Winning In the Age of Disruption

How do you maintain and grow sales in this age of massive disruption? Covid, world politics, rising costs and interest rates, staff shortages and general anxiety are smashing many businesses, affecting sales and profitability. How should we respond?

The game has changed. If we keep on doing the same thing and expect a different result, we delude ourselves. Is it time to make some active changes, investing time and attention in smart marketing?

Are you a Gatherer or a Hunter?

In the world of marketing, there are two types of business leaders: Gatherers and Hunters.

Gatherers grow their businesses by word-of-mouth referrals. They pick up customers more by accident rather than intentional marketing activity. They tend to get the low-hanging fruit of easy sales. I call this Passive Marketing and it is surprising how many businesses operate this way. Unfortunately, this is not working for many businesses anymore. Some of these passive marketing businesses are seeing a drop off in sales and are wondering how they are going to survive this next season.

In the age of disruption, the low-hanging fruit is being snapped up by the Hunters. Hunters don’t wait for customers to come through the door. They go and target new customers where they are doing life, and build a relationship with them. They spend time finding out what their customer’s pain points are. They use this information to create attractive solutions to their customer’s pain. Hunters are agile and prepared to adjust their products and services to solve customer problems, rather than trying to push their own agenda.

Once they know their products are good they develop engaging messages that connect with customers. They gain trust by answering questions that customers are asking. They provide value before they ask for a sale and they speak in a way that customers understand. They show their customers how their life will be so much better if they choose their solution.

Hunters know that they can’t win by relying on their direct sales alone. They seek to amplify their efforts through digital platforms that their customers are using. They go hunting on places like Facebook, Linkedin, TikTok, Youtube and Google. They know how to use email, digital advertising, and video to get attention and build a relationship to the point where they can ask for a sale.

Hunters are not happy with their website not coming up on the first page of Google. They are not happy if their website is failing to deliver leads or convert to sales. They are not happy when they invest in ads and have no way of measuring how effective they are. They expect to see results and take action when advertising and marketing fail to deliver results.

Courage is the main characteristic of the hunter. They are happy to put themselves out there, learn some new skills and give it a go. They are prepared to take some risk and invest in Marketing. If they can’t do this themselves they reach out for professional help to assist with this.

So what will it be? Passive or Active? Gatherer or Hunter?Hopefully, it will be happy hunting.

“Creativity is the variable that multiplies”

The headline above is a favourite quote from Gary Vaynerchuk (marketing legend) about the power of creativity to make a huge difference in your marketing comms. Here are a few more thoughts that I find helpful when it comes to creativity and marketing.

Rely on your uncertainty.

I’m not sure who said it, but my favourite quote that describes the creative process is:

“Build your bridge as you walk over it”.

Keep your options open to start with. Prepare for the feeling of uncertainty and going into the unknown. Believe that you will get to the other side with an idea that works.

Ideas don’t often come in a flash of blinding light. They start as a murky impression of unformed creative sludge. Ideas need to be nurtured and refined, pulled apart and knocked into shape. Then they need to be added to and built upon before they see the light of day and shown to others. In these early stages, there is a great deal of vulnerability and uncertainty but that is ok. When you are in the business of coming up with creative ideas for a living it is better to move from uncertainty to certainty, keeping your options open. If you start in certainty, you will often end up in uncertainty because you have not been open to all your options at the beginning.

Relevance is better than Originality.

When it comes to creative communication, trying to be original can be one of the biggest hindrances to creativity. It’s better to be relevant and connect effectively with your audience rather than trying to be original because most of us will never be truly original. Pablo Picasso is often quoted as saying:

“Good artists copy, great artists steal.”

I don’t think he was promoting stealing ideas. That can get you into all sorts of trouble. He was exaggerating to make a point. We all rely on influences and inspiration from others to come up with our ideas. Our job is to add our own twists and inflections to make the ideas relevant to the audience we are talking to.

Being curious and open to new ideas is important to keep your creativity fresh. Make a regular habit of looking for new ideas. Keep up to date with what is at the forefront of your industry. I am interested in a variety of magazines and websites across a few industries not just in my category. I am constantly grazing for fresh ideas or something I can include in my world to make my ideas the best they can be.

The more you create the more creative you get.

Creativity without action is a waste of brainpower. Someone once said that ‘Success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration’. I still think that is true. When it comes to creativity ‘Use it or lose it’. That is why I love this quote from John Steinbeck:

“Creativity doesn’t come out of thin air. It comes from practice. The more you do something, the better you get at doing it. If you sit around wishing you could paint or play music, you’ll never make much progress.”

There are no shortcuts when it comes to creativity. Be prepared to do the hard work to bring your inspiration to life.

To finish, here is one of my favourite quotes from Bob Dylan:

“Life isn’t about finding yourself or finding anything. Life is about creating yourself and creating things.”

So just do it!

How owning an idea in your customers mind is one of the most valuable results of successful branding.

Companies spend trillions every year trying to get their share of it. New Zealand’s most successful businesses invested billions last year to claim their piece. What is this highly desired resource? Forget about Auckland housing, this sought-after resource is the real estate of the mind. It is this ‘share of brain’ that companies are spending fortunes to secure, and every Kiwi business owner needs to know how to claim theirs to be successful.

Every great piece of good advertising is an attempt to plant an idea in your mind. But more importantly that idea needs to stay and grow into a permanent resident. One that becomes an old friend. One that you turn to whenever you need their help to solve a problem. Think about Google. Before they started in 1998 none of us knew what a Google was. One day you heard about them. The idea was planted. Now you turn to Google most days like an old friend, to solve any problem. They own that piece of your mind that needs to know answers.

What piece of mental real estate do you want your brand to own? Imagine if every potential customer in your area knew your brand name and the problem you can solve for them. Because once they know this then you are only one Google search away. They wouldn’t need to do a generic search where all your competitors are presented too. They would Google your name and then within seconds be on a direct path to your door. What would that be worth to you? To Google it’s worth trillions.

How do you increase your ‘share of brain’?

For this to be successful you need a marketing vision. Because increasing your ‘share of brain’ doesn’t happen overnight. It takes planning. Step out of your business for a few minutes. Think about the next three years and how much you could increase your share of brain. What if every potential customer in your geographic area knew your name? How many people would that be? What needs to change to reach this bigger group?

What’s your big idea?

Everyone knowing your name is not enough. You need to attach a positive reason to choose you. You need to articulate this positive reason with clarity. What do you want to stand for in the minds of customers? What problem do you solve for your customers? Put it into one sentence or a few words.

Wash and Repeat

How much are you prepared to invest in cementing your name and big idea into the customers’ minds? The number of times that a customer needs to connect with your message before they act has jumped up in recent years. Every industry is different but one thing is for sure, that number is more than once.

This is what branding is all about – owning an idea in someone’s mind. A brand is a brain tattoo. Something that won’t come off in the wash of the digital deluge that we call life. It takes continual energy to own an idea. Lots of others are trying to jump in front of you and push you out of the way. That is why most people find it hard to create content, communication and real connection. We Kiwis are sometimes too polite. But if you want to succeed in the digital world keep connecting, creating and communicating. Make it your goal to increase your ‘share of brain’ and the rewards will follow.

What is a digital marketing strategy and why does your business need one?

The average person spends more than seven hours per day engaged in some form of digital media, over double what they spend on traditional media. With that number rising, having a digital marketing strategy for your business is now more important than ever.

What is a Digital Marketing Strategy?

Your Digital Marketing Strategy is a roadmap to a purposeful and consistent relationship with your audience online. It’s how you coordinate market intelligence to deliver your business goals. It includes a buying journey, from awareness, to consideration, to transaction, to ambassador.

Where do you start?

Your Digital Marketing Strategy is a fundamental part of your overarching marketing and business plan. Be clear on what your business goals are, then:

1. Define your audience and create their buying journey
2. From that, develop your consumer engagement funnel
3. Prepare messaging and assets for each stage of that funnel
4. Define your KPIs and create a schedule of deliverables

But wait, do you know what stage of the buying process your audience is at?

How you communicate with your audience depends on what stage of the buying journey they are at. The last thing you want to do is give the wrong message to the wrong audience.

Brand loyalty is like having a best friend. It’s a relationship that builds over time, and has different stages that build on common interests and respect. Knowing what stage your brand relationship is at is important; you wouldn’t reintroduce yourself to your best friend every time you chat! A strong strategy has responsive messages tailored to each stage of that customer journey.

Having a good Digital Marketing Strategy is fundamental for businesses to be successful online. Want to know more? Talk to us about how we can help you with loveable branding and purposeful marketing.

One brand or multiple brands?

“Should I have one brand or multiple brands for each company division or product?”

Lately, clients have asked several versions of this question.

Many businesses start with one strong brand. If they have a range of products or services they tie these back to the parent brand. Then over time, they may get another business or they may look to develop a new product line that targets a different group of customers. At this point, they develop different brands for these new divisions. Before they know it they have a collection of different business units and a variety of products going in a variety of brand directions.

Then they have a difficult decision. Should they keep all the parts of their business aligned as one brand system or do they split them all off into individual brands with their own unique image and story.

In Brand World managing this complexity is called Brand Architecture and it looks at how all the parts of your brand or brands work together. One of the most helpful metaphors to understand this comes from David Aaker, a US marketing expert. He talks about having a Branded House or a House of Brands.

A Branded House is where you have one brand name and all the products and divisions include the master brand in their name. Eg Virgin has Virgin Records, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Wines, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Money and so on.

At the other end of the spectrum, you have a House of Brands. In this model, the parent company is almost invisible and the divisions or products have their own unique identities and logos. An example of this is Unilever who own many of our supermarket brands. Most people don’t know about Unilever but they do recognise Persil, Lipton, Lux, Jif, Vaseline, Choysa, Continental which are all Unilever brands.

Ups and downs of both models

A Branded House is popular for many businesses and seems the obvious choice. It creates efficiency for the company and ease of communication. The downside is that: It can be more company focussed rather than customer focussed,  it can alienate some customer groups, important products can be undervalued, and customers can be confused if a company sells very different products under the same brand. E.g. Should Ice Cream and Concrete be sold under the same brand?

A House of Brands lets you reach specific customer groups with a clearly defined and differentiated message. It allows you to be an expert in one category. It also can provide a safety buffer between brands in the case of bad press. The downside is that you need to increase marketing budgets to promote more brands, and the parent company takes a back seat.

The Branded House sits on one end of the brand architecture spectrum and the House of Brands is at the other end. In between, there are other configurations such as the Sub Brand and the Endorsed Brand. As you move across the spectrum towards a House of Brands, there is an increasing separation from the primary or master brand.

Sub Brands are still strongly connected to the master brand but all the company to create new associations, appeal to new customers or reach new niches. Sony Play Station is an example of this. 

The Endorsed Brand uses the master brand as a known or trusted name to add value to a new brand. It is like a celebrity endorsement. iPod from Apple is an example of this. 

How do you decide which way to go?

The main question to ask is ‘who is your brand or brands aimed at?’ If they are distinctly different customer profiles then you may need a house of brands. If the brands are aiming at different consumer categories then a House of Brands could be the way to go. Auto Repairs and Engineering fit into two distinct categories in the minds of customers. One would tend to be business to consumer and the other business to business. If your business provides both services you may want to consider developing two distinct brands. If you are focused on one category and customer group then the Branded House is the way to go.

So you want to build a website, but you’re not sure where to start? You might be a start-up business or maybe you haven’t built a website before and it all seems a bit daunting. As Nelson-based website designers, we have talked to many people from various backgrounds who want to build a website but who aren’t sure where to start.

To help you get started, we have developed the following questions which will enable you to discuss a new website in a meaningful way with a web designer. This is not an exhaustive list of questions, but it’s designed to get you started.

How much does a website cost?

The first question you most probably want to ask is, ‘how much does a website cost?’ As a web developer, it’s difficult to answer that question without knowing the scope of the website you want. Websites come in all shapes and sizes, from one-pagers to huge sites with many pages and special features. Before you ask, ‘how much does it cost?’, start by asking yourself the following questions, then your web developer will be able to give you a more accurate estimate.

1. What do I want my website to achieve?

‘What does success look like?’ This is the most important question to ask yourself, as it makes you focus on the results you want. Whether you want to increase brand awareness, educate your audience, attract visitors and make sales, appear on the first page of Google, build an online community, or encourage onsite and social media interaction, your website will have a purpose that will determine its content and features. The more focused and clearly stated your goals are, the more effective your website will be.

2. Who is my website going to help (your target audience)?

For your website to resonate with your customer, it needs to be designed for them to enjoy and appreciate. Ask the following: who are these customers, how old are they, what are their interests, their geographic location? What are their likes and dislikes? What will appeal to them the most?
Perhaps your audience is also strong on social media, so including external links to your social media profiles on your website is important and can also increase traffic across different channels. If you are selling a product (or selling your brand) to potential customers, are there key questions you can answer through your website, which will incentivise them to buy? Can you write a description of your ideal customer?

3. Who are my competitors?

An important exercise can be to analyse your competitors. Who are they and what they are doing? This is a great way to see what works and what doesn’t work well within your brand’s industry. Remember, you don’t want to simply match your competition, you want to surpass them.

4. What features do I want to include?

Think about what the must-have features for your website are and whether your web hosting provider will be able to accommodate this. Do you want to update the site easily yourself? Will the site need to gather contact details from visitors? Will the site need to provide eCommerce shopping? What other forms will need to be filled out?

5. How much content do I want on my website and how will I generate it?

To work out how much content you need, it can be helpful to think of your website as a book. Will it be a 5-page book or a 50-page book? This might give you a perspective on what is required to develop the written side of your website. Then think about how many images you might need to have on each page. A 5-page book may only need a handful of images, but a 50 pager will require a lot more. You may also want to have a video on the site as this is very popular and adds to the visitor experience. Will you want to include an infographic and animation too? These features will add time and cost to the project but can increase its effectiveness.

6. Do I have existing branding?

Your website is an opportunity to stand out and differentiate yourself from your competition. Branding plays a vital part in standing out and being remembered. If you have existing branding that includes a logo, colours, fonts and key messages, this will make the website design phase more efficient. If you haven’t done this part of your marketing, Downing can help you create these important marketing tools.

7. How will people find my website?

It’s no use having a brand new, beautifully designed website if no one can find it. It’s important to establish an online strategy and to make sure that your site is easy to find for search engines, like Google. Ideally, most of your traffic will come from your website showing up in search results as opposed to customers searching for you directly. It’s good to know what your expectations are in this area before your website goes live.

8. How am I going to get people to come back to my website?

This involves thinking about what unique features and interesting design aspects your website will have that will set it apart from other sites. Perhaps your website is super easy to navigate or aesthetically pleasing, or maybe it presents its content in a really compelling and innovative way. Whatever the reason, make sure your website is engaging enough that it will motivate your audience to return.

9. How do I measure my website’s success?

Set goals and objectives in advance so that after you’ve launched the website, you’ll be able to measure your success. Your goals could be related to search engine results, traffic to your website, online sales, viewers’ time spent on your site and more. However you decide to measure the effectiveness of your website, make sure the results make sense to you and provide insight into how your site has performed.

10. Am I committed to the long haul?

You’ve finally finished building your website, so now you can sit back and watch your creation represent your brand and engage your customers… right? Wrong! Good websites are always changing and evolving based on user feedback, optimisation and new technology and features that become available. Designing and building a website should always be an ongoing process – this is what will help make your site great. 

The answers to these questions will inform you on how you should build your website, what features it will include, how it will run and navigate, and how it will effectively market your brand and engage your audience.

WEB SITE KICK STARTER TOOL

To make it really easy for you we have made a Free Tool that you can use to create a document that you can use to brief a Web Developer.

Answer all questions below and then hit Submit and you will receive all the info in an email. Hey presto, you will be able to talk like a Marketing pro with your web developer.

DOWNING | Creative Marketing is a New Zealand-based creative agency and has helped many organisations in Nelson, Tasman and Marlborough develop their websites and their brands. We love to build websites that meet our clients’ expectations and deliver results that help grow their business. If you would like to talk some more about your website project, please fill out the form above and we will get in touch.

If your first reaction is to cut your marketing budget, when faced with a downturn, you should think again.

It takes courage to maintain or even increase your marketing spend when there is so much negativity flying around.

Research shows positive results for investing in marketing

Research shows that those who stepped up their marketing in previous recessions enjoyed success. Businesses that maintained or increased their marketing spend in the 1981 economic downturn grew by 275% over those that cut back¹. During the recession of 1991, businesses that increased their spending saw up to 70% increase in sales². There were similar results for sales and profitability in 2001, and 2007 downturns³.

Cheesy soap operas wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the Great Depression of the 1930s.  Radio advertising costs dropped dramatically at this time. Marketing giant Proctor & Gamble jumped on the opportunity and used their soap brands to sponsor radio dramas aimed at homemakers. P&G went into the depression between the 15th or 20th largest consumer packaged goods firm in the USA. By the time they came out of the depression it was the largest in the world.⁵

Marketing focuses on reaching new and existing markets, keeping your name and offer in the minds of customers, and delivers leads to your salespeople. It is a vital sharp-end of business growth. So marketing shouldn’t be the first thing you cut. 

“A man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time.” — Henry Ford

If competitors are withdrawing from marketing activity that will open the opportunity for you to jump into their place. It’s not a time to pull back, rather it’s time to push forward.

Even if you can’t supply customer demand at the moment you can still focus on building your brand with customers. Rather than solely focusing on short-term tactical sales, such as discount offers, allocate resources to promote your brand.

If you disappear from your customer’s minds then they may forget you or a competitor may take your place. History shows that recovery after a recession can be fast and furious. Those not prepared for it will miss out on the benefits of an economic upturn.

To start with, make sure you identify problems your customers may have and then clearly communicate how your business can help solve these problems. Then select the best platforms to start communicating with your customers.

It is unlikely that one marketing channel alone will deliver the results you are looking for. We suggest that you use many digital channels for marketing. Here are some tools that we are working with and seeing good results and will help rationalise your advertising spend:

6 effective marketing tools that get results

1

A website that has a clear customer journey and makes a clear value offer is vital.  Having eCommerce enabled is essential for many businesses now. Writing good quality website content that answers customers’ questions is still an effective way to generate inquiries.

2

Investing time and effort into a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform is an effective way to harness the power of digital. A good CRM comes packed with tools to help you prospect for new business, convert people into customers, can provide support after the sale and ongoing communication with existing customers.

3

Social Media can build a large audience that can be converted to customers in ways traditional media never could.

4

Like social media, digital advertising can reach new markets and increase your market share in highly measurable and affordable ways.

5

Don’t forget email marketing. It is still a great way to retain a strong relationship with existing customers.

6

Lastly, direct contact either by phone or in-person is often the best approach.

So, keep your advertising expenditures up unless your short term survival depends on it. Be wary of switching from marketing that builds your brand to price discounting.

Be sensitive to how your customers are feeling and show empathy and care in your advertising. You may even look for opportunities to help others who are struggling at this present economic times.

Keep sharing your brand good news, and if history is anything to go by the good times will return and so will strong sales and bigger profits.

References

1.  Advertising In A Recession (PDF)
2. The History of Advertising During a Recession (Article)
3. When A Recession Comes, Don’t Stop Advertising (Article)
4. Don’t Go Dark (Article)