9. Building a Marketing Strategy

Attracting buyers takes a focused and action-oriented approach. Build and leverage the messages and opportunities that excite you. Creating a strategy, big or small, will make marketing your creative business manageable and successful.

Creative at Work Chris Guillebeau hosted over 1,000 people at the 2012 World Domination Summit in Portland, Oregon. Chris is an entrepreneur, writer, traveler, and an inspiring challenger of the status quo.
Web: www.worlddominationsummit.com
Twitter: @chrisguillebeau
Image credit: Tera Wages
Web: www.armosastudios.com
Twitter: @armosastudios

The comedic mayhem of the 1970s British comedy troupe Monty Python dramatically influenced my sense of humor, and provided the inspiration for a few amazing, though poorly graded, high school projects. In my late teens, I watched their satirical medieval escapade, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, more than 100 times.

One of my favorite scenes in the film was when King Arthur’s knights came across a killer rabbit that could only be defeated by using the Holy Hand Grenade Of Antioch. They read the deployment instructions for the grenade from The Book of Armaments, which stated, “First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then, shalt thou count to three. No more. No less... Five is right out.”

This scene comes to mind as I think of how small business owners so badly wish there was a holy marketing book that they could simply refer to, extract wisdom from, and follow its irrefutable laws and procedures to success. The absence of such a resource brings me great relief, as I believe that prescriptive marketing panaceas promote mediocrity and entrepreneurial propaganda. There are no sure-fire instructions, just the opportunity to turn your ideas into plans and to act on them in a way that meets the needs of people other than yourself.

Just remember to pull the pin at the right time.

Creating a Marketing Plan That Doesn’t Suck

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the challenge of attracting buyers because it feels like one massive undertaking that you need to masterfully execute. Building a marketing plan needn’t be a scary job; it’s about preparing a plan of attack rather than going into battle.

To market effectively, you need to do two things:

1. Develop a manageable marketing plan for your business.

2. Figure out how to execute that plan.

Both of these goals are within your reach, especially when you divide and conquer. A manageable marketing plan is a strategic effort that flows from within your business; the execution depends on how you, the owner, engage with the plan, and how adept you become at attempting marketing actions (aka self-promotion, which I cover in Chapter 10). Your marketing plan will be more approachable as you target fewer actions (decrease its scope) and as you break down big scary goals into small, manageable tasks.

Developing a marketing plan boils down to conceptualizing tactics that help connect potential buyers to you and what you offer. Choose tactics that excite you, and that you can accomplish in relatively short order, because your business opportunities will change in the next 18 months, so you might as well develop a plan that prizes immediacy over grandness.

In Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing, author Harry Beckwith writes, “Tactics don’t complete a process; they continue to shape one.” Err on the side of underplanning instead of overplanning your marketing efforts. Spend less time scheming, and more time taking action. You don’t know the future; you’re at the beginning of the process, and if you overplan you’ll simply disappoint yourself.

Building a marketing plan that doesn’t suck means you’ve come up with tactics that are doable.

The word “strategy” gets used a lot in marketing discussions. It often implies an extreme level of seriousness or sophistication, but a strategic marketing plan is simply an actionable set of priorities, big or small, that you can accomplish. A marketing plan that works recognizes that some unknowns lie ahead, but also gives you options to choose from based on your time, resources, passion, perceived needs, or available opportunities. Oversimplifying to the point that you’re directionless is dangerous, just as complicating the process will increase your chances of stalling. Approaching marketing strategically means taking an idea and flushing it out as much as you can within a reasonable timeframe (short enough that you can take action quickly) and making sure you know why you’re doing it. The shorter your planning and execution cycles are, the faster you’ll be able to evaluate their results.

The goal of your marketing efforts isn’t to convince buyers; it’s to generate demand for your creative services. Build up a toolkit of mediums, methods, and access (through different channels) that you can use to elicit curiosity and identify interested decision-makers. Twentieth-century American advertising executive William Bernbach said, “In advertising, not to be different is virtual suicide. In communications, familiarity breeds apathy.” From everything I’ve seen in business, there’s very little mystery associated with successful marketing campaigns; you need only a willingness to bravely plan and repeatedly act on good ideas. Valiance doesn’t require anything more than rolling up your sleeves. Just as the Knights of the Round Table battled a ferocious, cave-dwelling rabbit, your planning efforts will help you conquer your own marketing monsters.

Preparing Your Marketing Mix

Making your business known requires tactics. I’m not talking about mischievous schemes or a bag of tricks. You need to employ methods that are congruent with your creative work and will help you reach your ideal clients. The goal is to use tools as expertly as possible to bring about desired results. If you’re not using a few well-planned tactics, you’re just banging good ideas together and going nowhere fast.

Your marketing mix is your toolbox of tactics. It represents the selection of the marketing tasks, actions, objects, relationships, channels, spaces, and places that get the job done. Every creative small business owner has a unique collection of tools. The tools in your kit should reflect your passion, skills, knowledge, and access to people and resources. When you put your time and energy into marketing tools that are inconsistent with who you are and what you do, results will suffer.

In 2002 I was involved with Luxuryhomes.com, an Internet marketing platform for real estate agents with listings at the top end of their local markets. Like any small start-up, our primary job was to earn revenue, and to do that we would sell agents’ listing subscriptions. I learned more about myself and my marketing mix (mostly through failure) during that year than at any other time in my life. Our marketing tools were limited to three tactics: advertisements in a major magazine, cold calls, and email. Initially I struggled with spelling and grammar, especially when stressed; I sent unprofessional emails that prospects ignored or treated like spam. I would also get extremely nervous when calling strangers to sell them something, so my stammering and shaky voice put me behind the eight ball immediately.

Over time, I created some protocols. I found my groove by using an egg timer (no less than one call per buzz) when I’d get the jitters, and I started getting to the selling part quicker and with more confidence. I never felt really successful at it, but the repetition and the tenacity I needed to push through taught me which elements of marketing I was good at and what I was capable of when backed into a corner. I learned that the phone is a powerful tool, and a single quick call can do 100 times more than an email. I learned that proofreading emails is time well-spent, and that short emails produce quicker, more favorable replies. And I learned that full-page ads in magazines don’t work.

The most important lesson I learned was that I’m an action man, not a selling man. Today, as a business owner, my marketing mix reflects my ability to talk face-to-face and find creative ways to say, “I can help you with that.” I don’t make cold calls and I rarely send unsolicited emails. That hard-sell environment wasn’t ideal for me. I stayed with Luxuryhomes.com only a little over a year. But through the process of elimination I discovered which tactics work for me and which ones I should avoid. Small business marketing requires some selectivity and knowing what you’re good at. It takes a selective approach because more marketing isn’t better marketing. Focus on the tools that you understand, that leverage your enthusiasm, and that increase your confidence.

Not every tactic gives a warm, fuzzy feeling. Sometimes you feel compelled to take a risk and spend time or energy on a marketing method that makes you nervous, but you do it because you don’t want to leave anything on the table. Sometimes you find yourself backed into a corner, and you need to try something totally different. When this happens, give yourself a defined timeline or isolate it to a short and manageable campaign. Without some parameters you’ll quickly get frustrated or be crushed by failure.

A successful marketing mix doesn’t require a brilliant idea, just a blend of some good ideas that work.

One of the most common mistakes creatives make is to rely on one marketing tool to the point that it causes burnout. If you limit your efforts to one tool, and repeatedly bombard your target audience with it, they’ll get bored and lose interest. Balance your efforts across a few different streams so that you don’t wear out the important ones or miss out on new, convergent opportunities. Though I tinker with this category list perpetually, because their names don’t really matter, grab a tool or two from these five parent categories and foster diversity in your marketing efforts:

• Sales activity

• Advertising channels

• Direct marketing

• People and public relations

• Social media

Now, the fun part is sorting out the tools available to you. The list of marketing tactics at your disposal isn’t endless but, based on your industry, market, niche, or resources, you could have a lot to choose from. Here’s a list of some marketing tools and action notes for you to consider:

• Business cards (first impressions)

• Email ping (short and sweet message to stay in touch)

• Cold phone call (“You don’t know me, but...”)

• Meetings—in person/phone/Skype (request a meetup with a prospect)

• Follow-up phone call (check in with a personal contact)

• Client-specific events (attend and make contact)

• Referral program (reward contacts for securing new business)

• Online promotion (place ads or solicit reviews for a specific offer)

• Print promotion (send ads or collateral to specific niche)

• Handbills and posters (collateral for like-minded businesses)

• Printed portfolio contacts (create list of potential viewers)

• Price list or offerings in PDF form (what, how much)

• Direct letter (send a personalized letter with a specific “ask”)

• Gift cards (send thank you notes for referrals, support, or business)

• Gift certificates (promote a seasonal campaign or discount)

• Website updates (experience, new info, case studies)

• Portfolio updates (new work, new clients)

• Personal project (work experience, small-scale)

• Collaboration project (teamwork experience, large-scale)

• Peer-specific events (attend and build collaboration network)

• Contests (enter a contest to generate out-of-market interest)

• Volunteering (support client-rich event or organization)

• Exhibition (host event or have work featured in public)

• Press release (announce special event/situation to media)

• Blog posts (share, create an experience, convey meaning)

• Guest contributor (share visuals or write posts/articles)

• Google+ (build circles, join/share discussions)

• Twitter (produce value, contribute to keyword discussions)

• Facebook (develop a business page, join pages of value)

• E-newsletter campaign (create meaningful announcements)

Some of these tools are easily categorized, some are not, but what’s most important is that you discern for yourself which ones will help connect you with potential prospects. Again, the primary goal is to make buyers curious, so the tools that help create a spark or get buyers asking questions will generate demand, and thus deserve more attention than others.

Creative Work "Rein," 9" x 12", 2012, Acrylic and satin fabric on wood panel by Cynthia Ona Innis, a visual artist from Oakland, California. Innis exhibits throughout the United States and around the world.
Web: www.cynthiaonainnis.com
Image credit: Dana Davis

Once you’ve selected your tools, it’s time build an action plan, and that takes a bit more work. My recommendation is that you build four three-month plans (a fiscal year broken down into quarters). By doing this you can identify small, more manageable goals, and you give yourself less time to procrastinate, overplan, or lose focus. For each tactic in each fiscal quarter, complete the following elements to yield an actionable marketing mix:

• Cost: How much will it cost you in real dollars to make this effort happen? Are there long-term costs involved? Are there any indirect costs? This will not be the first item you tackle, but organizing your plan so that the number-crunching remains front and center helps keep you on track.

• Completed: Is there a defined completion point? Break down your marketing efforts so that you can easily accomplish them and get that almighty checkmark. Ideas are great but aim for the checkmark; getting it done is what gives that sense of accomplishment, success or not. Track it closely so you can, at a glance, know what you’ve accomplished.

• Status: At what stage is the effort? There are different ways to track this. For example, Smartsheet got me using the visual of a traffic light, which is great because, at a glance, it lets you see which marketing ideas are tracking well, need some attention, or are in dire need of rescue. A green light means the marketing tactic is on track (solid idea, on track, on time, and on budget); a yellow light means you’re waiting for something or need to sort something out because it’s not moving as smoothly as you’d like; and the red light means your marketing effort has stopped in its tracks. You’ll feel a sense of accomplishment as you maintain a green-light action sheet or a sense of clarity as you determine what gets your attention at any given time.

• Idea: What is the concept or tangible set of ideas behind the tactic that you imagine putting out there? Be specific and break it down. If it’s a grand scheme, flush out the realities of each piece so that you have a record of what it is that you’re going for. Don’t overedit; capture your big idea and your passion or excitement and then move on.

• Clear objective: What are you trying to accomplish? Identifying one clear goal that solves a problem or creates a realistic opportunity or desired outcome is essential to knowing that a marketing tool is being put to use for good reason. Vague goals produce vague actions and cause you to spin your wheels or lose money. Intelligent aspirations have black-and-white expectations.

• Key people: Who do you need to connect or work with in order for this marketing action to succeed? Are there collaborators, supporters, service providers, stakeholders, or other people within your sphere of influence that you need to leverage in some way so you can get this done? Are there phone calls, meetings, or emails that need to happen? Work to identify those individuals who can and will make a difference.

• Deliverable(s): What stuff do you have to make so that you can achieve your objective? What documents, objects, graphics, or copy do you need to produce? Can you break down these elements into smaller work-packages so the deliverable isn’t left to the very end?

• Major milestone(s): When do you need to have the most important deliverables completed so you can get to that point of no return? For each key deliverable choose a date prior to the final deadline that you can push yourself towards. Once you successfully arrive at that date, you’ll know you’re progressing, and you’ll feel successful and energized about the remaining effort. You may need more than one milestone date per deliverable.

• Putting it into action: How will you put your tactic into action? What do you need to do in order to launch it so that you make a strong first impression that gets quick results? Usually a tactic requires a series of steps for proper execution, so make a list of the things you must do so you can get the most from your effort.

• Deadline: When do you want to see this tactic going live? Pick a date, put it in your calendar, drop it onto your cell phone, or write it on your wall or fridge. Focus on that date and make your dreams come true one date at a time.

• Follow-up and next steps: What actions will you take once you’ve initiated or completed the marketing deliverable? Sometimes the best marketing opportunities come later, when the spotlight isn’t on you, or when something moves to the margins. Think about how you can best springboard off your marketing action; don’t just put something out there and hope that the universe will take care of it. Go get it.

• Success indicator: How will you determine if your effort succeeded? It might be as simple as tracking a number based on your objective, such as a certain amount of new business dollars or a number of new, active leads by a specific time. It could also be something a bit more obscure but still helpful like the number of coffee meetings you’ve had, or an increase in accolades on your work.

Creative Resource If you want to build a marketing mix like the one just described, consider working from a template. Go to www.corwinhiebert.com/marketingmix to download a free Microsoft Excel document that outlines the “Marketing Mix Actionsheet,” a worksheet that can help keep you organized and focused.

Creative at Work Trey Ratcliff is a pioneer in HDR photography as well as an artist, writer, and adventurer. His website is the #1 Travel Photography blog on the Internet.
Web: www.StuckInCustoms.com
Twitter: @TreyRatcliff

Focusing on Bottom Line ROI

Results matter—or, should I say “result” matters. When you spend your precious resources (time, energy, and finances) on implementing marketing tactics, you’re doing so in hope of good returns, and the proof is in the pudding. And when I say “pudding,” I mean “cash.” The Return on Investment (ROI) on the marketing expenditures of an emerging creative small business comes down to one simple question: How much money do you have? There. Done.

To me, it’s all about the bottom line. Within the timeframe you outlined, did you increase your sales or secure future revenue? For example, if at any given time you know how many friends you have on Facebook, how many followers on Google+ or Twitter, or what your average website page views are, then you have a propensity for metrics. But growing those numbers doesn’t necessarily grow your bank account, so tracking them has more to do with your ego than evaluating the success of a blog post, email blast, or promotion. Ask yourself about a marketing tactic’s effects on your bottom line before you assess the value of secondary benefits like brand building.

I used to play a lot of golf. One of the aspects of the game I particularly liked was the statistics. I had software that helped me track everything: putts, greens in regulation, sand saves, and so on. Unfortunately, all this analysis did me little good. I played 30 or more rounds per year for 5 years and I pretty much shot the same score every game. One day I was playing with a friend who was a former semi-pro. He looked at my elaborate score card and said, “You’re an idiot. The only number that matters is the big number at the end. Relax and play the game until you’re having so much fun you feel guilty, then watch that number change direction.” Look at your revenue line, know to the penny how much you make, compare it to what you need, and care more deeply about those numbers than any other in your business.

In cases where a marketing effort didn’t produce new business, determining a tactic’s response rate comes down to a few questions that address other aspects of its impact, but still get us thinking about the bottom number. Consider these factors:

• Quality of engagement: Were the interested parties in your target market? Did you have a meaningful discussion about their needs? Did you learn more about their business, and are you building a relationship with the right contact? Do you have a future meeting scheduled? If you were to land them as a client, how much would the contract pay?

• Rate of occurrence: How hard did you have to work to get the leads you got? How many broadcasts or touch points did it take to get someone to reply? How much time and money did you spend to establish a meaningful connection?

• Style and attitude: Did you try something different, or did you approach your prospects in the same way as previous attempts? What changes would you make in the future with respect to time, energy, and expenses?

Evaluation is a funny thing. When we’re looking for a return on an investment we seem to draw the conclusions we want, regardless of the evidence at hand. I’ve seen software companies stare down graphs and charts until they either find a number they’re interested in, or find justification for ignoring the presented reality. Sometimes all the data in the world doesn’t make a bit of difference. Don’t get me wrong, evaluation is great, but also trust your gut—you won’t be able to ignore it anyway. Don’t let the numbers get you down; let an accountant do that for you. A number-crunching professional will always see things in black and white (or black and red), and their conclusions will always rest on the big numbers, not the nuances of an idea or your hopes and dreams.

Creatives tend to make two mistakes after their marketing efforts play out. First, those who experience poor results right out of the gate lose heart, and let the effort stall, and ultimately the marketing tactic dies a slow and painful death. Second, they see the short-term effect and because they really don’t know what they want to see happen in the long-term, they pull the plug prematurely and fail to give the effort a fair shake.

On the other hand, sometimes bad ideas get a bunch of traction in the development stage (grand or risky ones usually do), and therefore go all the way before revealing their true colors. Or maybe the execution fails; dependencies weren’t accounted for or forces at work kiboshed the desired result.

These things happen, and trashing one approach and moving on to another is an inevitable part of entrepreneurship. The trick is to know why the effort failed and what you would do differently in the future. For all the scribbles, notes, drawings, and scheming that go into a marketing idea, your goal should be to devote a similarly passionate effort to assessing the nuances of the good and bad so that you know what to fix, ignore, enjoy in spite of, and lament.

Service providers are nearly always guilty of being too busy working on current projects to solicit future, more advantageous projects. This is where a creative service provider can take a lesson from a product-oriented business. These businesses have the luxury of spending more time marketing because their goods have already been created. A well-managed business with templates, repeatable processes, and smooth workflows can make more time for a marketing culture to develop creating a better business-building cycle. This is why I am a manager first, and a marketer second! I promote only the creative talent that I can effectively manage because the two areas are interdependent. When a small business is organized it means its workflow and systems act like internal products that help make it easier to accomplish projects, making it easier for the owner to focus on the sales process.

Assessing Your Marketing Impact

One of the best ways to determine the health and success of your marketing tactics is to collect feedback from those you’ve worked with. If you’re just starting out and you haven’t had any paying clients yet, perhaps you have done some pro-bono work or have been involved in a collaboration. Collecting feedback doesn’t need to be difficult. Consider trying a good old-fashioned survey. Why attempt to decipher market potential, business needs, or especially the impact of your marketing ideas when you can just ask someone? For the sake of discussion, I’ll refer to these respondents as clients.

When evaluating a service-oriented business, especially that of a sole proprietor, it’s risky to put too much stock in flippant comments or to regard every paycheck as evidence of a job well done. If there’s criticism, it’s hard to validate or ignore it. A survey brings clarity and balance to the results of a creative work effort. The results of a single project can have a major impact on the direction of your business. Don’t leave that up to chance—get consistent and measurable feedback and use that as evidence to stay the course or to initiate change. After all, if you want to live the dream, working less and making more money can only happen if you’re routinely meeting the demand for your services. And you’re that much closer to living the dream when you’re exceeding demands.

How invaluable would it be to know if your craft, workflow, creative methods, or business acumen are truly making a positive impact on those you serve? It’s always a good idea to assume your services can be better, and your clients are the best people to tell you how to improve. Intentionally pursuing feedback will help you in unimaginable ways.

You can do this with a phone call or email, but I suggest a more empirical method. Create an online survey for your clients. This is a valuable collection tool for the following reasons:

• It provides a professional, unemotional environment for candid feedback.

• It keeps post-project discussions from being hijacked by lame minutiae and helps you focus on making future sales.

• It prevents that one dissenter from skewing everyone’s lasting impression of the success of the project.

• It allows a comparative analysis between different types of clients and projects.

• It shows your dedication to making your next project with them even better.

To do this, make a simple, private online survey and drop that URL into a short and kind email. This is the most non-intrusive way you can distribute a survey. Make it voluntary for paying clients, but for pro-bono clients make it a non-negotiable. Consider including it in your contract or MoU; letting them know you want their detailed feedback ahead of time sets the expectation that you’re committed to the entire process.

A number of great online survey tools will make it easy to build and deliver your survey. You’ll find a very good one at www.surveygizmo.com; I prefer SurveyMonkey.com because the tools are simple to use and it’s cheaper, at just $19 per month. SurveyMonkey also offers a free Basic version; if 10 questions and 100 responses per survey will suffice for you, choose Basic. All of SurveyMonkey’s customer satisfaction survey template questions are methodologist-certified, and you can customize them to fit your survey needs. A survey built with SurveyMonkey is then available in a webpage format via a unique URL that you can send in an email or embed into a website (you can also password-protect it). This will enable you to collect feedback quickly and simply, and allow you to analyze the results with charts or graphs, or with Microsoft Excel.

Once you’re armed with feedback, you can more accurately assess the success or failure of a project and/or the needs of your target market. Negative feedback is usually isolated to one or two areas and, depending on who is providing that feedback, it can distort reality. Even if you feel a paper survey is better, build an online version and enter the results manually; that way you have them archived and can benefit from the reporting functions. By gathering a little bit of empirical data, you’ll gain a more balanced perspective on your work and opportunities. As the creative, you’re not in the best position to be objective, and your perspective, in isolation, is dangerous. Remember to trust the monkey.

Creative Tool Customer satisfaction is (or should be) your top priority. Making decisions based on your customers’ feedback is important to the success of your creative business. Luckily, you don’t need a crystal ball to gain insights from your customers. All you need is SurveyMonkey.
Web: www.surveymonkey.com/mp/customer-satisfaction-surveys/
Twitter: @surveymonkey

Planning a Think & Drink

By and large, creatives plan their businesses in isolation. For all the advantages independence provides, it can also present a significant barrier to creating a successful marketing strategy. In the so-called “real world,” when a company needs to get the creative juices flowing and hammer out strategies that work, they call a meeting, rally the troops, order pizza, and work on the plan together.

Creatives usually don’t have any troops to rally. They work on their marketing ideas in solitude and then spring them on their network having no idea if they will work. They need an environment that is conducive to developing and evaluating new and manageable marketing ideas, and a little accountability never hurt anyone. Creatives need safe ways to practice talking about their businesses, their work, their offerings, and ultimately how they’re going to attempt to attract buyers. This is done best with a like-minded and trusted entrepreneur; you’re interested in contributing to their business venture as much as you value their input.

A practice that David duChemin and I started in 2004, while I was still “working for the man,” and he was still a touring comedian, is our Think & Drink sessions. During these sessions we help each other brainstorm the future of our businesses and flush out our plans to market them. It’s a structured and focused time that requires preparation but has proven the single most valuable planning experience in my professional life. For years I’ve been coaching creatives to do the same because I see too much talent spoiled by doing it the other way around. They chuck ideas around while sharing a few “pops” with whomever they happen to be socializing with, and then try to build something after the fact. Or worse, they remain stuck, alone, and psyched out by the idea of having a serious meeting about their marketing ideas.

This may not be an earth-shattering plan for you, but for David and me these sessions are usually structured in the following way (see the following Think & Drink Rules of Order) because we need them to produce results. We both have very high expectations for our work and we want to be successful. Knowing that you’ve got someone to help assess your business, your marketing conundrums, and your future plans means that you won’t be left holding a live grenade.

Creative at Work Corwin Hiebert (that’s me) in the Irish Heather’s Shebeen Whiskey House, Vancouver’s Gastown District (2004), after a long day of thinking. Image credit: David duChemin