Any firm can easily inspire inbound marketing campaigns with mission and vision statements. These statements provide direction and purpose, encourage achievement and ensure inbound marketing campaign activities align with a firm’s business goals and inbound marketing strategy. A firm’s ability to effectively embrace the values of the mission and vision statements will enrich the firm’s entire work environment.
Mission and Vision Statements Provide Direction and Purpose
A firm’s founding principal is often responsible for developing the mission and vision statements. The firm’s leadership is responsible for ensuring these statements are communicated and understood by the entire practice. The mission statement communicates the firm’s external purpose, service offerings, business priorities, and beneficiaries of said mission (clients). In addition, the mission should express the firm’s sole purpose, the basic reason for its inception, and describe how the mission will contribute to its vision. A vision statement communicates where a firm believes it will be within a stated period. An effective vision evokes focus and direction, providing internal and external audiences with a shared picture of the firm’s future state. This picture expresses a clear view of where the practice intends to be.
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Mission and Vision Statements That Encourage Achievement
If you want to see what makes a great firm tick, take a look at the firm’s mission and vision statements. You will most likely find statements that clearly and concisely describe the firm’s overall intent. Together, the mission and vision statements provide direction for the firm by focusing on doing things day-to-day to accomplish its mission while pursuing its vision. These statements work together to encourage achievement. Let's break down the basic anatomy of each statement.
The mission statement is about the client; the client is the firm's central focus. Therefore, it makes sense to craft the mission statement first. The vision statement concerns the firm and its stakeholders.
Mission Statement
In most instances, the founding principal ensures that the mission statement concisely communicates the following:
- Describes what the firm wants to accomplish through its service offering.
- Describes for whom the firm provides its service offering.
- Describes why the firm wants to accomplish its mission.
Once the firm has these descriptions, the mission statement takes the following structure:
- The statement should be a short paragraph, 20 words max.;
- The statement should be as clear as possible;
- The statement should connect to the firm’s vision and goals.
Vision Statement
In most instances, the founding principal develops the vision statement. Answers to the following questions help craft the words for the final vision statement.
- What is the firm’s business?
- What professional services does it provide?
- What are the target market sector/s?
- What does the firm's "typical" client look like (client profile)?
- Where does leadership want the firm to be in <number> years?
Once the firm has answers to these questions, the vision statement takes the same structure as the mission statement. Please take a look at the mission statement structure bullet points above. The vision statement provides its’ professionals with something to aspire to. On a quarterly or biannual basis, leadership should assess progress and continued relevance related to the business environment and greater marketplace. Leadership should update the mission and vision statements if necessary to reflect the changing environment and business goals. Once these statements are updated, leadership needs to communicate the changes made in each of these statements.
Mission and Vision Statements that Inspire Inbound Marketing Activities
Your inbound marketing strategy should be designed to help you achieve your firm's mission and vision. The following discusses how the mission and vision statements are meaningful guides for meeting the firm’s business goals.
Mission Statement
Similarly to developing the mission and vision statements, the inbound marketing strategy begins with the mission statement, which provides the information needed to build the foundation for a solid strategy for attracting the firm's central focus, clients. Three main focus areas include keyword strategy, search engine optimization, and content.
- Keyword Strategy: The mission offers information on the firm’s unique service offering that can be expressed in a few keywords or keyword phrases.
- Search Engine Optimization: Once these keywords and keyword phrases are defined, they can be used for search engine optimization, as well as all future inbound marketing activities, such as blogging and inbound marketing campaigns.
- Content: The mission statement is a great reference for adding new content to the firm’s website and blog and is a critical component of the inbound marketing plan. Content in the form of optimized blog posts, which includes core service keywords and keyword phrases, allows for more opportunities to be found online and pages indexed in search engines.
Inbound marketing activities should aspire to achieve the firm’s business goals by referencing the firm’s vision statement. The vision statement provides the information that will help prioritize the inbound marketing activities that support the firm’s business goals. The following are business goals that inbound marketing campaign activities can support:
- Brand Building and Awareness of Professional Services Offering
- Attracting Desired Website Traffic
- Converting Desired Website Visitors into Leads
- Converting Leads into Qualified Executive-ready Leads
- Converting Leads into Awarded Projects
- Retain Existing Clients
- Upsell or Cross-sell Existing Clients
Inspiring mission and vision statements may seem difficult to develop. However, by taking the steps outlined in this post, the firm’s leadership has an opportunity to provide direction and purpose with distinction. It is an activity that will encourage achievement and inspire inbound marketing efforts. Developing these statements is a holistic approach to ensuring a firm's health.
