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Albuquerque,
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In marketing and the advertising agency business, there is an ongoing learning curve to understand and implement new tactics. We constantly work to make sure we can effectively incorporate and implement new media and guerrilla options into our clients' campaigns. In the current environment, most of these popular tactics have to do with utilizing social networking sites and creating meaningful content channels via blogs, podcasts, YouTube, etc.

Many times, these new tactics are treated as ideas in and of themselves. For the record, these tactics are not ideas. They are just a new channel for ideas.

Ideas are the stuff that make campaigns successful, memorable and ultimately, famous. And here’s the truth about great ideas: They’re not easy. Creating meaningful, simple ones is downright hard. There is no formula, software or machine that will give you a great idea. It requires understanding of your objectives, personal knowledge of people, intuition, time, an unrelenting desire to “nail it," and honestly, it takes smart people.

Take time. Take care. And you will take your communications to new level with a simple, smart idea.

Once you have it, then get to work on how to marry your idea to the target through your tactics. But always remember that your idea is the foundation of your campaign’s success. Discard tactics that don’t allow your idea to flourish and aggressively seek those channels that do.

Now, if you ever hear someone say, “I have a great idea, let’s utilize social networks in our campaign," you can reply, “that’s not an idea, it’s a tactic. What’s the idea?”

 

If there is one thing a troubled economy does to marketing, it's to create the desire to try and be all things to all people.

The logic goes something like this:

A.) Our sales are slowing,
B.) Therefore, we need to appeal to a broader target,
C.) So, let’s make sure we cover everything in our messaging.

But what seems logical is not practical. New marketers tend to believe that you can present the facts (all of them) and get the desired response. However, there is a counter-intuitive truth in successful marketing. This truth is that the easier you make your message — the more understandable and digestible — the more likely someone will make a decision and/or take action.

So, when things begin to slow, the logic should go something like this:

A.) Our sales are slowing,
B.) Therefore, we need to appeal strongly to our target,
C.) So, let’s make sure we communicate our benefits simply and clearly.

Our job is to make the decision easy, even when people are uneasy about the economy. So, we need to make it simple by taking away all of the noise, all of the issues, all of the uncertainty, and make the decision to choose our product or service an easy one.

It’s sometimes tempting to include everything in a message. But ultimately, making the decision complicated during complicated times, just makes the decision easier to avoid.

 

Think about the last time you were at a business function (or awkward social gathering of your choosing). Did you enjoy meeting the people who talked incessantly about themselves, or those that wanted to know more about you?

The most interesting people are interested people – those who sincerely want to know you and relate to you based on the person you are. In short, they listen to you – really listen – and not just wait for their turn to talk. The same goes for good agency/client relationships, and even brand communications.

We’ve found that to have a brand “talk” effectively, we first have to listen - to clients’ concerns, perspectives and the inevitable knowledge they have about their company and industry. At the same time, we have to hear what the target audience wants. How do they understand the brand? How do they interact with the client’s products, and how do their wants and needs fit with the benefits we offer? It’s at this intersection between client and target that the real conversation begins.

There is much to learn in consumer anecdotes, the salesforce’s war stories,
a clients’ insider-industry perspectives, in-jokes and even discerning the meaning of what’s not said. These are the areas where you truly learn the insights into a client’s business and the particular forces that make all the pieces fit together, from researching a product or offering and bringing it to
the market, to discerning insights on how a target audience is responding to
an offering.

The obvious insights into a client’s brand or services are easy to talk about, and they make for great starting places. But the most powerful brand insights reveal themselves in the quiet spaces. You just have to listen. (It will make you an unbelievable conversationalist.)

 

© 2010 3 Advertising LLC, a full-service advertising agency in Albuquerque, New Mexico.