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Team DIGO | 01/04/2016 | in
Key #9 of 10 to Inspiring Action: 10 Keys to the Future of Marketing. Download our summary poster of the 10 Keys here
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Every business and brand that grows has a Golden Goose.
Sometimes that’s sales. Sometimes it’s direct mail. Other times it’s e-commerce and a digital, affiliate network. Sometimes they tell me it’s “word-of-mouth.”
For a while, whatever it was, it produced the Golden Eggs. It worked. And the Goose’s enemies were marketing and branding. Or perhaps they were the Goose’s servants, such as when the marketing team was really the sales collateral team. Or the direct mail team. Or the in-house studio.
“Our salespeople sell and they’re starting from zero.” “We’re the leader in our category, but no one knows it.” “This channel is just getting too expensive – we need what’s next.” The Inspiring Action Moment is launched with sentences like these.
Our clients have some things in common. They can’t wait two years or even six months for “the brand campaign” to start working. They can’t tolerate poorer sales numbers while they invest in getting more famous. And they aren’t willing to match large advertisers dollar-for-dollar in order to capture a share of the market.
The kind of brand building they need is the kind that makes the selling more efficient right away. They need the kind of brand building that improves their return-on-marketing-spend right away, and then just keeps getting better.
And often they need more than a marketing revolution. They need at least an internal culture evolution as well. They need a team with a new common understanding of what it takes to succeed at the next level today.
This is what we mean when we say “inspiring action.” The great thing about an Inspiring Action Moment is that it can lead to the most exciting and impactful era for a business. Are you ready for yours?
-Mark DiMassimo, Chief
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Team DIGO | 12/09/2015 | in
I once worked in an agency that did good work, had smart people, and yet grew relatively slowly. Even though I was on the creative side of the business, I was an avid proponent of growth because I knew how much better and how much more fun a growing agency could be.
I did a little informal listening tour around the agency.Read More (more…)
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Team DIGO | 10/07/2015 | in
Key #5 of 10 to Inspiring Action: 10 Keys to the Future of Marketing. Download our summary poster of the 10 Keys here.
Imagine you’re marketing a limo service and you get Uber’d.
Or you’re trying to put travelers in hotel beds and you get Airbnb’d. You run a car dealership and you get Tesla’d. You’re a travel agent, a financial advisor, sell insurance, or – heaven forfend – you publish the yellow pages!…
I know real people in these situations, and I can tell you this about every one of them:
They never saw it coming!
But Nike saw it coming. Starting with their own brand story, they got ahead of change. Nike didn’t see themselves as an athletic shoe company – they saw themselves as a company that inspires athletes. While other athletic wear companies may have seen the coming age of wearable computing as irrelevant, Nike saw it as an opportunity to inspire. In creating Nike Plus, they got ahead of the curve and developed a way to get to know their customers like never before.
You don’t have to BE a new economy business to WIN in the new economy. You just need an inspiring idea that guides you, and you need to be able to connect that idea to better experiences for your customers. American Express (founded 1850) has done it, reinventing the core of their customer relationships many times over. JetBlue (founded 1998) has done it. Apple (founded 1976) is most certainly doing it.
We call these companies Inspiring Action brands. They share a common point of view. They see things with their customers’ eyes. They know what the people they serve aspire to be and do. They know what their devotees love about themselves with them. They’ve mapped the customer journey and have found ways to intercept and change behavior.
You are what they do.
Your audience is just people trying to inspire action in themselves. If your service works better, you win.
Think Outside In. It’s really that simple and that challenging. Understand your inspiring idea from your customer’s point of view. Map the journey and work out effective ways to change behavior and create new habits.
