Category Archives: Strategy

Strategy Direction; why your business needs it.

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Strategy, everyone loves to throw around this word like they own it. The word is over-used but very few people understand what it is or how to create a marketing strategy.

Strategy is not pure selling.  Strategy is not a corporate identity.  Strategy is not promotions.  All these activities are part of marketing plan that should be implemented because of a strategy.  Not because you are familiar with these tactics.

Why is strategy important?

Part of strategy development includes understanding your competitors, clients and market segment.  It is very different from ‘being in the industry for 20 years’, this is where most small companies get wrong.  It does give this individual a large network but does not give the company a marketing strategy.

To develop a strategy for a company, strategy asks, “What are the set of economics fundamental to this industry?” and “What are the trends most likely that will change the game in your industry?

These and other questions will help you define your market position, white space, competitive analysis and what your customer values.

This process to develop your strategy effectively helps you to clearly understand your market and thus, you should then be able to better manage your company, most importantly when making financial decisions and how to build your brain-trust.  Again, both factors that are related to your marketing strategy.

Why strategy will get you sales

As you can see, a solid marketing strategy will help you understand the externals that affect your business, the values that are important to your customer.  Then with this knowledge you can create a product or a service based on your customer values.

You can then align your sales team accordingly to these values.  Therefore, selling should be easier because you are offering a value that your target market wants.

How strategy will create brand position

Marketing Strategy is a process.

Using the process will help you define your customer in your market.  And, as a result it will help you design a program to either build, move your brand forward or change your brand to a set of values based on your target market.

Values will help you develop your brand promise.

This doesn’t mean that you will find a unique position in the market.  Today can be a challenge, because most companies are not unique, we are already in a pre-set market that already has competitors and with a finite amount of dollars we will need to fight for.

As a result, key questions to ask would be, “Who are we trying to reach?”  What keeps them up at night?  “What are they dissatisfied enough to do a web search?  What can we do different from our competitors?”

If you can answer these questions, you will be better ready to build a marketing strategy to help move your company forward.

How to develop a marketing strategy?

It is too long for a blog post but you should start by doing a competitive analysis.  If you are unsure what specifically you should be analyzing, start small – such as, customer service offering.  Or, you can always call us!

What is strategy?

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A 30-second video that asks the question what is strategy. 

An important question to ask in today’s business.  Many people know how to develop a newsletter, what are trade shows and get a sales team together but forget to spend time in developing a solid market analysis, competitive report and company brand vision that are the foundations to a solid plan.

 

Enjoy!

Leading a Company; Read a Book & Stay Current

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Small companies do have their particular challenges, that is for sure.  Starting with senior managers wearing too many hats and having not enough time to invest in current best practices.  This can lead to discontent and apathy among employees, which can then result in high-turnover.

A second problem we meet is owners who lack vision, with the inability to see the big picture.  Too many times this is due to a skewed focus towards achieving only short-term objectives, which can range from meeting quarterly sales, preparing for the next trade show or implementing a sales promotion.

The third problem we discover is that there are always people in the wrong places, managers and key decision-makers who either don’t have the skill-set or the knowledge to move the company forward.  Basically learning their way at the cost of their employees.

The fourth challenge, which is the most popular is that too often there is an over concentration, an unbalanced level of importance on the creativity, the image, the background, the font…, well you get. 

Harsh?  Yes and yet, true.  If a company wants to move forward, here are our suggestions:

1. Learn marketing 101.

This ranges from finding out what is permission based tactics and why purchased lists are not good branding programs.  This also includes understanding the history and implementing simple legalities such as why it is necessary to keep the company’s address in an e-newsletter, the importance of having a privacy policy on your website to definitions on what is great customer service which includes asking before just placing a client’s logo on your website.

2.  Read often

According to a number of recent studies*, business people who read at least seven business books a year earn over 2.3 times more than those who read only one book per year. 

Why?

One reason is they have a constant flow of new ideas and strategies they can use to help their careers, their teams and their companies.

When someone continually invests in themselves either by reading a business book, subscribing to our blog or attending a leadership conference with the aim to be the best one can be; would this certainly offer more opportunity for your business.

And, more opportunity means more money!

There are many wonderful books, blogs and conferences helps companies define processes, make better decisions and remove the micro-level management that can come with not seeing the big picture.

Here is our recommended reading list.

3.  Understand the difference between micro-management versus project based mandates

Too much time spent on the creative that never makes any money for a company.  We are not talking about consumer products, like a new soda or cleaning product.  We are talking about a flyer for a trade show or a promotional give-away, like a pen.

Another true and harsh fact.

A story….

We once spent an entire meeting on explaining why it is better to create value-add content in a USB key, instead of printing everything that can fit, including your mother’s face outside the USB.  It is a waste of money and energy.  Folks, you can hand out all the USB China can make and you still won’t get the leads you want, because there is nothing of value inside the USB key.

4. Understand strategy.

Marketing strategy is asking senior manager to make decisions, and that is strategy.  Making tough decisions.

Most small companies don’t have a strategy.

They go everywhere thinking that is a strategy.  They get a call from India, they are now in India.  They have one client in Columbia, they are now in Columbia.  Without market research, back-end support or SWOT analysis, they simply run after the sale.

And, what do we say when companies run after the sale?  If you’ve followed us for a while, you know our opinion in this area.

* Sources: United States Department of Labor, Survey by Yahoo! Chief Solutions Officer Tim Sanders and Business Majors. Heidi Richards Mooney, Founder – Women in Ecommerce.

Guide to establishing leadership in digital world

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Some marketing folks will tell you it is chaos out there.  While we don’t agree about the chaos, target markets are extremely fragmented more than ever.  We have increased channel choice, new opportunity to support brands from anywhere on this plant and shop in nontraditional locations, and all thanks to the digital world.

Consumers are also busy.  If you are not a busy blogger with the goal of becoming a brand name, you are most likely developing an app, ‘for that‘.  In addition to your family, work and personal life, most of us want to take advantage of the internet and become financially independent!

The challenge here is how to best use the digital world to bring these fragmented target markets together to build your community.  Here is a partial guide we use to help our clients understand the digital world and how it relates to their business goals.

How we do this comes from our understanding current consumer behaviour, needs and trends while capitalizing on strategic planning.  This strategic planning includes establishing brand positioning basics:

Establishing the program

1.  Have a goal.

Start with a goal.  Why are you there?  Ask this question three times and answer it differently in each question.  Try to add clear, measurable goals.

2.  Pick one or two platforms.
Don’t rush, just pick one or two platforms based on your service/product, internal resources and target market.  Then, commit to these platforms until you are very comfortable with their usage and how your target market engages with them and you.  Assess how your brand relates on these platforms.  In addition, you will see what works and what doesn’t, how the competition is using these platforms and work out all the important kinks, such as who responds and how to handle negative comments.

Setting up the platforms.

1.  Brand consistency

While your target market maybe fragmented, your brand shouldn’t be.  Consistency is key.  However, we do promote that each platform should have its own unique creative, each one should relate to your brand.  Brand consistency should also include content and visuals.  This means that if you are a traditional company, then your social media platforms should reflect that too.

2.  Include many voices

Most companies give this part to either a young employee or to corporate communications, without seeing the lost opportunity.  Encourage key members, CEO, sales rep and product developer to be part of your digital voices.

3. Communication Consistency
It’s true, you need to be out there and often to get noticed.  That’s the hard part.  But use tools that can help you stay connected and create a social media team who will be able to create content and stay connected with your community.

Building the community

1. Tricks of the trade.
Yes, there are ways that manipulates the system to help build a following, for example Linky programs and Exchange Facebook likes on LinkedIn are just 2 popular trends.  True, it may not be an engaged community but there are advantages to having “a lot of likes” and then there is Coca Cola who just opened a Facebook page and within one month got 1 million likes.  Or, you can go the way it is meant to be and build the community with quality content, commenting on other’s blogs and so on.

2.  Guest bloggers.
We lost guest bloggers, I mean who doesn’t.  An individual who is an expert in his or her field and willing to write a dedicated post on your website – its a win-win.

3. Tell your story.
One of the best way to engage your customer is to tell your story, your own way.  Whether it is on Facebook or on your company blog, create a personal voice and add engaging content.  Most clients can easily create a list of content titles, their problem is usually finding the writer for this content (while you are here, why not visit our content and creativity services).

Lots of Twitter Tips from other Twitters and me. Get your tips, best practices and guidelines, right here. Branded! Course. Designed to help bring your business into a competitive brand position. Learn more

Brand Management, is not an inside job anymore…

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If you are a store operator or a brand manager, you need structure and processes to manage your brand.  However, today people buy who they trust.  That’s who they trust, not what they trust.

As a consumer, we want the brand to be relevant and connected with our lifestyle.  If Susie Maker says your brand is great and she has a large social media following, that is the best earned media a brand can get today.

CONSUMERS AS CO-CREATORS OF YOUR BRAND

The more time you spend getting efficient on social media and posting, plugging, the more time you will have to find the people who talk about your brand.  As this happens, your brand clout will grow.  As your brand clout grows so will your brand influence and what is expected afterwards - is brand loyalty. 

As you become engaged with your brand followers, you also learn how people use your brand and how they would like to use it for future product innovations.  This holds true for a store, when you engage with your clients, it is the same as customer research, giving you rich information on what your customers like and would like to see in your store. 

REACH THE CONSUMER IN DIFFERENT WAYS

By reaching out in different ways to your consumer, you will create more opportunity to speak and engage in relevant conversations about your brand, your company’s philosophy and everything else that touches your brand.  It is not a one way conversation any longer, a linear conversation like a television advertisement.  But the ability to offer 1) more than one way to communicate with your consumer and 2) communicate in a two-way conversation and 3) communicate in an engaging manner which means investing in social media platforms that will build tomorrow’s brand. 

Communication about your brand or store is want you should want.  On going communication about your brand or store means you are still relevant with your customer. 

In-store promotions and merchandising

And, as a retailer or a brand manager, it all starts at the store!  Your customer has a lot of choices and when they enter your store and select your brand there were key steps that led your customer to your store.  Cable television combined with social media is creating a fragmented audience, as such your in-store promotions and merchandising are becoming more important to connect with your consumer.

Test, try and test again different merchandising styles and options.  There is no right way any longer, the right merchandising style is one that fits your store layout, product selection and customer.

In-store experience

The internet and social media has changed your brand and store’s landscape.  And, if you are a store, it is important to connect the branded shopping experience with your website and other sales channels.  Some stores have great websites but fall flat at the store, make it a 360 experience for your customer. 

Social Media Platforms

Smaller retailers usually have a difficult time to commit to social media.  However social media has a direct influence with your consumer’s point of view on your brand and on your competitor’s brand.  If your competitor is using social media, so should you be.  If they are not on social media, get on it fast and grab their customers!

Social media also the ability to convey your store or brand value - direct to consumer and then hear how this brand value is reflected to your consumer.

Social media is changing the way we relate to our customers.  Educate yourself in social media and harness its strength for your store or brand.

Social media will require a network to support this new communication channel.  This could mean adding staff to manage your social media platform including having increased technology.   It also takes technology to create word-of-mouth, referrals and telling your story to your consumer.  Look to invest in technology that will either grow with your business or at least in technology that gives you stats and reports on referrals, mentions and search trends on your store or brand.

Online Search

Online search is an important part of your customer’s “path to purchase”.  You are dealing with a tech-savvy consumer, they understand they have better search opportunity with complex search engines, ergo better serving their immediate needs.  Plus, there is the consumer that is consumed with finding value.  As such, if you position your store or brand as the value brand, make sure that you are the value brand online as well!  Monitor your brand name, do searches on your brand name and manage the positive as well as the negative reviews.

REACH THE CONSUMER IN A RELEVANT WAY

The more time you spend listening and engaging with your customer, you will discover how your customer connects and engages with your brand.  Relevance means transparency, create advertising that speaks to today’s consumer and be available to communicate, consider it like the toll-free number but “on steroids”.

Engaging

Your customer probably knows more about your brand than you do.  Because they are tech-savvy, they have ample chances to read about your client’s review and why they like or dislike your company.  Not to worry, we are a forgiving bunch.  Better to show mistakes and be ready to fix them than to present an image full of holes.  Your customer does not want a one-way conversation, they want conversations with you.

Show your culture  

Companies that show their culture online are winning the relevance factor that is so important with social media.  This includes candid interviews from managers, articles and blog posts from junior staff from your company, fuzzy photos taken at company events and other important areas about your store or brand that helps to connect with your customer.

Be transparent

When your customer meets you in-person, you need to be the same person that you show in your video, Facebook and other social media platforms.  Be you.

COLLABORATION IS THE FUTURE

Future pundits expect brand management to be a collaborative process.  One that includes your brand, consumer and the manufacturer working together bringing the product or service to market based on how, when and where your consumer wants it.

We are looking forward to this.  If you have anything you would like to change about our brand, please let us know!