I'm in the process of writing an audit for a client on their marketing tactics and I had to stop to write this blog post.
Here's why.
As the president of the Indianapolis Marketing firm, Element Three, I get the opportunity to see into lots of different companies and how they're executing their brand and marketing strategy through different tactics.
Overwhelmingly the biggest mistake I see companies make - is that they execute various marketing tactics - like email marketing, social media, twitter, Facebook, sales collateral, websites and trade show events with no purpose.
What's the intent? What do you want it to do for you and then PLEASE look at the statistics, calculate your return on marketing investment and adjust accordingly.
What does this have to do with the title of this post about Element Three on Facebook?
Let me explain.
I wrote a post
Why Element Three doesn't have a Facebook Page in March of this year. The reason we didn't have one is because I couldn't put my finger on it's PURPOSE for us. Even though nearly every agency in town had a fan page and we were getting tons of requests to help clients with their social media presence - I couldn't justify the time and effort without a clear purpose.
A few weeks ago I became settled on the intent and purpose of Element Three having a Facebook presence. It's a back-stage pass to our office for clients and prospects. The happenings and goings-on will be posted - with pictures of the creative process and our team in action. We also have plans for special offers to be made available only to people who have 'liked' us - as our thanks for following us and adding value. The people and culture of an advertising agency is nearly as important as the work; and it is our intent to have this page be a window into our office.
So I ask this question - can you look at each of the marketing tactics you're working on - and clearly define its purpose? If not, stop - and don't do it again until purpose is established.
Oh, and next time you're on Facebook - will you
Like us?
I was having lunch recently with a good friend of mind who is a well known freelance writer in the Indianapolis creative community who has worked with many an Indianapolis ad agency or design firm. I've also spent about a third of my career as a freelancer. In that role, you get to experience many different corporate cultures...briefly. And you get a chance to note both the talent and, often, the dysfunction present in most agencies or design firms. I certainly did.
As a result, when it came time for me to hire creative talent as part of a brand marketing group or ad agency, I took into account not just the work in the portfolio but the personality of the interviewee. Would i want to be in stressful situations with this person? Could I trust them to come through with the work, on time? Would they be open to feedback? Would they be someone I would feel comfortable having in a serious client meeting? Craft skills can be improved. It's pretty hard to expect someone to change their outlook on life.
My friend and I agreed that this is the area where the most growth is needed in our industry. Luckily, I am a practitioner and also a teacher. Part of what I stress in the classroom is not only the ability to solve problems using the design process – but also to work effectively in a team in a positive, respectful way. I see many 'aha' moments as students come to realize the sorts of personal outlooks that hold them back from contributing to their fullest. They aren't about type, image, concept or layout. They're about their own lenses or perspectives on the world. So I aim to teach emotionally intelligent designers because that's who I'd like to help send out into our industry.
If you have experience in this area, stories to tell or are interested in this topic, I'd love to hear from you. (comments welcome!)
Recently, I was searching online for visual inspiration and I came across
this amazing collection of advertising concepts. As an Indianapolis ad agency, we often have opportunities to work with our clients to develop brand identity and other brand communications. But nothing comes close to the hilarity of these sorts of purely visual images.
Pure inspiration! Enjoy.
I have a meeting with a prospect tomorrow, and I'm nervous about it.
Let me tell you why.
- They have a successful business
- They have money to spend
- They know they need our help
- They have a new product to launch
Why am I nervous? because of #5
5. They don't have a business plan
Too many times we encounter this situation. Everything is in it's place, client's have money to spend, but they have not clearly articulated where they want to arrive.
Marketing is about taking you somewhere different than you are today. It's about creating a magnet that attracts the type of customers you are equipped to serve well. It's about creating growth at a pace the organization can support and sustain. It's about building a brand that attracts employees with similar values. Without a business plan, you are leaving the destination up to the marketing partner/ agency or team you are hiring. Think of the business plan as the map. Marketing's job is to help you determine the appropriate strategic marketing efforts to help get you there.
Without a clear destination, all of the brand strategy, marketing integration, strategic marketing planning or best brand strategy agency in the world will not get you to the desired result. The best thing you can do for our Indianapolis Ad Agency, Element Three or other partner you select is to give them your business plan. That way you know you'll arrive at a place you intended.
At our Indianapolis Ad Agency, Element Three, we help our clients increase revenue through three avenues (in any combination) Brand Development, Marketing Strategy and Creative Execution. In the interest of being transparent about how we're working to grow our business and making the marketing efforts on behalf of the agency be more effective, I thought it might be valuable to share with our readers a few tweaks we are going to be making to our blog to strengthen it's strategic value to the agency.
Side note: Writing posts consistently is an expensive waste of time if you are not working towards strategically leveraging it as an important part of your marketing efforts. If you are thinking of starting a blog (or have one without a strategy); identify your goals before beginning.
We write our blog for three primary reasons
- Potential employees or interns can read our blog to see inside the convictions and ideology of the agency when evaluating if they want to work here
- The content feeds the Element Three newsletter, an integral part of staying in contact with clients, prospects and partners
- Gather leads - you read our blog, think we're really smart - you contact us for more information
Here is a screen shot of our blog as it looks today:
As I was working with our blog partner,
Compendium, to identify ways we might be able to improve the conversions of our visitors - we identified a very obvious thing -
To contact us for more information; you had to link off of our blog, go to the Element Three website, and find the contact us page. What!! Three steps before you could contact me? So,
Change #1) add a big button that says contact us and links directly to a form & contact info.
Second thing, we currently only have white papers for people to read as a value-add to the blog posts. We also have a fantastic Assessment tool where people can learn where the low-hanging fruit opportunities are in their organization. People love the results of this Assessment when they take it, our biggest problem is getting people aware of it. Bingo!
We're going to add a link to the Assessment from our blog with a brief description. That's Change #2.Lastly, we have a place where we are asking you if you would like to sign-up for our newsletter. By signing up for our newsletter, we push the information to your in-box and you don't have to remember to come back and visit us (or set up an RSS feed). The sign-up process for our newsletter is equally clumsy to contacting us. Three clicks - and that's assuming you know where it is.
We are going to work with our HTML email provider, Delivra, to help us insert the appropriate code so you can enter your email directly into the text box and hit submit. A double-opt-in message will then be generated to confirm your subscription. Change #3.
We were starting to feel pretty good about ourselves - we have been constantly blogging for over a year. But, upon further review - we realized there were some significant areas where the experience for the user could be enhanced considerably.
Where is there opportunity in your marketing activities to improve in areas where you are already putting effort? Don't abandon a tactic too early, ensure you are doing everything to give it the greatest chance for success. If you're not sure, call us! (soon there will be an easy contact us button to do so!)
Many talented marketers wonder why the work they get from their design firms and ad agency partners doesn't stack up to their expectations, both creatively and strategically. One place to start if you want to build powerful, focused brand communications, is with your creative brief. At Element Three, we have developed a thorough creative brief format that assures that the fundamental questions of WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY and HOW get answered. It's true that most Indianapolis ad agencies have a creative job starter form of some kind. And the form alone won't assure that you get great work. The focus and finesse of the people who work with the form, however, will.
Some tips:
Demand focus in the objective for the communications.
Demand that a specific audience be outlined in the brief. You cannot speak effectively to everyone.
Expect to see specific, salient insights into that audience's lifestyle, values and demographics outlined in the brief.
Insist on a single-minded, unique main message. You cannot make great brand communications without it.
We like to agree on where and how the communications will show up. We also like to assure that there will be a specific call to action for the audience to make sure your brand communications get a real response. Contact Tiffany Sauder at tiffany@discoverelementthree if you'd like us to craft a powerful creative brief for your brand communications! It will make all the difference in the creative you hold in your hand in the end.
As our company gathered for our holiday party, we toasted the season. We also toasted the end of 2009...and it can't come too soon. It's been a tough year for so many in and out of our industry. Indianapolis ad agencies larger and more established than ours threw in the towel this past year. We've seen an unprecedented number of resumes making their rounds and many friends contacting us asking if we have work. We've felt the tight budgets our clients must live by as a result of the uber recession. We feel very fortunate to still be in business, working with a wonderful, diverse mix of clients. Our team is strong and we enjoy working together.
So here's to a better year for all in 2010. May it leave us all more prosperous and able to support ourselves and our families.
... was the title in an
article today on
Adage.com by local Ad Agency president, Tom Denari.
His focus was on the importance of getting past the rational feedback target audiences give you when conducting research and getting to a place where they are giving you their emotional reasons for making (or not making) a product or service selection.
"Isn't it common knowledge that consumers are motivated more by emotion than reason? Isn't that why brands exist? And, if we can agree that brands work on an emotional level, then why are we asking consumers to make rational judgments in testing scenarios? As soon as we ask consumers what they think of something, they stop being consumers and start becoming evaluators. They are now put in a position to think, to give rational feedback to something that is largely trying to affect their emotional or -- more accurately -- their irrational instincts. We've effectively made my mom the marketing director.
Even if a research methodology is trying to measure an emotional response, attempting to glean a valid, accurate response is almost impossible. The vast majority of this research requires consumers to use language to describe emotional responses. Unfortunately, humans have a very difficult time doing this. And even when they do, verbalizing emotion actually brings that emotion to a cognitive level. If it's cognitive, it's now rational and no longer emotional."
At our Indianapolis marketing firm,
Element Three, we have long subscribed to this line of thinking. That customers use rational reasons to justify their emotional impulse. Our Creative Advisor, Marcia Stone has created a proprietary research methodology, the Deep Dive or Brand Chemistry process, that gets to the emotional drivers behind a purchase decision.
The Deep Dive process is our most comprehensive approach to gathering customer feedback. Based on the work of Harvard Professor; Dr. Gerald Zaltman, Element Three has customized his approach to make the methodology available to small and mid-sized companies. This proprietary process captures the customer’s gut-level response to why they have chosen a specific product or service. This process can also be used to gather feedback to campaigns and creative approaches.
Through an experiential focus group, customers go through exercises and creative outlets to express their reasons for selecting a company's product or service. Coming out of this session, organizations will better understand how to focus their brand message towards the customer’s needs and how to quickly connect what you have to what they get.
For more information on our Deep Dive process,
click here.
I hope this doesn't make me sound like a curmudgeon. But sometimes I do feel like one. I love technology. It lets me get so much more work done, consider so many options, and communicate effortlessly with people around the country and the world. Today, I spent the day working on brand communications on my laptop – from bed with a cold. Working in an ad agency or a brand consulting group can be very time sensitive. So hooray! I can still be productive, even when I'm sick. And boo... I can still be productive when I'm sick.
My husband works every evening and weekend on his laptop. I can check my e-mail, voicemail and text messages from my iPhone...and so can he. All this constant communication can be a life saver. It can also cut into, well, life. This Thanksgiving weekend, I plan to cut off that constant communication and work for at least one day so that I can give thanks for all the other things I have in my life. So join me in taking a low tech holiday!
I'm going to tell you a dirty little secret. Creative people hang on to work that doesn't sell. They also hang on to work that doesn't make it to the presentation or ideas that led to the development of the final idea. OK, so far that doesn't sound very surprising, right? The surprising part is that sometimes, that work eventually gets presented as a solution for someone else's project. Is this bad? Not necessarily.
Sometimes, completely retrofitted creative is obvious because it hasn't been retasked properly. Rarely does a solution work just as well as is the second time around. But there might be a core idea that, with a few slight revisions or with some customization, works very well.
If you're a client and your brand consulting group or ad agency seems to do a lot of repurposing, you may have cause for concern. Every client deserves fresh thought; challenge the creative team if it seems as if the work isn't directed at your brand communication goals as directly as you would like. Ask to see their sketches; get involved in the tissue stage. And don't tell them you know about the secret.
After decades working in Minneapolis, Detroit brand consulting groups–and now working in an Indianapolis ad agency, I've seen a wide range of working styles. Here's a description of a work group I recently experienced. Do you recognize it? It's made up of cliques.
One clique is The A Team. They lead and do most of the work. Another clique is The B Team. They are jealous of The A Team and talk about them when they're not around. They also counter The A Team's arguments in group discussions. Yet another clique is The Hiders. They don't engage in discussion and don't step up to do work.
What caused this? Undefined roles within the team. The A Team assumed leadership without discussion. The B Team was angry about that. The Hiders were afraid of the conflict going on in the team.
The solution? The entire team met to clear up the assumptions and bad feelings in the team. Then they decided to redistribute leadership based on individual expertise. They established ground rules of operations too. These included the need for every person on the team to take a leadership role of some kind and to take on personal responsibility for doing their fair share of the work. Consequences for non-compliance were also established.
Today, the team is operating at top levels. The members trust each other. They feel like they are part of a united team that supports each other and is honest with each other. Can you say that for your team?
We use Compendium for our blogging partner. Of course, the purpose of (most) blogs is to let people know a little bit about the "real" you, whether an individual or company. In many instances, the way bloggers are found is through online search for a particular subject or item. For instance, maybe you're a fan of the "Arizona Cardinals" (hey, why not?) or "Native Americans living in Cleveland", or "talentless unemployed actors" (to save time, one could also type in "Carrot Top").
On to my point: when writing in Compendium, they provide targeted keywords, which help the bloggers (moi) keep on track. The more keywords used, the stronger the post. In true 21st century coolness, there's even a keyword strength indicator, where red means "Steve, stop writing about the Arizona Cardinals" and green indicates "you're the best blogger, ever."
Today, I'm going for the green. This will be the strongest, keyword-heaviest, blog post. Ever... So, if you were looking for any (or all) of the following, sit back and enjoy (alpha order for your viewing pleasure):
Best Marketing Plans, Brand Chemistry, Brand Communication, Brand Consulting Companies, Brand Consulting Group, Brand Development Services, Brand Development Strategies, Brand Identity Development, Brand Marketing Consultants, Brand Positioning Strategy, Brand Strategy Agency, Brand Strategy Company, Brand Strategy Consultants, Brand Strategy Firm, Branding Consultancy, Business Communications Indianapolis, Business Logo Creation, Certified Brand Strategist, Corporate Brand Strategy, Creative Brand Development, Develop Brand Identity, Developing Brand Strategy, Indianapolis Ad Agency, Indianapolis Advertising Marketing, Indianapolis Brand Consultants, Indianapolis Brand Development, Indianapolis Brand Management, Indianapolis Brand Marketing, Indianapolis Business Marketing, Indianapolis Corporate Branding, Indianapolis Marketing Agency, Indianapolis Marketing Communications, Indianapolis Marketing Consultants, Indianapolis Marketing Firms, Indianapolis Marketing Plans, Indianapolis Marketing Strategy, Indianapolis Marketing Tools, Indianapolis Strategic Marketing, Logo Creation Services, Marketing Brand Development, Marketing Integration, Marketing Launch Strategy, Midwest Marketing Partner, Online Brand Strategy, Return on Marketing Investment, Strategic Brand Consulting, Strategic Brand Development, Strategic Marketing Planning, Successful Marketing Plans
There. I've officially made Code Green with the strongest blog post, ever! Call Element Three today if any of that interests you. Or, if you'd rather talk NFL football (especially the Arizona Cardinals) or wish to debate who the best hair metal bands from the eighties are, I'm ready.
Min Basadur, author of The Power of Innovation and founder of Applied Creativity, has created the Min Basadur Creative Problem Solving Profile. In it, you rate a number of descriptors about yourself. The results help you to chart out your strengths and weaknesses as they relate to the four parts of the creative process (discover the problem/develop ideas/optimize solutions/implement solutions). If you think you're not a creative thinker, think again. There are parts of the creative process that require rational, critical thinking. As part of an Indianapolis ad agency, I can vouch for that. When we develop brand communications for our clients, we need the foundational elements of the marketing plan and brand brief to keep us on track. The sexy part of the process, developing ideas and optimizing solutions, is just the part that gets all the press.
At Element Three, we welcome all creative thinkers, whether they are discoverers, developers, optimizers or implementors. If you want to learn more about the Min Basadur Profile, go to
http://www.basadurprofile.com/
Have you ever started working with a personal trainer? What are the first few things they ask you?
1) What are your goals
2) What is your reason/ motivation?
3) What resources are you willing to commit? (time, money)
After a line of questioning similar to the one above, they will generally move into scheduling your physical assessment. Right? They're not just going to give you the workout program they gave the guy who trained before you; the trainer is going to customize it to fit your unique body and health situation.
Think about this exact scenario, but instead of it being your body you want to get healthy - insert your company that you want to grow. It's the exact same process, isn't it?
Any marketing partner or ad agency in Indianapolis or elsewhere should begin with your goals and objectives. And, in order to understand scope and size - your resource limitations need to be known as well. Everyone has time and money constraints.
Then, they need to understand your unique situation through an assessment. Assessments help marketing partners better be able to track return on marketing investment, to ensure marketing integration and proper prioritization of marketing communications implementation.
So, next time you bring in a new partner or begin planning for 2010 - be sure you have a thorough understanding of the environment you're working within.
So many of our clients at Element Three, an Indianapolis Ad Agency, ask us how they can learn about what makes their customers tick. Because we've seen focus groups get swayed by one or two vocal participants, we know they can lead marketers astray. Mall intercepts and interviews also focus on verbal feedback, usually in response to something.
At Element Three, we've learned that a far more powerful way to get past the surface of what your customers care about (and how they connect to your brand) is to find out these four things, in order of priority:
What Customers Feel: are they comfortable with your brand? do they align themselves with it publicly and proudly? do they feel emotional resonance with your brand? or do they feel disconnection?
What Customers Create: when given the opportunity, what would your customers create for your brand that would best serve their needs? what brand communications would they imagine to represent your brand?
What Customers Do: what actions do your customers most frequently take while interacting with your brand? what actions do they avoid? what actions do they associate with your brand?
What Customers Say: the last and probably least accurate/predictable source of client information
Through Element Three's proprietary Brand Chemistry Process, we can answer these questions, giving you far more meaningful and actionable information than you're likely to get from most qualitative research techniques. Contact Tiffany Sauder at tiffany@discoverelementthree.com to learn more about Brand Chemistry.
As an Indianapolis Ad Agency serving as a marketing partner to clients in today's tough business economy, we help our clients think about their businesses in innovative ways. One way to do this is to observe those
outside your industry. If you're trying to think of innovative ways of servicing client work or developing new products, rather than looking to direct competition, find inspiration in organizations that are far afield from your own.
– Mainstream grocery stores are now offering downsized grocery carts, approximately the size of two carrying baskets, encouraging frequent trips and single shoppers
– Apple Computer revolutionized the music industry with the invention of its iPod / iTunes platform, allowing effortless, inexpensive music downloads rather than trips to the record store or illegal downloads
– Frozen food companies are marketing single serve microwavable vegetables
– Micro-mini cars like the Smart Car are starting to become more popular
I've focused here on examples of 'smallsizing' only to demonstrate how you might find inspiration from various industries if you were considering service or product size/amount issues. From these examples, you might develop like ideas in your own industry that set your offering apart from the competition.
Often these examples can bring you fresher thinking than merely 'staying between the lines' of your own industry. It's freeing to let the content area go and just think big picture.
This morning I was reading "How to Create Experiences to Bring a Brand's Story to Life" by Jennifer Rooney. She interviewed Sohrab Vossoughi, who is the founder of Ziba Design, a product development firm. (Check out some of their impressive work at their website.) Vossoughi's answer to the final question made me want to shout a resounding, "yes!" (Although I didn't because my co-workers may have thought I was losing it...) Here was the question & answer:
So what brings consumers back for more?
"Design is the process of bringing the story to life. It's about making a connection between the consumer and the story. If you tell it to the right audience, then you create trust and meaning. Consumers want to love something; meaningful, authentic relationships are what consumers are after. You've got to go back to the core - focus on what your brand is about... Then you've got to use everything to bring that brand to life, and then consumers will come back again and again for more."
This is what we help companies do here at our Indianapolis Ad Agency. Through our Brand Chemistry process, we look inside your organization to uncover the "story" of your brand. Then we take a look outside at your audience - who they are, what they do, what they want. Once we have uncovered your own unique story, then we will begin the design process with your brand strategy at the forefront of our minds. This leads to creating visuals that will tell your story and begin to resonate with your audience.
Understanding your creative process is very helpful in making you a truly productive creative person. As a brand communicator, I recognize the importance of creativity (the moment an idea is conceived) yet much of the creative process is actually what I would call 'the heavy lifting'.
1. Research the issue
2. Define the problem to be solved
3. Confirm research
4. Redefine problem
5. Get inspiration for creative solutions
6. Generate ideas (this is the part everyone focuses on)
7. Select best idea to develop further
8. Optimize final idea
9. Get buy-in for the idea
10. Implement idea
At most ad agencies and design firms, number 6 is typically the focus. At Element Three, we try to give all ten steps of the creative process their full due so that, as your Midwest marketing partner, we develop creative solutions that truly solve your problem.
According to Jonathan Plucker, an educational psychologist at Indiana University who studies creativity, there are many myths about creativity. One of them is that you cannot learn to be more creative. In fact, Plucker teaches courses in creativity. I have had him speak to my students at Herron School of Art and Design and to the staff at an Indianapolis Ad Agency where I worked as creative director. Plucker says that there are many methods currently in use to help boost creativity and they tend to work if you believe they do. I've used deBono's Creative Thinking Hats, Monahan's 100 MPH Thinking and even developed my own idea generation called Smashing.
The reason these techniques seem to work is that they give structure to the creative process so that, as a brand communicator, I'm not starting with a completely blank piece of paper and the leap to get to ideas is not so far. The best marketing partners include their clients as part of the process instead of holding them at arms length at the moment of creation. At Element Three, we like to show rough ideas and have formative discussions with our clients rather than springing final looking ideas on them. This helps everyone understand the creative process, building comfort with the team, the process and the work.
If you are looking for an Indianapolis Ad Agency, I highly recommend that you find one that understands and can articulate its processes (especially its creative processes) clearly. I also recommend finding one that will build comfort with the creative process.
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