How to Design a winner by staying out of the way.

How to Design a winner by staying out of the way.

Mar 9, 2016 | Branding, Marketing, Small business

 

Few of us are designers, although most would like to think the contrary

Few things get stuffed up more than design, and it is normally because a good designer was nowhere near the project.

You did it yourself, or had the intern do it, the boss’s wife, or you went on line and got 55 alternatives for $99.97 and picked one with a pin.

Does not work, does it!

While running large marketing departments long ago  in my corporate dark ages, there were two simple rules:

  1. There was a rigorous process of the product managers doing what they were supposed to be good at, building a design brief based on the strategies, product value proposition, and profile of the target audience, and it was followed.
  2. Nothing went out without me seeing it, and if there were several options, the one I favoured least was normally the one that was chosen.

I am a very good and widely experienced marketer, but a crap designer. Fortunately for the many successful projects over the years I know my own limitations.

So, to the design brief, the heart of any design project.  Here is a short list of do’s and don’ts

Do:

  • Offer the designer a range of emotional words you would like the designer to communicate. If the product is a healthy food product, words such as “nutritious,” “fresh,” and “natural” are likely words, but if the product is a body building supplement, they are more likely to be “Bold” “aggressive” and   “masculine”
  • Ensure the designer knows as much as it is possible to know how the customer will select, interact with, use and dispose of the product when it is finished. The more the designer can put themselves in the mind of the primary customer the better.
  • Make sure you take a mock up or two into the typical outlet to see how it fares in its competitive habitat if it is a product that must compete for retail display space.
  • Leave the graphical elements to the designer, that is their skill, so don’t box them in by specifying fonts, colours, layout ideas, or any of your  preconceptions. However, if there are elements that are mandatory, such as a brand colour guide, or that will cause the rejection of a design such as using your photograph, it would be wise to ensure they were aware of the boundaries.
  • Test where possible. Digital products can be subjected to all sorts of A/B tests and they often throw up amazing results, but in any event, be prepared to experiment, and improve with the benefit of the insights gained.
  •  First impressions matter, particularly when the impression is by someone with some empathy for the category. When running those large marketing departments of FMCG manufacturers, I used to ensure that all the women in the place were exposed to the designs, as they were more representative of the typical buyer than the men in the department.
  • Finally, and most importantly, the design has to tell a story to the buyer, it must communicate what the product does in a split second, and why they should buy it.

Do Not:

  • ‘Crowdsource’ the preferences of friends, co-workers, and particularly your partner beyond the “which do you like” question. Going one more and seeking advice on how to fix the shortcoming they see is asking for trouble.
  • Stick with a design that once in the market is clearly not working. We all make mistakes, the skill is in recognising them early, acknowledging, fixing, and moving on.

 

As a final word, do not do the design yourself, it will most times be rubbish. Design is a fundamentally important and often abused part of the process of delivering value to a customer. Short cuts almost never pay off, they end up costing heaps in rework and lost opportunity, and keep the list of Do’s handy.

What fly fishing can teach us about lead generation

What fly fishing can teach us about lead generation

Feb 22, 2016 | Marketing, Small business, Strategy

 

When I can, I fish for trout with a dry fly in mountain streams. It can be cold, obviously very wet, frustrating, but oh the joy of the feel of a fighting trout on the end of a 2kg breaking stain line, and a light rod.

Often you sneak up a stream all day and see nothing, but sometimes, occasionally in unexpected places, you get  a rise, with luck and skill hook them, and with more luck and a lot of skill and experience, can bring some of them into the net.

So what has this got to do with lead generation?

Well, a lot actually.

Fish where the fish are.

There are places in a river where the trout are more likely to be, at the tail of runs, behind an exposed rock, under the banks, protected by overhanging trees. You can spend a lot of time fishing every inch of a stream, but if you need a feed for lunch, best spend your time going to where the best odds lie.

Patience

You rarely get lucky quickly, it takes time, perseverance and patience, as well as skill, and better yet, local knowledge.

Use the right bait

Trout are fussy feeders. In the really clear streams, you will sometimes see a trout come up ‘for a look’ and pass on the fly. When that happens, it sometimes pays to give a it a few minutes, and change the fly to an alternative. You know there is a fish there, you know it can be tempted, so trying an alternative fly sometimes pays dividends.

Blend into the ecosystem.

Being obvious ensures failure. Colorful shirts, noise, creating any disturbance in the surroundings puts trout off. They are timid, easily scared, and have very good senses that pick up anomalies. Alarm them even slightly, and you have no hope of tempting them to a fly.

Learn to stalk

When you find an ideal spot, and you know there is a trout there somewhere, spend some time watching, noting the nuances of the stream, observing the sort of food that is around, and how it behaves in the water , and particularly if and when your target comes up for a look or rises to take something. Then you have the knowledge to tempt them onto your fly.

The conditions have to be right

Trout are very sensitive to conditions. They will not rise if there is a storm coming, they feel the pressure differences, so they hunker down. Similarly, they rarely rise in the rain. Surprising really, a bit of extra water should not make a difference, but it does. Best times are early morning, when the sun has been up for an hour or so, and still evenings around dusk.

Luck plays a role.

J.P. Getty was once asked how he became so successful. His response  was ‘rise early, work hard, strike oil’.

Sometimes you just get lucky but if you are not in the river at the right time, with the right fly, and doing all the right things, by definition you cannot be lucky. Luck comes with hard work, engagement and commitment.

None of this is any different with Lead generation, it is remarkably like fly fishing. Every lesson I learnt a my old dads knees, hiking through the bush to find the right spots, wading up steams, learning the knots and skills of the sport is applicable to  commercial ‘sport’, where lead generation is an absolutely essential skill for most businesses, certainly all B2B businesses.

As we fly fishers say ‘tight lines’ .

Why many small businesses fail with digital marketing.

Why many small businesses fail with digital marketing.

Feb 16, 2016 | Marketing, Small business

Imagine you discover a compound in your kitchen that will cure cancer.

You know it works because it cured your mother.

That would be a really amazing feeling, to be able to make a huge difference to peoples lives, and find instant wealth at the same time.

Imagine further that you did  not tell anybody.

Your Mum knows, as do your siblings and a few others close to you, the old family doctor is sceptical, and your neighbour who goes to church a lot is downright dismissive, because it is clearly a miracle that has brought the cure, not a chemical.

The barrier between you and success is twofold:

  1. Lack of credibility
  2. Lack of an audience.

So it is with  marketing.

The newest iteration of marketing, digital, is not a cure-all for an ordinary product, non competitive price, lack of distribution underdone value proposition, or anything else that normally leads to failure in the market place, it is just an additional set of options to understand and manage.

You still need both the product customers want and the audience that knows about it.

One without the other is not of much value.

Most small businesses fail one if not both the tests.

No matter how great their product, how responsive their service, without an audience, people who know about what you do and care enough not just to shower praise, but to go out and buy it, and encourage others to do the same, they will fail.

Success with digital marketing is not easy, despite the nonsense to the contrary, but it is a capability now as basic as having a good phone manner was 20 years ago.

 

 

 

 

The dirty little secret of digital marketing.

The dirty little secret of digital marketing.

Feb 8, 2016 | Communication, Customers, Marketing, Small business

Achieving simplicity is really hard, we all know that in our guts.

There is however a huge difference between simple and superficial, and again, we all know that but tend to be persuaded to take the easy way out.

The development of a specific ‘Persona’ to which you target your marketing efforts is one of those seemingly simple  things we can now do with digital help, but in fact it is really hard.

Therefore, many make a token effort, and go away satisfied, but have in fact settled for a superficial result.

And then they wonder why the subsequent marketing efforts fail to deliver on the hype.

It is impossible to target a generic message to a 35-year-old middle-class working mother of two, and have it received in the manner you would wish. It’s much easier to target a message to Jennifer, who has two children under four, works broken hours as a lawyer, and is always looking for quick but healthy dinners and ways to spend more time with her husband and  kids, and less time on housework.

As a young marketing bloke we always developed a ‘target audience’ for everything we did.

In those  days they were generally demographic categories, which were pretty broad. If we were lucky and had big budgets, we had a Usage & Attitude study that gave us some insights into consumers behaviour, but were pretty superficial. The research relied on peoples memory, and willingness to actually recognise and admit to the behaviours that drove marketing decisions.

It was relatively rough and ready stuff.

Then  we used mass media to try and reach those demographic groups, hoping to find a few by chance who wanted to hear and act on what we were saying, or even were just prepared to listen.

Progressively we have been able to develop detailed pictures of customers and potential customers, those of our competitors, and those who might be interested in what we have to offer. We now can build a detailed understanding of their preferences and behaviour from a range of data sources,  can direct messages very specifically at very small groups of  individuals, and with many forms of media, specific individuals.

This power is unprecedented , and mostly it is ignored by small and medium sized businesses.

It enables the development of a four sided picture of those we want to reach.

Who they are

Where you can find them

Develop your target persona

Develop your target persona

What are their behaviours that are relevant to your value proposition

Why they should  buy from you

The flip side of the persona, the challenge  most marketers fail to understand sufficiency is that individuals now can avoid you should they choose. That array of digital targeting tools can be turned against the marketer, their messages in one way or another moved to the ‘Junk file’ never to be seen or acknowledged.

Why they should  buy from you, what makes your persona something relevant to a potential buyer?

Because you can solve a problem,  they like/trust you, and/or they engage and relate to you.

Successful selling is not about the transaction, it is the value you can deliver that is more  than the cost of the transaction, and it is about the empathy you can deliver.

In order to create a story potential customers can relate to, you need to develop some sort of story for the character.  Who they are, how they got here, what they have experienced, the obstacles overcome, their character flaws, all the things that make them human. You weave your own characters into the sales itch, and lead people to the conclusion you want them to reach, because you relate to them, they relate to you, your story is theirs.

This means you may need a few variations that accommodate differing ideal customer personas, but not too many or it becomes false and fabricated.

Let me know if I can help.

 

 

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3 stage elevator pitch that works

3 stage elevator pitch that works

Jan 7, 2016 | Customers, Marketing, Small business

 

Opportunities to deliver our elevator pitch often happen in social and unplanned situations, you just meet someone, and the automatic question is ‘what do you do?’

That is the opportunity for an elevator  pitch, rather than just a polite response.

You might deliver hundreds to those who are unmoved, but now and again, you can get lucky.

I have heard many delivered, and mostly they are a recitation of what someone does.

Not unreasonable given the question, but ineffective as a marketing tool.

For example, in my case, the typical elevator pitch would be:

“I am a marketing and strategy consultant with wide general management experience domestically and internationally. My background is largely in the food industry. Businesses with whom I have worked range from FMCG manufacturers, to those supplying into the FMCG supply chain with everything from produce, to raw materials, specialised ingredients and packaging, to services. The sorts of projects have ranged from  creating marketing strategy and programs, coaching sales staff on key account management, optimising  marketing effectiveness,  building collaborative farmer supply groups, optimising factory operations, contract general management, and everything in between. ”

This does describe me, but is pretty dull, and fails to get much traction.

To make an elevator pitch worth listening to, you have to successfully do three things:

  1. Get the attention and interest of the one you are speaking to. Best way to do that, perhaps  counter intuitively to most, is to ask a question.
  2. Having gained their attention, deliver the nature of  the service so that you  both know whether or not it may be of interest to them, or someone they may know.
  3. Finally, deliver the benefit that comes from working with you.

 

So, in summary it is a three part process:

Question: “Do you know that ….”

Description: “What I do is….”

Benefit: “So that…..”

 

Taking your own advice is sometimes hard, nevertheless, here it goes.

“Do you know that of the 250,000 businesses started every year in Australia,  70% fail in the first year, and only 10% survive 5 years?

What I do, is bring a depth of experience from across industries and functions with a focus on marketing, sales  and strategy, to small and medium sized businesses that they cannot afford and usually do not need on a full time basis.

That depth and breadth of experience radically increases their chances they are one of the 10% that survive, but more importantly, that they are one of the few truly successful businesses”

 

Try it for yourself, it does work.

7 steps to a certain sale

7 steps to a certain sale

Jan 6, 2016 | Customers, Sales, Small business

Forests have been denuded as ‘experts’ publish their complicated sales processes.

Most have value coated in all sorts of hyperbole, jargon, psychological puffery, and sometimes just plain old mysticism.

However, when you add a bit of plain common sense, the sales process while not easy, and usually somewhat complicated by circumstances and personalities, is simple to articulate.

  1. Find a potential customer who has a problem to which you have a solution
  2. Find a potential customer to whom your solution delivers value that can be quantified
  3. Find a potential customer to whom your quantified value is superior to alternatives
  4. Communicate the value you can deliver to that potential customer
  5. Tailor as appropriate your solution and payment options to their specific circumstances
  6. Make the case
  7. Take the order.

Now, to stop the killing of trees, even digital ones, and save yourself some time, figure out how to apply this simple framework to your products.

Need some help, call me, and have a great 2016.