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Twenty plus years of professional marketing experience may sound all very impressive – but what does it actually mean in reality?

 

In summary, this means that I can:

 

 

 

Let’s break down what I can do for you into steps:

 

Starting at the very beginning (which is a very good place to start, so I’m told…)

 

Firstly, being able to turn your ideas into reality means I have to know what kinds of questions to ask you and what information to bring out of you in the first place.  This information will then form your business plan & strategy, and your marketing strategy.

 

Trained by some of the best….

 

I’ve been trained by some of the best in the industry: I started learning by sitting in countless “client strategy” meetings with my bosses just listening and absorbing information.  Then as I grew my career, I began to take over these meetings myself – taking the brief from the client (ie what they wanted to achieve, which was normally along the lines of “to launch a new product” or “ sell more of product X”).  This meant that I had to learn what types of questions were relevant, and what weren’t.  

 

Of course, I’ve also been a ‘client’ too, so I’ve worked both sides of the fence  - and therefore know how to give a good brief as well as take one.  Working with companies such as Texaco, Duckhams Oils and Vodafone has meant that I’ve learned there’s no room for error: OK, so I’ve made countless mistakes along the way, but fortunately these were earlier on in my career and I was protected somewhat by my seniors, who told me what I should have done.  This gave me a real depth of knowledge when I eventually arrived at being ‘the boss’ – and was able to pass that knowledge down to my teams.

 

You don’t have to know all the answers

 

What does this mean for you?  It means that you don’t have to know all the answers of how to market your business: all you need to do is to know what result you want and I’ll ask the questions to get the rest of the information out of you.  

 

Getting on the right road helps you get to the right destination

 

Once I’d taken a brief from a client, that brief needed to be turned into a marketing strategy so that we knew how we were going to achieve the results.  Marketing strategies sound complicated but they’re quite simple things when they’re broken down into their component parts.  Most of my work as a junior in the marketing world was to do all the ‘grunt’ work in doing all the various research and going on fact finding missions to provide the necessary information so that a marketing strategy could be written.  Then, as the years went by, I was able to take this information and turn it into a meaningful strategy – something that showed the way forward for a client.  

 

Want to know who your customers are?

 

With two decades of doing this (and I still find reading research documents fascinating!) I now tend to instinctively know who’s going to buy what and when.  That said – I still do the upfront work and research, but it means for you that I’ll know pretty quickly who your likely target customers are, where they are and what kind of marketing strategy will work for you.  So, if I’m coaching you I can steer you towards the right answers quickly, and if I work with you as a consultant then you can be sure that you’ll have the right road map that you can easily go away and follow.

 

Planning your way to marketing success

 

After a marketing strategy is written, then it needs to be turned into a marketing plan to execute (i.e. what you’re going to do when).  As an account handler within various marketing agencies, this was a large part of what I did, in conjunction with senior media planners.  So, again I came up through the trenches listening and watching what happened, then eventually working out these plans myself with my team.  It’s not just about the media though, it’s knowing what activity to do when to get maximum impact from your marketing and getting the most results for your budget.

 

If you’ve ever wondered “where do I start?” with marketing – then this is where marketing planning comes in.  Knowing how to do it properly does come with years of experience – and I can bring this experience to the table for you.  It doesn’t matter if your budget is £50 a month, £500 or £500 (OK, so I admit, it’s fun working with a few £million!)  - what DOES matter is that this is used effectively.  A proper marketing plan will do this for you.

 

Do You Speak Printer-ese?

 

Have you ever asked a printer to print a business card or leaflet, and you suddenly get asked strange questions and you have no idea what question they asked you, let alone what the answer is?  They may start talking to you about CMYK vs RGB, or a full bleed, or hi res and lo res.  This happened to a friend of mine recently and instead of explaining to her what these things were, it was easier to pick up the phone and deal with the printer on her behalf in a matter of minutes (big relief on her part – all she wanted was her business cards!).   

 

How To Get What You Want From Printers and Designers

 

Printers, designers, copywriters (all the people who turn your ideas into the real things like websites, leaflets, ads and business cards), let alone list brokers for direct mail campaigns, all speak their own language.  To get the best out of them you need to be able to speak that language, and speak it well.  

 

You have to know how to brief them (what to put in a brief, what to leave out) – and there are different types of brief depending on what you want.  So a corporate identity brief to a designer (ie one that will get you your logo) will have different information in to a brief for a newspaper ad.  A website brief needs a different style of brief to printed material.  A copy brief is different again.  

 

Digital printing will give you different results to screen or litho printing, and some methods are better for some items than others.  Different weights of paper (called “stock”) will have an impact on not only price, but also how your brand is seen by your customers (this is subtle, but important, and a lot of people miss it). You need to know what kind of prices you should be paying for things – and you need to know if you’re being ripped off.  

 

Buying or renting data (ie names and addresses) for direct marketing activities is a specialism all in itself.

 

Steer clear of the minefield

 

So dealing with these professionals can be a minefield if you don’t know what you’re doing and can cause a complete headache for you – and actually for your designer / copywriter / printer too.  I can take all that hassle away from you and deal with them on your behalf, making sure you get the best quality work you want for your business.

 

I’ve written, literally, hundreds and hundreds of briefs in my time and have dealt with many, many, many campaigns from conception right through to the finished article.  I’ve come up against all sorts of problems, I’ve dealt with some fairly big creative egos (big agencies tend to have creatives with big egos – fun to deal with but you have to know how to handle them!), and I’ve been on 3am press passes (and that means I’ve literally stood by a massive printing press in the middle of the night to approve the first printed material off the press, and know what colour to adjust so that the printer can get a direct mail piece printed properly).  

 

I’ve worked with TV, radio, big outdoor posters, direct mail campaigns, door drop campaigns, leaflets, end of year company reports, merchandise (eg mugs, pens, umbrellas), brochures…you name it, over the years I’ve done it.  So, yes, I speak the language of those professionals fluently and, actually, I love working with these people to get the best out of them – so that you get the best results for you.

 

Do you abide by the law?

 

Then there are all the little details of knowledge that only by working in marketing for real will anyone get: too many to mention, but a big one is how to abide by the Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing Codes.  I’ve seen some well known ‘self professed’ marketers out there fall foul of these in their email marketing (so I know they’re not real marketers, otherwise their mistakes wouldn’t have happened).  The thing is, you can get fined heavily if you do contravene these Codes, so you do need to take care.

 

What makes me cross is that there are lots of these self professed marketers out there who, actually, wouldn’t last 5 minutes in the real marketing world.  People trust them because they turn up as #1 on Google and so follow what they do – and will end up falling down some fairly major holes because these “marketers” don’t really know what they’re doing.  

 

Check out people’s backgrounds

 

So, you may not want to work with me, but if you are going to work with a marketer – please check out their background (and if you’ve listened to my free audio, then you’ll know that sales is not the same as marketing…sales people won’t have the kind of experience listed above – they have their own specialism).  You (as the “promoter”) are responsible for your business and the messages that you put out there – so you need to make sure that the person guiding you knows what they’re doing.

 

So to recap:

 

Stacks of real, practical “been there and done that” experience which will:

 

Ensure you have the right marketing strategy for you so that it gets the results you want;

Make sure that your marketing plan delivers;

Mean I can take all the hassle and pain away from you and work with the designers, copywriters and printers on your behalf (as well as buy media);

Ensuring that your finished marketing material reflects your brand properly;

Make sure you abide by the Codes of Conduct and don’t upset your customers / prospective customers through bad marketing.

 

So, yes, lots here, and I make no apologies.  It’s all these ‘little’ things that will make a real BIG difference to your marketing.  Marketing is not just about placing an ad, or getting a website up, it’s a whole lot more.  And it’s this “whole lot more” that I can help you with.  It’s not just about someone coming up with good ideas for you – it’s about knowing how to make those into reality and results.

 

And it’s results you want, isn’t it?

 

What makes me different – and how can it help you?