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First, Find Your SpaceWednesday 30th January 2008 There's a wonderful book called, "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing", by Al Reis and Jack Trout. In this seminal work, the authors provide a clear illustration of the importance of being first in a category. It goes something like this:
Now, if I was to ask you, "Who was the first person to fly solo over the Atlantic?", I'm sure you'd tell me without any hesitation that it was Charles Lindbergh. Do you know the second? The chances are that you would have no idea. Do you know the third? Even less likely to recall the name of that particular person! However, if I rephrased the very last question: "Who was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic?", then naturally, you'd tell me it was Amelia Earhart.
Considering your core competencies and redefining your space should be one of the first places to look for differential advantage.
So, the first law, according to Reis and Trout, is: "It¹s better to be first than it is to be better." The second law is: "If you can't be first in a category, then set up a category that you can be first in."
Be THE Financial Brand!Monday 28th January 2008 Are you: A financial marketer? Why be A, when you could be considered THE? : THE financial marketer. What would it take? Would the claim fulfil our proven criteria of being remarkable, reputational, relevant and real?How could you re-engineer the organisation so that it would be all of those things?
Think about it from your clients' point of view. Why would you choose "A" lender? "A" is generic. "A" is me-too. "A" is one of many. "A" is just ok. "THE" is specific. "THE" is distinctive. "THE" is the one and only. "THE" is remarkable. "THE" commands share of mind and wallet - "THE" accountant who deals with all of our finances. "THE" bank that fulfils all our lending needs. "THE" leasing company that funds our fleet. Being "THE" is the THE ultimate test for the Create Your Own Space methodology and how you apply it to your business. So, I'll ask again... are you A or THE? Tim Lodge on being Vision CriticalFriday 25th January 2008 Tim Lodge, sales and marketing director of Vision Critical, comments on the new corporate brand name and identity created by Strand Financial. "Research conducted whilst meeting financial and business information services corporations in the US, as well as at the ABFA conference, indicates that the new brand, Vision Critical, truly connects with ourtarget markets. It conveys a powerful sense of dynamism, urgency and immediacy, summarised by the evocative wave icon. Yet, creating a strong brand with clarity, direction and momentum is much more than just about having the appropriate name and logo. It is shaped by experiences with the brand." "The new Vision Critical brand represents all of our commercial activities under one banner - it gives us a single powerful voice. Not only does it signal our presence and convey our reputation, but it also sets us apart from any other business. Our brand adds value to everyone that uses it. That is why we have made a significant investment in creating the right Getting Deeper, Not CheaperThursday 24th January 2008 As Seth Godin observed in his book, 'Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable', the key to success is to find a way to stand out - to be the "purple cow in a field of monochrome Holsteins". The key word here is not 'different' but 'remarkable' in that that people will actually talk about that In a recent study, 81% of professional service firms reported they used differentiation as a marketing approach in the previous three years; the majority thought of differentiation as an exercise in image enhancement. However, the most-used surface-level differentiation approaches were not necessarily found to be the most effective. The more operationally 'deep' the differentiation strategies were, the more successful they proved to be and the less price became an issue in the decision-making process. It's desirable to stand out, however, there needs to be a connected marketing reason to support and substantiate a differentiated proposition. Don't become benchmarked out!Wednesday 23rd January 2008 W. Chan Kim and Rene Mauborgne wrote a challenging piece in the Financial Times entitled, "Think for yourself - stop copying a rival." They explained: "Companies need to break out of a vicious cycle of competitive benchmarking and imitation. Aiming to beat the competition has the opposite effect to the one intended. It keeps companies focused on the competition. When asked to build competitive advantages, managers typically rate themselves against competitors, assess what they do and strive to do it better." I'm with Don Listwin, CEO of Openwave who added to the debate: "How do dominant companies lose their position? Two-thirds of the time, they pick the wrong competitor to worry about." In the past, I have spoken about financial companies becoming 'benchmarked out' and a proprietary differential marketing model that will help them break free from traditional thinking to create their own space. Watch the Strand Financial home page in the coming months for some fresh insights on video and podcasts concerning these key issues. Are Big Ideas just too big for advertising agencies?Tuesday 22nd January 2008 Traditional advertising agencies have become warders to the Big Ideas they have created for financial organisations. Guarding them, locking them up firmly in the confines of the published media, they have become prisoners themselves. The one-time lead discipline is dwindling in influence, causing the old guard to lament their lavish expenses, as new digital dreams are created elsewhere. However, it could be argued, with strong justification, that few of the brand’s other business partners are capable of framing the big idea in the first place. With respect, web designers and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) specialists are unlikely to have the market knowledge or creativity to develop market-shifting ideas for organisations in the financial sector, due to lack of product knowledge and industry immersion. The reality is that only a specialist Financial Marketing Agency can deliver all of these strengths: in-depth sectoral knowledge gained from senior client-side experience, creative firepower honed agency-side, integration of marketing disciplines and mastery of online marketing techniques. It’s the reason that specialist hybrid agencies are powering ahead as the new breed of primary brand partner. I know where I’d rather be putting my budgets right now!
The Changing Face of AdvertisingMonday 21st January 2008 At the launch of Facebook's new advertising platform, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, presented his vision for the future of advertising: "Once every hundred years, media changes. The last hundred years have been defined by the mass media. The way to advertise was to get into the mass media and push out your content. That was the last hundred years. In the next hundred years, information won't be just pushed out to people, it will be shared among the millions of connections people have. Advertising will change. You will need to get into these connections." Social networking is still in its infancy. It is changing the way that people make connections. Financial marketers now have to change their thinking radically about online advertising to adapt to new challenges and adopt fresh new models, relevant to this exciting social media space.
Demand CreationFriday 18th January 2008 The focus in financial services industries has shifted away from improving profits through operating efficiencies to generating top-line revenue growth. Demand creation is the new imperative. The technology revolution has surrounded customers and consumers with a plethora of information and entertainment options, and, as a result they have become more elusive. The consumer is firmly in control. They expect choice, information, speed of service, and ease of acquisition. This growing multi-channel environment adds a whole new dimension to the challenge of financial services marketing. Given the confusion of marketing channels, the increased sophistication and scope of all our marketing communications disciplines and the emergence of new online players, there is a demand for a new kind of differential marketing model. The new e-book, “Create Your Own Space” TM will be published in January 2008 to explain how our proprietary model is making a difference to our blue-chip financial clients and how it can be applied to your organisation. Watch this space to find out how you can obtain your priority copy. Dedicated TV Channel for Financial Marketers being launched todayWednesday 16th January 2008 I'm delighted to let you know that as you are reading this, Financial Marketing TV is being launched at an exclusive Seminar. Our key note speakers will tackle the four greatest challenges that financial marketers will face in 2008. This is a unique dedicated broadband TV channel, featuring quality programming, designed specifically for the financial marketing community. The global vision for the channel is "to become recognised by financial marketers as essential viewing and respected as a valuable resource and knowledge repository." * Differentiating Your Financial Organisation How to Create Your Own Space Mike Symes, Managing Director of Strand Financial and CEO of Financial Marketing TV comments, "Today, over 300 million people worldwide have broadband access. Recent research has also identified that the numberof people watching internet TV is rising significantly month-on-month and already stands at 4.3 million. Filmed exclusively for Financial Marketing TV, our Launch Seminar will be available to delegates on-line, on-demand, and this will be supplemented by insightful interviews, presentations and materials from leading experts in specific financial markets and disciplines. Unlike the plethora of generalist marketing sites on the web today, Financial Marketing TV will cut through the clutter to deliver totally relevant, class-leading content to meet the specialised and timely information needs of financial marketers head on. The time is right to launch such an important global, yet tightly focused channel." Leadership - A Function of DifferentiationTuesday 15th January 2008
We went further to say that differentiation is not just the focus or purpose of marketing, it is marketing! Without differentiation, there can be no leadership, no competitive advantage, no ability to shift a market. It What does it mean to be number one in your market? That depends on what your market is? To have meaning, differentiation has to “matter” to your market or market segments. For example, you may not be able to claim market leadership within the leasing market. However, you may be the legitimate market leader in vendor leasing for fork lift trucks and printing equipment, which is far more relevant to your target audience. As market leader, you are likely to have credibility, authority and, if you are operating in a profitable segment, command a price premium over and above that of your competitors. Here are some examples of leadership positioning strategies: - Innovation / Creativity Please note that I have not used “Longevity” as a leadership criteria, yet how often do we read words like “established in 1874”, as the opening sentence in corporate literature! Now, consider those areas in the above list where you can command a leadership position. Which are transient and which are the most sustainable? Which of these when bundled together offer your financial organisation an unassailable competitive advantage? The First P - Redefining the Marketing MixTuesday 08th January 2008 The 4 Ps of the traditional marketing mix (Product, Price, Promotion and Place) is an increasingly tired formula for the modern age of financial marketing. Even if we do augment the numbers with the additional three Ps consisting of People, Process and Physical Evidence, this is not a dynamic way of looking at how we gain more customers or generate long-term customer value in this high noise, high competition world. What we're suggesting is not the 5th P or the 8th P, whichever definition you subscribe to! The modern integrated marketing mix must have a powerful First P, one that really matters: Positioning. Without Positioning, without the ability to Create Your Own Space, companies cannot command sustainable growth and profitability. Attributes of DistinctionMonday 07th January 2008 Theodore Levitt once said: "The search for meaningful distinction is a central part of the marketing effort. If marketing is about anything, it is about achieving customer-getting distinction by differentiating what you do and how you operate. All else is derivative of that and only that." Whilst in my view, differentiation is the fundamental purpose of all marketing activity (you may have seen my earlier blog on a new definition of marketing), a distinctive position today now comes from attribute differentiation rather than "what you do". "How you operate" is vitally important, however, it is essential that this is the expression of the core essence of the brand, rather than what the business does. The first era of differentiation was to make what you do the distinctive element, the second era involved adding features in a spiral of increasingly complex bundles. In this Era 3 age of hyper-competition, only attribute differentiation linked to a core brand essence forms a sustainable competitive advantage. Safe Marketing is Risky BusinessFriday 04th January 2008 I read a great quote from Seth Godin today. It said: "Professional service marketing is certainly among the safest I've seen. Because it appears to take no risks, it's actually quite risky."
I think we'd go further and say that because safe marketing approaches are, by definition, quite so unremarkable and consequently go unnoticed, these are the ones that put your marketing investment at the highest risk. Ironically, if you want to be truly risk averse and protect the future of your financial services business and your brand, it's time to stop being quite so 'safe' and stand out. It's time to create your own space! Web 2.0 and Financial ServicesWednesday 02nd January 2008 In this Australian podcast, Simon van Wyk, founder of HotHouse, and Charis Palmer, editor of Online Banking Review discuss the issues and opportunities that Web 2.0 brings to the financial services industry. Who can doubt that we are in a multi-media age? Cheque Ban in the High StreetTuesday 01st January 2008 "Retailers would not ban cheques if they thought they would lose business. We’re seeing the end of the chequebook on the High Street." So says Jemma Smith, of the Association of Payment Clearing Services (APACS), on the news that Sainsbury's has become the latest retailer to refuse to accept cheques. Large retailers including WH Smith, Boots, Currys and Argos are already turning paper payment away in favour of cash and plastic and 90% are said to be following suit. It seems increasingly likely that the cheque’s days are numbered! Plans for Marketing Spend PositiveTuesday 01st January 2008 The 72nd CBI / PricewaterhouseCoopers Financial Services survey shows that staffing, marketing and investment plans remain relatively upbeat. The numbers of staff employed are predicted to grow by most sectors of the financial services industry.
Plans for marketing spending and IT investment also remain broadly positive. The apparent disconnect between respondents' immediate levels of confidence and their longer term plans implies that the industry remains unsure about the full extent and location of credit losses arising from the US sub-prime
crisis. It also gives some grounds to hope that the industry could stage a rapid return to health, if the current market uncertainty can be overcome. Profitability in the financial services sector increased by six per cent in the three months to early December 2007. Top Ten Marketing Trends for 2008Tuesday 01st January 2008 2008 is a time of real promise for marketers within financial organisations, who go into the New Year with a new Web 2.0 toolbox. The credit crunch won’t hold back innovation for strong financial marketers and there are more and more new platforms from which to ‘Create Your Own Space’. Online TV Widget Workplace Experiential Excellence Game On Social Networking Experimental Marketing Behavioural Targeting Green Team Consumer Generated Content Narrowcasting
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