Don’t turn your idea company into job shop factory

One of the biggest obstacles for all medium and small agencies to avoid is to devolve from an idea company to a job shop. A job shop just executes the work with no plan or strategy.

Financial pressure has been so great for agencies to “just satisfy the client” that innovative ideas become rare the longer the client and agency relationship lasts. The thinking goes as follows: Why take a chance in upsetting the clients (who tend to be conservative in their marketing approach) with an innovative new idea? Revisit your client relations in 2019 and see whether you can apply the same strategy that landed you the client in the first place.

Strategy for Media Buying

Don’t be complacent. Reevaluate the media you’re buying, both traditional and digital. Many media companies have been bought and sold over the last eighteen months. Ratings, impressions, and rates have changed. Contact all your media reps and ask them whether they have new metrics or rates to share with you in 2019. The value you received in 2018 from a media company might be better spent with another media company in 2019.

That goes for digital, too. AdWords is still a valuable marketing platform for most businesses. However, its cost has increased exponentially over the last ten years. Contextual Facebook ads, including Instagram Story ads, are still undervalued (in our opinion). There is a huge opportunity in using these platforms that should continue through 2019.

LinkedIn ads are still pretty pricey, but organic reach is still very effective, especially if you’re a business-to-business (B2B) company. Continue to use the platform to post engaging content this year.

Strategy for Creative

Because creative is so subjective, the tendency for agencies is to play it safe and not be a disrupter. It is so difficult to cut through the clutter of ads these days that it requires you, as the agency, to persuade your clients to embrace the emotional card of creative, either through humor or authenticity. Yeah, it’s scary to walk into a client’s boardroom with your team and present a brand new idea, but isn’t that your job? Your years of experience in the communications and ad world, following case studies of successful national campaigns, should give you the ability to articulate your argument for presenting new cutting-edge creative.

And while we’re mentioning “ads,” be careful of the hard sell. Unless you want to compete entirely on price, you need to include some value to your client’s product or service beyond just price. The trend has been moving away from “ads” and toward documentary storytelling about your client’s business and his or her brand. Anybody under forty will tell you they don’t want to be sold.

Quality and Quantity Content Developer

Now that each company can become its own publisher and media company, a huge amount of digital content must be created on a weekly basis for every business. This means creating blogs, photos, and videos for websites and social pages.

Almost every company will be falling far short on the amount of digital content needed to sustain its brand in 2019.

This year, have the conversation with your clients to help them ramp up the amount of content they need to stay competitive and provide for them high-quality content, especially video, that you, as an agency, should be capable of producing. Make it easy for your clients’ customers and prospects to have multiple touch points to their brand each week by building lots of quality content.

Less Advertising and More Documentary Storytelling

Unless you want your company to be known as just a commodity, you will have to include some storytelling, authenticity, and transparency in how their business works. How many times have you visited a company’s “About” page on its website and found just a trite sales pitch with no story about the company, no photographs of the management staff, and no explanation of why the company exists? Clients tend to take the “who, what, where, and how” of their brand for granted because they live it every day. They assume their customers live it, too.

Include a Philanthropic Component

It seems obvious, but if your clients’ businesses have been established with some success, they will want to give back. If they have a business-to-consumer (B2C) company, it’s even more important. There are a multitude of ways to do this.

If your clients feature charity events, volunteer your time (for no fee) to document the day through blogs, photos and videos, and social media platforms such as Facebook Live. You will feel just as rewarded as they do after the event.

Get excited! Your 2019 agency will have lots of new opportunity, particularly if you keep you and your team looking forward.

Cerami Creative is a full-service digital and traditional marketing company founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1995. Cerami Creative has worked with national, regional, and local companies like Yuengling Beer, Penn Medicine, and Rita’s Water Ice. For a free evaluation of your company’s marketing strategy, contact Cerami Creative at info@CeramiCreative.com or call 215-893-3004.

The post Bringing Value to Your Client as a 2019 Agency appeared first on Cerami Creative.

If you have read anything on marketing communications or spoken to a marketing company expert in the past fifteen years, you have heard the advice to develop “a story” for your brand.

“What exactly do you mean . . . a story?”

For a company’s brand communication, a story, on the most basic level, consists of three acts: setup (explain the situation), conflict (explain the challenge or pain point within that industry while illustrating drama), and resolution (explain how that company resolved the conflict with its service or product). During the resolution portion of the story, you also want to include the capabilities of the company, including case studies, marquee clients, number of years the company has been in business, and awards and accreditation the company has received.

Whether you are writing content for a company’s “about” page on its website, writing a script for a radio or TV spot, or producing a company profile video, this blueprint remains the same.

A Company Video Story

Recently, we had the pleasure of producing a profile video for a company called BenefitVision (click video thumbnail above).  BenefitVision offers benefit packages to companies throughout the United States. It allows Human Resources to outsource their benefits for employees, directly to BenefitVision. The business model frees up the workload of Human Resources and enables companies’ employees to receive a very detailed and hands-on approach when choosing a custom benefit package. BenefitVision’s clients include the Coca-Cola Bottling Company, Los Angeles County public employees, and Pep Boys.

If you have viewed the video (this is the six-and-a-half-minute version. We have also created shorter versions for their sales staff and social media pages), you will notice the first thirty seconds describes the setup—what is happening in the industry. The second minute has the CEO explain, in a compelling and dramatic tone, the conflict within the benefits industry (notice the music bed we chose for this portion of the video to increase the drama). The final part of the video (from about the 1:40-minute mark until the end) consists of the resolution. Also notice the change in music here. It is up-tempo, hopeful, and optimistic.

Readers, listeners, and viewers are more engaged when your marketing message contains a story.

The Psychology of Using a Story

The advantage of designing your communication this way, as opposed to just creating a sales video trumpeting your assets, is that it draws in your audience by showing conflict and characterizing pain points.

Human psychology has always favored stories resulting in the listener or viewer being engaged in the outcome.

As Kimberly A. Whitler, a former Proctor & Gamble marketing manager, says in her July, 2018, Forbes article, “Storytelling enables marketers to develop a deeper connection with the audience. Storytelling is a fundamental human experience that unites people and drives stronger, deeper connections.” See the complete article here: https://goo.gl/vJWX5f.

Great Salespeople Make Great Storytellers

By the way, we have noticed that many CEOs who started successful businesses using their stellar sales abilities are expert storytellers. If you are one of them, get your story on video and market it on your website and social media platforms.

As you develop your next campaign, try applying the story model to your communication. If you execute it authentically, you will see better engagement than you’ll see with just a selling-and-telling communication.

Cerami Creative is a full-service digital and traditional marketing company founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1995. Cerami Creative has worked with national, regional, and local companies like Yuengling Beer, Penn Medicine, and Rita’s Water Ice. For a free evaluation of your company’s marketing strategy, contact Cerami Creative at info@CeramiCreative.com or call 215-893-3004

The post The Value of Using a Story in Your Marketing appeared first on Cerami Creative.