Nice information ask here from trend spotters, PSFK.
They call it ‘need to know’ – I hope they do.
It includes a request for twitter id – first time I’ve seen that on an email newsletter sign up form. Interesting that they choose to put it so high up – under your name – the second field to complete.
I just bought a pen, a beautiful pen and shared my email address with the supplier – top luxury brand, Mont Blanc.
A week later I got an email, beautifully crafted but inappropriate message. This is not the way to say hello and welcome to your new customers. Launching right in with a sales message…. How about a welcome, a short autoresponder about the brand and explanation setting out expectations for the relationship?
We’re working for a lovely creative client, Global Culture, who design t shirts and gifts with a New Zealand “kiwi humor” twist.
Global Culture NZ World Star Wars Day t shirt designs
Their designer, Russell came up with some fun Star Wars designs and we suggested promoting them around the May 4th, World Star Wars Day event. [May the Fourth Be With You – in case you didn’t get the oblique reference.]
The stats go up to 2nd May – so there was more to come.
During the process we found a great blog post we found from UPrinting – Entrepreneurial lessons from Star Wars. Worthy of your time for a quick read.
The local business incubator here in Auckland is called The Icehouse. It’s an impressive place buzzing with activity.
Creative Agency Secrets was asked to prove its salt by giving some free consulting to a new organisation, DirtyMan.co.nz Perversely, it is all about keeping men clean!
Avoiding costly product launches
The team is a start-up and was looking to gain profile without too much hard cost. Our suggestions included:
Prioritising your time and money
We time showing DirtyMan how to prioritise their decisions with regard to which promotions to spend money on and how to pick the ones that would give the best return. They were considering a radio show sponsorship, leaflet drops to households and joint promotions with other non-competing brands.
For a startup, we think the best promotions are those that
We recommended assessing any joint promotion based on the size and quality of the database of the other company. And so a sports team sponsorship that has a supporting newsletter (especially an electronic one) and a Facebook fan group is probably worth more than a radio show with no mailing list.
What were the outcomes?
Here’s what Tracey Orange, the owner had to say after the briefing with Creative Agency Secrets:
Yes I did find my meeting with Rebecca useful, we have been busy talking to lots of people over the last week or so and I guess I am taking bits from everyone I speak to, and then formulating our plan from here.
After meeting Rebecca we are going to use some of her suggestions, one was to get out and meet our customers face to face and we now are looking for a cheap promo vehicle brand up and use for onsite promos and events, (if you know of any old land rovers for sale please let Mike know), she also gave me some good things to be talking to organisations we want to align with and not to be just giving stuff away but to leverage product for contacts database names and she also suggested getting hooked up with a clothing brand or similar and then the next day we spoke to someone who is going to see about hooking us up with a menswear clothing brand so fingers crossed.
Would you like access to our ideas? Think about how to apply these to your own brand.
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Getting fabulous creative work from your marketing agency depends on the brand team giving the best possible brief to set up the work. Writing down what you want from your campaign and collaborating with the agency to agree the full terms of reference for the work you are commissioning is of the utmost importance.
You may be finding a new marketing agency to work with or briefing in new campaigns for your existing agency.
Both require communication of the utmost clarity.
And so whether you are a brand who uses agencies; a brand who has an internal marketing department or an agency wanting to use best practice with your brand clients, here are two slide decks and a blog post which will help you to write the best possible creative brief.
Thanks to Dare who created this slide deck as a training event for their internal staff.
In the deck the authors show good, mediocre and poor ways
How To Write A Creative Brief, by True Digital
1. Procedure/mailing list
Make sure you keep your company contact information up-to-date on a regular basis and take your time to add new contacts you gain throughout the year.
A good way to control if your contact details are up to date is by including your return address so that the post office will return the card if the address is no longer valid. It will also serve a dual purpose by providing your contact information to your recipients.
2. Timing is everything
Don’t send your cards late, set yourself a deadline. December 15th is a convenient cut-off date for having your cards in the mail. If you’re sending business Christmas cards internationally, they’ll have to be in the mail much sooner. Here are some helpful links for recommended Christmas mailing deadlines: NZ Post, AUS Post, Royal Mail, USPS, Canada Post. If your Christmas card arrives after the holidays, you have just sent the wrong message to your customers. Read more