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

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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Note: This was originally written as a guest post for The Next Web

On Tuesday Feb 9 I attended the Venture Capital by Design seminar out of curiosity (and the insatiable need for knowledge that can benefit Sponge clients). Not having any endeavours that require additional capital at the moment made me an exception amongst the two parties of investors or capital seekers that filled the room.

The board was loaded with an experienced mix of investors and entrepreneurs who could offer great advice: Michael Zimmerman, Rob Fitzpatrick, Chris Hitchen and Ilkka Tales. Their profiles can be found on the event site

After the general introductions, Anthill founder James Tuckerman, who MC’d the event, posed an awesome question to the panel. Given that entrepreneurs are mainly divided into two camps (shown to be fairly even amongst the attendee show of hands), those who focus on the strong business technology/idea, and those who focus on the strong marketing plan, if only one could be chosen, which is more important?

The panel unanimously agreed on the strong marketing plan although there is an obvious advantage to having both types within the management of your business.

As the event progressed, it was clear that there were 3 key areas that were being focussed on:

• What you need to get the money
• Where to get the money
• What not to do when trying to get the money

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What you need to get the money

• If you are tech startup looking for capital, you need to be passionate and have some of your own skin in the game. Your business must be scalable, a product, process, or system that can be sold again and again to any number of people. It cannot rely on the people or their available time. Remember that investors want a significant return on their cash, so you need to right size your investment capital to the scalability that is possible for your business at exit (when you return the cash).
• For a web based business,  build a community and demonstrate a revenue stream. Keep in mind that there is a massive oversupply of display ad space and it is extremely difficult to sell, even on a website with millions of visits. Do not put it in your business plan as a core revenue raiser.
• Knowing your industry and being realistic about your competitors and understanding their roadmaps is important as well as having runs on the board, personally, or within your management team.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the landscape of your industry and possible roadmaps of your competition; and
• Have an existing revenue generating marketing plan that you can implement

Most investors would like to see some patentable ideas or technologies, but it is not important. It is often about being better at executing rather than the idea itself. Being first to market on the web doesn’t always mean you have the advantage.

IP (Intellectual Property) can be a critical part of establishing value in an entity, particularly if you plan for a trade sale exit. IP can be patents, know how, and trademarks. Know how, or how your company does what it does, is pretty critical. Patents can enable you to block off and monopolise a market sector. If your business has IP, consult an IP lawyer. There are some great IP lawyers in Australia, with even better ones in the US.

Create an advisory panel, or board, as they can add a wealth of experience to your business. Members can often become an Angel investor once they have been infected with your idea, but they need to have skin in the game along with any expertise or advice that they contribute. With skin in the game, there is an added level of commitment.

With advisory panel members, board members, or VCs, listen to their advice, but don’t necessarily take it. You need to show you have a plan, you have the ideas.

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Where to get the money

Angel investors can include “Friends, fools and family”, high net worth’s in your network, or the professional angel community e.g. Sydney Angels . Typically this funding is for 10 to 100K. For greater amounts a Venture Capitalist is needed, for 40 million plus you need to go global. Overall the VC industry hasn’t been that successful in the last 10 years, so looking forward there will be far less able to raise money.

You can hire someone to do a capital raise. Be prepared to pay 3.5% to 5% of the amount raised as a success fee, but try to avoid any monthly management fees. Do due diligence on who they are going to target and tie them down for a two month period. Like real estate, if your house is on the market for more than two months, it goes stale. The same goes for a revenue raise. Giving them a deadline to work to creates a sense of urgency.

Smart money is when you take on an investor who can add value to your business with their knowledge, experience and networks. You need to quiz your investors as to how they can help you as much as they quiz you about your business. It is important that they fit in your company and culture, because you don’t want someone to come on board that becomes your boss.

It can take a long time to find the right investors for your business and build a relationship, so start talking to potential investors early. It takes a lot of coffees and a lot of talking. Keep in mind that trust is reciprocated and is needed to get a contract signed, so it is advised to give your investors a bit of trust up front.

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What not to do when trying to get the money

VCs, or Angels dislike it when you say you have an idea that is so amazing, but cannot tell them (because you are scared they will steal it), or that you want you to sign an NDA first. The VC industry has a standard NDA, but this will only be signed in the later stages of negotiations.

Saying that you are only aiming at 1% of the market is a common error. And having a fixed value in your head for what your business is worth. The market will determine how much it is actually worth.

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So there’s my summary of the event.

Many of you will already know a lot of what’s included above, for some of you it may be new. Either way it’s good to hear from the experts (again…), in a clear fashion, what’s key if you’re seeking funding.

My congratulations also go out to the organisers, Anthill Magazine and Mitchell Lake who, despite the rather bleak funding environment for tech startups in Australia,  put together a great event to help those seeking capital to increase their chances of success.

I would love to get your take on VC in Australia.

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After much thought and discussion amongst our creative team we have decided to conduct a series of success interviews for this blog. In the coming months you will get to know some of our favourite people, hopefully gaining insight into the characteristics that makes them successful. The first interview will take place in the next week and should appear here shortly after. Our intention is to do one or two per month, all things willing.

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There is a certain joy that comes from working for, and alongside, professionals with an excellence mindset. Is it the raising of your own game to suitably complement? Is it the mental stimulation that comes with the high level conversations? Maybe it is a bit of both, as well as knowing that you may be able to contribute to their success.

One of the things that I personally enjoy from these relationships is learning what they believe have been the critical factors to their successes. Whether it be a particular knowledge, philosophy, practice, mindset or marketing strategy. Anything that can be modeled, learned and replicated is pure gold.

I have been engrossed in this as of late, with the view to produce a report (or book if time allows) for Sponge clients. My hope is to be able to share a set of proven excellence practices that can be used as something of a tool kit for even greater success.

More to come on this. Stay tuned.

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I have been talking a lot lately about the legitimate incorporation of a social media strategy for businesses. To put it into a context that can be easily understood I recently wrote a post under the title of this post. If you have not read it already, I urge you to jump over to Anthill or thinksocial.com.au and give it a read.

I want to briefly add that in order to compare it I may have given the impression that social media is an easily quantifiable marketing exercise. It is so much more than that, which brings me to a few key hard to measure benefits for businesses active in the social media space:

Managing Your Online Brand Reputation

People are (or should be!) talking about your brand online right now, and social media gives you the ability to listen and be involved in the conversation directly.

Create a Community of Brand Advocates

Create brand advocates & advisors by keeping them active with frequent contact. Be where your audience is and expand your database. Create online brand communities who will continue to market you to the web.

Become a Knowledge Leader

Be seen as the leading edge in your industry and share your perspective and expertise. Learn of new developments as and when they happen around the world. Monitor what your market is really thinking and saying about your competitors.

Customer Service

Respond to your client’s and potential client’s queries live and direct, either publicly or in private depending on the impression you wish to make or whether it can help others at the same time.

Secure your Social Media Identity

Similar to branding through domain names. Have you secured all your social media profiles?

Display Business Intelligence

Social media trades traditional media spend for labour cost. By activating your social media strategy you will be seen as maximising your existing expenditure (staff) which in this economic climate is critical.

Open a Recruitment Channel

Create an online identity that can attract like minded people into your organisation.

So whether or not you think that Social Media may be where the bulk of your market is, the comparison in the linked post identifies it as a similar channel to a print publication, where the exact same question can be asked. The question I put to you now is which medium of the two is growing right now?

So how have you started using Social Media in your business? If you need help: thinksocial

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Recently it has come up in conversation that our brand design process is unique to that of our competitors. While we agree that it is a highly successful process, because it is the only way we know, it seems the natural way to work.

To understand what sets The Sponge apart and how time after time we achieve such striking and more importantly effective results, you can simply immerse yourself in the following narrative of our uniquely creative process and imagine how well it will work for you too.

Soaking it up

One of our friendly team meet with you to discuss your goals and objectives, as well as a carefully selected set of questions, focusing special attention on your Vision, Mission & Values. Our first and most important goal is to uncover your core message, or the pieces from which it will be masterfully created. This only comes through a comprehensive understanding of who you are (as an organisation/business) and what you intend to be as a brand. Only those who are prepared to invest the necessary resources, honestly bare all and then trust us to deliver will make the cut.

Each of the key members of our senior creative team is briefed with your answers.  We openly discuss them in the first of many forums in preparation for our chilli chicken session (a ritual of brainstorming over spicy Thai cuisine), so that each of us is crystal clear on the objectives. Any questions that arise are asked immediately of you via phone, email, or IM and the answers hungrily devoured.

Studying your competition helps reveals how and where you fit in the marketplace. If it is unclear, then we focus on what you do differently and/or what makes you unique, so as to position you in a space of your own. The team playfully explore “sticky” (memorable) words, or phrases that best communicate your position, to find a core message/positioning statement to build your identity around. The ideas generated here are shared amongst the team and used to fuel for the pre-brainstorm deep dive.

Pre-brainstorm deep dive, or lateral researching, readies the team with many possible design directions. We do this by deep diving in thesaurus, dictionary, quote books, Google search, photo stock, etc. Each new link is laterally explored, following each connection until we hit an end, then we jump back to a fork and follow a different connection until all avenues are exhausted. Every moment an inspired idea is revealed, it is documented or sketched for discussion at the chilli chicken.

Chilli Chicken

Even if it simply becomes a part of a custom typeface in a logo type, designing the symbol first is our first objective when creating your brand. A huge amount of potential communicating power resides in a strong symbol. We believe in thinking globally for your brand because of global trade and the reach of the internet. A graphic symbol crosses some borders far easier than words, for example we all know the flying kangaroo and we know the golden arches. There are a great many factors that come into consideration when designing an international symbol, i.e.  the nationalities and global demographics you are targeting, or hope to target in the future and their social, religious or cultural differences. Another veritable minefield is the international trademark databases and processes that need to be checked and navigated.

An open forum begins where each team member shares their findings from the deep dive and ideas and concepts are voiced. Ideas are quickly sketched with coloured markers onto the largest pieces of bond paper we can organise, the aim is not to create a masterpiece, but simply to convey the core ideas and open up a free flow of creativity. Dozens of ideas are scribbled down, discussed, improved, diversified, contracted, discarded or marked for development. Each idea is continually measured against the core message/positioning statement. Once we have well and truly pushed past the point of exhaustion of directions, as a group we decide which concepts are worthy of being taken to screen.

To Screen

The ideas that were selected are worked up in black and white in illustrator by our skilful designers.  It is important to get the design right in one colour first, for its many applications i.e. Engraving and Stamping. It also forces a certain level of simplicity, and enables a brand to own a single colour, something that is common amongst many of the world’s top brands i.e. Coke, IBM. Dozens of versions of each design are explored. Painstaking variations in size, shape, proportion, stroke, etc, are tested, each projecting a subtle change in response.  At this stage the concepts undergo further scrutiny as to whether they best communicate what they are intended too and what possible changes may enhance their appeal and concept strength.

From these many refined visual ideas we funnel down once more and select what we as a team consider to be the three most powerful and compelling visual ideas to progress onto typographic application. Careful thought is taken to choose a varied selection of fonts and typographic layouts that compliment the brand’s image and message. With thousands of typefaces to choose from, there are usually a handful that, with a little modification, capture the essence of the brand and compliments the icon well. If a suitable typeface cannot be found, a custom typeface will be designed.

From the assortment of typographic options of each of the final concepts, a further grading is done by the team. This new shortlist of designs conveying different character and strengths are carefully tested for balance by inverting on black so that the negative shapes become the focus. This highlights the balance of the shapes that create the logo, both internally and externally and enables further refinement. The designs that have the opportunity too, are refined further and tested again, and we still haven’t introduced colour yet.

Concept Podium

We move those concepts on to the next level of refinement where taking into consideration the tone we believe you need to convey, we explore colour applications and layout many variants and combinations. Each is judged by our team for the emotional and logical response the colour options command. Further suggestions are made and trialled. An official vote is conducted amongst The Sponge team as to which option works best for each of the three final concepts. The final choices are worked up as finished concepts and displayed in our proprietary Concept Podium presentation system. This is where we apply your new potential brand identities to present to you, showcasing them in various applications to give you a feel for each design and demonstrate the flexibility of each concept. The concepts are placed on the Concept Podium in our recommended order of Gold, Silver & Bronze as democratically voted by our team. The Concept Podium also provides a detailed written rationale of each idea and its intent.

We are yet to find a client who has not been exhilarated with our concepts and we challenge you to test our abilities. We love to be challenged and we love understanding new and different businesses.

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A friend of mine sent me a advanced release of his new book a couple of weeks ago. After reading it I feel compelled to give you 3 reasons NOT to get this book. When you read it and are inspired by the information contained within…

1.  You will have people all around the world talking about you!

2. These people will visit your website and buy from you!

3. You may even become the authority in your profession.

…all by simply harnessing the power of the internet and creating a World Wide Rave. Who would possibly want such things?

The book is called World Wide Rave and it is written by a friend of mine named David Meerman Scott. The truth is that this is a short, entertaining and easy to read book that will leave you with a list of things to try yourself (or talk to your design team to assist you with). I have to admit, here at The Sponge we have used, and continue to use David’s wisdom and suggestions on many of our clients online strategies.

You may want to look at some of David’s previous books and ebooks too at his blog.

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We have received some great feedback and now the new and improved BrandPulseCheck tool is officially live. Thank you for your help! Now it is ready for you to use it, benefit from it and share it!

This new tool allows us to freely share our knowledge with millions of people and gives you the ability to check your brand’s pulse in less time than it takes to make a cup of coffee. In that short time you can have your own personalized report, bursting with actionable information in any area which could do with improvement. The brand pulse check and personalized report are all completely free.

Enjoy!

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