The Big Picture

Whether you’re laser-focused on a specific project, or taking a comprehensive approach to your marketing efforts, one aspect doesn’t change: always look at the big picture.

Companies often shop at least a few agencies when they’re considering engagement with an advertising/marketing firm, and that’s a good thing.

There are a lot of important factors that go into determining who you should enter that relationship with. Experience, culture, communication style… all of this matters, and life is too short to do business with people that you don’t enjoy working with. Add to that list this concept: Does the agency I’m courting take a holistic approach? If the answer is difficult to determine or a straight-up “no”, I would encourage you to keep shopping.

One of the things we hear most when first speaking with a potential client, regardless of the type or scope of work being discussed, is that we ask the big questions nobody else does. If your most pressing business need is a new or refreshed website for example, be wary of the agency who limits the discussion to basic functionality, color preference or other small thinking. The first and most important factors to be discussed require a much larger view of the playing field. What is your position in the competitive landscape? How much or little do we know about your target audience and what is important to them?

Small details that add up to a successful final product are dictated by these bigger questions. The prettiest website in the world isn’t going to perform if the type is too small for an aging target audience and the most impressive interactive function isn’t worth a damn if your user can’t find it first.

So much of what an agency does can be categorized as subjective, meaning that thousands of tiny decisions, many of which are creative, have to be made to land on a difference-making final product for your business. With greater understanding of your business, these decisions are backed up by insight, rather than being a flight of fancy.

To better illustrate this, let’s talk about color

How do you determine the colors that are used in your brand, and by extension, all of the pieces of that brand from logo to collateral to the rest of your digital footprint? In many cases, the answer is a disconcerting one. It’s determined by the CEO’s grandkid’s favorite color or some other subjective factor that has no concrete foundation. We bring objectivity to the equation by applying process and expertise.

Start with a competitive color wheel analysis that plots your competition all across the rainbow and you have a graphic representation of where your opportunity for differentiation lies that functions as a no-brainer guide to making informed decisions. If all of your competition is blue and gray (this happens more than you can imagine), you’ve got a real chance to stand out by leaning to the warmer side of the color palette and make no mistake, color makes a difference.

Every aspect of your marketing strategy and tactics should have this level of consideration. If you’d like to talk about the big picture, give me a call on my cell phone at 817-586-5820, or shoot me an email at [email protected]. It’s these kinds of conversations that fuel my passion for this industry, so you’d be doing me a favor.

Categorized in: Articles, Featured, Marketing