by admin | Dec 9, 2011 | Blog, Strategy
Is your brief, too brief?
We are not talking about showing too much skin, but we are talking about improving your bottom line.
When you measure the success of your marketing project it is dependent on how well your marketing agency met your expectations. But, how do they know what you are expecting? It’s all in the brief!
Consider a dating site, you fill in the questionnaire and it doesn’t ask you some critical questions…what’s the likelihood that on your first date you’ll end up with Mr/Mrs. Right? Highly unlikely! Asking the right questions, leads to the right outcomes.
So, it makes sense that if you only tell your marketing agency half of what you really want them to do, they will never be able to fully meet your expectations. You don’t set out to withhold information from your marketing agency, but if they don’t ask all the right questions…. it’s not surprising that they won’t know your full expectations.
Take the situation of a B2B company, perhaps one with a smaller budget, chances are they have only ever completed a handful of briefs to agencies. Brief writing is hard to do and takes experience to master. At qubePartners, a marketing agency and advertising agency, all in one, we assume that our clients need guidance with completing their briefs. Our briefs are specific and detailed; they are simple, yet comprehensive and all online.
In many cases, the first step with our clients is not receiving a brief; we undertake a marketing audit or brand health check, a review of all existing communication and how effective it’s been or ineffective. Then we work on their advertising or creative brief collaboratively to reach a better return on investment.
Make sure that when using a marketing agency, they know you and your brand inside and out, and if the brief seems too brief, then it probably is!
See qubePartners resources for all briefing needs…
by admin | Oct 20, 2011 | Blog, Strategy
Social Media is all the rage, it is generating buzz online and in traditional media and every man and his canine is either a self-proclaimed “guru” or is ready to hand over their hard earned dollars to someone that claims to be one!
It wasn’t too long ago that we went through the same experience with websites and everyone who was able to “get you on the first page of Google” – oh wait that is still happening today! Sarcasm aside here are some facts and recommendations that will assist you in making sense of what to do next!
DISCOVER THE THREE MOST IMPORTANT REASONS TO GET EXCITED ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA
There is a lot to be excited about, and most small business owners, and professional services firms are getting in on the action; setting up Facebook Fan Pages, Twitter profiles and forming connections on LinkedIn.
Much of the excitement however is based on the fallacy that Social Media is free and easy, neither of which is true. However there is much to get excited about. Marketers who have been using Social Media have achieved some great results* for their brands:
- Increased Exposure – 85%
- Increased Traffic – 63%
- Qualified Leads – 52%
- Closing Business – 48%
*Ref: 2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report – www.socialexaminer.com
Here are some more statistics that should make you excited if you are an SME business owner or a marketer working in the SME space…THE OPPORTUNITY is greater than your wildest dreams:
1. Between 40-65% of Australian SME’s still do not have a website.
The stats vary drastically depending on which research you subscribe to, however one can safely say that at least 50% still don’t have a web presence. An out of the 50% that are now online at least 90% have a website that is:
So just by having a professionally designed website that does the above you will be in the top 5% of your industry segment!
Unfortunately in 95% of cases engaging with a “professional web design agency” will not solve many of the challenges above – for this you will need to work with a marketing specialist that assist you in answering these questions. Start by downloading qubePartners Check and you will see what we mean!
2. Almost 25% of Australia’s full-time workforce now has a LinkedIn profile and almost 11% of this 2 million-membership figure, reached this week, are small business owners.
This means that 89% do not have a profile. As someone that looks at hundreds of LinkedIn profiles every day and runs both free and paid “The Art & Science of LinkedIn” workshops on LinkedIn, the 11% who are on LinkedIn do not have profiles that are optimised to “doing business” online! To see how you can use LinkedIn to find, attract and retain customers, register for our Free 1 Hour Workshop
3. This week The Age Small Business ran another article “Social Media for Small Business:
Where to Start – what was amazing about it was the Comments by the readers and the result of the Survey, which highlight that many of the readers (professional white collar professionals and small business owners) still don’t understand how Social Media fits into their Marketing landscape and hence do not see the benefits! Another massive opportunity for those that gain this understanding now – ahead of their peers and competitors!
by admin | Oct 16, 2011 | Blog
It’s easy to feel that we are all at the mercy of market forces. They affect individual consumers and enterprises. Daily we are bombarded with statistics, most of which are useless to us as consumers and entrepreneurs. Why? Because we as individuals cannot control the market, so rather than feel helpless, I say why even worry about them?
People sell shares and companies lay off staff, all based on their perceptions of what will happen, while our governments attempt to “talk up” the economy!
This article is not about all of the empirical data that shows companies who continue marketing during a downturn, increase sales and come out with greater market share and improved brand loyalty when the good times return. No, enough has been already been written about that, although the majority of manufacturers have not heeded the advice. So, I’ll try to simplify it:
“When everybody goes one way, you should go in the opposite direction.” Words to that effect have been attributed to some pretty successful entrepreneurs like Richard Branson. So why do we as a business community react so emotionally and irrationally? Because humans are emotional beings and because emotions are much more powerful than logic. If you are smart then you can use this knowledge to your advantage and connect your products or services to the emotional needs of your customers! It’s called branding!
I say ‘who cares’ to the “SAGE SME Business Sentiment Index 2011” quoted in Manufacturer’s Monthly:
- 4 in 10 feel business is performing better than in 2010.
- 1 in 10 feel it’s performing worse
- 5 in 10 feel there is no difference
How does this information help the individual enterprises? It doesn’t.
The conclusion is that manufacturers are realistic about their situation, but really who cares that rising costs and cash flow have become less important while sales and efficiency are now at the top of the priority list. I would have thought that they should always be at the top of the list.
As a marketing consultancy we ask our clients to be ‘unrealistic’. If you do what you have always done, that is be a follower of the market, then you will get what you always got!
According to “SAGE SME Business Sentiment Index 2011” twice as many manufacturers want to invest more money into sales than other types of businesses, if only they had the budget!
So what does this mean to you?
- Manufacturers tend to invest less into Marketing and Sales activities in the first place
- Not having the budget just means the manufacturer’s objective is actually not that important to them.
- Manufacturers that do invest into Marketing and Sales activities wisely will be going ‘against the market’ and should prosper.
Australian manufacturers need to start taking marketing seriously, to remain competitive and relevant. They need to become educated about marketing disciplines, at least to a level where they can effectively engage with marketing professionals. Manufacturers need to adopt an attitude that has long been adopted by smart job seekers looking for a position in a tough employment market – what matters is not the % unemployment but whether you can land that one perfect job.
So stop looking at ‘the market’, stop following others, stay positive, and develop strategies to create positive perceptions in the mind of your customers and prospects so as to find, attract and retain customers and then continuously test, increase and improve them.
Manufacture your future; whether it’s a failure or a fortune, it’s up to you!
by admin | Oct 13, 2011 | Blog, Content, Strategy
You are not reading the review about the latest marvel of German engineering as it glides through some secret track testing location in Stuttgart! I’m talking about utilising points of view to propel your business into top gear with better content strategy online and more results driven copywriting for your marketing collateral, blog, website, social media, etc.
1st Person Narrative:
The story is relayed by a narrator who is also a character within the story, so that the narrator reveals the plot by referring to this viewpoint character as “I” (or, when plural, “we”).
This point of view needs to be used very sparingly in marketing, as it takes the reader or the message recipient’s focus away from themselves and we all know that station “W.I.F.M – What’s In It For Me” is the only one that the audience listens to.
2nd Person Narrative:
Probably the rarest mode in literature (though quite common in song lyrics) is the second-person narrative mode, in which the narrator refers to one of the characters as “you”, therefore making the audience member feel as if he or she is a character within the story. Every good advertisement, PR story, blog entry, sales letter, email, etc takes us on a journey, it tells a story, no matter how short it is, it is interesting enough to engage us.
Second person narrative is the most useful and proven method of engaging with your audience and influencing them through the written word positively to: buy your product, perceive you differently, take action, vote, etc
Unfortunately most authors of SME marketing materials, do not utilise copywriting in a scientific manner and do not treat it as multiplied salesmanship!
The “we’s” on the average website outnumber the “you’s” at a ratio of at least 2 : 1, and show, in a subconscious way, that an internal focus, rather than being customer focused.
On the other hand if you look at work by customer focused marketers, you will find their copywriting utilising “you v we” ratios of closer to 3 : 1 in favour of “you”.
3rd Person Narrative:
Third-person narration provides the greatest flexibility to the author and thus is the most commonly used narrative mode in literature. In the third-person narrative mode, each and every character is referred to by the narrator as “he”, “she”, “it”, or “they”, but never as “I” or “we” (first-person), or “you” (second-person). In third-person narrative, it is necessary that the narrator be merely an unspecified entity or uninvolved person that conveys the story, but not a character of any kind within the story being told.
This is the preferred point of view of the bigger ‘corporate’ organisations. Unfortunately, in many cases, the customer or prospect walks away from the experience with this big brand feeling as if they are a “number and not a member!”
Third person is however useful when you need to:
– convey a more authoritative tone
– sound more objective than first or second person writing.
Although third person is the language we’re used to reading in our daily media, third person writing is also more distant, which is a disadvantage if you want to engage your reader.
Reminder:
As we all know, marketing success comes from adopting a customer centric point of view; what we all sometimes forget is that it is important to communicate this point of view, after all if you don’t illustrate this to your customers, they simply won’t know. Perception is Reality.
Are you connecting with your customers? Call the Marketing Network and see how we can improve the perceptions your customers and prospects have about your business.
by admin | Oct 4, 2011 | Blog, Promotion, Strategy
According to a study by research company Millward Brown, slogan or brand positioning statement usage in advertising has been declining over the last 20 years.
The study found that slogans make a difference in advertisements, and generate more interest from the target audience. The Knowledge Point study, found that two-thirds of all ads actually included slogans.
Ads with slogans that part are of a jingle received higher enjoyment while slogans that have been used before also enjoyed better branding, confirming the importance of consistency and repetition.
The study provided the following advice to marketers and their brands:
- Positioning Statements that are most likely to be remembered are included in a jingle.
- Positioning Statements should be relevant and meaningful to the brand, its benefits or its history
- Positioning Statements used to make sense of the whole communication are memorable because they bring about a resolution to the “question” being asked
- Positioning Statements slogans that use rhyme or alliteration to associate with the brand are more easily remembered
- Positioning Statements that evoke memorable images or stimulate thinking have more staying power
- Distinct Positioning Statements, whether they contains an unusual word or are used in an unfamiliar context, were also found to be effective.
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