Archive for the 'design' Category

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What’s the point of Marketing Communications?

Published on June 15, 2006 in ROI, advertising, branding, business, design, marketing, social media and strategy. 0 Comments

To keep your name in front of your target audience? Yes, but that’s really about long-term branding not revenue or ROI.

To support the effort of your sales team? Sure, that’s important but they typically are just looking for another excuse to call the customer. A new white paper, brochure, or sales tool is a great reason to reach out.

How about differentiating yourself from your competition? Interesting, but Marketing Communication (marcom) is simply the vehicle for talking about your true differentiations like consumer benefits, unique business model, industry leading features, etc…

I believe it’s really about changing behavior.

It’s easy to make money off of run-rate business – typically you don’t have to work very hard to keep it flowing. The real challenge is getting a brand new customer to buy. Becoming a preference in his or her eyes – now that’s a big deal (a long term, strategic, profitable big deal).

Marcom is the art & science of combining your value to the audience, your unique elements, and a reason to act NOW. I believe that a “call to action” is a critial component of any marketing communications effort. It could be as simple as a unique URL to visit to or some type of bundled promotion, but you need something to keep a new customer moving towards a purchase.

Marketing communications is about creating a bread trail for your audience to follow. Get them hooked, keeping feeding them value, and they will buy.

Measuring impact of design on business

Published on June 8, 2006 in ROI, design and marketing. 0 Comments

A couple of recent posts on measurement caught my attention (DMI event) and (UK DesignCouncil study).

It seems that companies that put an emphasis on design are elevating above commodity status. That makes sense. I know a lot of talk has gone into iPods. But for years now there have been smaller, cheaper, and arguably better MP3 players on the market; but Apple is by far the 800lb gorilla in the marketplace.

Design is about more than the look & feel or colors of a product. It’s a purposeful thought process that goes into making every aspect of the user experience better. It’s VW understanding that silicon-dampened grab handles are nicer than the ones that just slap back against the headliner. It’s Rally’s understanding that two drive-throughs are better than one. It’s Nike. It’s the Aeron mesh chair. It’s Starbucks versus Seattle’s Best. It’s Target versus K-Mart.

Companies that integrate design thinking are more profitable because it usually costs the same to manufacture a designed widget versus a not. Customers want to love their purchases. Good design does that. It starts conversations. It creates profit – and that is infinitely measurable.

Top 10 stock photo clichés

Published on June 7, 2006 in design, marketing and misc. 0 Comments

From forty media…

1. The Handshake of Synergy: You’ve made the sale and closed the deal. They can’t back out now—you shook on it!

2. The Flirty Customer Service Gal: Operators are standing by to take your call…and your heart.

See the rest…

So please, stay away from these worn out clichés. First off, no one looks like these people. How do you expect your audience to identify with you when you only use 25 year old supermodels in your advertising? Your customers are sick of it. It just shows how little you understand your customers.

Not that you have to spend mega-bucks on a custom photo-shoot; just put a little more thought and consideration into creating your marketing materials. As humans, we’re trained to only notice things that are different – things that stand out. If you put this level of effort into creating your collateral, you disrespect your customers and automatically lump yourself with every other business that thinks of marketing as an afterthought. Those businesses tend to focus more on their own products and services than how those products benefit their customers. No one cares about your product. People only care about meeting their needs and desires.

Creative Process Explained

Published on June 5, 2006 in design and marketing. 0 Comments

I thought this was a great explanation of the creative process. Most clients tend to want to dig right into design; but I like how this graphic shows that good design results from a lot of hard work and thought up front. I also like the importance of calling out “concept/prototype”. This is a critical step that I’ve seen agencies skip. You can save a lot of headache (read billable time) and effort by getting your prototypes approved before beginning the design phase. Clients will appreciate the fact that you are seeking directional approval before spending a lot of time.

Moral of the story: as a team (client & agency) determine why you’re doing this project, why now, what the audience will respond to, gain clarity of direction, test, then AND ONLY THEN move into the design phase of the project.

Indifference

Published on June 1, 2006 in design. 0 Comments

From metacool…

“The only real enemy of design is indifference.”
- Matt Kahn

It takes roughly the same amount of effort to great good design as it does bad design. With the exception of a few corporations, most are surprisingly indifferent about the design of their product and/or collateral. The prevailing thought is that it’s the job of the industrial design group or the marketing dept to figure out.

To be honest, I’m not sure why more executives do not appreciate good design in business. These same people understand the basics of fashion and typically know a great looking shoe or tie compared to a not-so-great looking one.

I think the creative community has built this reputation of secrecy around the creative process that needs to be abolished. On the whole, most people bring good ideas to the table – doesn’t matter their education, their title, or their background. Obviously these things factor in; but it’s naive to think that good ideas only come from creatives. Working together is the key. Bring the creatives and executives together to solve the business issue. Don’t just throw it over the fence.

Good design can make a difference. There are thousands of examples (Target, Apple, Starbucks, Sony, Audi, Dyson); the list goes on and on. As more and more markets commoditize, design has the power to elevate. It is a major factor in the overall brand experience. Customers can tell the difference and as more customers take greater control over their viewing and purchasing habits, indifferent businesses will feel it in the P&L.

Design & Business Inseparable

Published on April 25, 2006 in business, design, management and marketing. 0 Comments

Diego Rodriguez, from IDEO & metacool fame, has a great article on BusinessWeek about good business equals designing a good customer experience.

Successful business is about more than a great product. That may get a customer in the door initially, but their overall experience w/ your brand and customer service will keep them coming back – or never coming back. It’s very hard, almost impossible, to create loyal customers but as markets commoditize, the organziation w/ the most loyal customers wins. The power of blogs is the perfect example. Bloggers that love a product can create a buying frenzy and of course the opposite is true as well. If you are happy enough to talk about it, you’re satisfied.

Design is about more than thinking about look & feel or colors & fonts. You have to design the entire experience. You do not have total control over your brand image – your customers define your brand, not you. You can only hope to have everything in place in order to influence your customer’s perception of your products, services and offerings so that their perception matches your desired business strategy. Do what it takes to keep them loyal, it will pay off in every way imaginable – the first of which is profit and shareholder value.

“We do stuff”…

Published on April 21, 2006 in advertising, branding, business and design. 0 Comments

I found a great site you have to check out, thanks to Jill Konrath at Selling to Big Companies.

It’s a slightly humorous look (read: would be more funny if it wasn’t so accurate) at the typical PR/Design agency. I love their tagline, “We do stuff.”

As we at Cre8tive Group look into a website refresh, this is be one example that I will hold up as what to stay away from because it’s easier to talk about ourselves than it is to talk about what prospective customers want to hear.

Lessons:

  1. Keep your language simple, accurate and real-world.
  2. Talk about the benefits you provide, not about you or your products.
  3. People don’t do business with companies; people do business with people. Be likable.

Design Process Primer

Published on April 13, 2006 in design. 0 Comments

Great post from AiAlone.com. I’m anxious to follow the thread.

Since I’ve lived on both sides of the marketing world, client & agency, I’m still surprised at how many people make marketing decisions emotionally versus data-driven or strategically. I am constantly engaged in “I like” or “I feel” or “I think” conversations with clients. Not that personal thoughts are bad; it’s just that creative decisions should be based on how well the project objectives/strategies are being met. Opinions are usually political. And politics are usually personal agendas, not necessarily what’s best for the target audience.

A lack of understanding how the creative process works will always default to personal emotional requests. It’s up to the creative world to show clients that the creative process is a purposeful series of ideas and refinements based on the knowledge of audience needs/likes, technical requirements, experience, and the nature of the problem to be solved. Not to mention the standard best practice application of fonts, colors, and white space. Wrap all of that up inside the client’s brand guidelines (as well as project budget & timeline constraints) and you have the heart of the creative process.

Daily Quote – Project Mgmt & Design

Published on April 4, 2006 in design. 0 Comments

“Method goes far to prevent trouble in business; for it makes the task easy, hinders confusion, saves abundance of time, and instructs those that have business pending, both what to do and what to hope for.”
- William Penn

No truer words have been spoken when it comes to getting your marketing & sales projects out the door. As a Certified Project Manager, I naturally gravitate towards method as opposed to chaos.

But too often people feel that momentum is more important than purpose. Hence another old adage, “haste makes waste.” And there is no shortage of waste in most large corporations. The funny thing is that most creatives will identify with the above passages as well as project or marketing managers. For a designer to really put her best foot forward for her client, she must truly understand the what’s and why’s of the project. Having a standardized process that pulls out that information at the beginning of a project is critical to success. I’ve read that you can tell whether a project will come in on time and on budget as early as 15% into the project.

Put some method to the madness. And maybe the madness will slow enough to become more effective.

Creative Brief Part II: Audience = customers…

Published on April 2, 2006 in business, design and marketing. 0 Comments

I don’t know how many times I’ve seen the “Audience” section of a creative/project brief filled in with simply “purchasing directors” or “executives” or worse “customers”. While this may be accurate at the most basic level, it is far from enough information to base marketing/design choices on.

Much like the last post on creative briefs, the Audience section is more about why this project is important to the audience, not just their title. You should include demographics, psychographics, business concerns, and any other market research data you have available on this targeted segment of your audience. The more detailed the better.

Your message will be ignored if your message is not tailored to what your audience wants and/or needs to hear. Today’s consumers are too busy to take time to figure out how a particular product or service helps them.

Your marketing collateral needs to be:

  • easily understood
  • to the point
  • laden with customer benefits
  • easy to act upon the call-to-action

Don’t talk about you; talk about how your product will make their life easier, save them money, or make them a superstar. Put yourself your customer’s shoes. Figure out how they want to be communicated with (medium), figure out how often (frequency), and figure out what they need to hear in order to take immediate action (differentiated & benefit-focused message).

In order for your design team/agency to build effective collateral like above, your marketing staff needs to be able to clearly articulate more about the audience than their business title.