Tag: marketing

Navigating Success in Marketing

The Captain & Crew of Marketing

In the vast sea of marketing, success hinges on two pivotal roles: the captain’s vision (Strategy) and the crew’s execution (Tactics).

Aye Aye Captain

The captain sets the course, determining the destination and charting the journey. The strategy is this vision, the overarching plan that defines where you’re headed and why.

All Hands on Deck

The crew brings the captain’s vision to life, managing the sails, navigating challenges, and ensuring the ship stays on course. Tactics are these actions, the specific tools and methods employed to reach the destination.

Smooth Sailing or Stormy Seas?

A ship without a captain drifts aimlessly, and a captain without a crew struggles to make progress. Similarly, without a strategy, tactics lack direction, and without tactics, a strategy remains unfulfilled.

Together, the captain and crew ensure a successful voyage. In marketing, uniting strategy and tactics guarantees not just a journey but a triumphant voyage.

We’re here to help you navigate the marketing waters! Let’s talk! 

 

What is Marketing?

Cracking the Code: What is ‘Marketing’?

Picture this: You own a farm renowned for its top-notch free-range eggs and organic chicken.

First, you pinpoint various customer groups: health-conscious families, gourmet chefs, and local diners. That’s your Segmentation.

Next, you choose to cater to health-conscious families and gourmet chefs, who are bound to relish your premium offerings. Enter Targeting.

You then carve out your niche as the ‘From Farm-to-Fork, Ethically Reared Chicken and Freshly Laid Eggs’ supplier. That’s Positioning.

With your foundation set, you can roll out your marketing tactics:

You are placing signs at your local farmers’ market, proudly declaring, “The Freshest Eggs Around!”.  You’re Advertising.

You are hosting a tasting table, dishing out samples, and giving a ‘new customer’ offer price. You’re running a Promotion.

Posting pics and doing a ‘live’ at the market. That’s Social Media.

When a renowned food blogger pens a glowing piece on your produce’s ‘unparalleled quality and flavour’? That’s PR.

And Sales come to life when folks pop by your farm or market stall, snap up your wares and keep coming back.  Offer them a customer reward card, and you’re entering the world of Loyalty Programmes.

If you weave all these actions under the STP strategic canopy, you’ve truly got a grip on marketing.

It’s not merely about peddling your products; it’s about delivering the perfect product to the ideal audience in just the right manner.

Let’s hatch your marketing plan together.
Marketing vs Branding

One question that we’re asked a lot by small business owners is what is the difference between marketing and branding … and, which should come first?

Marketing and branding are closely related and both incredibly important. But they are not the same thing and there are some fundamental differences between the two.

Here’s our breakdown of the key differences:

Marketing:

Marketing is the process of promoting and selling your products, services or company.

It involves identifying and understanding your customer needs, developing a marketing strategy to reach those customers, and executing that strategy through tactics like advertising, PR, digital and social media.

Branding:

Branding is the process of creating a unique identity and reputation for your product, service or company.

It involves defining your brand’s values, personality, and purpose, and communicating that identity through visual elements like logos, colours and typography, as well as key messaging and storytelling.

While marketing and branding are quite distinct, they are both essential components of building a successful business. In fact, branding is often seen as a prerequisite for effective marketing. Without a strong brand identity and reputation, marketing efforts can fall flat or fail to resonate with your customers.

So, we believe that branding should ideally come first!

By developing a clear and compelling brand identity, you can then develop a marketing strategy that aligns with that identity and effectively reaches your target audience.

A strong brand can also help to differentiate your company from its competitors and create a loyal customer base, which can ultimately support the success of marketing efforts.

 

Need help developing your brand or marketing strategy?  Let’s talk!

NEW CLIENT: TMS2

We’ve very excited to have been commissioned by TMS2 to help define their marketing stratetgy and re-design their website.

Our first port of call is to set up a CRM system and to integrate with Mailchimp ready for a business development programme focusing on RDT (remote digital tachograph download) – driving to a refreshed website.  We’re looking at increasing sales conversion through direct mail and telesales activity.

Watch this space for the re-launch!

 

 

NEW BUSINESS: BCAS Biomed

After a competitive pitch we are really excited to announce that we’ll be working with BCAS Biomed as their marketing agency … we’ve some great ideas including Direct Mail, Content Generation, PR and E-DM and can’t wait to get cracking …

 

 

Would you like to grab a coffee? …

I’d posted this last year but wanted to bring it to the front again as for us it’s the start of a new financial year and we’re looking to grow our portfolio …  This post is all about relationships and the sentiment behind it, and the ‘top tips’ are incredibly pertinent right now …

I’ve worked in the marketing communications industry for over 25 years and one of my key roles was to generate new business for the agency/company that I worked for.  Nowadays, as MD of my own agency, I’m building new relationships to help grow chicken/egg and I still use the same principles as they have stood the test of time!

Like any relationship, the client/company partnership needs work, it needs nurturing and, more importantly, it needs respect to ensure that it’s happy and enduring.

Of course, all relationships start with a first date. If there’s something that you like the sound of, or the look of, then you take the steps to organise that initial meeting and that’s when things can start to hot up.  It’s all about the chemistry!

You know very quickly whether this is someone that you’re going to enjoy spending time with, and if that box gets a big tick, then it’s worth taking the plunge and deciding to ‘give it a go’, now you need to keep them hooked with your great ideas and results.

So, after a successful start, and based on my experience, these are my top tips on how to build, nurture and retain relationships that will become serious over time…

COMMUNICATION:
It really is all about communicating. To have a fully effective relationship, both sides have to open up and be completely transparent.  So, for example, there’s no point me trying to write a marketing/PR strategy if I don’t know all the facts and figures – it’s tantamount to guesswork and can lead to assumptions. It’s better for me to have the full picture as it allows me to create and develop plans that are actually going to work.

Likewise, I need my client to keep me informed of what’s happening in their business.

These days with the technology we have available it’s so easy to do quickly: IM, Skype, tweet, email or text… or we can even use the good old fashioned telephone and speak to each other!

When the communication starts to fail, so does your relationship – we all know it, we’ve probably all experienced it.  So don’t let it happen to you.  Talking is the one thing that we can all do, so let’s just keep talking.

TRUST:
Trust comes with time, but in the early days of a relationship, it needs to be built.  This is a time to prove your worth and to prove that you’re trustworthy.  Again this goes for your clients as well.

Are they going to deliver on that budget they teased you with?

And are you going to deliver that ROI that you promised them when you pitched for the business?

Trust is something that is so easily broken. That, along with communication, is a key factor to ignore at your peril.

HONESTY:
When something goes wrong put your hands up and say so.  Have a solution and avoid any ‘Teflon’ excuses.

If you don’t feel that your client’s brief is going to answer their objectives – say so!

It’s no good saying afterwards that you didn’t think it would work, be up front about it and explain why, in your experience, you’re suggesting a different way of delivering the end product.

Challenging to ensure results ties in with the two tips above.  And clients should be able to tell you what they like and don’t like about your work.  In my industry creatives are notoriously defensive about their work (as I am I to be honest!) but constructive criticism and honesty about what they’re looking for ensures that time spent on projects is effective – we’ve come a full circle again to communication!

CLARITY:
I know that marketing/PR agencies have a tendency to write 100 words where 10 would be sufficient because it sounds more ‘creative’ and the presentation will look more ‘meaty’, but actually the reality is that less is more and getting the message across succinctly is a hell of a lot more important than how long it takes and how impressive it sounds.

Likewise with client briefs – you want to know the facts, you want to know the objectives, you want to know what they don’t want and ideally, you’d like to know the budget! Then let’s get talking et voila, you’ve cracked it!

PASSION:
No relationship starts without it and most relationships blame the lack of passion for their ultimate demise.  To keep ideas fresh and exciting you’ve GOT to be passionate about your client’s product, brand, service – and passion just shines through when you’re working with someone you like and respect.

And this in turn serves to strengthen the relationship as you enjoy your conversations; passion means proactivity – no one is resting on their laurels, things are getting done.

But you can never forget that however strong your relationship with your client there will be 100 other companies, just like yours, trying to woo them away … So don’t stop being the best you can be and don’t ever stop dating!

Marketing campaigns that make a difference

One of the highlights so far of the chicken/egg  year has been the remarkable success of our ‘Bahlsen Break’ award campaign.

Sponsoring good causes has always had huge a positive outcome for companies who benefit from the positive associations brought to their brand. From a local shop donating raffle prizes for the school fete to global corporate sponsorship, the associated positive ‘free’ advertising, increase in brand loyalty and fulfilment of corporate responsibility are evident.

Simple sponsorship is undoubtedly worthwhile, but benefits can be maximised for a specific brand by structuring the support given to a cause in a way which brings the most advantage to the client, rather than just ‘piggy-backing’ on an existing charity or event.

For Bahlsen, we created the ‘Bahlsen Break’ which invited members of the public to nominate someone they felt was deserving of a reward or ‘break’ for their good work.  The winner received £500 worth of Spa vouchers so they could treat themselves and 4 further selected runners up each won a hamper of Bahlsen biscuits, (further positioning the product as a luxurious and desirable item – a ‘treat’).

There were many worthy nominations, but ultimately the winner was mum-of-three, Lucy Mayer, who launched a lending-library of baby clothes called With a Little Love.  She was delighted to have won, but her charity also benefited from the publicity which we were able to bring, which has included local press, national glossy coverage plus a TV interview!  Bahlsen both supported and raised awareness for a worthwhile charity while also being associated with the indulgence of the prize.

The runners up included a husband caring for his ill wife, a foster mother who looked after scores of children and a twin who had given up her job to care for her severely disabled sister.  In each case the recipient was delighted to have been chosen and their stories brought traffic and content to Bahlsen related blogs, SM content and press coverage.

Campaigns such as these do not necessarily focus on the product but are a valuable marketing tool as well as genuinely making the world a better place – the perfect example of a win-win situation.  An element of cynicism surrounds any corporate sponsorship, but had Bahlsen Break not been created, these worthwhile causes would not have been recognised and the deserving winners, would not have received a much deserved ‘break’.

As long as it’s well-thought out, original and relevant campaigns such as Bahlsen Break can be the holy grail of responsible marketing.