It will come to nobody’s real surprise that I don’t always see eye-to-eye with these people. I also have an annoying habit of saying whatever pops into my head. That is a trait that has, admittedly, brought me into trouble on the odd occasion.

But these meetings can also be fun! I learn things. We argue about ideas. It’s the way it should be.

A couple of my recent ones have focussed a lot more on one central topic. What, exactly, is marketing?

Of course it’s actually a bit of a trick question. Marketing means so many things it’s impossible to be 100% right or 100% wrong about it. Just because your definition of marketing is different to mine doesn’t necessarily mean one of us is wrong (although, to be fair, let’s just assume I’m right, ok?).

I get asked this question a lot, so I thought I’d throw my hat into the ring and give some of my thoughts.

Marketing is not about brand

Marketing is not a pretty website

Marketing is not a Twitter account (or a Facebook page, a LinkedIn page etc)

Marketing isn’t about direct mail

Marketing isn’t sending an email campaign

Marketing isn’t about your database

Marketing isn’t about design

Marketing isn’t a quick fix or a quick win

Marketing isn’t about print

Marketing isn’t a brochure

That’s lot of negatives isn’t it? Don’t worry, this all has a positive ending :-)

Now before you send me a bitchy email. Of course all of these things can fall into your marketing. Of course they can (and some of them absolutely should). All of these bits and pieces can be combined to form a coherent and powerful marketing package for your company. There is only one problem.

First you need the plan.

This is the source of most of my arguments. Particularly, I have to say, when I talk to creative agencies (ahem, sorry, ‘marketing agencies’). The majority of them do what you’d expect them to do. They react to a brief from a company. They get asked to provide a new brochure – they do it really well. They get asked to design a website, it’s a thing of beauty. That’s all well and good.

But it’s not really marketing.

Those are just things.

Too many companies get fooled into thinking that it’s the tools that matter. It isn’t. You have to know what the job is before you start picking the tools.

So what is marketing?

Marketing is about linking what you do with how you do it and who you do it for. That’s a terrible way of putting it, but it’s true.

Marketing is about profit

Marketing is about focus

Marketing is about growth

Marketing is about your customers

Marketing is about your staff

Marketing is about your products and services

My company focuses on this side of marketing (the real side, right?). We don’t concentrate on building pretty pictures or making Facebook pages. We don’t concentrate on leaflets or brochures. We concentrate on where sustainable and profitable income streams can be found. We concentrate on business models. We look at opportunities. We figure out strategies to achieve all of these things. Only then do we pick the right tools for the job.

So my advice is pretty simple. Stop worrying about your website and your advertising. Stop thinking an email campaign will save the day and Twitter is the path to salvation. That’s all bollocks. Before anything you have to be on a firm strategic footing. You have to know where you are, where you want to go and how you are going to get there. You have to understand how you fit. You have to understand where you fit.

There are a lot of things that need to be thought of before you rush off to do the creative side of marketing. Don’t be one of those companies that misses the boat eh?

- j

Quick back story. I was actually walking to the train station this morning and I pressed the play button on my iPhone. It randomly selected some Kenny Rogers. Me being a fan, I let it play and, as I heard those lines, business ideas started to creep into my head.

As I wandered through the streets of Edinburgh at 0630 listening to Kenny…those four lines sort of jumped out at me:

You got to know when to hold them
Now when to fold them
Know when to walk away
Know when to run

It jumped out at me because it reminded me of a conversation I had with a company just the other day.

They have the cards (to continue the, possibly tortured, metaphor) and they are in the game, but they really don’t know when to hold or when to fold. And regardless of whether they walk or run, they don’t even know what direction they should be heading.

The starting point to our conversation wasn’t positive. We didn’t start well.

They believed they should be looking at one thing. I firmly believed they needed a much deeper conversation. It wasn’t really a conversation they wanted to have. It really wasn’t. But my company had been referred by someone they trust, so they stuck it out, and we are all very glad they did.

Back to my point. It’s a bit of a throw-away line to say “don’t confuse tactics with strategy”. A lot of people use it. It’s annoyingly popular, but it is also very true, and in this case, it got to the route of the problem.

There a a lot of tactics you can use to market a company (or a person, a product….whatever). Lots of tactics. Like so many other parts of a business, the problem lies in the preparation.

To put it another way: you can be the fastest runner in the world, but if you’re pointed the wrong way I’ll still beat you to the line. A good athlete will combine the extraordinary physical nature of their sport with a real understanding of strategy. Strategy to compete. Strategy over competitors. Strategy to maximise performance. There are very rarely situations where pure power, speed or talent succeed without being lead by a strategy to succeed.

And yet, when it comes to marketing, so many companies launch into it without really understanding what it is, where it can be applied and where they need to concentrate. They talk about ends, not means. That’s all well and good, but you can’t get to the end without a thorough understanding of the means.

Marketing means a lot of things to a lot of people. I can ask ten different people and I’ll get ten different answers. There is one thing that is universally true. If you don’t know where you are and you don’t know where you’re going, you’re wandering in the dark being guided only by hope.

To me, that’s not a smart business bet. Far better to invest the time and money to develop a proper strategy. (in the long run, it’s also a lot cheaper when you make less mistakes)

- j

How social media works. Hmmm… or doesn’t work. Or works sometimes. Or never.

Kind of depends on who you speak to. Kind of depends on who you are.

Before I met them all, I did actually take a bit of time to think about what I would  say (hey, I’m a professional, right?). I also thought a bit about the people I have heard speaking about social media and what they had to say. It wasn’t a happy time. It confirmed, for me at least, one of the core problems we’re facing right now:

Social media ha sa lot of people convinced they are Tesco. Or at least that they are playing in the same marketing field.

(here’s a hint. You’re not)

I like social media. A lot. I can see how it can develop further and I like the communication model. We’re just going to have to get through the childlike period we’re in now. It’s the same thing that happens anytime we have a new technology or set of tools at our disposal. The first thing that happens is a lot of people appoint themselves as experts (pardon me, ‘gurus’) and go off to make money convincing the unaware or uninitiated that this is the ONLY THING YOU NEED! Email marketing was the thing right? It’s the best way to communicate with your customers, right? It’s easy to prospect new customers, right?

Except when it isn’t. Which is a lot of the time.

Back to my Tesco analogy….

A lot of people who talk about social media tend to use the big boy analogies. This is how Dominos screwed up. This is how M&S are doing it. This is how you engage your customers with your brand.

Who gives a shit? You’re not a national brand. You’re not recognisable. You’re not even in the same stadium.

What matters to your bottom line is way way (WAY) different.

See? This isn’t a rant about social media at all! It’s a bit of a rant about marketing in general.

At the SME level, marketing is a very direct activity. It has to connect directly with your bottom line. It has to connect directly with your networks and your surroundings. It can’t be abstract. It’s got to be a concrete building block.

And social media can be a tool you use. It can be a tool you use to communicate, to interact, to promote, to inspire loyalty, develop a wider network. All of these things.

But at the heart of your social media strategy has to be a solid marketing strategy for your business.

Otherwise you’re just pissing in the wind.

- j

It’s been a nice time away, but I’m back now, and that means that I’m back to putting my thoughts down on a (semi) regular basis.

To kick off 2011, I thought I’d do a little bit of the old ‘back to basics’ routine. It’s time, I thought to myself, to dust of the ‘simple stupid’ tags and remind people what I mean when I repeat (and repeat and repeat) that simple mantra.

Marketing is simple (stupid?)

I’ll amend that. 80 % of Marketing is simple for 80% of us.

When I talk to SME businesses (large of small) the challenges they face are more or less the same. They want to build a stronger customer base. They want to build better customer relations. They need to be more efficient. They need to increase their sales.They need to…well I think you get the point. It’s a pretty narrow list that applies to the vast majority of businesses.

In short: We need more of this and to get better at doing that.

Marketing can seem like a bottomless bit for these companies. How can they know it will work? How can they guarantee results? How do they know investing will be worthwhile? Who do they get help from?

The truth is, they can’t be guaranteed anything. If you’re looking for 100% guarantees, buy a hoover.

What I will say is that a lot of them over-complicate what marketing means for their business. This is precisely what I mean when I say that ‘Marketing is Simple, Stupid’. It really is simple, it just needs to be planned for, and executed, properly. That’s where good advisors (ahem) come in.

Sometimes this over-complication really isn’t their fault. They get sold a lot of crap (that’s a technical marketing term, BTW) from people who, essentially, talk crap.

They get sold big ideas. Big ideas are great. Big ideas are wonderful. But big ideas tend to be high-level ideas, and that’s not necessarily the first steps you need to take to improve your bottom line. It’s the simple stuff that really kicks it off.

For 99.9% of SMEs, it’s the small steps and simple processes that will make the biggest immediate impact. This is even more true when these ‘small and simple’ things are tied together with a comprehensive strategy.

So what ‘small and simple’ things do I look for in any SME strategy?

1. Database Segmentation – most businesses have a pretty decent sized database. That’s great, but you need to get the database working effectively. Not all contacts are equal and not all contacts should be treated in the same way. Prioritise and segment your database properly and it becomes a vital tool. (And there are lots of great pieces of software that will help you do this)
2. Communication Structure – I’m always amazed at companies that haven’t really thought through their communication structure. It’s not just about ‘who’ you communicated with – it’s also about ‘what’ you say and ‘when’ you say it. If you have a rigorous communication structure that has been well implemented into your CRM system, the work is, more or less, done for you. You don’t have to think about when you need to contact people and you will never let contacts slide.
3. Cross-Selling/Up-Selling & Referrals – A lot of business, particularly at the SME level, is done through people you already know. Clients return. Clients refer. Your network refers. How many times are you really using this effectively?
4. Focus, Focus, Focus - Anyone who has ever heard me speak on marketing has probably heard me use that beautiful (little) word over and over again. I do it for a reason. It’s important. At the SME level, you can’t afford to waste time and money going after things that aren’t going to make you money. You have to focus on the bets opportunities that will offer you the best profit. Too many companies I meet spend their marketing time lurching from target to target like a drunk looking for the loo. That’s a pretty low-rent analogy, but both end up pissing money away…

The bottom line is – 80% of effective marketing for SMEs is simple.

And the other 20%?

Well for that, you can contact me here….

-j

But lately it’s occurred to me that I should share a bit more. Most people are pretty clueless when it comes to marketing strategy in general, and I think they are always surprised by the depth we go into our clients’ businesses. You can’t create strategy by skimming off the top – you need to go all the way in and really get a feel for it.

Over the coming weeks, I’m going to elaborate a bit more about the areas we look at when we are developing a strategy for a company. If nothing else, I hope it brings a bit more of an insight into the different areas that you have to think about when you’re looking to expand a business.

So. What’s coming up?

In my company, we’ve developed our own formula (which we’re constantly improving and tweaking as we face new challenges with different industries and businesses) for how we go about creating a marketing strategy, and the first step is the research and analysis phases. We normally call this the ‘Getting To Know You’ part of the project, and it involves a pretty heavy amount of external research coupled with a lot of exploration into the company itself. We follow the same formula for every company:

1. People & Personalities
2. Capacity
3. Products & Services
4. Marketing Activities
5. Sales Process
6. Financials

That’s it. Six critical areas that we need to understand about our clients before we can even begin to draft up a strategy for how to move them forward.

Some of these may surprise you. Some of them may seem outwith our remit and, in some ways, you’re right. The problem is that implementing a new marketing strategy isn’t just a case of creating a campaign here or a new brochure there. It’s not about sending letters and phoning people.

Implementing a new marketing strategy into your business is about making wholesale behavioral change in your organisation.

I’ll give you an example. People who know me, know that I’ve been making a very very conscious effort to change my lifestyle over the past year. For lots of reasons (a tough 17-day trek across the Antarctic being one) I’ve needed to lose weight and get back into shape. A lot of people my age say that.

How many of them go through with it?

If you live in the US, you’re constantly bombarded by new opportunities to lose weight. Crazy diet programmes, gastric bands….the list is pretty long. The problem with a lot of these solutions is that they don’t address the route problem – if you want to lose weight and keep that weight off you have to change your lifestyle.

And that’s exactly what I’ve done. I’ve changed my eating habits, my diet, my exercise routines…everything. The only way to make a fundamental change stick is to change your behaviour.

And that’s why we look at the areas we do. That’s why we care about the personalities and how they interact. It’s why we care about capacity and systems. There is no point in us developing a marketing strategy that doesn’t fit with how our clients will work. We need to know that.

So over the next little while I’ll expand a bit deeper into the different areas we look and why it’s so critical to our success. And hopefully it will be interesting.

Or maybe it won’t be. But guess what? This is coming to you free so you aren’t allowed to bitch.

(at least not to me)

- j

No, today it’s a perfect summary of one of my pet peeves – doing speculative work. Giving away the milk.

It’s particularly bad in my industry (not so much for me, but for the creative agencies) who have had a lifetime of putting together wonderful pitches, with wonderful visuals they have spent days to develop, only to have the clients turn them away (whilst nicking some of their ideas). It’s a sad, but all to common, fact of our industry.

And I hate it.

I also refuse to do it.

(I have to admit I’m in a much stronger position to do that, since our work involves heavy research and strategy, and that’s not something you pull together in a couple of days. But I refuse to do it on principle anyway.)

I got to thinking about this because I met a fascinating woman yesterday who is in the early stages of her new business. Obviously talented. Obviously successful.

But as we talked, she told me a bit about one of her recent experiences with a potential client. She had done some up-front work for them on faith, only to have them walk away once they got what they wanted. She’d given away some of the milk, and they felt they didn’t have to buy the cow anymore.

The result? No new client for her, and probably a bungled job done by the ‘client’.

A lose-lose situation. Fantastic. This brings me to why I hate speculative work – false pipelines and false expectations.

I’m always slightly surprised how many companies continue to waste their time talking to people who plainly aren’t serious about hiring them. Why do you bother? It wastes your time and, some times even worse, it lulls you into thinking your pipeline is a lot bigger than it actually is!

It’s easy to fool yourself, especially if you’re running your own business. Back when I started, I put everyone down in my pipeline if they seemed remotely interested in hiring my company. How many times did I do that until I learned? Probably a couple of years.

What you find when you do that is that you have a bunch of ‘open’ opportunities that never seem to close. The warning signs? They want another meeting. They want a bit more time. They call back a couple of months later to ‘revisit’ the idea. 95% of the time that’s them trying to get some more free advice. 100% waste of time.

I’m no sales trainer. I’m not an expert on negotiations. On the other hand, it seems to me that one of your core jobs, if you’re selling to someone, is to convince them of your value. You have to get them to believe in you and what you can do.

Giving away a huge amount of work for free will probably get you a lot of interested looks, but my question will always be this: how serious an opportunity are they?

I have some basic rules that I have developed over the past five years in business:

Rule 1 – Two Meetings
I’ll more or less take a meeting with anyone (within reason). You never know how you can help each other and I like to keep an open mind. If it turns into a sales opportunity I give it two meetings to get to the proposal stage. Within reason. If it’s for £100K of work it may take you more, but you get the idea. If we’re not there after two meetings, I put them on the ‘chancer’ pile and focus elsewhere.

Rule 2 – Nothing is Free
When I had a car, I never asked my mechanic to fix it for free to see if he did a good job. We agreed a price and I paid him. The same applies to almost every industry and, chances are, it applies to yours. How much do you de-value what you do by giving away bits for free? How much do you prolong a sales process with people who will never buy from you?

Rule 3 – No Money. No Work.
This probably doesn’t apply to every industry, so this rule can be optional for most people. When I start work with a new client, we always take 50% of the project (depending on size) upfront. Trust works two ways. You need to trust that I can deliver the goods, but I need to trust that you’ll pay me. until we establish that relationship, we’re in unchartered territories and you need to come up with the goods before I start my company moving.

I think they are good basic rules. Simple, clear and effective.

So every time you’re thinking of doing a huge load of work for free, perhaps you should imagine your gran looking down disapprovingly at you as you stagger in at 3AM?

(or just remember the rules)

- jordan

You can probably guess, but the underlying message/topic today is about customer service and communication.

I like Apple. A lot. I have a 100% Apple office, and I’m what I like to describe as an Apple Slut ™. I have my iPhone4, my MacBookPro and my iMac. Oh yeah, I also have two iPods.

I can’t help but admire (and get significantly annoyed) by Apple’s approach to customer service and communication. Take the iPhone4 launch. Brilliant! Anytime you go into a store, they never have any stock. Do they know when new stock is coming in? Nope! Why would Apple help you out by telling you when you are going to get new phones in? It’s up to you, the customer, to keep checking in and hoping.

And guess what. It works. Again and again. I couldn’t stop checking the stock updates.

Not many companies can get away with this.

I’ll give you a flip story. My flatmate is a painter/decorator. He’s excellent. More importantly, he really wants to do the best job for his customers. He doesn’t want to ever let them down.

A couple of months ago, and old friend of mine asked for a recommendation for some tradesmen to re-do their flat. I had no hesitation in recommending my flatmate. He’s done everything. He’s organised everyone. He’s managed everyone.

I was speaking to him last night and he was telling me about how annoyed he was at one of his guys. Turns out he didn’t show up at the job. No word of warning. No preparation. The result? The client (my mate) was really (and rightly) annoyed.

Customer service isn’t always about getting everything right. A lot of times it’s down to managing expectations and communication. It’s a simple phone call. It’s a follow-up. It’s an apology.

Most people can handle when things go wrong. Most people can accept that this is something that will always happen. Where they get annoyed is when things go wrong and their is no attempt to handle the situation.

Unless you’re Apple, I wouldn’t try the ‘treat ‘em mean and keep ‘em keen’ approach. It’s probably not going to work. Instead, make sure you’re always communicating openly with your customers. It’s the easiest way to retain them and get them to become good referral partners.

And that’s easy business.

j

* in the interest of full disclosure, I do have to say my service from the Apple Store and Applecare has been amazing. So they do make some sort of an effort.

I like reading up on Franchise opportunities. They all boast about having ‘world-class marketing’ (where did that phrase come from anyway? It sounds like some sort of weird advert for hoovers) systems in place that will guarantee that their franchisees will make tons and tons of money.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I was always told that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

The reality is most franchises fall down in translation – translating what they found successful in one area into another one. This isn’t as easy as it seems, and it’s a critical part of developing a marketing strategy for your franchise.

Repeat after me: All marketing is local. All marketing is local. All…you get the idea.

What works in one place won’t necessarily work in another. What works for one type of customer will turn another one off. You simply have to understand the local market before you send your new franchisee out to sell. If you don’t, they’ll get frustrated and accuse you of shoddy marketing. And they’d be right. Just because it worked in one area doesn’t mean it will work in another.

I speak three languages. That’s not bragging, it’s the truth. When you’re translating from another language, you very rarely do it literally – you almost always form your words in a way that will make sense to that new language. You adjust for your new audience.

It’s the same with marketing. When we create a marketing strategy for a franchise, we look to adjust it as new franchisees come on board. We translate it into the local market – taking advantages of what the local opportunities are.

Go on, say it one more time: All marketing is local.

- j

(this was originally written for The Franchise Gap)

I’m really a very nice person. Honest. I like puppies and everything.

(actually I f*cking hate dogs)

But anyway…I’ll get back to my point. This kind of occurred to me after reading a post on LinkedIn asking for recommendations for a good (and cheap, of course…it’s always got to be cheap) PR & Marketing company.

Why would you ever want to combine these two? They are separate skill sets. They have separate experience and separate applications.

The problem is, I can see why they asked. It’s not their fault.

There are so many companies out there that claim to be all things for all people. There is a HUGE problem in our industry of conflating entirely different skill-sets. This leads a lot of companies into doing work they just aren’t good at, which this leads to disappointment and, ultimately, a damaging reputation hit. I love seeing design companies that make great claims to marketing strategy, or website companies that make great claims to design. More often than not they just aren’t very good at one (or, to be honest, both).

So which is it? Are you a PR company or a marketing company? Are you a design company or a sales company? Do you actually have a focus and understanding of what you’re good at? Are you actually  good at any of the things you list on the ‘our services’ section of your website?

So in the interest of full disclosure:

I can’t design, I don’t do websites and I’m only an amateur hand at photography.

I’m also not a PR expert and I don’t claim to be.

I’m not a Sales trainer and would never pretend to be.

I’m not an Event Planner and I won’t ever be.

(should I go on?)

What I am good at (and consequently, so is my company) is figuring out how to make money for my clients. How to find income streams, how to bring products to the market, how to build a brand and how to expand. We’re good at building companies. We’re good at clarifying companies. We’re good at reaching out to new markets and new opportunities.

Our role is to develop the long-term strategy that will bring our clients the requisite return. We’re a marketing strategy company. When it comes to implementing that strategy (be it advertising, design, PR etc.) we bring in the best. And we get the best out of them.

I would much rather be a master of one than a jack of ‘jack shit’.

- Jordan ‘sweetness and light’ Fleming

When I talk to people in business, and I mention I am in marketing, most people assume I am a designer of some sort or another. “So you build websites?” I get asked a lot, or “So you can design me a business card or brochure?”

Yes, but that’s not the point.

The problem is that most people think of marketing as a thing. It’s a leaflet or an advertisement. It’s a brochure or a website. And that’s true, up to a point, but it misses the real truth of how marketing is effective. Thinking of marketing as a product (ie. the ‘what’) means you’ll miss the real areas you need to look at in your business.

The truth of it is, there are lots of great designers out there. There are lots of way of putting something together that will be effective. The end products are the easy part of marketing.

The hard bit which, conveniently, most creative companies aren’t very good at, is figuring out why something needs to be done and how it can be implemented. The hard bit is understanding the profitable areas of a business and charting out where this business is, how it can be obtained, and what the easiest routes are.

Too many companies ignore this, particularly when it comes to the SME market (where marketing tends to be a knee-jerk, ad-hoc, affair).

Without an effective strategy, marketing activities tend to flounder around and not go anywhere fast. It’s hard to go anywhere, when you’re not sure which way you should be pointed (and why that’s the right way to go).

Starting with the ‘what’ is completely ass-backwards. You need to start out with how, why and where to really get structured marketing strategy that can bring you a proper return.

-j