Our philosophy is pretty simple, Right Here - Right Now!!! The world is changing at warp speeds and Captain Kirk is on the bridge stating, "Scotty we need more power..."
Media in fragments? Users in Charge? Changes happening daily?
Good.
We’re right in our element.
With so many choices, there is only one sensible approach to a digital era: Partner with a company that understands how all of the elements combine.
TV streaming to your phone. Newspapers deliver stories to your desktop. Encyclopedias want you to be their editor. Players in the analog market are starting to behave a little strangely online. And one thing is undeniable: Customers are in Control.
That is a good thing.
Now, customers and brands can engage each other directly, leaving everyone fulfilled. But for businesses to do this, they need big ideas and elegant solutions working in harmony.
Our goal is to be the rain that replenishes, sooths, rejuvenates, and feeds the creativity to take your brand and make it come through loud and clear – anyhow, anywhere, anytime.
Marketing 101 – A look into the not so obvious
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Marketing is much more than just advertising; it is the sum total of all your communications with the marketplace. This includes your vendors, lender, investors as well as your customers and the community at large. It is what I call a “reluctant reality” that your marketing will be a bigger factor in your success than the quality of your offering.
By “reluctant reality”, I mean that most business owners would rather it not be so… but it is. We’ve all been brainwashed to believe in the old saw, “build a better mouse-trap and the world will beat a path to your door.” Trust me; it just isn’t so.
Savvy entrepreneurs know (even if they don’t like it) that a B product with A marketing will always beat the pants off an A product with B marketing. Obviously, the best combination is to couple an A product with A marketing – and that’s exactly what you should strive towards.
The first step in creating an A marketing plan is to differentiate yourself. This is the most important thing you can do. And, of course, you already know all the ways you are… but you’ve got to be different in the eyes of your customer. This is much more difficult thing to achieve. It is basic human nature to group things together as “alike” or “not alike”, with emphasis leaning strongly towards “alike”.
It takes a concerted effort to get out of this trap; but it is the most important thing you can do with regards to your marketing. For instance, think about how many Colas there are. The barriers to successful entry in the soft drink business are huge and mostly built of money. Since the dawn of time there have been two juggernauts; Coke and Pepsi. But there was only one “Un-Cola”. Even though they are all sweet fizzy drinks, most of them are brown but one was clear. Decades ago, that one small difference was enough to catapult 7-Up to the status of a mainstay competitor against the two giants while other “colas” launched with great fanfare and quickly died quietly, very expensive deaths.
Then there was Snapple, it wasn’t exactly “pop”; it was iced tea with weird flavor combinations. It wasn’t as sweet, for a while there was even some attempt at passing it off as a “healthier” alternative to regular soft drinks. By not trying to be just another pop, Snapple was able to grab significant market share and gain some staying power.
Today we’ve seen the same sort of thing with Red Bull. In essence it’s another soft drink, but instead it’s been branded as an “Energy Drink” (whatever that means). The company took great pains to differentiate it, even down to the size of the can. Now, instead of competing head-to-head with Coke or other regular pop, Red Bull is perceived as so individual that no comparison is possible. In fact, it has spawned an entire sub-industry of related “Energy Drinks”, which, as far as I can tell, are pops with some miniscule amounts of vitamins and which don’t taste as good.
These are examples of how the “little guy” can compete successfully against giants. Both Snapple and Red Bull started out as small specialty companies that were able to grow through being positioned entirely different from other mainstream soft drinks. You can do this too.
But you’ve got to have the time and energy to focus on being different… not just better. I have a mantra that goes like this; “Being Different is Better Than Being Better”. Unfortunately, being different is tougher than being better.
This means that you absolutely cannot be so consumed by your “trade” (doing the labor of your business) that you have no time or energy to focus on the frankly more important things going on in your business. Things like excellent marketing. This is the biggest trap that I consistently see businesses fall into. You need to start thinking outside of the norm and find creative ways to differentiate yourself. Make time or find help in creating a vision that causes an influx in you potential customer base.

