The Critical Path

As the final installment in our five-part series on creating effective marketing projects we’re going to focus on how a project should come together efficiently and effectively. In a perfect world you would initiate a project by accepting a written quote and submitting your creative brief, and the workflow would go something like this…

Step 1: Initial concepts are presented for your review.

Step 2: You consult with the designer to discuss the direction that should be taken from here, or possibly request an alternate concept.

Step 3: A revised or new design is submitted for your review and should be right on target based on your previous feedback.

Step 4: The chosen design is analyzed to determine how effectively it meets your defined goals. Final revisions are made, if needed.

Step 5: You proof the job for accuracy and the designer makes any required corrections, which you then approve.

Step 6: Thee job is checked for technical quality and sent to production.

Step 7: Your campaign goes public and you start raking in the customers.

Seriously, it could happen.

Resolutions In Focus

Scour the Internet this time of year and you’ll find post after post offering guidance on New Year’s resolutions for marketers and entrepreneurs. The typical ideas usually fall into the realms of budgeting, customer relations, branding, strategies and SEO and social media. Some of these suggestions can get pretty specific about setting goals. I’d like to be a little more vague this year.

I’d like to suggest that your number one resolution for this year should be to get focused. Focus on what you do best and delegate the rest. This means investing all of your time in the things that you can do better than anyone else. Are you the founder of a company with an innovative product? Perhaps your time should be spent almost entirely on product development. Does your strength lie in crunching numbers? You should be focused on budgeting and fiscal planning. Or maybe you’re a top notch people person? You should be leading the sales force or out in the field rubbing elbows with consumers. Whatever the case may be, the thing you do best is the thing you should focus on doing.

Focus also means to stop stretching yourself thin with tasks that someone else could do better. Delegating the tasks that are not your specialty will help you get everything done more efficiently and more effectively. This could mean giving your administrative staff more responsibilities or hiring a personal assistant if your are self-employed. It might also mean hiring more specialists for your staff and farming out more work to independent contractors or partnering with specialty firms.

Being focused will result in being more efficient and, in turn, more productive. More productivity always helps the bottom line.

Why do you exist?

Normally at the end of year I would write a post about getting your marketing plan and budget in shape for the coming year. Not this time. This time I’m going to ask a simple question… Why do you exist? Or, more specifically… Why did you start a business in the first place?

The obvious answer for most is to make a profit selling a product or service. Some may even say it’s to make a profit doing something they are passionate about. But, that’s not really why your business exists. As Simon Sinek describes it in his book Start With Why, why your business exists is “The problem it set forth to solve or the change it wanted to make.” It is not your strategies or your goals, it is your reason for being.

This reason must lie outside the business itself. It must lie in society, because business is a major force in shaping society. No, I’m saying that all businesses must be philanthropic in nature — but wouldn’t that be wonderful — what I’m saying is that your reason for existing as a business is to make an impact on society. This impact may come in the form of helping underprivileged children get shoes on their feet. It may be that you intend to change how the world uses computers. Or it may be something more practical like helping dog owners find a good place to eat. Whatever the case may be, this is the reason that drives your business. this is why you exist.

Why does Catch Light Productions exist? That’s an easy one. We want to help small businesses stop settling for less when it comes to their marketing — to fill the gap between modest budgets and outstanding results. We achieve this by remaining lean and pulling together specialized teams to match the specific needs of each individual client.

So, as the new year approaches take some time to think about why you exist. When you realize your reason for existing, the game changes. Your marketing efforts will seek to fill a valid and well defined need rather than simply persuade a consumer to make a purchase.

Working With A Creative Marketing Firm

Working with a creative marketing firm for the first time often prompts a few concerns. How successful will they be in interpreting your needs? How can they meet those needs most effectively? How can they do it most efficiently? How much will it cost?

Laying The Foundation. The first thing most firms normally do after being assigned a project is to schedule an information-gathering session with you and your key staff. They’re interested not only in scheduling, budget and job specifications, but also in your competition, target audience, and objectives. And they want to know all the features and benefits of your product or service. This will help sharpen the focus and objectives and in turn, ensure that the solution they produce is not only creatively excellent, but strategically targeted.

The Right Ideas. It’s best if you designate only one or two key decision makers at your company to work directly with your marketing firm. This way everyone stays focused on real solutions and are not distracted by too many personal opinions. Expect the creative team to present only two or three initial concepts showing completely different approaches to the project at hand. Many clients ask for five, six, seven or even more concepts, but offering too many solutions up front only complicates things and usually results in a poorly developed marketing piece.

The Schedule. Despite popular misconceptions, good creative work doesn’t normally come in a flash of inspiration. It usually comes from much trial and error. This is why the creative team needs to take the time to consider several approaches, work them through, and revise them. In addition, your marketing firm usually needs to address budgeting, printing, media placement, scheduling, and other issues relevant to the success of the project. All this, plus the need to perform in a businesslike fashion, means that your promptness in providing materials and making approvals is crucial if your deadlines are to be met.

The Budget. All companies, all industries, all products have different marketing needs — and different methods of determining budgets. Introduction of a new company or product requires heavy spending based on anticipated results, while an established business might implement an annual marketing budget based on previous year’s sales. Although your creative marketing firm can’t tell you how much to spend, they can certainly help you maximize the return on your investment. You should leverage this expertise.

There Is No Box

It happened again. A client came to me about doing a new direct mail campaign and said, "We need to start thinking outside the box." The problem is that most people don't really get what outside the box means and they tend to use this phrase either out of frustration of not having an immediate answer to why their marketing efforts have been sub-par, or as a way of covering the fact that they are simply lost and don't know how to approach their marketing needs.

The non-existent box as explained in The Matrix…

Boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Boy: Then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

Thinking outside the box requires a willingness to take new perspectives and to create value in new ways. The problem is that people tend to approach this without looking inside first. The results are generally off-the-wall ideas that get everyone excited but miss the mark and are really little more than a gimmick. So instead, let's try focusing on who we are, where we fit in, and how we relate to our intended audience…

* What is our key opportunity?
* Who is our target audience?
* Where do we want to be?
* How do we get there?
* What is our primary consumer benefit?
* What should the consumer's net impression be?
* What support do we have?
* What are the mandatory facts that we must communicate?
* How do we want the consumer to respond?

Thinking outside the box creates a separation between our brand and our audience. Just as Neo must become one with the spoon, you must become one with your brand. Once you've done that, you begin to realize that there is no box and that your brand can interact freely with your audience. You will development more creative — and more effective — ideas to bend your marketing in the right direction.

Catch Light Productions
http://www.catchlight.com

Download our free Creative Work Plan and become one with your brand today.

The Worst Advertising

It never fails, every time I hit the highway I see a billboard that boldly states…

"Does advertising work? It just did!"

I bet you've seen a similar billboard on your daily commute — proudly displaying it's pointless message in a horrible combination of fonts and colors. It is designed to serve one purpose and that purpose is simply to get everyone's attention. This, my friend, is advertising at it's worst. Why would I suggest that getting attention is bad advertising? Because it congratulates itself on having produced a result, but the result was nothing more than me reading the message. The advertising was in no way relevant to me as a consumer. Getting my attention acheived nothing. The simple fact is that the billboard company would be doing itself a huge favor if they would simply state, "Your message here." with their phone number prominently displayed. This would have addressed a potential prospect's need while providing a call-to-action. Their message does neither.


Just Be Relevant

You can impress your audience with a bold, cutting edge style. You can even wow your audience with a really creative concept. Your ad could show off every incredible feature your product offers and you can have the lowest price in town. But, if your message is not relevant to your target audience, no amount of persuasion is going make it sell.

The first thing you must do is make sure you are talking to the right audience. The second things is to make sure you show them how your product is going to meet their needs or fulfill their desires. For example, help them make or save more money, save them time, allow them to avoid doing stuff they don’t like, help them feel better about themselves. Whatever the case may be, make sure your message is relevant — and your product lives up to your pitch — and you'll be on your way to producing the best advertising ever!

Howard L. Theriot
Catch Light Productions
http://www.catchlight.com

Something Unexpected

In today's highly competitive marketplace, consumers can choose from any number of competing sellers in order to get what they want. When you and your competitors offer the same quality product and rely on low prices, loss leaders, and special incentives to make the sale, the product becomes a mere commodity and price is all that matters. But, when you shift your focus away from the sale and toward the consumer experience, you change the playing field.

Far too often, consumer experiences are delivered short of expectations. With the heavy presence of social media in our lives today, there's big buzz about "engaging" the consumer. But, I don't think too many of us understand what that really means. Doc Searls in writing about “the intention economy”, suggests that buyers find sellers, as opposed to sellers capturing buyers. He also shows us that the seller must earn respect and trust, and that branding is only useful if it is based on truth. Sellers must focus first and foremost on building relationships with buyers. The sale is a by-product of this relationship.

Building successful relationships with consumers means becoming transparent and giving them more than they expect. Now, more than ever, we must be focused on the quality of the consumer experience in addition to the quality of our product and service. Relationship building goes much deeper than simply putting your best face forward. It goes deep into that all important courtship, and it takes a whole lot more than giving flowers and holding hands to grow a beautiful relationship. It takes trust. It takes passion. It takes creativity. It takes honesty.

The average consumer prefers recommendations from family and friends over advertising. And, according to a Forrester research study examining consumer trust with various forms of advertising, consumer opinions posted online scored higher than traditional marketing tactics. Social media has permeated our daily lives to the degree that buying decisions are often based on the recommendations from around the globe instead of merely across the dinner table. This is an opportunity to capitalize on the marketing holy grail: word-of-mouth. Unfortunately, many marketers go wrong by trying to manage word of mouth. You cannot manage word of mouth. You can create the right circumstances to encourage good word of mouth. That's all you can do.

The fact is that consumers can no longer be sold to. Whether you like it or not, they are in control of when and how they buy. They know what's going on in the marketplace and they come to you armed with product reviews and competitive offers. As a marketer, now is the time to reinvent your approach in order to win consumers and meet business goals.

The opportunity is right in front of you and the choice is yours… simply do your job and deliver what you're supposed to deliver, or rise above and beyond the call of duty by delivering something great. Something unexpected.