Marketing Strategy - There are no rules, just morals.

Let’s discuss marketing strategy. There are no rules, just morals.

If you've landed here, you're either naturally curious or need something to get your mind working. Business is becoming stale and you're all too aware of the dangers that entails. Standing still will eventually lead to failure.

Whether you're B2B or B2C, I'm going to talk to you about another ethos of ours & how we strategise for our clients. Hopefully this will jog some inspiration within your thinking & get those cogs oiled up.

Example - Our blades are f***ing great

Arguably one the best piece of marketing content we've ever seen, the classic ‘Dolla Shave Club’ advert started their business and soon was sold for 1 billion in less than 8 years. How? Let's take a look at the ad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUG9qYTJMsI

Hilarious right? But it's more than that, it's arguably absurd. Why is there a man in a bear suit? It doesn't make a whole lot sense, but yet simultaneously, it really does. Why?

Dolla Shave Club quite literally plays on the audiences’ expectations of what an advert is. Typically, you’d see a much more conservative advert to show the product off, throwing the cost promotions at your face with large text perhaps with a classic “Buy now for a limited time offer blah blah blah”. Instead, this film pivots your understanding of a normal advert.

What’s so great about the blades? They’re “F***ing great” as so eloquently put by Michael Dubin (Founder & CEO of Dolla Shave Club). “We’ll deliver right to your door” & “You better start thinking about what you’re going to do with all those dolla bills I’ll be saving you”. So casually spoken but incredibly memorable. Michael has quite literally shown what marketing could be. He played on conventions & won with a grand slam.

We've taken this to heart at Focal.

We use this ethos to both market Focal & conceive of our marketing strategies for the clients. This works for two key reasons; it guarantees not to be what your competitors will be doing & it will ensure your audience goes on a journey they haven’t seen or been on. Who’s will they remember? A competitor who did little/nothing different? Or the one who did something new?

However, new is risky. So how do we remove the risk of a brand-new strategy?

We start at the same place every CMO/Marketing director should.

Step 1 – Translate business objectives into marketing objectives

I won’t go into the details of this step. You must decide how the marketing strategy will complement the business strategy and ensure business goals are met. For example, increasing market share by 2% will partially rely on the marketing team finding new clients and retaining/increasing current customers.

Step 2 - Audience

Identify these audiences, clearly & concisely. This is vital as a step wrong can have profoundly poor results.

Step 3 - Methods

List what marketing methods you have at your disposal. All can be used but only a limited number should be. Your budget & timing will greatly influence which will be used. I’d recommend a clear strategy for the use of those directly in your control & with minimal cost, e.g. advertising on social media platforms.

Step 4 – Personality

This is where things start to get interesting.

Write down what exactly is it your business is known for, not the product or service but the personalities you embody, the brand voice.

Do some market research. What makes people think about you? For example, for Focal, our recurring clients always mentioned it was continuously holding the project to the highest order, but not taking ourselves to seriously. Making the process at lot more enjoyable for everyone. To be honest how can't it be? Not matter the amount of money on the table, we’re not saving lives, so surely ours should somewhat be easier.

Step 5 - Find 'The line' for communications

This is vital to our thinking, as it serves as the visual metaphor for us & our clients. We've all heard the phrasing "You've crossed a line" and we struggled to think of other ways to get people thinking correctly.

During our discovery meetings, not matter the brand, we find that line. We find the thing that's going to far, too creative or could be interpreted negatively from their audience (and others) and work back from that point. It's a method of getting people to think outside their self-imposed box and build confidence to discuss ideas that the majority would consider too risky. This doesn't contain just the spoken word, but how the message is communicated. Innovation requires people to be pushed.

You could argue (quite understandably) that finding the line is wrong and we shouldn't play with potentially hazardous ideas. I believe that you can do exactly this and find the point where the audience can find the humour, boldness or originality in your communications. If you want to be unique and be remembered, you must do something worth being remembered for.

The above diagram should give you a mental picture of this step.

This coffee has gone cold: These strategies lack innovation, originality or taste. They may sustain your organsiation (like a cold cup of coffee could sustain you) but they're certainly not what you set out to make.

Gone too far: Strategies that went one step too far for the organsiation. It's over budget, distanced too far from the brand voice, simply did not engage the audience at all or achieves the same value as the cold cup of coffee.

Area of innovation: "Did you just add ice to your coffee? I'll pay you double for it."

This strategy stretches your oganisation, expands the customer base or simply increases the ROI on your marketing budget. And all you did was think differently about your approach.

This method requires a different mindset, dismiss the "rules" and see what you come up with. You maybe surprised that you discover a happy medium.

Step 6 - Test & test again

Once you've thought of that concept, the message so to speak, you need to assess whether it even has a chance of success.

'Viral Marketing Campaigns' should never be a spontaneous idea wilfully thrown out. There’s danger in that you could end of inadeptly hurting a different audience entirely. Your target audience may love it, love the new content, messaging & direction of the business but another may be incredibly put off. Or infact, your target audience may recognise the point of view of this other audience & defend them.

That doesn’t mean you must bow to this different audience, but ensure you’re doing nothing that actively turns them away from your company. You maybe a health & fitness organisation targeting; active, young people in your local area. However, make sure your communications aren’t opposing or inadvertly attacking an older generation for the sake of higher engagement.

There is an entrepreneurial spirit to marketing & strategy, it takes educated assumptions, a vision and failures. To get this right prior to any sort of launch, test your hypothesis at every stage. If there's anything we do better than creating some beyond visually exotic content at Focal, it's the rapid testing and analysis by our team.

You must be proficient at this and accept that you'll get poor results at some stage. Budget financially & timewise. It’s better to strive for big results with more testing involved than no testing and gain a weak result.

Step 7 – Sketch your plan

As the marketing lead in your business, this next step is key. If your new strategy is going to work, you need to be able to visualise and understand the impact of every single decision.

This will also help you know what resources are needed to achieve the set targets; do you need external guidance? A production house? This all needs to be clear to you. This will also help with justification.

Justifying this to your stakeholders would only prove more difficult if you’re unable to coherently explain why part works and how it will motivate the business in the right direction. A clear sketch/diagram of the links in-between every campaign and strategy will not only help you, but it will help the team.

Step 8 - Taking the leap of faith

The final step. The launch of the campaign. As Shakira says, stats don't lie.

The key once it’s launched, as you’ll have guessed, is to watch the data like a hawk. The testing you’ve undertaken will validate the audience, but it doesn’t negate the possibility of negative feedback or underwhelming performance (as with any strategy).

As with every campaign, take it in and respond accordingly. If you’ve done this correctly you won’t get any negative feedback on any campaign or the change in brand voice. Stay flexible and responsive to what works.

Final Note

Convincing others, your superiors or yourself that this works will take time despite the overwhelming evidence, because taking such a step requires a deeper understanding of people that most of us never learn.

It also takes a level of creativity that most of us don’t have. No one could have taught you that the chaotic genius of the Dolla Shave Club ad would have worked.

But we will try.