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Marketing by Design
February 3, 2012
Good marketing + good design = results. Remove the ‘good’ from either marketing or design and you will find a fairly rapidly diminishing return.
Marketing is (or should be) the driving force behind your business and your brand but design must underpin it. Good design will improve your marketing activity as quickly as bad design will detract from it. That said, design cannot resurrect a flawed marketing strategy however good it is.
A lot of discussion takes place about the importance of having an integrated marketing campaign and certainly it is important. But, design within that context doesn’t get much of a mention and yet it is such a powerful marketing tool.
Design is the visual interpretation of what your brand stands for and is a communication medium as powerful, at times arguably more so, than words. People can quickly take in and retain a visual image, forming an impression and opinion of something almost instantly, even if no words are present. Words take a little longer to digest but add depth and clarity. Consider how much stronger your message will be if you get both right: a commanding first impression backed by a meaningful message.
Good design starts with a good marketing strategy which defines who you are and what you want to achieve. It doesn’t need to rival War and Peace, in fact it should be succinct and specific, but you need to know where you are starting from and where you want to get to. And you need to communicate this to your designer. Designers are generally brought in at the end of the planning process so it is important to take a small step back and let them know about your business and its goals. They also need to understand what underlying objective the specific output you are requesting, such as a brochure or advertisement, is trying to meet. Knowing more about you and your business will help them get into the right mindset and give them clear direction for whatever their brief, no matter what this might be.
What a designer doesn’t, or shouldn’t, need is for you to tell them exactly what the design should look like at the end. Their role is to take your brief and convert that into a creative concept and eventually a tangible output that meets your marketing challenge.
The fact that design is used to solve marketing challenges is the very reason that marketing and design can never truly be treated as separate disciplines. The two are, ultimately, heavily reliant upon each other. Take marketing away from design and you lose direction. Take design away from marketing and you lose a powerful delivery mechanism.
Like this:
What is good design?
December 13, 2011
A picture paints a thousand words; you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression; first impressions last….. You could then counter these with another old cliché that people shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. But, the fact is, they do. Although we’re not big on clichés, they are often clichés for good reason. You will have to work many times harder to win clients over if that first encounter is not positive. So why do so many people skimp on the one thing that could save them so much time and effort: design?
Brand is a lot more than how your marketing collateral appears, but the design of it is visually how your brand is perceived, and what people often experience first and come to associate with. It’s this visual association that helps win the hearts of your potential clients and retain their loyalty. So when people argue that cost is why they find ways to cut corners rather than purchase professional design, I would ask ‘how can you afford not to invest in good design?’
Good design doesn’t have to blow the budget. And a good design agency will offer more than just a good design service, they will add value to your overall marketing strategy.
So what is good design?
A good designer will try to understand your problem in order to come up with an appropriate solution. You should expect questions about, and challenges to your brief. You may have heard the joke; “how many designers does it take to change a light bulb? Does it have to be a light bulb!” Joking aside, if you look at product design for instance, it’s no surprise that Dyson and Apple have been so successful. Design is at the heart of these companies, challenging and shaping what they do at every level within their companies, in order to provide exceptional products. For them, their products are an integral part of what their brand is about which is why design is at the core of what they do.
It’s the same for service organisations, consider Virgin Airlines, who use memorable design that is consistently applied through all the elements of the customer journey. It provides a first and lasting impression of what to expect, and differentiates their brand from other airlines.
So good design solves a problem, it conveys a message, it stimulates emotion and engages people, it supports your marketing and differentiates and positions your brand from your competition. It supports your business objectives. In short, it has a very significant role to play that should not be underestimated.
You will be thinking, of course, we would say that, but it is actually logical. The best idea for a direct marketing campaign will be less successful if the final solution is not thought through and executed well. A website that is poorly considered and constructed will be exited within seconds of someone landing on it, no matter how good the SEO or marketing campaign to get them there in the first place. This will also have a negative effect on how your brand is perceived.
Even with brand guidelines there is always going to be an element of subjectivity surrounding design and whether it is considered good or not. It requires discipline to park personal preferences for professional judgment at times, but there are some important things you need to ask yourself about any design work:
- Will my audience relate to this?
- Will my audience like it?
- Will my audience take away the right impression of my business and/or product?
- Will my audience get the right message?
- Will my audience recognise it as my brand?
- Will my audience respond to it?
Having considered these questions, sometimes you may find you need to challenge your audience. It was once said that if Henry Ford, father of the motorcar, had asked his customers what they wanted they would have asked for a faster horse. It’s also been said that the late Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, put little store in customer research in defining the products they developed. Instead opting to challenge their designers, programmers and engineers to shape their future.
In the end, good design may be a lot of things but it is actually about solving problems and engaging your audience in one way or another. If you tick all the above boxes, by all means then ask yourself if you like it.
Measuring and maximising marketing performance
November 8, 2011
The end of the year is fast approaching, probably a lot faster than most of us would prefer. It is typically a time for reflecting, planning and budgeting. So how can you see what your marketing activity has actually done for your business? How can you make sure what you do next year will add value to your bottom line?
A lot of businesses find it difficult to identify the contribution their marketing makes. There are, however, some really simple ways to monitor your results and achieve maximum performance:
- Plan, plan, plan. Map out clearly what you need to achieve with your marketing and plan exactly what you need to do to achieve it. And be disciplined about following your plan. That doesn’t mean you can’t be flexible or that you can’t make changes, just that you need to have direction and focus.
- Make a proper evaluation of the ‘before picture’. If you don’t know what your starting point is, you cannot evaluate how far you have moved.
- Only ever undertake marketing activities that can actually be measured. That sounds a bit over simplified but being quite brutal about it, if you don’t know what that £500 banner ad is actually going to achieve, is there any point in doing it?
- Set achievable, measurable and clearly defined targets for all your activity before you start. If what you need to achieve is 10 appointments per month via telemarketing decide on that from the outset, be realistic about the resource needed and determine exactly what constitutes an appointment.
- Don’t be tempted by the last minute cheap deal if it doesn’t truly support your objectives – the wrong cheap deal is sometimes an expensive waste of precious resource.
If you can’t see what your marketing is achieving, it most likely hasn’t been evaluated and set up correctly from the outset. Taking some time from the beginning to think about the longer term could save you money, make your marketing schedule easier to deliver and improve effectiveness of your activity.
Don’t forget though, it isn’t often any one activity that will lead to an influx of new business enquiries, but a sustained and coordinated approach should show you a positive return in both new business generation and overall brand awareness.
Insurance: is simplicity the key to achieving credibility and trust? Can simple be creative?
September 14, 2011
It is tough for an industry which focuses on risk and worst case scenarios to present itself in any way other than earnest. Its customers need reassurance it will be there in their hour of need. But the way to earn trust and confidence is not through detail and copious amounts of information. It is through transparent, clear and straightforward communication.
The average person doesn’t know much about insurance and doesn’t really know what it is they need but they do know it is important to get the right cover. So the opportunity to win trust and confidence should be enormous.
Unfortunately the insurance sector is plagued, rightly or wrongly, by a perception of hard selling, over selling, too much fine print with too many get out clauses and very little after sales service. It is this perception that the CII’s Aldermanbury Declaration sets out to address and also what professional insurance firms are working against and trying to genuinely dissipate on a daily basis.
The most important thing to earn trust and credibility in any insurance company’s marketing toolkit is straight talking. You may not be able to avoid the fine print and legal detail completely but you can present it in a way that your customers can easily and quickly digest. Removing the mystery and confusion doesn’t make you redundant, it makes you invaluable.
The second most important thing is the after sales follow up. Nothing will lose the loyalty and good will of a customer more quickly than the feeling they have been sweet talked into a sale but become of little value subsequently. It will only serve to reinforce the perception that the industry is trying to dispel.
Keeping it simple doesn’t have to equate to average. If you consider some of the most successful and resilient marketing concepts they are often the simplest ones, the ones that are understated, uncomplicated and intelligent. Insurance firms need to look outside their industry to see what else is happening in the wider market; not only to competitors but to other sectors to see what can be learnt in order to break away from the insurance mould and set themselves apart from the crowd.
For a sector which is working towards changing its ‘brand’ via initiatives such as the Aldermanbury Declaration and the general consensus that professional excellence is a standard that should be considered the norm, doing what you have always done is not an option.
With insurance the devil is in the detail but this doesn’t mean insurance has to be complicated or that it can’t be creative in its approach. It just means daring to be different.
“Failing to plan is planning to fail”
August 23, 2011
‘Failing to plan is planning to fail’ is a bit of a worn out cliché which is also a little bit ridiculous. Not planning is simply not planning. You may still be very successful but I’d wager to say that the most successful people and businesses always have a plan which starts with a strategy.
Marketing strategy and marketing planning are, or should be, an extension of your business plan. They concentrate on the customer/client side of your business and how you will find, acquire and retain your clients. A pretty important consideration from anyone’s perspective and worthy of a little time and investment surely…
Every business owner knows what they want to achieve and makes their decisions with that in mind. So the question becomes, is there any point to spending the time, and possibly money, preparing and writing a marketing strategy and plan?
The answer: there probably isn’t if you are the only person in your company; you already know exactly what you need to do, when, and in what order, to realise your visions and, are absolutely unwavering in discipline when it comes to decision-making.
If that is not the case, then you need a strategy and you need a plan.
A strategy doesn’t need to be encyclopaedic in detail and length. In fact, if it is too long it is in danger of losing focus which is exactly what it sets out to accomplish. Its purpose is to define marketing goals and objectives; consider the internal and external influences on realising them and then determine the most efficient way to achieve the desired results.
From a clearly defined marketing strategy a marketing plan can be developed. A marketing plan consists of the specific actions and activities that will be undertaken to deliver the objectives set out in the marketing strategy.
The most powerful marketing strategies are those which are focussed on the customers first and foremost. If however your business is based in the service sector it will also need to consider the people you employ to deliver your service. Only exceptionally will a marketing strategy not need to offset optimum goals against the restrictions of reality such as budget, human resource and time available.
For this reason, most businesses find one of the biggest advantages of developing a marketing strategy and plan is that they provide clarity on what is most important and create’s priorities. Together they are also very useful for providing a common vision internally and externally they will almost certainly be required when approaching banks or investors. If you can illustrate not only a clear strategy but your results against targets your proposition strengthens considerably.
A marketing strategy and plan is actually a fluid document. It should provide stability but also allow for flexibility, it should be able to accommodate changes in the market or the business, and it should provide scope to capitalise on those valid opportunities that can arise unexpectedly.
Every business’ marketing strategy and marketing plan will be unique and there are many ways they can be presented. The most important thing is to have something that is meaningful to your business and provides the necessary direction and performance measures to keep you on track, whichever way the market moves.
The Leap of Faith
January 31, 2011
So you’ve made the leap of faith and entrusted your vital marketing to an agency but now you’re not sure it was the right call.
It seems to involve more of your time than you can afford, you are still making all the end decisions, what’s more the results aren’t evident and you feel as though you are spending a small fortune for the privilege. Is the agency underperforming or are you ‘over expecting’? How do you know for sure and what should you do?
Any reasonable amount of change is going to involve some up front commitment and investment. If it is still early days in the relationship (up to six months in, yes it really does take that long sometimes) then it may well be that you are just moving along the learning curve and before too long it will all seem very worth your while. And a good agency should become an indispensable extension of your business.
If it has been longer than that and you still have a gut feeling that something isn’t right then it may well be you have a bigger issue to contend with.
Communication with your agency is always key, particularly in the beginning. Start by being very open and frank about your concerns as soon as they arise, and be specific. They will want you to be happy so should welcome the feedback and the opportunity to set things right. Give them a chance, agree a plan and a reasonable timescale and then monitor it closely together – making sure you keep up your end of the bargain also!
If it still doesn’t seem to be working then maybe you will need to go back to the drawing board. But, that doesn’t mean an agency isn’t the answer, it might just be you haven’t found the right one. Learn from the exercise, don’t give in to a knee jerk reaction and write off the concept all together.
So, what is the absolute minimum you should expect?
Often it is those little, avoidable niggles that are as irritating as anything else and there is no excuse for these. Niggles such as no one calls you back, missing an agreed deadline (and no prior communication this might happen), a lack of initiative and proactivity, a general failure to communicate, no attention to detail and a basic lack of enthusiasm. Even if the quality of work in the end is fair these kinds of things will eventually wear down the relationship and you don’t have to accept this as a standard.
If you have pointed out these shortfalls, given your agency a chance to address them and still you have the same frustrations…. Don’t waste your time, move on. These are basic items and you shouldn’t need to educate your business partners about how to do it properly.
There are a few more fundamental reasons why a client/agency relationship could prove not to be a good fit.
To name a few, it could be a situation of over promising and under delivering; the agency doesn’t have the relevant experience for the brief; the size of agency is not relative to the size of your account (it could be too big or too small); the type of agency is not correct; your expectations are not realistic; the initial brief was not adequate; communication is not consistent or clear; or they may just provide a poor service and so the list goes on.
Perhaps one of the most common causes of dissatisfaction, however, comes from confusing marketing with sales. Marketing provides the tools and the means to open the door to new customers and keep it open for existing customers; sales is what you do next.
If you have concluded it really isn’t going to work then have a look around the market place for alternatives. There are good agencies out there and there will be one that suits your business and its requirements. Take away the points you’ve learned and apply them to your next selection process, it will be easier and quicker this time and you will be better placed to make the right selection based on experience. Don’t despair, it’s not been a wasted exercise, just a stepping stone to the right option which will add significant value to your business.
The art of juggling
December 20, 2010
Marketing is vital to continually build your business but is it one of the first things you sideline when a client issue or financial situation arises, or perhaps when there is a chink in the supply chain or a staffing problem?
Marketing is just one of the many, many balls business owners juggle. When your business gets to a certain size, however, achieving the golden rule of marketing, consistency, can be demanding without bringing in additional resource.
So, when you reach that point, should you insource or outsource your marketing?
If you are reading this then you have probably recognised two things:
- You can’t grow a business without good marketing.
- It takes time and resource, things you don’t always have a lot of.
A lot of business owners are able to manage their marketing perfectly well in the early years by utilising the resource and skill they have in-house, i.e. their own time and experience. Then one day they start to feel the pinch on their time from too many demands from too many areas of the business and find they aren’t really keeping up with new marketing developments or capitalising on opportunities as quickly as they would like. It is then that they start to wonder how else they can continue to progressively market their business and build their brand while simultaneously freeing up more of their time. In the broadest sense there are really two possibilities: insource the necessary skill and time (recruit an employee), or outsource it (employ an agency or consultant). Both of which are feasible options. Both of which have similar concerns for many people. Can someone else really understand my business well enough to do a good job? Can I trust someone else to take as much care and attention as I would? Can I justify the cost? In answer to just those questions, yes, you can find good people with business acumen as well as marketing knowledge; yes, you can find good people whose standards will equal your own; and yes; the cost is often very justifiable if you really calculate what your time is worth comparatively. You may have to look hard for the right support and probably be patient until you do but it is out there. So, the other big question still remains: insource or outsource?
Some reasons to insource:
- You have reached the size where you have a full-time marketing requirement at a consistent skill level.
Some reasons to outsource:
- You need a specialised skill but only on a periodic basis.
- You want to have access to a wide range of experience and knowledge.
- You need someone who can manage and direct the marketing element but not on a full-time basis.
- You need more than one level of marketing support – director, manager and administrator but none on a full-time basis.
For most businesses thinking about adding marketing support for the first time, it is unlikely that bringing an in-house marketing employee on board will deliver the right skill mix or be the most cost-effective option. And while you should never really go into a relationship thinking about how to get out of it, considering your exit options can be prudent. An agency may be a good way to get started and test the water before jumping in with both feet. Deciding to conclude an agency relationship is relatively straight forward compared with the legal obligations you would have with an employee if you decide you need to review your requirements after a period of time.
Marketing agencies, today more than ever, have become more flexible and cost effective. Some of the more forward thinking and versatile agencies have adopted a ‘virtual team’ business model. This essentially means having a smaller core team with one or two specialisms and bringing in selected partners when additional expertise is required. It keeps their overheads down which can (and should!) be reflected in your charges, while giving you access to everything marketing related you are ever likely to need under one roof and avoiding the ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ issue.
When you need to bring in marketing support, decide what would really help you most, shop around and closely scrutinise the options. It is a buyers’ market at the moment and you should not have to settle for less than the right solution and the very best service.
How important is the customers experience?
January 26, 2010
One of the biggest responsibilities of management is to look after the corporate DNA
Andrew Rolfe, CEO, Pret A Manger
Starbucks realised this back in 2007 when their Chairman Howard Schultz warned of “the commoditization of the Starbucks experience”. The authenticity of the memo below has been confirmed by Starbucks.
“From: Howard Schultz
Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2007 10:39 AM Pacific Standard Time
To: Jim Donald
Cc: Anne Saunders; Dave Pace; Dorothy Kim; Gerry Lopez; Jim Alling; Ken Lombard; Martin Coles; Michael Casey; Michelle Gass; Paula Boggs; Sandra Taylor
Subject: The Commoditization of the Starbucks Experience
As you prepare for the FY 08 strategic planning process, I want to share some thoughts with you.
Over the past ten years, in order to achieve the growth, development, and scale necessary to go from less than 1,000 stores to 13,000 stores and beyond, we have had to make a series of decisions that, in retrospect, have lead to the watering down of the Starbucks experience, and, what some might call the commoditization of our brand.
Many of these decisions were probably right at the time, and on their own merit would not have created the dilution of the experience; but in this case, the sum is much greater and, unfortunately, much more damaging than the individual pieces. For example, when we went to automatic expresso machines, we solved a major problem in terms of speed of service and efficiency. At the same time, we overlooked the fact that we would remove much of the romance and theatre that was in play with the use of the La Marzocca machines. This specific decision became even more damaging when the height of the machines, which are now in thousands of stores, blocked the visual sight line the customer previously had to watch the drink being made, and for the intimate experience with the barista. This, coupled with the need for fresh roasted coffee in every North America city and every international market, moved us toward the decision and the need for flavor locked packaging. Again, the right decision at the right time, and once again I believe we overlooked the cause and the loss of aroma – perhaps the most powerful non-verbal signal we had in our stores; the loss of our people scooping fresh coffee from the bins and grinding it fresh in front of the customer and once again stripping the store of tradition and our heritage? Then we moved to store design. Clearly we have had to streamline store design to gain efficiencies of scale and to make sure we had the ROI on sales to investment ratios that would satisfy the financial side of our business. However, one of the results has been stores that no longer have the soul of the past and reflect a chain of stores vs. the warm feeling of a neighborhood store. Some people even call our stores sterile, cookie cutter, no longer reflecting the passion our partners feel about our coffee. In fact, I am not sure people today even know we are roasting coffee. You certainly can’t get the message from being in our stores. The merchandise, more art than science, is far removed from being the merchant that I believe we can be and certainly at a minimum should support the foundation of our coffee heritage. Some stores don’t have coffee grinders, French presses from Bodum, or even coffee filters.
Now that I have provided you with a list of the underlying issues that I believe we need to solve, let me say at the outset that we have all been part of these decisions. I take full responsibility myself, but we desperately need to look into the mirror and realize it’s time to get back to the core and make the changes necessary to evoke the heritage, the tradition, and the passion that we all have for the true Starbucks experience. While the current state of affairs for the most part is self induced, that has lead to competitors of all kinds, small and large coffee companies, fast food operators, and mom and pops, to position themselves in a way that creates awareness, trial and loyalty of people who previously have been Starbucks customers. This must be eradicated.
I have said for 20 years that our success is not an entitlement and now it’s proving to be a reality. Let’s be smarter about how we are spending our time, money and resources. Let’s get back to the core. Push for innovation and do the things necessary to once again differentiate Starbucks from all others. We source and buy the highest quality coffee. We have built the most trusted brand in coffee in the world, and we have an enormous responsibility to both the people who have come before us and the 150,000 partners and their families who are relying on our stewardship.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge all that you do for Starbucks. Without your passion and commitment, we would not be where we are today.
Onwards”
Customers dragged down Starbucks Corp.’s fortunes for two years, buying fewer lattes and making fewer trips to its stores. This and the recession had a negative effect on the Starbuck’s balance sheet.
But they began returning to the world’s largest coffee chain late last year. And that helped the company be optimistic when it announced the increase in sales in shops open at least a year – its first since early 2008 – and a tripling in quarterly profit.
After a three-prong strategy of closing hundreds of locations, laying off thousands of workers and labouring to tweak its menu, the world’s largest coffee company’s revenue edged up too.
In February 2010 Startbucks earned $241.5 million, or 32 cents per share, for the three months that ended in late December 2009. During the same period last year, when the recession was in full force and Starbucks was closing stores and laying off workers to cut its costs, its profit was $64.3 million, or 9 cents per share.
“Despite our strong showing, we have much more work to do,” CEO and Chairman Howard Schultz said on a conference call with investors.
Now Starbucks executives plan to turn their attention to the company’s overseas business, where it plans several changes, including returning to a focus on customer service that was lost when the chain was at the height of its rapid expansion.
“The pace of growth was too much for us to do … and do it at the level of standards we had defined for ourselves,” CFO Troy Alstead told The Associated Press in an interview. “That’s really what broke down.”
The evolution of marketing
January 20, 2010
Firstly what is marketing and how is it different to sales?
To put it simply:
Marketing: is all the things you do to make the phone ring
Selling: What you do once the phone rings
In the past marketeers would communicate the features and benefits of the products of an organisation to support the sale process in order to get the phone to ring. This begs the question “what has branding got to do with marketing?”
No longer do people purchase a product or service based solely on features and benefits, they are looking for products and services from a company that they can associate with and that reflect their own values and who demonstrate an understanding of them.
Marty Neumeier, highlights this in his book ‘The Brand Gap’
“As we’ve moved from a one-size-fits-all economy to a mass-customisation economy, the attention of marketing has shifted from features, to benefits, to experience, to tribal identification. In other words, selling evolved from an emphasis on “what it has” to “what it does” to “what you’ll feel”, to “who you are”. This shift demonstrates that, while features and benefits are still important to people, personal identity has become even more important.
Cognitive expert Edward de Bono once advised marketeers that, instead of building a brand on unique selling proposition, they should pay more attention to the unique buying state of their customers. The success of the Nike brand is ample proof that de Bono’s concept works. As a weekend athlete, my two nagging doubts are that I might be congenitally lazy, and I might have little actual ability. I’m not really worried about my shoes. But when the Nike folks say ‘Just do it’, they’re peering into my soul. I begin to feel that, if they understand me that well, their shoes are pretty good. I’m willing to join the tribe of Nike”
Look after your brand equity and make sure you have the right positioning. Get it right and the equity of your brand could deliver brand awareness, brand loyalty, perceived quality and brand associations and differentiation.
Know you onion
January 11, 2010
If you intend to build something that you want to last for some time then ensuring the foundations on which you are building are solid is essential.
This is true of branding and one of the building blocks that makes up the foundations of your brand is the positioning, image and identity. Branding is essentially customer perception, and positioning is the process by which a company offers its brand to the consumer. The objective of positioning is to make the offering into a brand.
Interbrand’s brand onion, has both internal and external factors. The internal factors like brand vision and values form part of the brand identity. External factors like perceived brand identity and perceived brand positioning in relation to competitors, are how the brand is seen by consumers.
The Brand Onion
If you are involved with a service brand then it’s not only your customers that need influencing about your brand but also your own people. That is because service brands rely on people and people get tired, lose their temper, can be rude or inconsistent. A can of coke does not get tired, always performs and tastes the same.
In his book “Wally Olins On Brands” Olins suggests that service brands have to spend at least 50% of their time influencing their own people.
