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.
Are you a business that gives away your content free (as we do)?
Pay With a Tweet
Want to get some reciprocal publicity from your work?
Take a look at Pay with a Tweet from the creative folks at Innovative Thunder
We got a free download e book from Naked Marketing Manifesto
They got promoted using our twitter account
Symbiosis and ‘payback’ all in one!
Related articlesFormer client, Ctrl-Shift, is a strategy consultancy focusing on personal data and its use online.
They realised that the landscape of personal data availability online has changed hugely in a very short time and despite hysterical outcries about Facebook privacy settings, it is an important area that both brands and consumers should be knowledgable about.
Their concept of “personal data stores” is a really interesting concept that is being built out – imagine you, the consumer, setting the ‘terms and conditions’ for a brand to access your personal information?
It’s called Vendor Relationship Management read more here and here.
But see their great Personal Data infographic published in full with a brief snapshot below showing the 2012 situation…it describes the landscape for legislation, technology, entrepreneurs, corporates and consumers and looks forward in scenarios for each to 2017.
Ctrl-Shift the Personal Data Landscape future
Rob Lane my colleague recently wrote a first draft of a new proposal for a client brand and I was delighted that he chose to insert a new section header,
Imagine an agency telling a prospective client – not one we’re working with already – that they had to actively participate in delivering to make the marketing programme effective?
I love it.
Now I’m recommending we put this into all new client proposals. It’s authentic and transparent and gives the brand clear boundaries and guidelines that will help us give them exactly what they hired us to do.
What do you do in order to improve your client briefing and agreements?
What does a modern creative brief look like?
Call our Rescue service for advice on crafting your perfect brief
Corey Eastman is the new business director at top user experiencer agency, Teehan + Lax. He approached us saying “your blog is on my daily RSS feed along with other agency sales blogs. I try to stay up to date.” And we were so flattered, we asked if he’d like to be interviewed.
Corey Eastman, Biz Dev Director
The Agency of the Future to me is all about balancing the client agency relationship. In the past it’s favored the client and the agency has been reactive. Blair Enns I’ve met a few times and I’m very influenced by his philosophy. I look back to what he talks about – agencies being specialized and focused using conversations rather than presentations and being selective about who you work with.
I found the Teehan+Lax philosophy on the company page of their site.
John Lax and Jeff Teehan are two super smart guys. When we started out, we chose not to rely on the legacy of working models passed down from old agency world as the basis for our new company. Instead, we challenged the conventional formula and created a new approach and process. Even as we’ve grown in size and scale, we still are committed to:
My background is competitive athletics – I played professional hockey which almost made competitive sales a natural transition for me. I’m very driven and I have a strong passion for success.
I think it’s all about communication and sharing stories and ideas. Reading, writing, speaking, listening and body language / personality. I did toastmasters and they are very good at honing speaking skills; get formal sales training and invest in a company that will invest in you – I did the IBM program; take ownership and read blogs; read books (Spin Selling is my favourite).
Marketing and sales are converging – the reason I think is the internet. It’s put the consumer in control. The buy/sell process – which has become more digital. We are moving from conducting business offline towards being mainly online. John Lax always says “we have to create more value than you capture” quote from Tim O’Reilly. Read more
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.
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