Getting things done is the difference between the successful and the rest.
Book on Objectives and Key Results
I like to prioritise tasks for myself on a grid or importance and urgency – but this is just a short term day task management tool.If you have big projects that will achieve your goals, you need a better system.
A workable workflow
Introducing OKRs – Objectives and Key Results – a toolset that will help you align focus, engagement and get the team aligned.
Working within a team is challenging because each person can contribute massively as either an accelerant or a brake on progress.
I’m a rower and the sport of rowing is often used as a metaphor for workplace teamwork. The lessons I learned from sport carry through into my working life. I’ve enjoyed hiring sportspeople because they understand many of these techniques already.
Pick a toolset that works
Rebecca’s rowing business Faster Masters Rowing
Having a hierarchy of tools helps you both in the day to day and also in the longer term. The bigger a project the easier it is to lose focus and direction as you dive into detail, it’s hard to see the bigger picture of your overall progress…. or lack.
An important feature of OKRs is pacing. Setting the speed of work that is manageable.
This book explains what OKRs are and also a detailed example of ways to set them up which you can copy in your business.
Now, get going…!
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https://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/OKRs.png7581466Rebecca Caroehttps://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CAS_Logo_1line_RGB.jpgRebecca Caroe2020-08-20 17:32:232020-08-14 12:48:46Tips on Getting Things Done
Are you trying to understand how your marketing needs to change?
This article sets out the themes which you can use in your own firm to help discern the new rules, the new landscape and the new markets we are now trading in.
The new marketing reality
Nothing is clear. This is obvious.
But that’s hardly helpful for us marketing people who need to keep on creating campaigns, keep on filling funnels and keep on pushing our recovery efforts after lockdown.
Signs are emerging about what consumers are interested in and where they will look favourably on brands.
I am regularly scanning the world looking for examples and inspiration of what can be done and how you can do it for your brand.
What consumers value
Top home-stay business Look After Me surveyed their audiences and found a distinct shift in sentiment.
Instead of favouring flying on holiday, most now prefer car travel; most prefer to book with local companies to “keep money in the NZ economy”, and most now prioritise accommodation “cleanliness” over price, comfort and wifi provision.
Financial and economic news website, Interest.co.nz asked its readers what they value. The answers were clear from the start – every single segment of reader who was surveyed came back with similar views. Two quotes suffice
Your people have a better understanding of fringe issues, more reliably, than any other NZ news outlet. Your reporting on these peripheral matters shows incredible strength. And that makes the world better.
With the woeful quality of NZ journalism it’s my only trusted source of financial news.
Clues about the new priorities can be found from a range of commentators. Some have been “banging this drum” for a while, others are interpreting new data.
I look to global trends as well as industry-specific experts when trying to find a pattern worth following.
Mark Carney, Central Banker, says the “The economy must yield to human values“. By this I interpret that people matter over profit and that the capitalist model of pursuing profit over all other goals is being challenged.
She realised that kindness isn’t weak but strong: a foundation from which to grow a business that has truth, integrity, longevity and commerciality. As we move away from a time of rabid consumerism and ‘peak stuff,’ Mary believes we are entering a new type of economy. One built on kindness and a Triple Bottom Line: people, planet and profit – in that order. And business who organise themselves around this kinder way of behaving, will be the ones that win.
And Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist, interprets apparently polarising reactions to the same situation in terms of “moral intuitions and values”. In this way, relaxing lockdown provokes both protests against restriction of liberty from social distancing and protests about growing exposure to harm by going back to work. Both can be understood from underlying moral values.
In the context of Brexit and the lockdown, he found
Remainers placed more emphasis on the value of care and the need to minimise harm, whereas leavers placed more emphasis on the value of personal liberty. When evaluating an action or a policy, remainers would ask “will this cause harm?”, whereas leavers would be inclined to ask “will something restrict our freedom?”.
The moral values of your brand now matter. The alignment and prioritisation of your internal teams across departments will be different now. Your emphasis on the planetary community needs to be interpreted into both the bottom line and operational mores.
This is tough and will definitely evolve as fear of infection subsides and rises with waves of the pandemic. In New Zealand now we are feeling relatively safe – lockdown is in Level 2 and we are back at school and work. Compare our situation to Brazil or New York and value will be very different.
Here are some themes which may emerge – to what extent does your brand and business subscribe to these?
Local resilience > global efficiency
High corporate debt > riskiness of underlying equity
Will the state continue to be engaged within private commerce?
Is resilience > risk now?
How are tail risks managed?
We all understand the fear of unemployment now.
The price of everything = the value of everything, including global heating.
Economic dynamism and efficiency ≠ solidarity, fairness, responsibility and compassion
What is the new Maslow hierarchy?
Values and needs are realigning.
Now that we fully realise the deep inter-dependency of our global community, will this change our prioritisation about health, wellbeing, global supply chains and personal independence (doing what I want) compared to communal dependence (doing what WE need)?
Can we learn to trust experts again?
Will our approach to climate change (surely the biggest existential threat to our way of life) be adjusted to reflect these new values and to form a new consensus on priorities compared to risks?
What did your company do during Covid-19?
Writing the history of this period can wait for now.
Yet I am certain that the judgements will fall on brands and the public perception of where they were before and after the emergency passes will be based on “people” outcomes not “profit” outcomes.
I bet Greg Foran wishes he was still at Walmart and hiring thousands of new workers rather than at Air New Zealand and laying them off.
This will have the resonance of “what did you do in the War?” and whether you judge the outcome to be “good” or “bad” will depend to a large part on the consumer’s view of whether you were a hoarder or a generous giver; whether you laid off staff, furloughed or retained staff; whether you hoarded resources or paid over the odds to acquire over others or whether you generously supported others.
Adjust brand positioning
Once you know what values your consumers now have you can start customisation to respond to this new priority.
Rose and Thorne donate bras to essential workers
Some of these will be short-term and related to Covid19 and Lockdown – like Rose and Thorne’s Gift-a-Bra to an essential worker.
How important are these people? Very. How much do we value them? A lot. And how many do we know? Lots.
This is great marketing because it is a classic member-get-member programme aligned to the issue of the day.
Brand repositioning post-Covid19
Look After Me have taken a lead by redesigning holidays into packages that theme around hobbies and interests, that are local and have quality marks for locally owned businesses with high cleanliness scores.
Smart. Easy to understand. Aligned.
There’s a Recession too
And of course the recession is already creating new winners and losers. Take a browse through the Emergency Business Forum questions business owners are asking and their own perceptions of “need” and the consistent themes emerge
growth of online ecommerce or at a minimum a website
how do we reach our customers
fresh marketing ideas
finding distributors and stockists
learning about digital media
how to get customers to switch to online
why word of mouth doesn’t cut it any more
migrating from in person to online
starting a customer database
Part of me groans when reading these; part of me rejoices.
Blending the practical with the strategic is going to be critical in giving quality guidance and up-skilling. Yet the problem lies as much with medium as small businesses. Speedy decision making is easy for the owner-operator and will not be so easy to apply to enterprise.
My company provides mechanical designs and manufacturers and supplies products to a few companies in both the US and Europe. How do I increase my customers?
This is a typical “opening” question that I get asked when starting a new engagement with clients. B2B marketing needs to be closely integrated with the new business and new client acquisition process to be effective.
For a public question and answer, I gave some straightforward answers. The detail of how to apply these, is where my expertise will help you get it right first time.
Planning B2B sales and marketing plan
Step one for B2B sales
Ask your existing client/s for referrals. If they were happy with the work that you did, they should be happy to help. If you feel the need, offer them a X%/$X discount on the next project for every client they refer. This is ‘win-win-win’ situation because you get more clients, they get a discount, and they use your services again.
Ask your existing clients for a written recommendation & permission to use their logo on your website. Publish them both on your website. This will help increase the conversion rate on your website. If you feel the need, you can offer them a link to their website which will be good for both of your SEO rankings – so another win-win.
Publish as much (relevant and quality) content as possible on your website (about the projects you’ve done, potential projects, your fields of expertise, etc. Obviously, you need to have a professional and trustworthy looking website. I can explain how the articles need to be done.
Create a free ‘get a quote tool’ – many customers check online to get an estimate of how much the project will cost. If you have an automatic online tool, this can attract a lot of customers. I have personally used such a tool and I was very impressed.
Partner with organisations/companies that work with your target clients – for example: I work with lots of entrepreneurs and many of them ask me for referrals to various types of service providers, including programming companies. These companies give me a small percentage of the profits they make from my referrals (of course I only refer to companies which I know and trust as my reputation is worth more than the referral fee).
Step 2 tactics for more sophisticated marketers
In Europe, there are a number of partnership sites for B2B. You could use these sites to post your offer or search for other offers and hopefully make a match.
Another approach is considering hiring local distributors who specialise in your industry. The advantage here is local distributors will already have a strong network to promote your products/services. Furthermore, local distributors would have thorough understanding of the local market, language, and business culture to close deals.
Go talk to your current customers. Ask them why they do business with you. They may, and most likely will, tell you something different than you’re saying to new prospects. Listen to what your current customers are saying and use their messaging to talk to the market. Ask them if they know other companies that could use what you have,
Go and join the professional trade bodies who represent the industries for your existing clients. Ask your existing clients what these are. Once you are a member, you will be able to see a membership list of other organisations who are also members
Plan outbound marketing to approach these companies and see if they want to also work with you.
Consider visiting the annual conferences and trade shows which these professional bodies run because you will then meet in person with prospects. Many people find it easier to sell their expertise face to face. You could consider doing a trade show stand as well where you can display your past work and the logos of your clients. This builds trust and can start discussions.,
B2B sales and marketing work together
In summary – you need to learn the process of B2B new business, you need a strategy for your new business development and then you need a regular tactical execution process to deliver the new business programme.
You may choose to hire an external advisor to help write the strategy, you could get an in-house salesperson to deliver the tactical execution as well, depending on the size of your contracts and how many you need to get in order to pay for their salary plus commission to make it worthwhile for the business.
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Is the marketing you are doing giving you the yield you seek?
I am asking this question a LOT at the moment. I ask it to myself, for my own businesses, I ask clients, I ask prospects.
One answer came from a professional services marketer. It serves as a good example for in-house marketers to challenge their thinking, to up-skill and to get insight from beyond the internal team in the business.
This is what she wrote to answer
Hmmm… It’s hard to tell. I cannot know if a speaking engagement got someone interested enough to ask their consultant to investigate our solutions and eventually get in touch with us and 2 years later… we have a deal signed. It is a complex process to sell our service.
Is a long sales cycle a B2B marketing problem?
Yes, it certainly is. Tracking and managing a diverse set of marketing tactics and campaigns over time takes discipline and forethought.
But where I felt this marketing manager was failing her business colleagues was around integrating the content creation, the speech-giving with marketing analytics and tracking data.
I challenge the assertion that you “cannot know” if a speaking engagement has any effect.
How to track conference speeches for marketing impact
Let me make some suggestions:
Every conference – offer a free download of something valuable. Create a trackable URL. Cookie the browsers visiting that site.
ALSO offer the visitor something even more valuable (not a sales pitch) if they sign up to your database
Both of these create trackable events which (even if 2 years passes) can enable you to demonstrate results.
Any pass-on of URLs to second parties like consultants or colleagues is tracked too.
When did you last go and get training and invest in your internal marketing team? I fear many in-house teams do not get the attention they deserve. Hiring an agency or consultant is not necessarily going to improve the team skills – it delegates marketing activity to outsiders.
What could you do to invest better, to improve your team’s ability to run the strategy as well as the execution, to better understand what the agency / consultant is doing for you, so that they can brief better, to guide the marketing plan better, to adapt and adjust the marketing budget for new tech, for new market conditions (recession?) and above all, to stay in front of the competition?
So challenge yourself, is the marketing you are doing giving you the yield you seek?
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The power of New Zealand business as an engine for economic growth lies mainly in mid-sized businesses. These are under-recognised by many for the power they wield.
Grant Thornton has done a study of the sector which has some interesting findings.
Mid-sized firms are growing faster than large or small (absolute numbers).
Most are mature, in B2B industries
Job growth is much higher than in other corporations (large or small)
They suffer low productivity
Capital investment is low (obvs as GT specialises in this type of consultancy)
Suffer low international / export aspirations
Few get >10% of orders via online sources and most under-utilise digital opportunities
5 solutions for future growth
The recommendations made by GT are rather bland, probably reflecting the diversity of business types in the group and the fact that they want to be paid for custom recommendations.
Here’s what I would add as ways to get your own business started on its future path.
Bring on short-term contractors to assess opportunities and report to the Board
Add Board Members with specific expertise on a short term basis to guide the Board [and then leave] e.g. cyber-security, digital marketing, B2B procurement online
Budget for pilot projects [and be prepared to walk away]
Hire newly migrated kiwis who can bring overseas experience [leverage them for knowledge, implementation and then don’t worry if they leave]
New Zealand experience in employees is over-rated. Find people NOT like your current team. Use them to show you overseas methods / techniques / tools and input to 1 above.
Today I’m working with a client who is finding it hard to get prospects to buy.
We are working through a list of possible reasons. My first view is that more advertising / publicity is probably not the reason. I think that it’s more to do with the offer, the positioning, the brand promise and perceptions of value and immediate need.
Later is an option
Buying now is obviously what the client brand wants.
But for the prospect, why would they?
Deferring risk is part of the prospect’s decision making. And as marketers we tend to presume that our logic, our world view must prevail.
But the reasons people don’t buy can also be
awareness
trust
world view
perceptions about value
We wrote a list of all the reasons someone would not buy this product. Try it for yourself.
Competitors exist too
Some people will buy from your competitors. Can you find out why they chose them? Do you have anecdotes about customers trying another brand and coming back to yours?
Without publishing it, could you assemble anecdotes about your competitors, classify them and produce a rank order of WHY people choose them over you?
Then compare that to your positioning and brand promise.
Where do you really stand out, where are you broadly the same?
That will give your sales team clues….. I call these “golden questions” and they are defined by Don Peppers as questions whose answers tell you a lot more than the question implies.
So, if the customer is really concerned about something…. what do you ask / tell them?
If they are really concerned about price and only price ….what do you ask / tell them?
Little surprises that reward your customers are a really nice way of helping them to feel special.
Today I got a marketing easter egg from Seth Godin.
The benefits of careful reading
The message was short, barely formatted and it’s one I have waited a year to receive. Hidden in the fourth line was a surprise.
Don’t forget to look for the purple circle on the website to get the best price.
Seth Godin, The Marketing Seminar
…. and so I took a look.
It looked like a pretty piece of graphic art. But one of the circles had an embedded link. NICE….
Hidden Marketing Easter Egg Link
How do you reward your loyal customers?
Sometimes I get frustrated when we make an offer and few people take it up. I think “That’s an AWESOME deal – why isn’t everyone paying attention and buying?” But I realise that I’m looking at it the wrong way around; I should be delighted that only the most savvy, the most loyal and most deserving customers are the ones who take up the offer.
I think of these as my “ultra-loyal” customers. They care enough to read. They don’t skip my messages and so I can give them a reward that others don’t take up.
Can you use an Easter Egg Marketing Strategy for your best customers?
Get insights into Seth’s thinking with his latest book This is Marketing – the course above is based on it.
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Clarity — On Demand Business Advice allows you to ask questions first and then hire the people who answer. You can buy advice over the phone by the minute. It’s a good way to get quick answers.
Log In or Sign Up Linked In will allow you to search for people with those skills in your region.
After you have chosen the marketplace and the skillset you want; you will need to be expert in how to brief an agency, how to write an agency pitch and ways to select from a range of candidates for your work. That’s the subject of another question!
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https://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CAS_Logo_1line_RGB.jpg00Rebecca Caroehttps://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CAS_Logo_1line_RGB.jpgRebecca Caroe2019-05-02 09:05:032022-12-19 13:51:21How to find digital marketers
Anyone should know that to establish a good online brand presence, you need a good Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategy. Keywords are a main part of that strategy – they’re more than just using the right tags to find relevant blog posts – they help boost your business’ search results so your website gets more traffic.
Last year, we helped Living Goodness develop an SEO strategy that saw them appear on the front page! And to top off the cake, it was also the first time that Living Goodness ranked higher than a competitor.
Seventh place! Not too shabby.
In this blog article, I’ll show you three key skills that we utilised for their SEO strategy, and show you how you can put them to work on your own business.
For example, Living Goodness were ranking for “fermented foods nz” (though they appeared on the second page of search results). They wanted to rank higher for this search term, and also wished to show up for “sauerkraut nz”.
Which we achieved, by the way.
We went on to conduct our own research to find relevant keywords that would complement these. A handy tool that we turned to is called Answer the Public.
This allowed us to see what users were also searching for alongside the terms “fermented foods nz” and “sauerkraut nz”. We picked up key phrases and words such as “probiotics”, “raw”, “organic” and “kimchi” alongside many more. This also gave us a good starting point for blog article ideas.
2. Incorporate these keywords into existing content
Now that we had a lovely list of keywords, we needed to disperse them around different landing pages in a natural manner. For SEO purposes, there were key points that needed keyword boosting:
Landing page headings
Links
First paragraphs of content
These were just a few places where we implemented keywords into the existing content in a manner that was natural and flowed. Being a business that sells fermented foods, this wasn’t a problem. We also made sure we used a mix of these keywords because no one likes repetition (especially not Google!).
3. Help out your visitors with handy internal linking
Keywords aren’t the only way to boost SEO. There are many things that affect search engine rankings, and relevance is a big contender. If people aren’t spending long enough on your website and are bouncing away quickly (tip: check the bounce rate in Google Analytics), it may very well mean they’re not finding what they are looking for on your website.
Internal links are a great way to boost SEO and retain website traffic. If you aren’t linking to your products whenever you mention them, it’s a huge opportunity wasted. You also want to encourage a longer customer journey by suggesting other pages that are relevant.
For Living Goodness, we added links to their stockists page and social media handles on the recipes pages. This call-to-action prompted visitors to seek the closest stockist after reading a delicious recipe – “Are you running low on delicious sauerkraut or kimchi? Check out your local stockist here.” The social media links also encouraged visitors to share any of the recipes they’d followed. Being a foodie Instagram account, any photos using a Living Goodness product was free user-generated content, and of course, we were going to make the most of it!
Three simple tips that you can do yourself
As you can see, these tips are all very simple, easy and free to do. Hopefully, you’re able to apply them to your website straight away.
All these were tasks that we did as part of our SEO Starter Pack. It’s a comprehensive analysis of a website with actions to improve SEO and a recommended guide for next steps.
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