Context is the path to success

One thing that I’ve learned over the past year is that there are no shortcuts to effective marketing. Looking back, most projects that we had won assumed a day or less spent on planning and strategy. This was typically split up over at least two people, which offers not much more than asking some high level questions; sifting through the responses for a nugget or two; checking out a client’s social media, existing website, and brochures; along with some quick google searches.

Meeting kickoffs would leave both us and our clients excited - followed by a couple of months apart while we got to work. Hint: disappearing for months of silence of silence after getting a client excited doesn’t often end well. In our case, we’d come back with a baked concept, often vetted internally, fully designed, and ready to go. Our client partners, during that same time, took their excitement and internalized into their own ideas. Nine times of ten, our ideas did not align.

We’d shift with the newly received information and work out the project, design, and deliverables. The final result was often where it needed to be, but budgets were blown (we wore this, which meant we weren’t profitable), timelines were missed, and our client’s faith wasn’t strong as we’d grossly missed the mark. In some cases, they moved on to another provider to pick up the baton of their marketing. Most of them stuck with us, and we rebuilt the latter over time.

What have a we learned from this?

Firstly, communication is key. We’ve learned to ask the right questions upfront; do massive amounts of research; present that research, strategy, and recommendations; and get those signed off. That’s all before we start any creative. At that stage, we’re aligned with the client, we both see and understand the vision, and have a clear path to success.

Secondly, most clients don’t want to pay for the strategy - just the results. This is where we’ve gotten bullheaded as a vendor when we look for new projects. If someone is looking for the cheapest solution, I’ve resigned to the fact that we’re not going to be the right partner for them. If they want a true and tried solution that’s proven to have produced 10x sales in the past, we’re not going to be the right partner for them. Guess what? No responsible person can ever guarantee to multiply your sales - that’s a modern-day snake oil response.

This leads to the point of this post: Research and Strategy are the best way to set up for success. These are key pillars that will inform an approach that aligns with customers of your business. Without understanding the unique characteristics of both your business and it’s varied clientele, you might as well be pissing into the wind. I think it’s important to add here that you need to go into research and strategy with goals, otherwise you’ll risk being perpetually stuck in this phase, never reaching a phase of execution.

What can I do to ensure to set my next project up for success?

Here are a few tips I can share with you that may help when evaluating a proposal. These have all been derived from three key areas: (1) client’s reason for picking us over the other girls; (2) client’s reason for picking the other guys over us; and (3) experience when working with competitors who have discounted price to win the business.

• Don’t accept canned responses. If someone has a ready-to-go strategy in their proposal, accompanied with minimal information: they lack the context and background and are offering a cookie-cutter approach. Few things will succeed following a cookie-cutter approach.
• If the price seems too good to be true, it probably is. Cheap pricing means cutting corners and is typically done in a race to the bottom or to keep the lights on. No one is cutting you a deal because they like you. Unless you are explicitly being offered a discount, low pricing indicates a shallow pool of strategy and a reasonable chance of the vendor re-using previous work (more on that one below).
• Keeping Up with the Kardashians. If no strategy is being offered, at best a vendor is looking only at what your closest competitor is doing and mirroring that as your strategy. You don’t want to be doing what they do; you want to be doing better.
• If the proposal has all of the answers and approach, don't expect much/any strategy. Realistically, they are taking the same approach and strategy for every project with little regard for your company's needs and environment. I have seen this one a lot where a firm offers an entire media calendar and cost breakdown in a proposal. This is before knowing and understanding your target market, key demographics, and on what mediums the two converge. This approach may work – sort of – but you’ll be wasting a lot of money.
• Re-use of other client work. I have seen this one a lot. We’ll just take the last website we built in WordPress, change some colour, change some content. Bam! $6,000 website done. In this case, you’re better to use Squarespace for $20/month.
• Recycling ideas that past clients turned down. Another one I see a lot. The big idea that has the agency fired up gets dismissed by Client A. The next opportunity that arises, the same idea gets pitched. Rinse and repeat. Ask yourself, what is the strategic purpose of this idea? It being cool or something that a big corporate pulled off this summer doesn’t mean it will be effective for you, nor will it necessarily align with your customers.

Here’s the thing: in order for an agency (or any other vendor, for that matter) to offer you a path to success, they need the right context. Context requires strategy. Strategy requires time. Time requires money. You need to look at your goals. If they’re small, maybe you don’t need a lot of strategy and certain pricing will just not make sense for your return. Are your stakes high? You need to budget accordingly. Understand your goals, lay them out, and work to a plan of measurability to ensure you can affirm a return on investment (if applicable).

But understand that high stakes results require a lot of planning, understanding, and context, in order to stand a chance of being effective. Bigger than that, these initiatives require trust and patience. Even the best strategy will produce some micro-misses, but patience and trust will give you and your partner time to measure, assess, and adjust what’s not working - keeping aligned with the overall strategy.

Be involved. Make sure you inform your partner of everything. Keep your partner in the loop, make sure you’re kept in the loop, and advise them when and where you can. Trust that your partner are doing what you’ve paid them to do. Keep lines of communication open and trust the strategy. Success will follow.