The Sponge Blog: Evolve – embrace brand evolution. - Insights and ideas about design and marketing from The Sponge Sydney

A guest post by Sponge intern Zenith Phillips

Can you remember that initial thing that drove you to make the decision to work towards a career in the creative industry? Was it flipping through magazine advertisements thinking to yourself how cool it would be to make them? Or seeing a massively Photoshopped advertisement and wanting to learn how to do it? You have an interest so now you just go to school then get a job, right? Unfortunately, everything in the creative industry is competitive and that includes the glorious step between student and professional ‘the internship’.

My professors told me as a graphic designer I will learn 60% on the job, through my experience I would say 65%-70%. The purpose of an internship is to get your knowledge at 100% to assist you in becoming a professional. Landing a good internship is difficult and competitive. Difficult because you want to find placement where you will get attention, first hand assistance from successful people in the industry. Competitive because everyone wants attention from the best.

My main focus when searching for an internship was ‘who is willing to get me to 100%?’ that’s when I discovered the work experience program at The Sponge. During my time at The Sponge I have learned… I have learned a lot and it would take me hours and hours to write everything out so you should really just come in and learn for yourself. This internship is not easy, your work needs to meet The Sponge standards. Your entire process gets creative direction from both the director of creativity and senior director so you defiantly get good portfolio pieces! You will learn to love the words ‘looks good, give me 5 more!’and understand how much of a process design is. Aside from mentoring you to create amazing design that works, The Sponge will teach you anything you want to know whether it be technical or how a graphic design business works.

If you want a rewarding internship with amazing creative direction from people who are design and marketing masters, awesome BBQ’s every Friday and work you will be proud to put in your portfolio, I suggest you apply for The Sponge work experience program.

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To me brainstorming new online business models is a great deal of fun. My team and I really enjoy the challenge of developing innovative ideas and understand the technical freedoms and limitations of the internet. Recently we have had the opportunity to work on some exciting and boundary pushing online strategies. In this post I will share with you some of the key questions we work through to develop an effective online strategy.

In most cases an online strategy is not an off the shelf solution. The internet gives us the freedom to market any combination of products and services and with the technological advancements that are constantly being developed it creates the opportunity to be innovative in the way that they are delivered. These innovations can create a superior user experience and generate a real consumer buzz.

To develop an effective online strategy my team and I like to spend a couple of hours with a client working through (and often brainstorming) what we believe to be some of the key questions. I have grouped them into bite size pieces below. Keep in mind that a lot of these questions are broad stroke and are intended to spark meaningful (and often lengthy) conversations and have natural follow up clarification questions. To keep it relatively simple they are not included here.

Knowing that there is an worthwhile opportunity

1. Who is your potential market or markets?
2. Are they on the internet?
3. Is there a proven demand for your offering?
4. Is demand rising or in decline?
5. Is there an undersupply, or an oversupply of what you are offering?

Branding your offering

1. Is this a new brand, a sub brand or a standalone offering?
2. Have you named it to position it correctly for your market?
3. Does your brand identity and design style appeal to your market? Does it convey the value of what you have priced it at?
4. Does your value proposition communicate the value of your offering clearly and concretely to your market?
5. Is your domain name easy to say, memorable and matches your brand name?

Selling your offering

1. Do you know what motivates your market to buy?
2. What is truly unique about your offering?
3. Why will your market buy from you?
4. Does your offering require short or long term education to be accepted by your market?
5. Does your offering require an introductory offer, or free trial period to make a sale?

Delivering on the sale

1. How do you intend to handle online payments?
2. Are you delivering locally, interstate, or globally?
3. Does your offering require warehousing and shipping? How do you intend to manage this?
4. Is your offering a onetime sale, or is there an opportunity for repeat sales, or a subscription sale?
5. Does your offering have natural complimentary offerings that you can also provide?
6. How do you intend to deliver your customer service?
7. How can you add value for your customers over and above your offering? (This question fits in next category too!)

Marketing & Usability – Getting more sales

1. Does your offering have an inherent referability? Is there one you can create?
2. Is it more important to constantly add new customers, or increase the number of transactions with your existing ones?
3. How scalable is your offering?
4. Do you know what else can be done on the internet with current technologies that may complement of advance your offering?
5. Do you intend to create a community for your clients?
6. Have you considered the useability and functionality of your website for your customers, both immediate and for the future evolutions?

Financing, Longevity & Exit

1. Is your offering immediately monetizable?
2. How many sales do you need to break even and then become profitable?
3. What does success look like for you?
4. Is your offering a short term or a long term business model?
5. What is short term and long term to you?
6. Do you have an exit strategy?
7. How do you intend to fund your venture (short and long term)?

I hope these questions help you with your online strategy. If you would like to dive deeper into any of these categories or questions, or get some professional help developing your online strategy, simply drop us an email now.

One last question.What other good strategy defining questions do you know of?

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Your answers to our survey have given us the top 10 services we offer that you want to know more about. They are:

1. Online Marketing Strategy
2. Brand Positioning
3. Website design and maintenance
4. Search Engine Optimisation
5. Social Media for Business (facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc)
6. Web Video
7. Business & Brand Naming
8. Google Adwords
9. Email Newsletter Marketing
10. Logo Design and Stationery (inc digital templates)

Over the next 10 weeks I intend to post an article each week working through this list, starting with Online Marketing Strategy. If you can’t wait for information about any of these subjects you are welcome to contact our team to arrange your own personal consultation.

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I have finally been able to review the answers of our recent Value Proposition survey. While there is still a sizable amount of work remaining to produce the intended value proposition statement, there were some wonderful comments that have made me and my team extremely happy. So, on behalf of my team I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for all your help!

I would like to share some of the comments right away, however I will be respecting the privacy of their authors.

“A refreshingly practical and commercial approach to the smoke and mirrors world of digital marketing and web development”

“Easy to work with. Great ideas flowed from the very first meeting. “

“Lots of positive feedback, comments that our website looks amazing, professional and makes our clients feel confident in our company & brand.”

“I have only ever heard positive comments relating to our brand name and design. They were fresh 7 years ago, and I believe will continue to be so for many years to come. “

“They make a brand exciting and give it new life.”

“Received many compliments from strangers and clients.”

“A real market presence and recognition of our brand.”

“They are not cheap, BUT if you want quality creative that works you need to meet with them before you go anywhere else.”

“A company with youthful energy, and ideas that are contemporary and innovative!”

“Different is such an understated word but it sort of is appropriate.”

“A simple engagement process and a team that is very easy to work with. No attitudes; No egos. Just a group of hard working, keen and very creative guys and girls that produce outstanding designs.”

“They are creative and cutting edge with their thought processes; their professionalism and willingness to work with the client (us) was very refreshing. They were always positive about achieving the results that we were going to be happy with.”

We love the work we get the privilege to do for you here at The Sponge and this kind of positive response is really special to us. So again from me and my team, a HUGE thanks for your help, your answers are invaluable to us.

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As one of our core services is creating (and managing) brands for new businesses, my team and I have the frequent pleasure of meeting with entrepreneurs. I think many of these entrepreneurs wouldn’t call themselves this, however Webster’s dictionary defines “entrepreneur” as: ‘one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise.’, so in my opinion they definitely are.

I personally admire the bravery that it takes to invest in an idea. I feel a kinship with this type of person as it is something I do time and again (with varied success!). Even with the uncertainty that accompanies creating a new business, there is freedom in knowing you are in control and not at threat of being fired.

The economist and entrepreneur Paul Zane Pilzer informs us in his Entrepreneurial Challenge that with the current economic climate, you really have no choice but to become an entrepreneur and the time to do it is when the going is good, not to wait until times are tough. I am not saying that you need to quit your job today and invest in that idea you have stewing over. I am saying that it is definitely worth a discussion to see if it is feasible.

Our policy of only accepting new “non-competitive clients” means our clients are spread across many different industries. With this variety of industries comes the privilege of experiencing and learning many different business models, processes and practises. One benefit is that we can share these practises with our clients in different industries, in some cases giving them first mover advantage. Similarly and sometimes more importantly, we can use them to shape a newly born idea, brought to us by an entrepreneur, into a fully developed brand and strategic business model.

We have two such projects in the development which I will touch on briefly now and share with you in detail in future posts once they have launched. One is an international business model that worked successfully ten years ago, but has been flailing in recent times due its laborious and out dated processes. We have streamlined this model into a completely scalable, cashflow generating online model with a powerful referral funnel and client retention system.

In the second of these we recognised that what the client thought was the product would work better as a free lead generator and the actual ‘profitable’ product is something else entirely. The new product has the potential to generate more than eight times the revenue from each client than the original idea. Furthermore if we are successful in adding the value we plan with this project, the repeat revenue is ongoing.

You may be thinking how does this fit in the realm of branding?

My team and I believe that client experience is a huge part of branding. If you get the client experience right, you will get the brand right. An awesome example of this is Zappos! Zappos generates over a billion USD in online sales annually, with 80% coming from existing clients. Their focus is their company culture and their client experience. I recently read to Zappos CEO Tony Hseih’s recently released book Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose in which he goes into detail about how Zappos got to where it is today. I highly recommend it!

When evaluating a new idea for a business or a brand, we like to think of it from your new client’s perspective. In the formative steps of creating a business there is every opportunity to shape the client experience completely so that it is ideal. Naturally this is heavily intertwined with the business’ process, so to us it is a critical part of branding and something we care very deeply about.

This kind of work is exciting to us and we relish every opportunity to create something special. Have you got an idea you want to discuss?

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We have been working closely with some interesting entrepreneurs and organisations in the last two months who have really pushed us to work out our creative muscles. One project which is poised to go live in July has given us the opportunity to influence a positive change in Australia’s culture. I say this with some hesitancy, as I know full well that this kind of change is no easy thing.

The project, which I cannot disclose too much about right now apart from it being based around drinking, is about to go into a beta testing phase prior to the launch and we would like some help from 18-30 year old socially active Aussies to help us iron out any kinks. If you can help and would like to get an exclusive preview, email us for more information.

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The weekend before last my fellow sponge director and I participated in a great motorsport event called the Italian Connection Trophy. We have been involved with it for three years as a sponsor and its charity (as of this year) is The Duchenne Foundation. If you are like me, you will not have heard of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) – it is the number one genetic killer of boys worldwide. Throughout the event we were all very moved by the video and the cause and donated everything we could to the Foundation.

The organisation is great, the cause is great, but there is one flaw which was a talking point through the event (due to the Duchenne car livery). Whoever was responsible for the domain name doesn’t appear to have thought it through carefully enough. It is www.blueball.org.au and it makes sense when you understand the logo and concept behind the brand for the foundation, but not so much if you haven’t seen it before. In my opinion the decision was made by someone too close to the brand and the curse of knowledge has clouded their thoughts. A quick look at blueball.org confirms the natural association that can be made.

The point is to think carefully about the domain name you are choosing for your brand. Have friends or family read through your short list to pick out flaws, or misreads that you cannot see. To see what some really bad examples a quick Google search for “bad domain names” returns a page with nine Bad domain names, as it says:

…these are companies that didn’t spend quite enough time considering how their online names might appear – and be misread…

1. Who Represents is where you can find the name of the agent that represents any celebrity. Their Web site is www.whorepresents.com
2. Experts Exchange is a knowledge base where programmers can exchange Advice and views at www.expertsexchange.com
3. Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island at www.penisland.net

You can read the rest here, but you get the point.

Having said that, up until a recent check if you accidently omitted the .au in our domain name and typed www.thesponge.com you would have landed on the today sponge contraceptive device website!

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I heard Brad Sugars (founder of Action Coach) share a quote from a mentor of his at his recent speaking tour, which rang true with me. It was “You can’t out earn me until you out learn me”. Although I don’t use Action Coach, I do agree with this principle.

I started on a diet of one business book per week many years ago and have been enthusiastically consuming knowledge in this manner on and above my weekly dietary goals. One of the reasons I am keen to continuously absorb knowledge is to discover new ways to add value for our clients and more effective methods to implement in our processes.

Given a large part of what we do at The Sponge is B2B marketing, one of the books I found to be extremely interesting late last year was Professional Services Marketing Written by Mike Schultz and John Doerr .

In April the authors invited me to participate in an online training course they were starting that builds on what the book delivered. In keeping with my intention to uncover new and better practices I joined the program. It is a four month course delivered online which is drip fed one or two lessons per week. Just one month in I have found it to be surprising value and it is providing me with much, much more than I expected. I had intended to use the knowledge gleaned to help our clients, but quickly realised that The Sponge brand could benefit from the exercise too.

What does this mean for you?

If you are currently using our services you will notice new insights and advice that will make your marketing efforts more appealing and effective in gaining traction with your market. You will see the effects it has on The Sponge brand and may be asked to impart your wisdom at certain stages (like our recent Value Proposition Survey) to help reach the outcomes. You will see relevant and hopefully useful posts in this blog, and are invited to join in with questions and comments.

Finally, when the next course opens up (later this year), I highly recommend every professional service consultant or practitioner to sign up and do it. If you have any questions for me about it, drop me an email.

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It is a great question. Many professional service businesses consider themselves as a commodity and have trouble trying to create a clear distinction from their competition. A good starting point is your value proposition and positioning statement.

How compelling is your value proposition?

Let’s start with what a value proposition actually is. I like the Wellesley Hills Group definition:

 A value proposition is the collection of reasons why a person or company benefits from buying something.

These reasons can be many and may differ according to your client segment and product or service offering. Your value proposition is the collection of your clients’ reasons. How does your value proposition compare with your positioning statement? A positioning statement is a succinct and punchy version of your value proposition (if it can be shortened), so naturally you need to have your value proposition solved first.

We have all read and heard the uninspiring buzz words and marketing speak that are commonly used as positioning statements and in place of a unique value proposition. A good test is to say it to a client. If it feels wrong coming out, or they don’t get it, it is wrong. You need to speak to the client in the way they understand the value you provide, in the words they would use to describe it.

So what does a good value proposition contain?

First it needs to resonate, making sure the reader/listener understands that you help people just like them. It needs to differentiate, articulating the distinct value you can provide which makes you the logical and only choice. Finally it needs to substantiate, demonstrating through relative example/s how you have delivered similar value already for a similar challenge.

How can you articulate the value of what you actually provide?

This is the all important question with a simple answer. You need to ask your current clients, because value is in the ear of the listener.

What can you use it for?

You can use a version at networking events, prospective client meetings, on your website, social media profiles, in your print material and advertising campaigns or anywhere you have an opportunity with a potential client.

How you can help us right now

This is a hot topic for us right now as it is time to revisit our own value proposition. Here is where we ask for your help. We want to know what you think of us and we’ve created a simple 7 short question survey to do just that. It will take you only a few moments and will help us greatly. If we can return the favour let us know.

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If you are directing people to your website through any kind of marketing and you are not using landing pages, you might want to STOP EVERYTHING AND READ THIS!

What is a landing page?

The short answer is that a landing page is any page within your website that a visitor lands on as an entry point, including your home page.

Why are landing pages critical for website owners today?

There are two main reasons, but before we get into them let’s touch on the variety of ways that a new visitor can arrive at any landing page within your website. Typically visitors come from word of mouth, word of mouse (email, Twitter, Facebook, blog post, etc), a link within another website, your business collateral print material (brochures, fliers, stationery, business cards, signage, livery, uniforms etc), traditional advertisements (TV, print, radio, outdoor, directories, etc), search engines, or paid online advertisement (Google Adwords, display ads, yahoo, online directories, Facebook etc).

The first reason for landing pages is heavily associated with the smart marketing methodology of making relevant and specific calls to action, tailored to the people who will see them. Without going deep into it, smart marketers know that creating relevant and targeted calls to action can improve your conversion rate and reduce your cost per sale.

The typical website

Imagine a salesperson standing outside her business, working hard starting dialogues with people about her various products as they pass by, but as soon as someone shows interest in a product she mentions, she directs them into the showroom and shuts the door behind them leaving them alone to find the product that interested them and work out what to do next, amongst the mass of options on display before them. Similarly for websites, businesses tend to direct all enquiries to a homepage that has been designed to deliver all the available information for their business, but not the specific information for whatever it was that got the attention of the prospect in the first place.

This may be fine if you only ever sell one specific product, to only one type of client, with only one call to action. However if like most businesses you don’t, and you have invested your time and money starting multiple, targeted and relevant dialogues with your prospects (through your marketing pieces and advertisements), to the point where they are interested and have landed on your website, doesn’t it make sense to continue that dialogue directly, with little or no distraction, and walk them through your specific steps to complete the sale for that product or service? This can really only be done by creating a focused landing page, or system that does just that for each and every unique dialogue that you open.

The second reason is equally important. Do you know the exact return on investment you are getting for the money you are spending on your advertising? For most businesses it can only be estimated from an overall period sales/leads/enquiries report. When you utilise unique landing pages for each and every marketing piece, you can track every online enquiry, sale, or visit, right back to the originating piece. It is as simple as creating a landing page and URL like this for a campaign: www.thesponge.com.au/ROI and using Google Analytics intelligently in your website.

The good news is that Google Analytics is a free resource. The bad news is that your web team may not understand landing pages or Google Analytics, or if they do, may not have the practical experience to implement a system that will work for you.

There is a pretty good chance you have encountered a landing page style currently being used by growing numbers of internet marketers which is appallingly ugly. It is really saddening, though they do follow some basic principles that we believe in and practice too. Those are to make the page a single column and include all the answers to the typical questions that a prospect will ask, and to direct the visitor to one specific action, either buy, contact, subscribe to a list, or a variant of one of these. Here at The Sponge we believe there is absolutely no reason for your website to be aesthetically unpleasant in order to make you more profitable. In other words, you can have beautiful and effective landing pages.

We are in the really early stages of evaluating the viability of providing a hosted landing page solution for cases where you know your business could benefit by using them, but your current web team is unable to deliver and you don’t want to offend anyone, or burn any bridges. If you or anyone you know are interested in this model, please let us know ASAP so we can factor it into our study.

I hope this has got you thinking and I would love to receive any questions that arise and comments.

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