Budget for Business in 2010

Monday 30th November 2009

I hate to say it but marketers get what they deserve sometimes. Budgeting is one of the most important areas of focus for financial marketers at this time of year but how much attention is devoted to it and how much of it gets delivered as an arbitrary figure from on-high, leaving the marketing department to allocate it? Often, where there is no marketing director, the board either increases or reduces the bottom-line figure by a percentage point or two or applies a marketing:turnover ratio, which, at best, is meaningless.
 
At this time of year, I get approached by financial marketers who are looking to set their budgets more effectively. The first stage I often advise is to (politely) reject the budget allocated to you. Make sure you explain why – you have not yet seen what resources you will need to match the business plan and marketing strategy. Shift the emphasis towards you making the recommendation and to the board making the decision.

Next, base your budgeting plans on the following straightforward steps:
An analysis of marketing spend and results from the previous year with a critique of strengths and weaknesses of the approach taken.
A workshop with senior management to discuss the strategic goals, brand differentiation, unique value propositions, challenges and opportunities and how these can be realised most effectively.
Assess which tactical marketing tools will be deployed to meet these goals, applying criteria such as strategic fit, speed to market, impact, value and degree of management involvement.
Agree a headline marketing plan in principle based on the above. Then, cost it with your marketing agency. Set realistic metrics and follow up with a formal budgetary presentation to senior management with timelines and budgets, demonstrating an approach to budget management that the board should expect of its marketing team. If this is rejected, don’t lose heart, ask why. If they stick to their guns, return with a lower budget and show the board what can be achieved for that, showing them what they are missing out on and handling their expectations on results. Then deliver what you’ve promised!

Indifference Feels the Same

Friday 27th November 2009

I heard a song from a very talented busker at the South Bank and invested a crisp note for his album. One of the lines in the first verse struck me: “Indifference feels the same.” It reminded me of a quote I read  from Dan Clark: “In today’s business environment, the word ’same’ could be shorthand for ‘out of business.’” Here’s one of my own “If you don’t care enough to be different, who will?”

Bear Essentials

Thursday 26th November 2009

“Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as  he  knows,  the  only  way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.”

Perhaps surprisingly, the opening line of the much-loved children’s classic, Winnie the Pooh, offers a very clear message to financial marketers right now. After the past few days frenetic, jarring market activity, NOW is the time to find a place to sit and think – to take time out to plan effectively, consider alternatives objectively and then act decisively on your marketing approach for the remainder of 2009.

Leslie Bland, previous Managing Director of Close Invoice Finance, said something to me a few years ago that I have never forgotten: “Take time to work ON your business, rather than just in your business.” It’s something that we have taken to heart both with our agency and our clients' approaches to their marketing.

2010 is almost upon us, so jump (not bump) several steps ahead of your competitors and start the planning process now. Gain the benefit of our independent perspective, using us as your marketing sounding board. Visualise the marketing achievements you most want to see by the end of this year to make your financial brand even stronger for next. Re-define your marketing. Then, e-define it! Think about ways in which the Internet can enhance your customer experience and set realistic, tangible goals for continuous marketing improvement.

Why just bump along? Doing nothing may seem an easy option right now, the reality is that it’s not the most comfortable option for your business long-term.

Steal Share of Voice

Wednesday 25th November 2009

"Anybody who retrenches because of the recession has really got his head in the sand," said John Vanderzee, of the Ford Motor Company way back in 1991. "You can't not spend."

To increase spending on marketing at this time may seem counter-intuitive, but this is exactly what businesses should be doing right now. Brands with sustained marketing expenditure will create strong competitive advantage by stealing share of voice.

Four ingredients need to be in place to steal share of voice: 

Calendar – Put deadlines and milestones against every element of your programme and monitor and measure progress.

Structure Your Story

Tuesday 24th November 2009

Here’s Aristotle’s six-step guide to writing compelling, captivating copy and powerful presentations (subject to considerable poetic license):

Exordium – Big Intro
Follow up a bold statement with a big intro that captures your target audiences’ attention and imagination. Mix Ethos with Logos to establish credibility.

Narratio – Empathy
Show the audience you really identify with them and that you feel their pain.

Partitio – Contents
Outline to your audience what you’re just about to tell them in a way that heightens anticipation and helps them remember the key points.

Confirmatio – The Solution
Outline your solution. Use case studies featuring similar organisations or demographics to that of your audience, together with facts to support your case.

Refutatio – Competitive Advantage
Take the opportunity to position the strengths of your organisation, based on key attributes where your competitors are weakest.

Peroratio –  Call to Action
After a headline summary of your business case, use a strong Call to Action to close, with the emphasis on keeping a strong emotional appeal.

Think Ansoff, Covey, Kotler, Levitt, Mintzberg and Porter, rolled into one brilliantly be-robed and bearded package. Aristotle still has a lot to teach us.

Philosophically Speaking

Monday 23rd November 2009

In this age of the sound bite, it’s helpful to get back to what clear communication is all about, by taking a leaf out of what is a very large book indeed - Aristotle’s “Rhetoric”.  If you think it’s all Greek to you, here are some highlights:

1. Teleology - A Sense of Purpose
Teleology (Greek: telos: end, purpose) is summed up by the ancient Greek philosopher as follows: “First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.” Always relate your communication to your purpose. Never, ever lose sight of that. It sounds obvious but I seldom see it applied consistently.

2. Ethos - Become the Authority
Ethos is authority and credibility personified - achieved by the cultivation of a distinctive character, knowledge and experience.

3. Pathos - Engage the Emotions
Pathos describes what’s in it for your audience, with a set of compelling benefits, values and beliefs.

Branding ABC

Friday 20th November 2009

Over the years, I've been asked many times what the secret formula is for successful branding. What people are really asking is how can they stand out from the crowd in a ‘me-too’ market or how do they carve out a strong enough niche so they get to become recognised as a market leader. What financial businesses in the independent sector are asking more and more frequently is how they can build something that has real ‘equity’, a transferable value that has a real worth to attract prospective purchasers or investors.
 
It is an investment well worth making. Branding is not just for the big boys, not purely something that consumer banking brands do or for those organisations with the luxury of huge budgets.
 
The techniques of differential branding have been kept secret for many years because they provided a competitive advantage to those companies that used them.
 
Successful brand building is all about three simple principles – The ABC of differential marketing.
 
A is for Audience
The first item on our list before we start building a brand is the target audience. Consider who your key audience is before you work out what you need to say. What are their ‘hot-buttons’, their ‘biggest turn-offs’. What will excite them most.
 
B is for Brand
Having considered the importance of your target audience focus, let's look at your core message. What is your core brand essence? What impression should your brand leave in the individual consumer's mind? What are your core values?
 
C is for Consistency

The third important factor in a healthy branding strategy is consistency. Being consistent means delivering your brand's message in a tone of voice that becomes recognisable as the voice of your brand, that communicates the brand's values and ‘personality’ to its target audience day after day, year after year, anywhere and everywhere! Consistency is applicable in every facet of your brand's communications strategy. Ensure your brand consistently targets its audience, communicates the same message, personifies and transmits the same values, and appears with the same vocabulary, design elements, and graphics.
 
What Creates the Brand?

So, why didn't I define design consistency as a factor in its own right: the graphic design, the logo, and the look that surrounds the brand? Because these elements do not create the brand. They support it and help accelerate recognition.
 
The "look" is a necessary element in a consistent communications strategy, but needs to be seen as being part of the process. If your brand possesses the most beautiful logo and is associated with a perfect identifying design, yet it has no clear audience focus, no value focus, and no tone-of-voice focus with which to deliver its well-honed message, I doubt you'd ever succeed in building your brand. However, by following the guidelines established by these three basic principles, you're far more likely to score your brand-building goals.

Use Mind Mapping for Your Business

Thursday 19th November 2009

Mind Mapping is a great method of getting down all the ‘connected’ thoughts on a business issue or project and is used by many business leaders today. The technique was developed in the 1970s by Tony Buzan, the psychologist and author. He describes Mind Mapping as “A method of accessing intelligence, allowing rapid expansion and exploration of an idea in note form."

1. Versatile uses. Consider using Mind Mapping techniques for taking better meeting notes, brainstorming, organising lists and even making presentations on complex issues.
2. A3 Sheet (landscape).  Even consider A2 or A1 pages - the larger the sheet of paper the more the ideas will flow!
3. Use colour - Use bright colours, fat coloured markers, pencils or felt tips to represent different areas of association (branches).
4. Use images. Use images or icons that symbolise the problem, project or subject as well as words since these are quickly referenced and trigger memory.
5. Start from the centre. Write down a title or draw a picture in the middle of the page.
6. Draw branches. From that central point draw a line for each issue and put a word or image along each line. The line must be the same length as the image or word. You will soon have a number of branches radiating out from the centre. E.g. If ‘Recruitment’ was at the centre of the mind map, then ‘advertising’, ‘job descriptions’, ‘interviewing’, ‘employment contracts’ and ‘references’ would be possible examples of branches.
7. Expand each branch. Add new lines to each branch and continue the process. E.g. If  “advertising” is a main line stemming from the centre, simply add branches to that line, such as “media”, “budget”, “circulation”, “size” etc.
8. Maintain the momentum! If ideas slow down, draw empty lines, and watch your brain automatically find ideas to put on them. Or change colours to re-energise your mind.
9. Write down unrelated issues. These issues tend to get in the way of your mind mapping – once you have written them down, you have dealt with them and you have freed your mind to continue.
10. Allow organisation. Organise your Mind Map as a finished piece using colours and images.  This will enable you to visualise the entire scope of your project.

Mark My Words

Wednesday 18th November 2009

Service mark
A service mark is similar to a trademark, except that it is used to distinguish one person's services from others'. Service marks are registerable in the same manner as trademarks and are denoted by the ® symbol once they are registered on the appropriate registers. If they are not registered, they often carry an SM symbol.

Trade name
A trade name is a mark used to identify a business, as opposed to a good or service.

Certification mark
A certification mark is a mark used to certify a good in some way, regardless of its specific source. Seals of approval (e.g. the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval) and marks of origin (e.g. Roquefort cheese) are examples of certification marks. A certification mark is held by an organisation and is protected under trademark law so long as the holder establishes a standard for awarding the mark and polices that standard effectively.

Collective mark
A collective mark is a mark held by a group for the use of its members. Examples include union stamps and franchise marks.

The Key to a Balanced Brand

Tuesday 17th November 2009

Sample SWOT

Monday 16th November 2009

• Unique Value Proposition  (relevant differentiation)
• Robust business model
• Strong parent company
• Speed to market with new ideas
• Ability to make faster decisions
• Access to highly experienced, qualified people
• Track record of delivering our promises
• Broad customer base and presence in profitable markets, restricting exposure levels
• Established business relationships
• Product innovation
• Centralised underwriting – consistency of decision making
• Founder member of trade body
• Latest automated systems leading to greater efficiency and reduced customer administration

Weaknesses

• No succession planning
• Little strategic planning
• No natural lead flow from parent company
• No branch network
• No European network
• Not enough sales people in key geographical territories
• No ability to provide reciprocal business for introducers
• New projects have distracted management team from core service areas
• More expensive than competitors

Opportunities

• Fragmented markets offer opportunities for organic growth and growth through acquisitions.
• Acquisition of key competitors for economies of scale and to increase distribution and product spread
• Competitors are bureaucratic and slow
• Legal changes about loan structures in our favour
• Focus on markets where speed is valued such as turnarounds, restructures and management buy outs
• Restricted liquidity elsewhere in the market opens up significant opportunities
• Use of automated systems to create a short-term competitive advantage
• Product development with alliances for specific industry types
• Good personnel at competitors have been made redundant
• New systems will allow greater volume of deals to be handled

Threats

• Loss of key personnel (incentivise, attractive contracts, bonuses for high performers)
• Greater transparency driving down margins (Unique Value Proposition to justify ‘reassuringly expensive’ tag, bundling products making it more difficult to compare or strip out services that customers don’t care about and undercut)
• Increasing marketing activity from competitors with larger budgets (stay even closer - relationship building, enhanced services, regular contact)
• Competitors buying business through reciprocity and high commissions (faster turnaround, greater certainty)
• Challenging economy could drift into market stagnancy (focus on areas of critical need)
• Regulation a possibility (be part of the debate, lobbying)
• High prices for potential acquisitions (may fall in more challenging times - monitor).
• Departure of the manufacturing industry as a key source of business (focus on new, alternative sectors where there are signs of growth)

Don't Get Stuck In Neutral

Friday 13th November 2009

Time to Outsource?

Thursday 12th November 2009

Many companies outsource their payroll, their IT and their car fleets. Why not their Marketing Services? Financial organisations that have cut back on marketing headcount still have projects that need to be fulfilled, not least to show that they are open for business. These companies are turning to talented hybrid marketing and creative agencies for more integrated solutions, in preference to the traditional interim management firms. This trend is an acknowledgement by financial organisations that marketing services is a specialised function that is often best handled by an experienced, objective, resource working closely with the directors as an extension of the business.

There are several advantages to outsourcing specific marketing responsibilities. The main one is that outsourcing provides the exact expertise that a business needs, when it needs it most.

Some of the specific tasks that are ideally suited to marketing outsourcing include:

Writing marketing plans
Planning and implementing new product development
Branding and rebranding projects
Internal communications programmes
Customer and introducer surveys
Development of online marketing plans
Implementation of customer referral programmes

Internal Reality

Wednesday 11th November 2009

Alan Mitchell, “Out of the Shadows” Journal of Marketing Management

The 4 R’s Scorecard

Tuesday 10th November 2009

Customer Engagement – Voyage into Deep Space

Monday 09th November 2009

Online Marketing Briefing Tool

Thursday 05th November 2009

As a class-leading financial marketing agency, we want to give you access to a superb 'best practice' Online Marketing Briefing tool. Developed collaboratively and endorsed by the ISBA, IPA, PRCA and MCCA, this resource has been designed to help you develop briefing documents quickly, easily and for FREE.

Here’s how it works. The information you enter is transmitted between your PC and the server in an encrypted format. Once you have finished the brief, you can email it to yourself (or anyone else you choose) - no record remains on the Client Brief server. When you press the submit button, the system sends an email to your specified address. The information contained in your brief is attached as a file, in MS Word format, for you to read or distribute.

Send us your latest brief. Click on the link below to try it out:
https://sslrelay.com/secure.clientbrief.info/site/ProjManage.aspx

Remember, our email address is space@strandfinancial.com

Re-defining Financial Marketing

Wednesday 04th November 2009

I have been asked to republish these thoughts, first aired in my Connected Marketing column in Business Money magazine, by a number of readers. I think it is helpful to feature this in juxtaposition with the Chartered Institute of Marketing's proposed new definition, which is the subject of my blog tomorrow.

It was way back in 1977 that The Chartered Institute of Marketing coined the definition that is still being committed to heart by marketing students today: “Marketing is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.”
This old definition, whilst it has served us well is a product of its time, when telex machines in typing pools whirred to the strains of “Yes Sir, I Can Boogie” and “wireless” still meant “radio” in many quarters.

“Marketing is the management process”, is too narrow in its scope for the progressive financial marketer. Today, marketing transcends mere function and is not the exclusive preserve of management. It only gains currency when every person in an organisation understands, embraces and demonstrates a company’s brand and its values through their behaviour and actions. The term “process” says nothing of what that might entail or the ability of marketing to ignite imaginations, innovate and engage.

The conclusion that marketing is “responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably” also fails to appreciate its vital role in defining a market and creating measurable shift and market space. The old definition talks about customers but neglects the needs of stakeholders, such as channel partners and shareholders. It talks only of profit, laudable in itself, but ignores the basket of value the sophisticated financial marketer is expected to deliver.

It is time for a new definition of marketing that reflects and embraces the significant changes we have seen. It is time to re-evaluate the increasingly complex role of the marketer in delivering stakeholder value. The Chartered Institute of Marketing has taken the difficult but valuable step of creating a proposed new definition as part of a consultation process with senior marketers - this can only be good news for the professional standing of the marketer in financial services firms.

Leadership - A Function of Differentiation

Tuesday 03rd November 2009

Recently, I was talking to an MBA friend of mine, debating leadership strategy. He posed the question whether differentiation was a function of leadership or whether leadership was a function of differentiation. At university it was taught that differentiation was a strategy of leadership. Yet, we concluded that without clear and continued differentiation, you cannot lead a market in a sustainable manner.

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
follows that in order to call ourselves marketers, true marketers, we need to achieve that highest level of differentiation ­ defined by the term, “Create Your Own Space”.

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
- Style / Image
- Market Share / Size (within segment)
- Technology / Pathfinder
- Quality / Reliability
- Service / Responsiveness
- Flexibility / Agility
- Relationship / Channel Partners
- Prestige / Exclusivity
- Sector Knowledge / Specialisation
- Technical Expertise
- Global / International
- Regional / Local
- Bargain / Cheapest
- Value / Superior Cost Benefit

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?

RBS Must Rethink and Rebrand

Monday 02nd November 2009