Back To Basics
Posted by Annette Noble on 08th January 2010
Although my business card proclaims me to be a Marketing Gun for Hire I know Marketing is a much misunderstood and often over-used word. Indeed on the strength of the card I’ve been offered work as diverse as ad sales, product placement, copywriting, publicity, writing and strategic planning. Most of which are of course tenants of marketing and most of which I enjoy with the exception of ad sales and who could blame me for that!
For me the term Marketing is intuitive and quite complex. It means understanding what I’m selling, who I’m selling to and how best to communicate to them with the available budget. It sounds pretty simple and very commercial when I put it like that, but actually I find each marketing project a fascinating puzzle whose pieces are the product, the target market, the market place and of course the budget. When all the pieces of the puzzle come together it works a treat, when it doesn’t it’s as frustrating as a puzzle with too many pieces missing.
Lets take the first part, understanding what I’m selling, yes that’s right, selling. I know it can be a dirty word but for me it’s the essence of marketing – persuading someone or a group of people to invest in you. Whether that investment is time – as in the time you are investing reading this piece; or investing their money in your product or a combination of both, marketing is essentially selling to a market place. Once you understand this it makes the next few steps a bit easier.
Step two is defining the market. Fortunately for creative people you are often working on a project or a product that you love which means your primary market will be people like you. So you should already know how to talk to people like you, but you will have secondary target markets and you should spend time thinking about them and researching the best way to get their attention and their commitment to your product. And sometimes what you think is your target market should actually be a secondary market, a bit of research can sometimes throw up new and more lucrative markets than the one you first thought of. For example I’m working on a tourism project at the moment and the Creative Director was working on the assumption that the domestic, indeed local market was his primary target. However, when I spent some time researching the Australian tourism market place (this involved a great deal of reading Tourism Australia and Tourism NSW literature, ABS Statistics, meeting with Tourism Bodies) it transpired that the largest and most lucrative target market was actually quite a specific international one and the local domestic market was a poor second. This information has informed the way the product is to be marketed, produced and packaged. While the product will still sell domestically, it will not turn a profit as quickly as it will when marketed internationally. Ultimately this step involves research and planning. I know that sounds like Marketing 101 but it is worth the time you spend to sit down and write out a marketing plan or invest in someone to do this for you.
So, once the target market has been defined the next step is to find out the best ways to reach this market with the available budget, which is rarely an open cheque book. So this is where the creativity comes in. A good marketing strategy will deliver results on what ever budget you have. Another project I recently worked on was the publicity for an international piano competition. Their budget of $20k was required to sell a program of two piano recitals a few months apart then the competition itself which was 10 recitals over 7 days. The competition is only in it’s second year, it’s look and feel is very out of date and it is not being held in a metropolitan city but a small Country town an hour South of Sydney. So the aim of the publicity was to generate a word of mouth campaign about the competition and sell tickets to each of the events (despite the look and feel of the material). My strategy was to get as much free editorial as I could and then leverage any paid advertising with editorial. Being based in a small town had the advantage of the support of the local press and Tourism Body – which meant access to mailing lists, editors and journalists that is often impossible in the city. But, a small town means a smaller audience so the reach of the publicity had to extend to Sydney, Canberra and Wollongong. Faced with this I spent time developing a 6 month marketing strategy that included regular pieces in the local paper, small bits of editorial in both the local high gloss magazines, a paid ad campaign on a popular classic music station and the local radio station (these campaigns included interviews, ads and give-aways); a slide ad at the local cinema; bus back advertising on local buses; and as many free listings as I could get. Ultimately ticket sales were up 50% on the previous competition and I know if I can convince the Board to invest in updating the look and feel they will attract a new market and increase ticket sales again.
What I have always found is that the time spent doing research, while it can often feel like you are reading things that you know inside out or you are repeating yourself or you already think you know what to do… spending a day really thinking about your product and your markets and your budget is worth the investment. It will clarify your thinking, crystallize in your mind what you are trying to achieve and give you an action plan for how to achieve it.
This is the part I actually really love and perhaps I should change my business card to reflect this! Are you in the midst of taking a product to market or in the middle of trying to put a marketing plan together? Are you struggling with this?
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