Category Archives for "Marketing"

0 Compromise

Don’t compromise your business. Why not? Because it sends out mixed messages. If people struggle to understand your offer it can be because you are not clear about it or your market.

However, compromise is hard to avoid. You develop a package for your consultancy service and someone comes along and wants something different. They want to work with you and so it is hard to resist their requests for a specially tailored service.

Is this compromise or simply responding to your client’s reasonable requests? Surely you need to be flexible, if not why shouldn’t your client seek something more suitable?

This is the issue. Is there someone who could deliver what your client wants better than you? Maybe it would be better if you referred them on? Think of the advantages:

1. the client gets a good service, will thank you for sending them there and may be inclined to recommend you to others;
2. the other practitioner will be grateful for the support from you and may seek some way to return the favour, and
3. you don’t dilute your message and have time to improve your packages and market to the right clients.

If you’re not sure about your package or market, try different types to find the best fit for you. I suspect whilst the best businesses don’t compromise, they needed to compromise to work out what they should not compromise! Once established some businesses find they can relax their rules a little.

What Works for Me

So, I compromise by underselling my business.  I charge less than my support is worth and as a result find my work undervalued.  This is a common issue for new businesses.

Clarity about what I offer, makes it easier for prospective clients to say “yes” and the reason they say yes is they understand the value of my offer.  If I don’t charge enough it means I undervalue my work!  Obviously there are several factors involved in what I charge.  Too much and people genuinely can’t afford it and too little they may not feel committed to working with me as a coach.

My Offer

I offer a Done With You (DWY) service to help clients sort out their organisation’s online presence, fully integrated with its in-person activities.  It would not make sense to charge more than Done For You (DFY) website designers, of course.  However, DWY has advantages over DFY for some organisations and so it is not just a way of saving money.  Ultimately, I do not offer a website; I help clients develop and carry out a marketing strategy for their organisation.  What they get is something the website (with other activities) delivers in terms of new supporters, partners and income.

And from my point of view I balance what I charge with capacity.  I can manage only a few clients at a time, so it is crucial I find clients who are right for me, perhaps passing on others who need a different service to the one I provide.

How have you compromised your business or community activities?  Did compromise work out for you or against your best interests?

This post is one of a series exploring questions in the circuit questionnaire and addresses the branding element of the questionnaire.

1 Strengths and Weaknesses

Most people are familiar with the SWOT analysis, even if familiarity causes us to run a mile from it! SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats and the idea is we brainstorm them in turn.  It is best to work through in that order, starting with the positives.

SWOT works just as well if you attempt it on your own although there are advantages to working in groups because more insights are likely to be shared and the outcomes are more likely to be owned by an organisation that has shared its analysis.

What tends not to happen is the analysis part of SWOT analysis. Having brainstormed each of the four lists, it’s easy to move onto the next thing without asking questions like, how do we:

I find, as a lone worker, my strengths and weaknesses come out as about me. My personal strengths and weaknesses are the strengths and weaknesses of my business. This is one reason opportunities and threats are important because they encourage the sole trader to look beyond their own limitations. Mind mapping can be very helpful for the lone worker, using an online application such as Xmind.

I suppose larger businesses will tend to more impersonal results, although it may be helpful to record personal strengths and weaknesses somewhere. Appraisal systems can be one way of doing this.

Ultimately, it’s worth attempting a SWOT analysis at this stage but be aware of its limitations. It is a small part of the circuit questionnaire and the other questions can lead us to a deeper analysis.

0 Finding Followers

The next question on the circuit questionnaire is about finding followers.  Every business or cause seeks people who may become customers or active supporters. Many people, interested in your business or cause, do not commit to it as a customer or activist.

I’ve sat in many meetings where people complain they cannot get supporters to become active members. I spoke to someone the other day who offers a monthly free event for a local group and they have a mailing list of 600 from which about 15 turn up for meetings.

That is a conversion rate of 1 in 40! How can you improve this? It suggests the meetings will increase by 1 person for every 40 who join the mailing list. Are there ways to encourage more people on the list to attend the meetings? It will still be necessary to build the list because there is likely to be a turnover as new people become interested in the meetings and others lose interest.

So, if cake decorating is your thing, who do you want to follow your group? Are you looking for people interested in cake decorating technique or designs for cakes, or recipes for cake and icing? Or what about people who enjoy looking at beautiful cakes (or eating them!). Or a more specialist group around  a type of cake (eg cupcakes (formerly known as buns)) or particular techniques or types of icing.

So, your global proposition might be “All things cupcake!” if you specialise in cupcakes. But what if you’re actually more interested in the right cupcake for the job? The way you present cupcakes at a wedding will be very different to the display for a children’s party. Your global proposition might focus on the celebration and finding the right cupcakes for it. Alternatively, how many jobs in various business networks does a cupcake business support?

Promotion of ingredients and the tools of the trade on the one hand and enhancing formal celebrations on the other might suggest a business that values its impact on the local economy. A cake shop, for example, that specialises in special events might value its impact on the local economy. Everything from the supplies it uses, to the impact on local parties, the increased footfall in the area as people go there to get the cupcakes they need (if anyone ever actually needs a cupcake).

My followers

My aim is to build a list of followers through my website. I have an ebook (see below) as an incentive and my invitation is to join the conversation. People on my list receive a weekly blog update and I hope this will result in comments about experiences and insights about local economies and how they can be supported online.

This will be a place to share ideas and insights with like-minded people. If you commit to a project you will have many ideas and most of them are lost because there is no time to implement them. Shared, they may inspire others to action.

One thing I’ve noticed in reviewing these thoughts, is I have not promoted joining my email list to local contacts. This would be a means to keep in touch and build the local dimension. Maybe with more local groups, I can encourage more participation on my website.

0 Your Global Proposition

Your global proposition is a short, clear statement of your business purpose. Every business activity should meet the standard set by your global proposition.

If you are a social entrepreneur then it will bring together your social and business aims. This is just as true if you use a community organisation or a business as your vehicle.

Some social entrepreneurs begin with a cause and discover they have a business that funds their cause.  Sometimes such businesses set up as social enterprises. Typically they have Trustees / Directors who represent the beneficiaries of the cause, local residents for example.  Others might set up as conventional business.  This latter course has something to commend it as it allows an idea to be tested.  The time to move to a formal social enterprise is when a sole trader might consider incorporation.

Another route is where a local business begins with financial objectives, and later embraces social aspirations as its purpose. Local businesses may grow in solidarity as a network and in time understand its role in benefiting their locality.  The discovery that “I benefit when everyone else benefits” is the core experience at the heart of mutuality.

This type of business will typically be structured as a business where the owner does not have to refer to a committee for decision-making. As businesses become established and incorporated, they will have a Board of Directors, although a Chief Executive is likely to retain individual decision-making powers.

Both community and businesses are collaborative.  The difference is community organisations are usually collaborative internally, encouraging members to be actively involved in running the organisation.  This is why they tend to become bureaucratic and less able to relate to partners.  Local businesses are usually externally collaborative, seeking partnerships that establish a niche for the business in a supportive environment.  They typically depend on personal decision-making and so can lack transparency.

Your global proposition should work within any of these structures. Whether you see your work as primarily a business or a cause, your global proposition combines your business and social aims.

It is essential it does. The global proposition is public and you will return to it as your activities grow. Is this new activity or proposal in line with the social and business aims in the global proposition?

Like anything else, your global proposition is a tool, it helps you communicate the role of your business or organisation and keeps it on track. It can be reviewed without fear of losing its radical edge! If you have found a proposition that works for you, revisions in the light of experience will strengthen it and broaden its appeal.

My Global Proposition

This is a global proposition I drafted a few months ago:

I discover and share online marketing methods to help social entrepreneurs who are seeking sustainable approaches to finding their place in a localised economy.

Note the focus is on sustainable local economy, not accumulating personal wealth. Whilst I don’t take a view about the amount people earn, my clients will want to invest in supporting other local businesses or some cause. How they do this, eg with money, time or in other ways is something we can explore.

Whilst I am not unhappy with this statement my thinking has moved on. I have returned to my earlier idea of community development online.

I offer a full community development support service to social entrepreneurs in community and business organisations who aim to build and sustain their local economy, integrating traditional offline approaches with a constructive online presence.

This version places community development where marketing appeared formerly. It underlines my offer is to community and business organisations and emphasises I work both offline and online.

This post is an introduction to the global proposition.  Element 3 in the circuit questionnaire shall explore this in more detail.  I have recently found more information about how to write and use them.  I shall go into more depth when I get to element 3.

Do you think this works? Have you examples of your own global proposition?  How has it evolved?

2 Your Business Story

Your business story is not necessarily the same as your origin story  . It is about how your business came about, whilst your origin story is about you. Sometimes they are the same; you need to tell your origin story to explain your business story or else they are independent stories.

If the two seem independent, ask why that is. Has your business story no relationship with the event you believe to be central to your personal story?

Sometimes the story of your business is less interesting than your origin story.  It can be about the daily graft out of which a business slowly emerged.  But this does not mean the story is without value.  You were patient and stuck with it until the business worked.  Working out how to tell a story is just as important as finding the right story to tell.

My Business Story

I was made redundant a few years ago and found the lifestyle of self-employment attractive but I didn’t know what I could offer. I retrained as a web designer and discovered most web design agencies do not offer the support people need, particularly for the voluntary sector and local independent businesses. Technology has moved on and today it is possible to do for yourself work for which you previously paid agencies thousands of pounds. The problems groups encounter online are similar to real life problems pre-Internet and today! Lack of strategic insight is very common online just as it is offline;  and many groups do not co-ordinate their online and offline work. Anxiety about the technology still distracts from the human arrangements behind the website!

As a development worker I’ve learned how to support key people using situation analysis, project development, participatory methods, soft systems as well as dealing with challenging issues and the inevitable disasters! So, I am bringing together three insights:

The idea of “Community Development Online” has been growing over the last couple of years. It is still under development and includes these elements:

Community development online is complex and as I researched it, I saw the need for vision and not just an offer for technical support. I particularly want to help groups seeking sustainable local economies. The idea of social entrepreneur is just as valid online as off and so my focus is helping individuals and groups who want to build this approach.

Conclusion

My business story as it stands is not as dramatic as my origin story!  One reason I place the business story in a less important light than my origin story is that it is still under development.  It is harder to tell a story when I am so close to it and I don’t know how it ends!  Will it be a story of success?

It’s possible I will experience something that makes a good story.  At that point I would make my business story more prominent on my website.

The main point to take away is the difference between a business story and an origin story.  Perhaps the business story is essential in the sense that it may answer questions in the mind of site visitors and potential customers.  However, I agree with many others the origin story is important because it is an opportunity for site visitors to get to know you as a person.  It stands in for your personal presence (as far as it is possible).

Many people designing their site go overboard describing their business or organisation, presenting masses of detail about their mission, aims and objectives and the products and services they offer.  Whilst there is a need for some of this material, it is so easy to forget the human story behind your offer.  How do you get the balance right?

Do you have examples of origin and business stories?  It would be interesting to see some examples.  Why not put a url into comments and say why you think it’s a good example (or a bad example if that’s what it is)?

2 Your Origin Story

The central and most important dimension to your brand is your origin story.

Think about the websites you visit. How many are full of tedious material lifted from their business plan? Do they tell you in great detail about their mission statement, aims and objectives? How do you react?  Many businesses have learned this lesson and don’t info dump from their filing cabinet onto their websites.  Third sector organisations are perhaps prone to this mistake, often because they do not have access to examples of good practice common in the business sector.

There is a place for this type of material on your website but that place is deep within it, where anyone interested can find it and where most people, not interested, can ignore it.  Someone intent upon making a purchase may wish to study the details.  For some the fact it’s there is reassuring, even if they don’t read it!

Your purpose at the front end of your website is to charm your visitors, so they may opt to stay in touch with you and ultimately make a purchase or support your cause. If you are not trying to reach people and stay in touch with them, what exactly is the purpose of your site?

What is Your Origin Story?

Your origin story can be central to your message. What is an origin story? It is the story that explains why you’re in your business. What experience led you into this business?

Why have an origin story?  If most of your customers meet you in person before purchasing your services, you may not need one on your website, although you might for public speaking.  If your website visitors don’t know you, your origin story can be the best way to help them know you better.

Your origin story can be presented in different versions. Shorter and longer versions can be used in different places on your website or in social media. It can be recorded as a video or audio account and of course it can also be presented in real life meetings. As you tell and retell the story you will receive feedback and so your story will evolve. You will get better at telling it!

Transformation

Your origin story need not necessarily show you in a positive light. If it is a story of transformation, it is likely to show you making a mistake. It doesn’t even need to show you solving the problem, just that you understand it.  My origin story is about an experience that was a professional triumph for me and a personal defeat. Many development workers have been in that situation (or at least the personal defeat part of it) and I want them to know I’m familiar with the territory. I know the toll this work can take on your health, your relationships, your self-esteem. I know how long it can take to recover from such setbacks. Many entrepreneurs know the same feeling.

When events go wrong are you going to be crushed by them or bounce back? Sometimes the bounce back can be painfully slow and this is when you need support. The entrepreneur (social or business) is perhaps someone who keeps going despite the pain of failure.

The best origin stories go beyond accounts of transformation and touch something deeper in the heart of its readers or hearers.  These are the stories that go viral.  A story passed on will bring visitors to your site.  This is why the call to action is so important.

0 Building Your Brand

This post about building your brand in my series about the first element of the Circuit Questionnaire, you and your brand.  These posts will soon be assembled in a logical and coherent fashion.  In the meantime, read and enjoy them as they are!

My brand stands out because it is political. If you are building your brand you may wish to copy me in this respect but would that be wise?  Being political is not a good idea for a business and indeed some business support networks do not allow political or religious bias. So, why a political brand?

You see why branding is important? It is partly about me and how I convey my experience and what I have to offer. But it is also about how I want to be seen. I’m seeking lasting transformation of society and so seeking people who seeking similar change.

I am at the centre of my brand. If I am successful and find I have a legacy, other people will take my place. They will be there because of my brand.  Brands evolve naturally and so,n the distant future, they may be able to trace a line back to me, even though I would not recognise what they are doing. Would I approve of what they’re doing in my name? Possibly not.  Would Mr Kipling (if he existed) think the cakes sold under his name today are “exceedingly good”?

So far I’ve written about my brand but I haven’t said what it is! Here are my notes from a few months ago under questions from the circuit questionnaire:

What does my brand stand for?

Money flowing in the local economy is far more important than personal wealth. So, I aim to change the mindset, encouraging investment in localised economies and discouraging offshore accumulations of vast sums of money.

The first sentence is crucially important to understand my political position. Note this is not opposition to personal wealth. It is a statement about the nature of money. Money’s value is through its use to build community. It builds community as it changes hands and so the flow of money is where our focus should be.  When money accumulates it is not put to work building community.

This has profound implications for the ways in which we understand our roles as participants in the economy. The decisions we make have profound effects on the economy. Wealthier people have more power and so more responsibility. This is why integrity is an important personal value and why transparency and accountability are paramount political values.

What does it stand against?

Goliath is the corporations and the political system that has handed so much of the country’s assets to them.

Need to resist this mindset from (1) a pro-business perspective because businesses keep money flowing, and (2) community associations who care for their place and tackle disadvantage.

We elect governments to protect us against the power of large unaccountable corporations. When we find governments are selling out to them, not safeguarding our interests, then there is a need for a greater democratic input into politics. I believe this will come from an alliance between community organisations and local businesses. Businesses and their customers, if you prefer.

In what ways is my brand contentious?

Capitalism has been a boo word on the left for many years but it is true there has been no more democratic approach found. The communist experiments in the twentieth century demonstrated the dangers of enforced solutions.

There are capitalist models of the left. The old retail co-operative movement is a brilliant example of how bottom-up economic approaches can co-exist with massive corporate systems. Is there a modern alternative, equivalent to the retail co-ops? I think there is and I blogged about an economy for the common good recently.

0 Finding a Unique Business Identity

Last Monday I wrote about my unique vision for my business. No organisation sets up without a purpose and so they all have a story. That story is important because it shows the world how what you are doing is unique.

Many voluntary organisations have mission statements, aims and objectives. These are lovingly presented on their website but the sad fact is, however worthy they may be, they are without exception deadly dull. Do you read them?  Maybe on occasions you want to engage with the organisation but for most people a story that explains why you exist and offer what you offer is far more effective.  Many organisations need help finding their unique business identity!

It can be helpful to ask:

What is utterly unique about my business?

I find this question helpful insofar as it sets the scene but it is not easy to answer. The Circuit Questionnaire offers a few additional questions that may help you think it through in greater depth. Here they are with indented answers for my business from a few months ago, followed by further comments:

What can no competitor ever claim?

Unique combination of experience in community economic development, strategic management, non-directive consultancy and online campaigning and marketing.

I’m aware of the financial constraints many small organisations and businesses experience and my approach helps them set up systems at a modest cost, integrating the work of volunteers and staff.

Complete the statement, “I am the only… that…”

I am the only web consultancy that supports the local economy, specialising in supporting voluntary organisations and small businesses online.

As far as I am aware I am the only community development worker who works online, offering an online service and helping groups and businesses integrate their real life and online campaigns.

When I started my offer was website design. It soon became clear many potential clients do not need a website. They want to run a campaign and a website may be part of that. Their campaign and its outcomes is what they want.  They need the support of a development worker who can help them integrate online with their offline work.

In what ways are you in a category of one?

I have the time to develop an online resource to promote localised economy, so building community with those who are working towards real transformation.

This answer focuses on my why. I offer a community development service because my vision is for the particular  types of community I want to see. Ideally my clients will be among those people who see value in my vision.

Is there a particular phrase that you could OWN?

“Community Development Online”;

“Thriving Marketplace in Every Neighbourhood”

I used the first on my old website and I don’t think it appears on my new site. It does actually say a lot in three words and maybe I should find a way to reintroduce it! The second appears on the home page as the main heading.

I decided to kick off my site with my vision, which is on my home page. Visitors are then introduced to my free ebook offer and later encounter my online service.

What would your business look like if you could magnify your brand to the highest degree imaginable?

Online community of communities where the widest possible range of experiences can be pooled. Such a community in time might invest in localised economy experiments, finding practical ways to help particular markets become viable.

I would like to develop this further, as it does not fully express my vision. I’m seeking a means to promote a real change in the way we structure our economy and this will have global implications. I shall write more about this over the coming months.

If you had a massive investment tomorrow, what would you do?

This question is immensely powerful and a bit of a headache. Usually it specifies a sum of money, eg £10 000 000, which is way too much. I would prefer something like £100 000. Does the higher figure help me think big or does it decontextualise my thinking? After all I’m not ever going to have that sort of money to spend.

When people encounter this question they think it is about money. It is about vision. Many organisations allow their cash flow to limit their imagination. They set their budget to what they have in the bank and not to what they want to do. Once you know what to do and how to cost it, you have a target for your fund-raising.

If you can answer this question, you may find elements of your answer are not cash dependent. If you allow available cash to limit your imagination, you can’t be sure it is censoring only those things you think you cannot afford.

Here are my answers from a few months ago:

Purpose of Money

I would use an injection of cash to invest in what I believe in. I’ve included some constraints, which perhaps illustrate how easy it is to allow your thinking to be curtailed by money.

Money exists to enable community, to build relationships. Business people recognise this and the successful ones are great at building relationships. What happens when community organisations apply this approach?

Many local initiatives need financial support but there are dangers, particularly with grant aid.  So, whilst I stand by the principle of local investment, I need to explore this in greater detail. This will help me find the best ways to invest locally and be a resource for clients.

If the barriers to your vision were removed, what would happen?

I would have a team of people with a clear vision about using small-scale funding to achieve big things. We would spread the message and open up an online resource for everyone interested in localised economies.

I’ll stand by that for the present but there’s a lot more to do!

0 Five Elements for Your Marketing Campaign: Your Market

This is the final element of the five found in the Open Source Marketing Circuit Questionnaire. Apologies for the delay, owing to my recent hardware meltdown. I have since made a start on a more detailed exploration of you and your brand.

The last post in this series, introduced the fourth element, the Problem. This time the focus is on your Market, which is the people who are likely to buy from you.

The aim of the five elements is to help you think about your business at a deep level. The order in which you think about each element depends on the nature of your work. This order is the order in the circuit questionnaire and follows a logical sequence. However, many people may find a different order works for them.

The pattern I’m using is to describe the element in the circuit questionnaire, show how it can be used in marketing a cause and then use my business as an example.

Market

Identifying your market can be the most difficult step any business owner takes. I’ve certainly found it hard and I’m still not satisfied I have fully defined my market. However, here are a few guidelines.

First, there are two essentials all markets must share, whether you are selling a cause, a product or a service.

People Who Value Your Offer

You want to find people who value what you have to offer. There is no point in designing a marketing campaign to appeal to people who will never respond to your message.

If you have a cause, you will want to find people who are sympathetic to it. You may wish to persuade people who have never thought about your cause, that it is worth their support. There is little value in trying to change the minds of those who have already decided they do not agree with you.

People Who Can Afford Your Offer

The second essential, if you are selling something, is your market must be able to afford it. If you charge a lot, this does not mean you necessarily cut your price, but are you sure there are enough people out there who can afford it? If you don’t want money, this might mean you have a bigger market but remember if you make demands on time, for example, this may exclude some people.

Three Dimensions for Every Market

Every market had three dimensions. They are independent of each other; the characteristics of one do not necessarily correlate with the others.

1. The first dimension is demographics. Can you define your market in terms of their age, sex, race or religion? This category may also include less obvious characteristics such as class, employment, hobbies, health.
2. The second dimension is your market’s beliefs and values. This may include their politics or religion, for example. So, we can see these characteristics are independent of demographics. We can imagine a twenty year old white man and a sixty year old black woman who are both supporters of the Green Party. The reasons why they share these values may be very different but they might both sign petitions and attend demonstrations.
3. The third dimension is their awareness of your cause, product or service. Let’s say your cause is to ban fox-hunting. The 20-year-old Green Party member may not have given it any thought and so has never supported a ban. He might respond if he can be persuaded to support it, so if you want him to support it, you need to persuade him. The 60-year-old woman may be enthusiastic about a ban but not know what she can do to support the cause. She doesn’t need persuading and might lose patience if you attempt it. But she may value a list of actions she could take in support of it. The younger man would simply not be interested in the list of actions unless you can persuade him of the cause. You can find out more about this in my post about the awareness ladder.

My Market

Here is a one sentence definition of my market, written a few months ago.

Local business owners or leaders of community organisations who started with a vision for transformation of their place but have lost track of it amidst the pressures of keeping the show on the road.

I believe this statement describes people who believe in my cause, the local economy and are likely to have the wherewithal to purchase my services.

There is little in the way of demographics because business owners and leaders can occupy pretty much any demographic. Their belief or value is their vision for transformation of their place. Perhaps I could mention the local economy here. They must know that they have lost sight of their vision through the pressures of keeping going.

My primary weakness, shared with many businesses, is that I don’t really know my market well enough. This is OK. You learn more as you get to know your market. I fully expect this definition to evolve as I make more contacts and discuss my offer with more people.

The value of the circuit questionnaire is that it encourages you to explore your business in-depth and by returning to it, to deepen your understanding of your business. It is the opportunity to revisit it that makes it such a valuable tool.

0 What Makes Your Business Unique?

Last Monday, I answered the question: why do I do what I do in two ways. I’m still searching for a definitive answer because this task is never complete; our businesses and other organisations evolve as our understanding of what they offer deepens.  One question you can ask about your business is: what makes your business unique? What makes it stand out from everyone else’s?

If you can find something no-one else can copy you are in a good place.  It may be easier than you think.  A business that only you can offer because of your unique skills and experience may be similar to some other people’s’ but it may be distinctive enough to appeal to a market that prefers your offer to everyone else’s.  This may be a sound starting point for a small business and the circuit questionnaire will help you plan for a bigger enterprise not dependent solely on your own skills and experience.

So, here’s my answer to the question, what would my Community Web Consultancy be like if I could take its mission or identity to the ultimate level? Naturally, whatever I write will evolve as my experience deepens but this is what I think now:

My Ultimate Business

An online community of groups committed to developing their local economies. They come together for mutual support, learning from each other’s online and offline experiences and regular online conversations about local economic models and how they can be supported online.

From this community some would be keen to grapple with the practicalities of transforming the local economy. They would take part in:

Conclusion

This is about the future, the general direction in which my business might develop. Building an online community, investing on other businesses and becoming a mutual. As my business develops I’ll revisit these ideas and see how they develop.