We all know why and how marketing is changing. We have these conversations with our clients every day. The key question is – are we practising what we preach when we market our own Agencies?
Given the growing importance of marketing-led prospecting to fuel our new business pipelines, we need to be sure that we’re doing everything we can to grow and leverage our Agency brands.
So we’re taking ‘How Brands Grow’, arguably the most important contemporary marketing book, and will be exploring its impact and implications on the way we conduct Agency Marketing.
That’s the plan for our next Early Worm Club on Thursday 22nd September.
We’ve asked Paul Arnold to review the book and then run an interactive session – to see which of its key principles apply to marketing strategies that drive Agency growth.
HOW BRANDS GROW: SEVEN SIMPLE RULES FOR MARKETING
1) Reach – Continuously reach ALL buyers of your category with both broad reach communications and physical distribution.
2) Make it easy – Ensure the brand is made as easy to buy as possible.
3) Get noticed – Be salient. Be distinctive. Use emotions.
4) Build brand memory assets – We ignore things that do not fit our ‘map of reality’. When we try to re-position a brand, it takes a lot of investment to cut against the inertia of the past memory structures. Therefore it’s often more effective to work with what you already have. If you’re launching new things, it’s best to link it back to existing known concepts.
5) Create and use distinctive brand assets – Brands help us ‘short-circuit’ the laborious task of decision-making. But the brand must first be recalled. Distinctive brand assets (such as ‘The Jolly Green Giant’, The PG Tips Chimps, L’Oreal’s ‘Because you’re worth it’ etc.) all help provide memorable hooks that make the brand stand out and hence be recalled more easily. If your brand doesn’t have these, then it needs to create them (and then invest long-term behind them).
6) Be consistent yet fresh – Remain faithful to the existing memory structures/distinctive brand assets – and keep them fresh. You need to keep telling the old story time and time again – but in new and engaging ways. Likewise, avoid the common marketing temptation to change things.
7) Stay competitive – don’t give a reason NOT to buy – A large part of selection is the process of de-selection (i.e. what you will not consider). A brand is easier to buy the more times it has been bought (and the more a brand gets rejected, the less likely it is to get bought). So be careful you don’t start to create barriers to purchase (be it physical or mental availability).
Want to learn more and join the debate?
This is your opportunity to engage with and debate one of the most influential marketing books of the decade – important for understanding the marketing dynamics that will help fuel your Agency growth.
To book your place click the link below: