% according to some sources.

This is partly because consistent messaging and design enables customers to recognise a brand with ease, reducing the number of touchpoints needed in the customer journey to convert. It also helps to build trust and loyalty over time, encouraging repeat business and increasing customer lifetime value. This is now more important than ever before, with consumers increasingly choosing to buy from brands they trust. Similar trends are forming in the B2B market, though further robust research is needed in the field.

Clearly defining what you want to say and how helps you to remain aligned with your company values, ethics, and goals. Brand guidelines ensure cohesive marketing materials and communications that accurately represent your business. This can be particularly useful when multiple employees, departments, or external agencies are collaborating, maintaining consistency even with several different parties creating assets.

Optimising your brand guidelines

Given the importance of consistency throughout your marketing, it is crucial to optimise your brand guidelines. Top tips include:

Understand and define your brand, positioning, values, and company mission.
Determine your target audience – you may need to create individual segments to target your marketing activities and maximise your budget.
Outline your desired aesthetic within brand style guidelines, including primary and secondary colours, fonts, types of images or animations.
Decide exactly how the logo should be used, including any rules regarding its size or spacing.
Define your tone of voice – should your brand be positive, supportive, or empathetic? Are there any specific words or phrases that resonate with your brand that you can include for clarity?
Create a protocol for how customer feedback/testimonials are used in marketing assets, as well as the process that should be followed to obtain their permission, where relevant.
Several brand guideline templates are available online or from marketing experts which can provide an excellent place to start.

Conclusion

Ultimately, brand guidelines are a comprehensive outline of your brand identity, including visual, verbal, and behavioural protocols. They should be applied to all marketing materials and channels to help shape and strengthen how the business is represented, build customer trust, and optimise operational efficiency across multi-departmental teams.

For expert support in assessing, rebuilding, or strengthening your brand, We Do Marketing offers comprehensive services designed specifically to your needs. We can provide a branding-focused workshop or deliver a full range of marketing services to establish meaningful brand guidelines and help you implement them with maximum impact. Find out more or contact the team today at https://wedomarketing.co.uk/contact/.

Written by Hannah O’Toole

Social Media Marketing Manager

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Written by
Hannah O’Toole

Social Media Marketing Manager

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12 05 2026

A Marketing Guide for Directors

Denham Marketing Strategy

Introduction

For most Directors, the word marketing can be a difficult topic. On one hand, you know it’s the engine of growth; on the other, it can feel like a line item on the P&L that asks for too much. When the board asks about ROI, they aren’t looking for click-through rates or social engagement, they’re looking for a clear line of sight between marketing spend and return on investment. This can put Director’s into a tricky position.

The reality is that in today’s landscape, marketing isn’t just a department; it is your business’s most powerful tool for growth.

It’s time to move the conversation away from what marketing costs, and toward what it builds. This guide is designed to remove the jargon and provide a high-level framework for Directors to evaluate, manage, and maximise their marketing investment.

Let’s get started.

Aligning Marketing with your Business Goals

A common pitfall for many organisations is treating marketing as a separate activity, detached from the broader growth of the business.

To a Director, a campaign is only successful if it actively services the long term business plan and reflects positively on the profit and loss statement. This alignment requires a move away from “marketing for the sake of marketing” and toward a model where your marketing investment and resources are mapped against specific commercial milestones.

This is the first step that a Director needs to consider when looking at their marketing. Some examples of these milestones could be increasing market share in a new territory or driving up the average contract value.

Once your marketing is aligned with the overall business goals, you can then start looking at how to effectively measure this and present this back to the board in a way that is meaningful to them.

The Metrics That Matter

Strategic marketing is not one-size-fits-all; the metrics you track must be a direct reflection of your specific business goals. If your goal is immediate growth, then conversions and cost of conversions will be your main focus . However, if your goal is long-term market leadership, then reach and brand awareness become your most critical metrics.

As a Director, your role is to define which metrics are the most meaningful for your organisation at its current stage of evolution. However, these are not static benchmarks. As your business goals shift, your focus must evolve in tandem. Reviewing these priorities regularly ensures that your team isn’t just busy, but is strategically aligned with the shifting needs of the business.

Managing Your Marketing Resources

One of the most critical decisions a Director will face is how to resource their marketing activities. Strategic resource management isn’t just about filling seats; it’s about ensuring you have the right mix of high-level strategy and technical execution to meet your goals.
There are three primary models for resourcing for marketing functions, each with its own strategic trade-offs:

The In-House Team: This offers deep brand immersion and immediate proximity. However, the challenge for many Directors is the talent gaps and finding one person or team who are skilled to cover the wide variety of marketing activities such as social media management, web design, graphic design and SEO.
The Agency Partnership: This provides an immediate department of specialists. It allows you to tap into a broader collective intelligence and sophisticated toolsets that are often cost-prohibitive to own in-house. It’s a model built for scalability and high-level accountability.
The Hybrid Model: Many of the most successful organisations use a lean internal team to manage brand culture, while partnering with an agency for strategy, execution, data analysis, and specialised performance marketing.

As a Director, your focus should be on agility. Your marketing resource must be able to pivot as fast as the market does. Regardless of how you choose to source your marketing team, it is important to ensure that your marketing department is a scalable asset, not a fixed overhead that limits your flexibility.

At We Do Marketing, we don’t believe in a rigid, one-size-fits-all delivery model. We operate as a Chartered Marketer-led extension of your boardroom, providing the high-level strategy and technical execution required to get your marketing operations moving.

Depending on your current infrastructure, we offer two primary routes to growth:

The Fully Outsourced Marketing Department: For many organisations, the most efficient route is to let us take the wheel. We integrate into your business as your dedicated marketing team, handling everything from high-level strategic planning to daily execution.
The Hybrid Support Model: If you already have internal marketing resources but are finding talent gaps in your team, we provide the strategic layer and specialist support to elevate their output.

Conclusion

For most Directors, marketing can be a tricky business function to navigate. Marketing is either a drain on your resources or the driver of your growth. For the proactive Director, our guide is simple:

Align your investment with your commercial goals and build a resource model that can scale with your ambitions.

At We Do Marketing, we help Directors to focus on the areas that deliver the results they are seeking. Whether you need a fully outsourced department to take over or a strategic partner to elevate your internal team, we provide the Chartered-level expertise to make it happen.

Is your marketing strategy ready to deliver long term success? Book a free consultation with us today, and let’s start planning for your success together.

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Written by Hannah O’Toole

Social Media Marketing Manager

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Written by
Hannah O’Toole

Social Media Marketing Manager

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08 04 2026

Marketing’s Role in Driving Business Growth

Hannah Marketing Strategy

Marketing is at the heart of business expansion. While most businesses across the UK and beyond seek growth, that growth looks different for everyone and rarely fits a one-size-fits-all approach. At We Do Marketing, we believe growth is a bespoke destination, defined entirely by your specific business goals.

True growth is never accidental. It is the direct result of a marketing strategy that is linked back to wider business goals. When these two elements align, marketing moves from being a cost to a high-performance investment.

In this article, we explore the role marketing plays in scaling a business. We will look at how to define what growth looks like for your specific business, the power of aligning your tactics with your long-term goals, and how to use data-driven insights as a result of marketing to drive the informed decision-making that fuels long-term success.

Establish what business growth looks like to you.

To build a strategy that actually delivers, we must first define exactly what success looks like for you. Without a clear destination, even the most creative marketing may not get you the results you are looking for.

For some, growth is purely financial. For others, it’s about visibility, infrastructure, and legacy. Some examples of business growth goals include:

Brand Awareness: This is more than just visibility. It is about building brand trust, recognition, and reputation. Brand awareness ensures that when your audience has a problem, your brand is the first solution they think of.
Profit: For many, the most vital sign of growth is a healthier bottom line. Marketing’s role in achieving this is to help your business to focus on high-intent lead generation and conversion.
Expanding the team: Expanding your team is one of the most significant steps in the growth journey. When your marketing is working, it provides the clarity and capital needed to scale your internal expertise and stay ahead of market demand.
Scaling and capital investments: Perhaps growth for you means moving into a larger space or purchasing the latest equipment to improve your service delivery. Marketing provides the consistent, predictable pipeline of work required to make these big-ticket capital investments with total confidence.

Businesses we have helped grow through marketing:

Client: Harbour Coffee Co

Business Goals	Marketing Results
Build An Online Store For The Roastery	Launched An E-commerce Website
Build Brand Awareness	+359% Instagram Profile Views
Increase Website Sales	+92% Online Sales

Client: RS French

Business Goals	Marketing Results
Get a New Website	New 55-page Website Launched
Strengthen Online Presence	+73% LinkedIn Followers
Modernise Their Brand	Refined Logo & New Brand Guidelines

How to use data-driven insights to fuel long-term success.

Marketing generates and provides data-driven insights that help to fuel business decision-making. By tracking how real people interact with your brand, you transform information into valuable data. This ensures that every business decision is backed by facts. From where to invest your budget to who your target audience is and how to develop your next product, marketing insights can provide valuable data, significantly reduce risk, and improve your return on investment.

Insights that you can gain from marketing:

Customer journey insights
Customer profiling
Competitor benchmarking
Analysing ad spend
Predicting future trends
Measuring ROI

Conclusion

Marketing is more than just a promotional tool. It is the engine powering every stage of your business’s evolution. By moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach and aligning your strategy with your specific business goals, whether that be brand awareness, increased profit, or scaling your operations, you can transform your business into a data-backed, high-performance machine.

At We Do Marketing, we don’t just do your marketing. We partner with you to look at The Bigger Picture. We integrate into your business, taking the time to unpack your goals and rebuild a strategy that is long-term and focused on your unique goal of business growth and success.

Ready to define what growth looks like for you?

Book a free consultation with us today, and let’s start planning for your success together:

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Written by Hannah O’Toole

Social Media Marketing Manager

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Written by
Hannah O’Toole

Social Media Marketing Manager

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25 02 2026

How To Use Marketing To Leverage Your Sustainability Message

Hannah Marketing Strategy

Introduction

Sustainability is no longer just a “nice-to-have” in business, it is a core expectation. Today’s consumers actively research a company’s environmental impact, and a lack of transparency can immediately turn potential customers away.

For those businesses that are not transparent with their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) policy and actions, then it’s time to tell your story. According to a joint study by McKinsey and NielsenIQ, it was found that over the past five years, products making ESG-related claims accounted for 56 percent of all growth.

For businesses that do have a clear ESG policy and message to share, the true challenge lies in effectively communicating that.

This article will explore how to strategically leverage your sustainability efforts through transparent, impactful marketing to build deeper trust, foster brand loyalty, and drive meaningful growth.

So you have an ESG policy, what next?

The first thing to consider is what assets do you have to showcase that you are environmentally conscious and working with a defined ESG policy in mind. These sustainability assets can come in many forms. Some of these include:

Reporting/Analyses – Share regular reports, updates and metrics on how you are progressing with your sustainability actions.
Research – Conduct and share regular industry research as well as analyse other available research to stay up to date with ESG updates in your industry.
3rd Party Validation – There are many 3rd parties that you can receive accreditation and validation from that help to demonstrate your ESG commitments. Some examples of these are B Corp or ISO 14001 (Environmental Management System).
Recognised Framework – Does your policy align with recognised frameworks such as Net Zero 2050 or the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard? If so, this is another way to showcase that you are environmentally conscious.

Once you have key messages and assets that verify your sustainability claims such as a quarterly report or B Corp accreditation, you will need to determine where is the best place to share this information. Here are some ideas:

Website – You can create a dedicated section on your website which shares your sustainability goals, research, reports and verifications.
Emails – You can include a section in your monthly email newsletter on your sustainability news and updates or if you do not have a regular newsletter, simply include 3rd party verification logos to your employee email footers.
Social Media – It is important to consider which platforms would be best suited to share your key sustainability messages. Where are the decision makers? Are they on Instagram, LinkedIn, X?
Packaging – If you have a physical product, display your accreditations or key sustainability messages on your packaging. For example you can include the B Corp logo or the Cruelty Free logo right there on your packaging.

Be Honest & Authentic

Sustainability is a journey, and telling your story authentically is just as important as the actions you take. The key thing to remember when sharing your sustainability messages is that you are transparent, authentic and honest.

Avoid exaggerating sustainability claims or setting unrealistic sustainability targets that your business cannot reach, instead, focus on showcasing genuine progress to build lasting trust with your audience.

Conclusion

Leveraging your sustainability message is no longer just about doing good, it is about communicating that good work effectively to build a future-proof brand. By utilising your assets such as reports or accreditations, and sharing them transparently across the right channels, you turn genuine environmental actions into a powerful competitive advantage.

Remember, authenticity is key. Focus on honest progress rather than exaggeration to foster deep trust and loyalty with your customers.

Don’t let your efforts go unnoticed. Ready to use marketing to leverage your sustainability message?

Get in touch with We Do Marketing today to discover how we can strategically showcase your green initiatives. We’ll help you craft a compelling narrative that resonates with conscious consumers, drives engagement, and delivers measurable impact.

Phone: 0330 633 1230

Email: hello@wedomarketing.co.uk

Written by Hannah O’Toole

Social Media Marketing Manager

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Written by
Hannah O’Toole

Social Media Marketing Manager

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