Marketing Plan
How we put ourselves forward on the best foot, forming as many of the right types of relationships we can.
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How we put ourselves forward on the best foot, forming as many of the right types of relationships we can.
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As with many business activities undertaken to acquire new work, the language is outdated, jargonistic and fraught. Much of it leaves a bad taste in people's mouths and doesn't conjure imagery of being helpful, useful and honest. When seen in the wild it feels like a leaked conversation—plans and strategies that "customers" aren't meant to see.
We hope that we can reframe the definition of Marketing (and other, similarly dated words like ) so that it's clear that we understand they represent business activities that are mutually beneficial—win-wins—for us, our clients and our collaborators.
When we talk about Marketing at Picket, we mean:
presenting ourselves well,
increasing awareness and understanding about exactly what it is we do,
connecting with people who want to work with us, and
advocating for ourselves.
We refer to this tritely as PICA.
Our marketing has succeeded if we are top of mind for high calibre people that are culturally aligned with us when they want to solve a high value problem and we are the best team for the job.
We draw the line between and Marketing where interactions shift from a one-way broadcast or publishing activity to an individualised, two-way interaction. For example, posting a recent case study article to LinkedIn is marketing, but emailing that same case study to someone on your contact list may be considered part of a longer-term Sales interaction, eventually leading up to an engagement for work.
For every unit of energy we invest in Marketing, we expect to get one of the following returns:
People who know us are more likely to talk about us (correctly).
People who have heard about us are more likely to ask about us.
People who have used us are more likely to return to us.
First and foremost: we thrive by acquiring a small number of high-value clients who work with us over the long term.
We recognise that usually a number of rare and significant events need to align in order for a client to be in a position to pursue a project with us. We're not able to influence when that happens, we're only able to influence whether it occurs to them to ask for our help (or to ask a trusted friend, colleague or advisor who might recommend us).
We think of ourselves as having a finite amount of "marketing energy" to distribute, and any given contact requiring a certain amount of energy to be "converted" into an advocate, therefore:
Dispersing to already "warm" contacts is more likely to result in conversions because only the marginal amount of energy is needed to reach the threshold.
Reducing the total number of contacts to which it is dispersed will result in a higher number of conversions, because the amount of "energy" we have is low and the amount of it required to gain a single convert is high.
Although we always keep an eye out for bargain opportunities to reach more people for a lower cost these are likely to be very rare and speculative. It is more likely that a significant increase in audience size requires a similarly significant increase in "marketing energy".
Our word-of-mouth focused strategy is for the concept of Picket to be as "sharable" as possible, easily traversing connections between the nodes that are us, our existing direct contacts and the people that they are in turn connected to.
This "shareability" approach is the engine-room of our marketing and the majority of our activities are undertaken to increase the probability of an existing member of our network sharing information about us with someone that they know.
An example of maximising shareability is to—instead of just blowing our own trumpet—explain in a case study what the benefits and "wins" of a project are from the user and client point of view, and what we think the client will achieve through it. That way, our client will be more likely to share the case study with their peers and contacts because it portrays them not us in a positive light.
Ensure that we are easy to "get" and easy to explain. If people can more easily and quickly understand what our value is they can easily explain it to others.
Be selective. Know who you're talking to and talk directly. The more focused our communication is, the better return on investment we'll get.
Trust is fragile, rare and extremely valuable. Build, preserve and protect it with every communication and in every interaction.
Invest a small amount of energy regularly, diligently and consistently. As with any investing, big gains are realised through small, consistent habits rather than big, rare and unlikely pay-offs.
Activities are the Marketing things that we actually do in order to support our strategy and are all considered within our control and able to be initiated without waiting on external events. We divide our activities into three categories, as below.
These are "mandatory" activities that put and keep the business in a well-presented state and give a good impression whenever someone comes across it.
Creating and maintaining a clear, targeted brand and consistent visual identity.
Having a nice website which ticks the trust box and allows us to publish case studies and expert content without friction.
Reasonable, well-adorned social media profiles with enough activity to support trust and position us as industry experts to potential clients.
A usable and shareable stand-alone "credentials" document that can be presented during introduction meetings and alongside proposals.
A welcoming, interesting and unique work environment that creates connections with those who we host.
These are activities that, as annoying as they might seem at the time, need to be done diligently and consistently to ensure that our long term "marketing health" is as good as it possibly can be. These tasks are often undertaken as a result of a project finishing and they contribute to our marketing goals incrementally.
While clients are still basking in the glow of a successful project, interviewing them about their insights and experience so we have the raw materials for story-creation.
Writing case study "stories" (articles) for the website close to launch so that their freshness and a buoyant client relationship can be leveraged for the greatest impact, including the likelihood of clients sharing our stories to their own networks.
Writing articles about particular business problems that are likely to be of value to our clients.
Sharing case studies and articles on LinkedIn.
Sharing expert articles, opinions, thoughts and insights on Twitter as they arise during internal discussions.
Sharing case studies and relevant (to them individually) articles with our direct contacts via our non-EDM EDM.
These are activities that are more proactive and designed to increase our network through direct action.
"Inducting" new contacts that we come across during projects by setting up quick "15 min meetings" to talk them through our value proposition while they are still "engaged".
Introduction requests to targeted people on LinkedIn via second-degree connections to simply introduce ourselves and leave it in their hands.
Targeted sponsorship of or participation in events that are likely to result in addition of targeted (the right type of) contacts to our network—clients, colleagues, partners or otherwise.
This section explicitly defines some of the activities we undertake, the tools we use, and the techniques we use to make sure we're being both active and effective year-round.
As a rule, any project-based initiatives such as event sponsorships, new branding, website updates must be undertaken as internal projects and assigned an owner and a budget. In the longer term (by ~FYE 2021 there will likely be a formal marketing budget in place providing some guidelines on the amount of time and money that can be spent on Marketing in a given financial year).
This covers both the literal and process-based tools or practices that form our marketing arsenal.
We should aim to have explicit targets for the growth of this list to ensure that partners are actively and incrementally building it over time.
We want to maintain an extremely high quality EDM list to ensure that our content is targeted and engaging for readers, and that every contact on that list represents a high-value "node" in our network.
For this reason, we tend to ask for explicit verbal (or conversational) confirmation that contacts would like to be added to the list. This is our version of "asking someone out" and we manage it just as carefully.
When we distribute content it's not just "news", it's valuable and interesting content that people actually gain something from reading—we are providing them with something they can use not just a hollow "hey" in their DMs.
We take management of marketing information as seriously as we do the rest of our intellectual property and make sure that the data we have about the people in our network is comprehensive, correct and fresh. We currently rely on Mailchimp for holding this data but are on the lookout for an appropriate tool to manage contact and relationship evolutions over time, including things like lifetime customer value.
Our website's primary job is to validate. At some point in the journey towards a relationship with us, a person will visit our website to get a read on us—just like every human being starting a relationship online stalks the socials as soon as there's any interest piqued.
It should speak to them and what they want, not rattle of the things we're "into". It should reassure and welcome—be friendly, confident, clear and make the viewer feel buoyed and happy to continue allowing the relationship to develop. We do not expect our site to evoke a "call us now" response.
A secondary, but incidental, job of our site is to host any articles or case studies that we publish. It seems logical that these should live on the site and that we direct readers from the Nurture List to these articles, however these would likely still be effective if hosted on a third-party platform such as Medium, etc.
Case Studies are considered a stand-alone tool despite likely being part of the website. They have a specific intent and structure. They are designed to tell the human story around the project, and to present the client and product—not us—as heroes. They should ideally be written for every project—or the project shouldn't be done in the first place. They can be considered the "project journal" and the creation process can and should start in parallel with the project.
As well as being Vito's most-loved personal social media playground, LinkedIn is also likely to be the most useful platform for us to post content. Whether it results in any network acquisitions remains to be seen, and this should be measured, but it is at least logical to post here rather than the more "consumer" platforms of Instagram and Facebook or amongst the "furious niches" on Twitter.
As well as for content broadcast, LinkedIn can be a very valuable network-building tool for building our Nurture List by asking first-degree contacts for introductions to second-degree contacts. This needs to be done sensitively and carefully but can be great source of new relationships and should be actively undertaken.
Back-scratches are a practice that we use to help make the most of favours that we do for (for example) friends and family—but they can be useful for any situation that fits. The idea is that when doing a favour for someone which is within the realm of Picket's capabilities and positioning we ask for a favour in return: that they give us an introduction to someone who they think might benefit from our work. This is a low-cost-to-them and high-value-to-us transaction that can turn a favour into a future client.
Examples may be advising a friend on how to get a site built, helping solve a technical problem or even helping someone move a sofa. These are all opportunities to ask for a small, low-cost-to-them favour in return.
Given our resources (in both time and money) we are unlikely to benefit directly from large-audience activities like advertising, major event sponsorships or speaking opportunities. We don't rule them out, but consider them mostly experimental at this .
As can be inferred from our above, our core approach is to efficiently leverage and augment our existing network rather than broadcast to a mass audience with whom we have no prior relationship. This includes a strategy of "continuous marketing" to our existing clients and other relationships to ensure our utility and benefit is always front of mind.
For this strategy to work, it requires that the person sharing information about us gains something from doing so, such as appearing to be competent and intelligent or having been able to perform a valuable favour. It also requires that we are easy to "" and that our value proposition can be easily articulated by laypeople.
As with everything we do, we favour over process (but we still really like process).
Produce things that are of lasting value and interest to our audience rather than seeking to simply gain "attention" or "spruiking". We require a slow-burn due to the problem, and nobody is as interested in us as we are.
Lunches with "" contacts like agency CDs or product people that are likely to have access to a large number of contacts who may find us valuable.
Continuously seeking explicit, in-person agreements to be added to our to keep it extremely high quality.
The primary structure for managing Marketing in the business is via the weekly . During this time, the any schedules, goals or other activity is reviewed, planned and scheduled for the upcoming week. Any measurements or reporting should also be reviewed during this time.
An annual schedule called the Marketing Calendar is pre-populated at the beginning of the financial year to include all known, planned activities for the year. This is currently in progress .
Introductions are a practice whereby a project owner looks for opportunities to "induct" contacts that he or she comes across during the course of delivering a project, when morale and client-connection are high. Ideally, this will involve getting explicit permission to do a short value prop presentation and a request to add the contact to our . More on the psychological reasons behind making these explicit requests will be covered in .
Articles are more technical than Case Studies, but should still always be written with at least a story-like introduction that gives insight into the context and people surrounding the insight. They are designed to demonstrate our expertise to our network, both clients and colleagues, and should cover issues representing our entire skill-set from strategy though to testing. A list of article candidates is maintained in Basecamp and publishing takes place according to the .
Twitter is more likely to be used by potential partners (such as creative agency people) or colleagues (developers) as part of and it's also double-edged sword. To get value from it requires a significant investment of energy and regular posting—popping up links to case studies or other content from around the web simply won't cut it. In the longer term, it makes sense for us to start Tweeting about our "way" of doing things, but it's not clear that there's an immediate gain for us here—probably just a distraction.
Like Twitter, these are more likely to be relevant to though from time to time we may consider getting involved in an industry event or exposition. It seems at this stage that supporting small, open-source events and meetings in our local area are likely to yield network growth and put us in touch with potential developers and partners, but it's unlikely to bring us a significant number of new clients with the resources we have on hand.
Formal events with a large and valuable audience can costs thousands to exhibit or speak at, without a guarantee of results, however it is likely that we will begin to experiment with these as we progress through our .