Easy-to-assemble online marketing

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Ten component parts to online marketing as championed by Fabrik Brands, an online marketing company in London. The new perspective…

Money is at a premium in this new world we’re living in. Behaviours have changed as a result of Brexit and we’re all doing things differently as we await for the main effects to take action. And this includes companies who work with creative design agencies. Budgets have been, and are being, squeezed to make each pound work harder and do more.

Marketing professionals, through their creative design & online marketing consultancy agencies in London, will expect their messages to hit home quicker and with greater effectiveness.

From where we sit, from the creative design agency perspective, we see a wide range of different organisation types using a wide range of techniques to achieve a wide range of objectives.

That gives us an overview of methods, styles, activities and formats that work, or don’t, across a widely varied set of scenarios. This is real hands-on experience we can apply to every new challenge in every new project; bench-marking best practice in what can often become too subjective a discipline; online marketing consultancy communication.

So here are our top ten tips for effective online marketing consultancy communication:

1. Know how much to say

For starters, your audience doesn’t always automatically share your passion; they have to be convinced. Too much brand and marketing communications can bombard the audience.

Succinct, powerful, short, engaging, involving text delivers a convincing case. Don’t say too much; nobody cares enough to indulge your creative communications through lavish detail.

Don’t say too little. You have to say enough to reel them in. By the way, try never to write copy by committee; it shows. This is where your creative design agency can add real value.

2. All research is worthwhile research

Why take our word for it? Indeed, why try to make up your own mind about it? There is simply no better way of being sure that your message or creative design agency’s approach is fulfilling its purpose than asking the people you intend to influence.

Poor (or no) research pretty much guarantees wasted expenditure. The acid test is to ask “are we feeling lucky or would we rather get it right?” In these days of seemingly inevitable budget pressure what do you think the answer would be? Every ‘component part’ covered in these tips could be indisputably verified by research.

3. Be clear with the message

Long before any activity hits the drawing board you should spend as much time as possible defining the unique points of your organisation, together with what it seeks from the activity or design campaign.

A clear message depends on clarity of thought about your intentions and the action you wish to trigger. Clarity makes memorability. What makes you different? What makes you special? Get a focus and stick to it. Drive everything to that focus. Repeat it, strengthen it, spin it, explain it, and always focus on it.

4. Stand out

Imagine thousands of people hurrying around the London Underground network all heading 
in different directions and concerned only with reaching their own destinations. Then imagine 
that your brand communications has to grab the attention of all of them, at the same time. Would you shout? A better way might be to use a loud hailer.

Better than that might be to work with London Underground to have the escalators turned off at 
a pre-arranged time and then deliver a message through the PA system – everybody would listen. That’s what brand communications are when they’re effective; a way of delivering a message that makes everybody stop and take notice.

Some clients believe that the worthiness of their cause is sufficient to make people pay attention; some believe their reputation will do it, it won’t. Standing out depends on making every element work its hardest. It isn’t about taking the ‘safe’ option; people never bother with middle of the road creative design communications. Would you? To sum this up in one word it’s about being ‘bold’.

5. Be open to change

In the planning stage you need to gather together all the creative and brand communication examples that have stood out to you or your colleagues. Lay them all out and study language, creative approach and also format.

Was the shape of the ad anything to do with your response? The way the leaflet folded out or the witty message on the envelope? Learning from others isn’t about plagiarism, it’s about soaking up influences and improving on marketing efforts that you believe are examples of best practice.

Be prepared to modify your ideas and take new content strategies on board. Don’t simply expect that repeating a formula will get different results. But, don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater either. Sometimes repeating a formula is exactly what you need to do.

6. Measure feedback

Here’s why. You work in a dynamic sector, constantly under pressure to generate revenue, drive sales, stimulate awareness and any of a number of other demanding goals. This can occasionally create a tendency to re-invent the marketing strategy every time, believing that if it’s a new marketing campaign or project then it has to ring the changes.

Sometimes, however, it makes good sense to look back over what has gone before; seeing what reactions were stimulated, gleaning opinions on the impact of the activity. Innovation is a powerful marketing communications tool, but you might just find that if you have already invented the wheel, it can get you where you need to go time and time again.

7. Think about the audience

Targeting is more than simply knowing at whom you need to aim your message. It’s about knowing what makes them tick, the media they use, their internet habits, their workplace, lifestyles, income levels. Get a really developed picture of your ideal audience and drive everything at the one person.

All brand communications should be intimate, as if it were addressing the individual alone. Segment your audience into primary and secondary targets and make sure that you cover both bases. Get into their world and then you have a much better chance to get them into yours.

8. Don’t talk to too many people at once

A message delivered to a corporation is very different to a message delivered to an individual. Never try to combine messages or pick off numerous target sectors in a catch-all creative communications; it will catch nobody.

Clarity of message should be your brand communication goal and that simply isn’t possible if it has to be explained to different audiences in the one piece. A creative design agency like Fabrik Brands can produce specialist marketing campaigns with numerous strands and targets that are still integrated and consistent.

9. Use consistent messages

If people see something repeated in several places, they start to remember it. If they only ever see it once then the chances are they won’t. That’s what consistency is about; making sure that every element in the marketing mix, from campaign design to corporate communications and your website, carry the same message, calls for the same action, and delivers the same promise. Ubiquity of marketing materials builds awareness.

It could mean making sure that the message spearheading your next consumer campaign design is then used on your call-waiting message, if you use one, or carried on your website design, or even your stationery for a period of time. Driving home your unique points repeatedly isn’t lack of imagination; it’s deployment of a powerful marketing tool.

10. Make it easy for your audience to respond

Here’s the crunch. You’re not really doing what you’re doing for any other reason than response. Make it easy through multiple options such as web, telephone, mail; make it obvious how to do it. And, picking up on our one-word summary from tip 4; be bold.

Clarity, simplicity, originality, stand out, a well-researched target audience, crafted messages and agile brand communication…they all channel into the one giant arrow that points boldly to the pay-off point and says ‘support us’.

You have to win the hearts and minds of your target audience; they’re not waiting there ready to come to your party just as soon as you decide to invite them.

They have to be persuaded, and that means surrounding your focused message with elements that will make it stand out, whether that’s design, structure, emotion of message, challenge 
of copy, humour, sadness, empathy and/or sympathy.

Fabrik is a creative design agency based in London, working across the private, education and public sectors. We create clearly defined brand and corporate communications for a diverse mix of clients.

Steve Harvey
Co-founder
Steve Harvey
Co-founder
Our co-founder, Steve Harvey, is also a regular contributor to Brand Fabrik, a flagship publication covering topics relevant to anyone in branding, marketing and graphic design. Steve shares his enthusiasm for brand naming through his articles and demonstrates his knowledge and expertise in the naming process.

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