Friday, August 15th 2008

When times get tough, don’t abandon your brand

As margins are squeezed and sales begin to dip, the temptation for many bosses is to cut costs and slim down what they wrongly perceive as ‘non-essential’ spending on marketing.

Time and again I hear businesses justifying falling sales as the reason for downsizing their marketing investment – without challenging whether those falling sales will plummet still further if marketing budgets are compromised.

When the pressure is on, internal decision makers thrash out which areas of spending are essential and which are disposable. Short-term choices amounting to false economy often take precedence over long-term investment which can pay dividends.

Research on market positioning and driving and sustaining a robust marketing strategy is crucial to boost your brand awareness and desirability in order to attract new customers. To ensure maximum effectiveness, the process must comprise strong evaluation criteria with a toolkit of key performance indicators.

Tough times undoubtedly mean tough choices. In a fiercely competitive marketplace, you have two clear options. To either compete directly on price or reduce profit margins, or to add value in areas which are not price-sensitive to stand head and shoulders above your competitors.

These areas can include surpassing customer expectations through excellent service or through elements such as packaging and point of sale material – all of which can make the difference between good or great services and products.

Yet when faced with a potential downturn, quality can often be sacrificed for bare-bone research and rushed creative processes.

Such lack of foresight is one that frustrates those of us who have spent a career forging and nurturing brands. Astute consumers are also aware that it’...

Read the rest...

Wednesday, June 25th 2008

The changing media landscape

As the internet is evolving it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with how these changes will effect us and our businesses. The earlier blog entry, How can we use the internet better?, spoke about a few examples of how the internet is being used well. The key question now is can we predict how the internet will change and how we can use it effectively, while planning for the future.

Epic 2015 is a short film explaining how the media landscape will change. It takes you on a journey from the beginning of the internet to where we will be in 2015. This will make you think about how much our lives are changing and how the information we access is on hand. The question is, how do we take full advantage of these changes in the world of design and marketing?

Friday, June 20th 2008

How can we use the internet better?

Orange are launching the first ever virtual balloon race on Monday. Not only will this be fun to participate in, I have two balloons, but it is also another example of Orange’s growing mastery of the internet.

At the moment few companies are properly harnessing the power of online marketing, since it is difficult to understand the potential. A few people are starting to tap into how smaller businesses can use marketing channels to sell their services. Frank Rumbauskas is an excellent example, he gives away a lot of free information, via regular email bulletins and websites, which all lead to buying his book. By the time I bought his book I had bought into his way of thinking and was happy to pay for more information.

I think that the key reason for SMEs struggling to utilise the internet is that it is time consuming and fairly difficult to give away information for free. Going are the days of banner ads and pop-ups. Even paid advertising on search engines is beginning to wane. The answer is to be more cunning, and I don’t mean cheating. It is about adding something of value to the online experience of potential customers.

(Look out for our site on the balloon race route if you decide to join in.)

Monday, January 14th 2008

Adapting to a changing environment

Following news that EMI are about to cut 2,000 jobs as part of a cost cutting exercise by the new management, the main cause is attributed to the rapid fall in sales of CDs. It is true that the internet has significantly dented sales in CDs, but can the music industry continue to blame piracy for bringing huge drops in profit?

It strikes me that their war on piracy is going to be long and fruitless and during this time their businesses will suffer. What they really need to do is work out a way to still make money in the changing digital climate. Instead of arresting 12 year olds for downloading illegal music they need to work out how to control the flow of music and be a little more cunning about it.

Friday, August 10th 2007

Is networking not working?

Do people understand what networking is all about?

Do you attend these events thinking, if you give someone sat next to you enough ear ache with your wonderful sales pitch while they are chasing their lamb chop (often without lamb sauce) around their plate, they are going to give you any business.

Or do you attend networking events to build a solid group of contacts who you could form a close working relationship with in months or years to come.

I am a great believer if you have a giving mentality (here, have some of my mint sauce I carry around just for occasions like this) at these events ie: how can I make other people successful in their businesses and not expect anything in return, they will always remember you and help you become successful also.

Am I naive in still believing that most people in business are good and honest? Those who are not are not real business people, you can spot them a mile away. They are not wanting to build a business, they are the takers in this world who give nothing, and it is these people who are invariably taken at the end of the day……..To prison.

Wednesday, August 8th 2007

Love Me Tender

Hello, I’m Louise and this is my first ever blog (or should I say ‘the first time I have ever blogged’?) I wanted to share with the world my thoughts on a subject close to my heart – public sector tendering. I’ve had good experiences, bad experiences and very bad experiences of tendering and have put together some ‘top tips’. Hope they help.

To those of you who have already tendered for Public Sector work, you will know that in order to win contracts you have to go through the costly, time consuming and enjoyable process of tendering. This process begins with the Pre Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) which demands answers to many business related questions which cover everything from your name and address, turnover and technical capacity to past work examples and the inside leg measurements of all key staff employed to work on the project*. If you pass the PQQ stage and are shortlisted, the next stage is the Invitation to Tender (ITT). I only have experience of the ITT stage from within the creative industry but for us creative types, this is where we have to demonstrate our capability by responding to a brief set by the contracting authority, and submit costs. If you are successful at that stage then you are either awarded the contract (brilliant!) or added to a roster (great, but work still needs to be done before you are actually awarded any work).

Anyway, here are the tips.

1) Give someone in your organisation complete responsibility over the tender – it’s fundamental that the deadline is met and that the information is presented clearly. This does not happen if the tender documents are passed from one colleague to another.

2) Read through the tender document thoroughly. Sounds obvious but read it and then think hard about whether you can …

Read the rest...