Marvellous Monthly Marketing Tips

In the studio this week... A website for Steve Rogers

Steve Rogers is the son of the famous Paul Rogers. I know him best touring with Queen, but he also founded The Firm, Free and Bad Company. Quite some musical heritage really! So we were a little blown away (to say the least) when Steve asked us to create and brand a website for him.

Unlike his rocker dad, Steve's music is very chilled. Think Newton Faulkner/ Damien Rice. And so we didn't want to create something too hard hitting. Instead the colours and fonts work beautifully with Steve's music.

Here's the homepage

 

And the Music page

  

What do you think? I'll link the images through to the site just as soon as we've finished fiddling with it at this end!

In the studio this week... Branding and website design for the Wedding Community

I feel like I may be bending the truth a little when I talk about doing the Wedding Community's branding "this week". The truth is that we started on the branding and the website design several months ago - June in fact! But we've been sworn to secrecy until this week. So it is with great delight that I introduce to you... The Wedding Community.

 

Now I'm not going to claim that we built the website - have you seen it? An absolute feat of web developmental engineering. No, we stood well back for that and let someone else build it! But we did create the branding, the look and feel of the website and helped them out a lot with their marketing plan.

I think it looks rather fabulous, and it's very different to anything else that's out there on the market at the moment. One to watch I think...

Oh, and if you're quick, you'll see that our very own Rob is featured as wedding of the month! www.theweddingcommunity.com.  

Do your targets make you slightly nervous?

Earlier this week I evangelised about the importance of targets. And I know it makes me sound like an accountant and this is meant to be a marketing blog, but surely the whole point of marketing is that it helps you achieve your commercial goals?

I had lots of fun getting a bunch of small business owners to set commercial targets on my Marketing Planning workshop last week. And once they'd got over the shock of needing to set themselves targets, on the whole they embraced it. But what I found interesting was that once they'd finished the exercise, I asked them how many of them were slightly nervous about the targets they'd set themselves. And about three quarters of the room were nervous.

That's great! You should be nervous. If you're not nervous about your targets then how are they stretching you? If you know you can achieve them then why not set out to squeeze just a little more? So go on, make sure your targets make you just a little bit nervous. Afterall, what's the worst that can happen?

In the studio this week... Postcard design for Horsley Business Network

I've been meaning to set up a networking group in my local village for some time now, and together with some chums we've finally pulled it off! Our first meeting is in January. Along with a website (in progress) we've created some flyers that we can ask the Churches to distribute and put in with local schools bookbags, as well as in the local shops, library and restaurant.

And here's the finished flyer.

Caroline put this together and I love it! I think the birds work really well as a metaphor for communication and community, and visually they also work because Horsley is quite a villagey place. I hesitate to use the word rural, but it is really!  

As you'll probably expect from us by now, colour psychology has played a big role in the colours we've picked! We felt that the network resonated very much with the Autumnal palette. It's all about bringing prosperity back to the local businesses, helping ambitious businesses grow and connecting with your neighbours. It could have been Spring, but we felt that the group's lofty charitable goals and mission worked better within the Autumnal palette. So we've used warm, muted, rich colours.

The purple is all about vision, quality and purpose. The blue is a great communication colour. Orange (and my battle with orange is well documented!) creativity, fun and sociability - all important elements of a networking group, and the greens are balance and abundance.

And here's the back. And I love how Caroline has treated the testimonial. It's a bit more exciting than a block of text!

What do you think? 

Have you set yourself commercial targets for the new year?

Do you know how much money you'd like to earn next year? Have you worked out how much product/ how many services that equates to? Do you have a spreadsheet somewhere on your laptop that shows how much you'd like to turn over on a monthly basis?

It's tempting not to bother. You don't have time. You're not sure what's possible. You're worried you're being bullish. What if you don't meet the targets? There are plenty of reasons/ excuses why people don't create targets. I can't imagine my business that didn't have targets. No wait a minute, I can...

We'd drift along from on month to the next. We'd still do a great job for our clients and my team might be happier for a while: no targets means no pressure at the end of the month! But after a while that lack of direction and sense of purpose would manifest itself in both me and the team. The team wouldn't know how well they were doing, because they'd have nothing tangible or objective to measure their performance against. 

Horrors; if I didn't have targets I probably wouldn't have a budget either. I'd spend money when I had it in the bank, and I'd stop spending when I ran out of cash. I'd make decisions based on the cash in my bank account rather than the value they'd add to my business. And it would be touch and go as to whether I'd have a business next year. I'd spend a LOT more than if I'd had a proper budget and the chances are I'd make a LOT LESS money.

Without the incentive of monthly targets I'd probably invoice a good 25% less every month as I'd just be drifting along. And I'd probably have a bit of a rude awakening at the end of the year.

I don't like the sound of any of that! I've always been very targets focused and it's all I've known all my working life. Yes it's tough, yes it's corporate, but I also believe it's essential to anyone serious about running a successful business. 

I've had my book keeper put together a budget for me for next year based on the company performance over the last four years, and also my own personal financial goals. It's exciting! And most importantly, I know what I need to do to get to where I want to get to.

Now all we need to do is achieve them!

If you're good at what you do you won't need to compete on price

"If it's worth doing, it's worth doing properly" my mum always used to say. We never had much money when I was growing up, but whenever mum did buy something, she'd always make sure it was of the best quality she could afford. She understood the false economy of buying something cheap that would break within days. And although we were never flush with cash, she would rather pay for quality.  

I don't think we were alone, and I don't think that attitude is confined to the 80's! Most people would rather pay for quality than search out the cheapest. And the old adage "you get what you pay for" is just as true now as it was 25 years ago.

If you're good at what you do, whether that's a great product or top quality service, then you won't need to compete on price. People will recognise the value in what you're offering and they'll be prepared to spend more. Or will they?

All too often I meet small business owners who are struggling to earn a living because their clients don't want to pay what they need to charge. They're having to be the cheapest or discount just to get the job. Why? Because their customers don't see the value in what they're offering. 

And this is partly down to your sales process, partly down to what you've written on your website/ brochure and partly (largely if you're not doing the selling) down to the fact that your brand isn't communicating confidence or professionalism.

Flourish Logo: the saga continues

A few days ago we changed the colours of the flourish logo to deeper, Autumnal colours. And now I'm happy with the colours, I'm now concerned that the font is weak. And much as I absolutely love the font, I'm not sure it has enough strength and impact for a logo.

Luckily Caroline shares my passion for perfection and has worked up a couple of others. I have to say, they have the instant impact and wow factor that I was hoping for. It'll be interesting to see how I feel about them on Monday, but first impressions are good.

 

The funny thing is, that when we create logos for clients, we always, always create three options for them. And this just proves why: because you've got to have something to compare it to.

We'll be posting the third option very soon. But let me know what you think of this one.

You can't win em all, but it's nice to know you've made a good impression

This email popped into my inbox a couple of days ago, and as I'm feeling in a bit of a show-off mood I thought that I should share it with you.

Dear Fiona,

If you remember me, I'll be amazed, but in March 2008 I came to your offices to take up an offer you made to a women's networking group to give a free 'branding consultation' to upcoming businesses. I wanted advice on how to present an idea I had to sell cards online. I showed you the cards and you advised me to go upmarket with them. You got the hang of what I meant very quickly. Although your company couldn't do anything, as such, for me, in your estimation of the product I wanted to create, you gave me some invaluable advice and a great boost.
 
The site I envisaged is launched now at www.takingtimecards.co.uk <http://www.takingtimecards.co.uk> . I thought you might like to see it.
 

And also see that on it, under the Thanks tab, I've listed your name. I am grateful for the time you took and for your enthusiasm that day, and I haven't forgotten it. In your friendly, intelligent approach and cheerful, upbeat advice, you did both your company and yourself proud.

Feel free to quote me! 

All good wishes,

Fleur Robertson

Taking Time Cards  

Isn't it lovely to know that even when we can't help people directly, that we've given something back? I'm feeling all warm and fuzzy!

In the studio this week... Website design for 21st Century Riot

21st Century Riot are an MIB Music band and we've recently rebranded them. Their old site design was actually pretty cool, but the problem was that the colours and images gave a really 'young' feel to the band. Whilst the original colours were very "spring" like (bright blues, lots of light and white space) we felt an Autumnal palette would give the band the credibility and image they deserved.

Rob's created a more grown up look that still retains it's funky accessibility and has clear calls to action to ensure they get those all important bookings.

The flourish identity... a bit of a U-turn on the colour

As you know, the colours for our new flourish identity haven't been sitting well with us for a couple of weeks now. We've selected colours from the Spring palette: light and clear which whilst I like them, when we translate them to the logo I'm finding them a little garish and lacking in substance.

Whilst I buy into a lot of the Spring personality, my concern was that it lacked depth and gravitas. I was struggling to take some of the colours seriously and they just didn't have enough "punch" on the page.

And having battled with the spring colours for some time we went back to the drawing board, and just as an experiment put Autumnal colours next to the Spring ones. Here's the result: Spring colours on the left and Autumnal ones on the right.

The ones on the right just have so much more depth and substance. Caroline and I fell in love with the colours straight away and realised that we needed to consider the Autumn palette for the business. 

Autumn businesses are efficient, they finish what they start, they're career minded and ambitious. They're campaigners and like to champion the underdog. That fits well with our strategy of bringing great design to small businesses. They like natural textures and the natural world and are people and family focused.

So we're probably on the cusp of Spring and Autumn and having really tried hard to embrace the Spring thing, we're thinking Autumn is just more "us". Our mentor Bernay Laity is in agreement that the Autumn colour palette can work just as well for the business as long as we keep it on the lighter, brighter, side of Autumn. 

And so here are the new flourish logos. (and Stephen: you'll be glad to see the orange!).

And here are Izzy and Ian's business cards.

What do you think?