Social media is a tool used to fuel discussions, interactions and the building of communities within a given environment through the mutual sharing of information.

Usage of Facebook and Twitter are prime examples.

For social media to be successful, participants must either be genuine, honest, or have a knack for open dialogue.

Social media is essentially much more than just a broadcast channel or sales and marketing tool.

From a marketing standpoint social media gives you the ability to hear what consumers are saying, even when you are not “listening,” so to speak.

Through the power of online mediums such as blogs and real-time messaging you are able to easily process what others are saying about your company, then respond timely and in kind.

However, there is particular etiquette—general rules you need to follow to truly get the most out of social media.

Rules of thumb

It is often said that rules help maintain order.

When it comes to social media marketing it is inevitable that you will either need to follow some basic rules or even break a few to find success.

First and foremost, maintaining social media is a 24/7 stunt and if you cannot maintain your presence then it may be best you erase it.

Trying to be clever in your marketing approach never works; instead, you simply need to BE clever.

For instance, if consumers distribute your content without your permission, do them and yourself a favour by offering to help them spread the word.

Since consumers are technically the ones who own your brand and the point of social media marketing is to quickly get your messages across to them, then you should consider it a golden opportunity when they instinctively use word-of-mouth to promote you for free.

Finally, always make time to reply to consumers, even if it is just to say hello as they often remember you for it.

Why it rules

The advantages of social media marketing are near limitless.

Social media allows you to interact with far more people than you would otherwise be able to.

It also makes it easy to organise events through social media sites as people frequent the Internet and pass on information.

Many companies try to justify the cost and time investment it takes to manage social media marketing; they question if it is worth it.

It is worth it only if you invest a team of professional people who have the time, experience and commitment to understand and execute social media to the fullest and consistently create brilliant ideas that work.

Mical Marketing thrives on such people—that’s why they rule!

Your brand is simply a mark of distinction that sets you apart from your competitors.

A mark can take the form of a name, symbol, sound, design, etc., or a combination of any of these elements.

Having a brand forces you to build and maintain a particular management strategy that directs your actions in service of your consumers.

For example, top brands like Apple and Coca Cola keep their brands fresh by incorporating nostalgia and universal appeal into their products.

Not having a brand puts you at risk of remaining obscure as a marketing entity, which results in others having less faith in your company.

A brand promises consumers that your company stands for a particular level of commitment, quality and service.

Branding types

In marketing there is product branding and corporate branding.

Product branding pertains to the technical and physical attributes of a product/service that a company wishes to sell.

A branded product assures consumers that they will receive special benefits over other products whenever they use the product in question.

When products are branded they can give consumers a way to communicate their desired lifestyle to themselves, as well as to others.

Corporate branding incorporates the same strategy and methodology used in product branding, however it takes the approach one step further.

Stakeholders, the media, your competitors and the government often have a subliminal part to play in supporting the reputation of your company.

Corporate branding therefore unifies the above relationships as it helps advertise your company as if it were a beneficial and tangible product that dedicates itself to serving consumers and possibly an entire community.

Its true value

A well-managed brand is so powerful that it can overshadow almost any competitive advantage.

However, it takes a tremendous amount of time and dedication to obtain such towering brand recognition.

The fist step to attaining this feat is to ensure that your messages are always credible, delivered clearly, and emotionally motivate buyers to the point of unwavering loyalty.

Furthermore, you must strive to only produce products and services that customers will find extremely valuable and fall in love with.

All of the above can most easily be accomplished through the assistance of an advertising agency that combines solid working ideas with experience and professional knowledge of marketing.

In the end your brand value will always come down to the amount of work you put into promoting it and what your customers ultimately think of you.

Mical marketing never needs to think as much, as the agency has all the valuable resources, experience and manpower to follow in the footsteps of an invaluable brand like Nike and just do.

In advertising, a campaign is defined as a series of activities used to promote a product or service through a variety of marketing strategies.

A successful campaign requires that you conduct careful research and focus on details and execution throughout the entire process rather than focus only on the potential outcome of your main idea.

Using a step-by-step approach is not only more practical but allows you to follow through with objectives in a strategic manner, thereby minimising the risk of failure.

Before investing in a marketing campaign it is important to know where your company stands in the marketplace and where you wish to see it stand by the end of the campaign.

Nonetheless, adhering to basic rules is fine but your campaign also needs to contain some special magic that makes it “campaignable.”

Its true meaning

There is constant debate as to whether “campaignable” is an official word or if it was really just made up by advertisers.

Quintessentially, a campaignable idea is one that has legs.

This means that the idea has what it takes to be original enough that it would only serve to market a specific product or service.

The true strength of a campaignable idea is indeed its ability to easily apply itself to the unique selling proposition of the brand. 

The result of this is an idea so influential that it leads to greater appreciation, memorability, and cannot be easily replicated by third parties.

More importantly, a campaignable idea can be repeated and expanded upon with consistency and without ever being the same as its previous executions.

It is at this point that the idea is no longer merely advertising but superiorly a work of art.

Meeting your Objectives

The core purpose of an advertising campaign is to establish your brand image and bring product awareness to your customers.

Establish an objective and task budget, which would permit you to dictate how much should be spent to achieve a particular campaign objective.

Consider that determining the right budget is often as simple as matching your competition’s.

However, note that a high budget alone does not guarantee a favourable outcome as the success of each campaign depends on the quality of the content, how the campaign is structured and the marketing channels that are selected.

A campaign’s objections are also more easily met when created and viewed from a point of objectivity.

Therefore, one of the most effective ways to meet your objectives is by trusting the ability of an advertising agency that believes in executing brilliant ideas that work.

Mical Marketing helps you meets your objectives without needless objections.

Emotional marketing is the ability to effectively communicate messages through use of a variety of techniques that evoke consumers’ emotions.

Many managers use sensual and rational marketing techniques to appeal to consumers but these pale in comparison to emotional marketing.

Yet, before engaging in emotional marketing you must first define your target audience.

Observing the personality characteristics of your audience through surveys and interviews allow you to narrow your focus.

This essentially gives you the ability to more accurately measure consumers’ attitudes, interests, viewpoints, lifestyles, social statuses, etc.

Find the right ways to tickle the minds of consumers and you will find everything you need to become successful at emotional marketing.

Stirring their emotions

Emotional marketing does not start with the product but starts with the way consumers wish to feel about themselves.

This is because consumers desire products and services that fit their dreams as much as their desire to fit into today’s consumerist society.

Using cut and dry marketing methods that are based solely on facts and figures are too unemotional.

Nearly everyone tries to sell products or services by touting unbeatable service or high product specifications and features, which frequently results in indifference by consumers.

Nevertheless, if you incorporate emotions such as love, fear, trust, guilt, value, pride and even a sense of belonging into your ads you will more likely touch the emotive side of consumers.

An example would be an insurance commercial that shows you the consequences of a house you’ve worked all your life for slowly being set on fire, which is followed by the words, “If only you had insurance?”

The possibility of the consumer losing his or her home injects a fearful emotion and instantly makes the ad worth caring about.

Don’t forget logic

In a sense, emotional marketing is all about persuading consumers to listen to your messages.

But more often than not understanding the emotional characteristics of consumers is just a starting point.

Sometimes indeed you will need to combine logical selling points with emotional marketing to bring your messages across.

However, it all comes down to a level of balance you need to maintain.

Too much logic in an advertisement stands to bore consumers while excessive use of emotion with a poor execution will alienate them.

An easy solution to this predicament is to only unleash ideas onto the public that contain an adequate mix of emotion, logic, brilliance and workability.

Mical Marketing is one of the few agencies in existence that knows how to stay passionate and provide you with all of the above without sacrificing yours or your consumers’ emotional stability.

Content marketing is a marketing strategy where you deliver information that makes your buyers more intelligent. 

With content marketing the focus is not placed on advertising your products or services, as when companies deliver consistent, ongoing valuable information to buyers, buyers ultimately reward the company with their business and loyalty.

One of the first companies to use content marking was John Deere in 1895, which published a magazine about farming, called The Furrow, that advised farmers how to become more profitable.

Content marketing has since evolved to include blogs and social networking sites, which people turn to for absorbing valuable information.

Content marketing is not to be confused with PR marketing, which is normally more traditional and serious in tone.

One primary advantage with content marketing is that you do not have to rent advertising space to promote your content since the “space” is generally owned by you.

The essentials

It is not efficient to simply begin to produce content as you must first ensure that the content will be relative to your target audience.

Even content of high quality will be ignored if no one has interest in learning about it.

The trick is to deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time.

Monitoring social media trends such as Facebook and Twitter help you gauge what people are saying about relevant topics and which ones they tend to like or dislike.

Note that you should never limit your content to routine postings or supplying mundane information.

Repeatedly mixing things with new media and information will keep things fresh and imprint your company’s brand within the minds of buyers.

Give and Take

John Deere’s magazine, The Furrow, was not filled with marketing content or written by a sales and marketing department.

Yet, it maintained the standard of being a full-scale magazine that supported the farming industry and the need for farmers to make money.

By helping farmers stay in business this ultimately ensured that farmers would always be around to buy the very farming equipment that John Deere was known to sell.

Buyers want useful information that add value to their lives, make them well-off or more intelligent.

Give them a reason to always come back to you and you will forever reap the true rewards that content marketing has to offer.

An agency like Mical Marketing is readily equipped to handle content marketing and all of the complexities that come with it.

Not only this, but you can rest easily knowing that Mical Marketing will always provide you with not just great content but pure ideas that work.

A marketing budget is a specific amount of finances set aside to market products and services for a period of time. 

Every business should have a marketing budget, yet many don’t take the time to allocate one.

Not having a marketing budget puts you at a major disadvantage in that it limits the amount of publicity and exposure your products and services receive.

The typical counterargument for not having a budget is related to the cost.

Indeed there are often high costs attached to marketing but also consider that the cost of bankruptcy due to a failed business will always be higher.

Therefore unless your brand is already as huge and successful as, say, Apple or Microsoft, marketing your business is essential.

The trick, however, is finding the most effective way to balance your limited finances while keeping your business afloat.

Setting your budget

Many Clients either think it is, or attempt to place, the responsibility of setting their marketing and advertising budgets on the advertising agency.

However, only the client can know and set the marketing and sales forecast for the organisation and it is on this, that the advertising budget should be based.  

Clients that expect the advertising agency to propose or set a budget are the ones that generally seek to have a figure so they can negotiate with other sources in order to get a “cheaper” deal, as it were. 

Many times they are not only comparing “apples with oranges” but also losing the opportunity to have effective and efficient strategic thinking applied to their needs. 

They virtually throw out “the baby with the bathwater” as it were.

Proper investment 

There are many channels to promote your products and services and it can be difficult to pinpoint which ones to invest in.

Rather than invest blindly in something uncertain like many do, a more secure bet would be to hire the services of professionals in the industry.

An agency, like Mical Marketing, will advise you how to infiltrate the market within the limitations of your budget.

In addition, should the scope of advertising you wish to achieve exceed your budget the agency will suggest strong alternatives or inform you if you should consider increasing your budget to meet your objectives.

With Mical marketing you get the assurance that your messages will be portrayed in a most efficient and effective manner through the concept of workability.

Working ideas are also generally more memorable and sustainable, allowing you to worry less about budget and more about the excessive financial rewards you stand to reap.

Advertising is normally used to bring awareness to products and services and to ultimately get them into the hands of your consumers.

Many strategies can be used to advertise yet there is a very simple truth that is not blatantly obvious at first.

No matter your advertising strategy, each one can be generally placed into one of two broader categories.

These strategies are more commonly known as “Pull” and “Push,” which originated from the economical concept of demand vs. supply.

Each strategy has the potential to hurt or help your brand as it affects consumers differently through psychological impact.

Knowing when it is best to use either strategy depends on the products or services you wish to sell as well as the standards you wish to maintain for your company.

Trusting gravitation

Pull marketing is used in developing advertising strategies that entice consumers to buy your products or services.

These would usually include the offer of immediate discounts or more attractive specials such as “buy one get one free.” 

Word of mouth and customer relationship management are also commonly used pull strategies.

A pull strategy draws consumers towards your brand by coercing them to take impulsive

action.

By creating a sense of urgency through the promotion of limited time offers your products and services are perceived to suddenly have increased value.

Consequently, this often leads to an influx of consumers flooding through your company doors. 

The main drawback, however, is that pull marketing does not easily allow you to predict or control how consumers will react to your promotions.

Thrusting force

Push marketing is the instance in which you develop advertising strategies geared towards your marketing and distribution channels.

More accurately, it involves marketing through wholesalers and distributors so that your messages reach out to consumers.

Unlike pull marketing, push marketing focuses more heavily on promotions and branding rather than making the actual sale itself.

Push marketing’s primary strength lies in its ability to help build brand awareness, which makes it easier to subsequently instigate a pull.

When applying push marketing you must do whatever it takes to ensure the consumer is aware of your brand at their point of purchase, hence the approach is more direct and forceful.

Tactics include use of trade show promotions, packaging design and directly selling to consumers face to face.

The best marketing strategies incorporate the right mix of pull and push, which coincidentally is the heart of a solid working idea.

And working ideas are the forces that drive the soul of Mical Marketing.

In advertising, profit generally comes from happy clients.

However, not all clients possess the same emotional level.

Some are easy to please, some are flexible and some are downright annoying to deal with on a regular basis.

As a marketing professional you generally cannot afford to pick and choose clients based on their most innate state of mind.

Your business thrives on these very clients and alienating them will only result in negative word of mouth that could tarnish the reputation of your business.

Therefore many mangers find themselves saying: “If the client is always right then what am I supposed to do?”

A friendly brief

Firstly, recognise that the client is NOT always right.

The question of “correctness” should always be based on the brief that is supplied by the client. 

The brief must be addressed according to its stipulations, and progressive actions must subsequently be taken by both parties.

However, regardless of the brief you should always listen to what your clients have to say and be slow to anger and confrontation.

Try to put yourself in the client’s shoes and ask yourself how you would like to be treated if the roles were reversed.

Always attempt to come to a mutual agreement rather than make things worst.

Never make the situation one that is about who is right or wrong.

Being right is worthless if all it does is cause you to lose your valuable client relationships.

Whenever conflicts arise it always does both parties well to refer to the brief.

Pleasing them

Why wait till something is broken to try to fix it?

Prevention is better than cure.

If you treat your clients well throughout the business relationship then they will be more inclined to forgive you should any mistakes occur.

On occasions offer them discounts on your bigger services or tactfully provide some of your smaller ones for free.

Also don’t always assume that it is your company name or brand that your clients are in love with.

In truth, many clients are drawn to your business because of their relationship with your employees.

Therefore by keeping your employees happy you keep your clients happy and ultimately the quality of your brand.

Like a working idea, the secret to maintaining healthy, long-lasting business relationships is to keep things simple and adaptable, which will inevitably ensure that they work. 

Such is the force that drives the undisputed workability of Mical Marketing.

Traditionally, advertising was only viewed from one perspective. 

The central idea was that an ad needed to be delivered either through the medium of television, radio or newspapers to be considered as a professional advertisement.

With the advent of the Internet the field has been steadfastly changing year after year with no signs of halting soon.

Constant change forces marketing professionals to “get with the times” else risk becoming obsolete in the marketplace. 

This leaves many professionals consistently attempting to stay abreast in the field and sustain theirs and their clients’ reputations.

Nonetheless, there is a most effective way to accomplish this.

In with the new 

Internet and social media marketing have become key forces to be reckoned with.

Emails, digital newsletters, promotional videos, instant messaging and blogging are now everywhere and it is now difficult to imagine life without them.

You must make every effort to understand these technologies and find the best ways to practically execute them within your marketing strategies.

Digital marketing is more speedy, cost-efficient, far-reaching and flexible than traditional marketing.

In addition, it can be swiftly implemented and gives you the ability to promote more information to customers at much less risk.

Case in point, with traditional printing if copy for a press ad is printed incorrectly in the newspapers there is no way to rectify the mistake on that particular print.

With digital advertising you not only have the potential to market your ad to the entire world but often the freedom to correct untimely mistakes in seconds.

Embracing the old

In today’s fast paced society “new” is almost always perceived as more advanced, capable, efficient and fashionable. 

However, it is unwise to sacrifice something old that possesses tried and true experience as oppose to what is relatively new and is still finding its way around.

Traditional advertising offers real world communication in that people can “touch and feel” the marketing.

Your messages are therefore seen as more personal and authenticated, and allow consumers to more easily connect with what you are promoting.

The biggest mistake people make in relation to digital marketing is forgetting that it is simply a tool out of a large marketing box, and a tool should never overwhelm its master.

Traditional marketing has and today still proves to be workable, so then why get rid of it?

The old can co-exist with the new.

As if backed by the concept of “working ideas,” like Mical Marketing, the foundation known as traditional marketing will indeed stand the test of time.

A connection is a relationship in which a person, thing, or idea is associated with another entity. 

It is one of the most essential aspects necessary for the healthy survival of any business yet arguably one of the most underused in marketing.

Promoting a great product or service can only get you so far in obtaining the attention of consumers.

Consumers buy from companies they can relate to else they move onto the next supplier that emotively grasps their wants and needs. 

Establishing a strong connection between your consumers will automatically get them to form a different opinion of you.

You will ultimately be seen as an empathetic supplier who provides them with commodities that exceed their wants as oppose to a seller who tries to sell them things they do not need.

Make it personal

It is often advised to never mix business with your personal life.

However, there is no rule that says you should avoid mixing customers’ personal lives with your business.

Customers are nothing more than human beings who take pride in feeling cherished and important.

Like dating, your must woo your customers by showing them that you care in unexpected ways.

When possible, try to gather and remember a few personal details about your customers and sporadically follow-up with them.

They will eventually consider that you see them as more than just a walking dollar sign and will garner traction towards your brand and your services.

Listen carefully to what your customers have to say, respectfully take interest in their personal lives and offer them practical advice in relation to their preferences.

Most importantly, be patient as a personal connection risks failure if it is rushed.

Just business

Brands that stay on top of the business world are those that people know and trust.

By creating relationships with consumers through experiences you automatically trigger a chain of intuitive responses.

Hence you do not need the biggest sale figures or market share to become one of the most treasured businesses. 

Professionally connecting with consumers is often a more apt way of satisfying their desires.

This can be achieved by keeping your promises to customers, remaining consistent in your quality of service and production, and being innovatively exciting while at it.

Like a working idea, you will know when a connection is successful when you realise that it not only helps sustain your business but it is spontaneous to the point that it just clicks … almost as easily as the services of Mical marketing.

The most exhausted definition of marketing is probably that “it is the selling of goods and services.”

Such a statement is so rudimentary that it is possible that anyone who ceases to get pass this simple description will indeed flunk at marketing.

The basic concept of marketing is simple but becoming great at “professional marketing” is often more like traversing a mystical labyrinth filled with corridors that unexpectedly change on a whim.

To be truly successful at marketing you must possess more than just academic qualifications and field-related experience.

You must have a particular drive, a high degree of open-mindedness, and a knack for constantly staying abreast of changes in consumer tastes, new media, and in the marketplace.

Yet, you may have all of these things and still find yourself falling headfirst into the dreaded marketing pit.

Endless falls 

Many pitfalls exist to hinder your progress as a marketing professional, which are sometimes brought on by poor planning, lack of vision and bad management. 

Your mistakes affect not just your reputation but also the reputations of your clients.

One critical pitfall occurs when you fail to capitalise on the weaknesses of your clients’ competitors at the opportune time.

It becomes a missed opportunity to promote the advantages of your clients’ goods and services and the satisfaction of watching their rivals struggle to catch up with your cleverness.

Other falls include ignoring strategic alliances, applying excessive and unnecessary tactical procedures, wrongfully advising clients, and focusing too much on the details of what you need to sell rather than how the products and services will effectively satisfy consumers.

Staying afloat

Every fall you incur plummets your credibility and essentially makes it harder for you to stay afloat as a professional marketer.

Remember that clients respect you based on your reputation and integrity and that you must always keep them first in mind. 

Encourage clients to only market high quality products and services at a fair and competitive price.

Refrain from marketing any goods that jeopardise your own reputation.

Explain to clients the advantages of promoting greater interaction with their consumers.

Finally, remember that no man is an island. 

Collaborating with a professional advertising agency, like Mical Marketing, will ensure that brilliant ideas get merge with the revolutionary concept of “workability.”

As time passes, you will gradually find yourself soaring higher and higher as a marketing professional, which in turn will help safeguard your business from going six feet under.

Marketing wise, you will always remain once step ahead of the competition.

 

Under normal circumstances your brand identity is something you can control.

It remains a key consideration in advertising regardless of the many progressive changes that are inevitably made as the years go by.

Nevertheless, the effectiveness of advertisements have long been waning as the market is now flooded with a plethora of competitive ads, forcing consumers to partake in “active ad avoidance.”

Active ad avoidance means that consumers intentionally boycott advertising messages because they appear to be no different from the rest of the competition.

You must therefore find a way to bring your messages across to your audience in not just a unique manner but in a way that will perpetually stick with them.

Quintessentially, your messages must be engaging and memorable. 

Applying the foundation 

Applying effective communication and key messaging techniques is useful in getting your messages to stick with consumers.

The first rule is that you should keep your messages simple.

Complex messages take more time and energy for consumers to decode, thereby reducing the impact they will have on your audience.

Use the power of visual and mental imagery to swoon consumers into becoming attached to your messages, as seeing is more believing.

Also keep in mind that actions speak louder than words.

Conjure creative ways to prove the worth of your products and services through experiential marketing techniques such as staging product demonstrations and allowing consumers to test out your products and services free of charge.

Finally, try incorporating optimism into your messages.

Such messages easily reach out to consumers and stand a much higher chance of being favourably remembered, which will enhance your brand.

Within their minds

Memory is fickle and is highly selective per individual.

However, there is statistical evidence that proves that consumers remember some advertising messages more effortlessly than others.

Messages that evoke strong emotions, be it laughter or affection, subliminally coerce consumers to repeatedly pay attention.

Those that present new information and expand consumers’ intelligence are also less likely to be forgotten.

Additionally, consumers are always conscious of how much money they can save when making a purchase, so any message that promotes frugality will easily capture their interest.

It is imperative that you consult a professional advertising agency like Mical Marketing when it comes to promoting your brand, as it possesses the know-how in recognising and executing brilliant, working ideas.

The agency also has the professional awareness that the messages that stick with consumers do not necessarily have to be the ones executed the best. 

Open Gangnam Style, anyone? Yet it sticks.

Picture this scenario: You are a marketing agent and you ask a client, “Who is your target audience?”

The client looks at you with a blank stare and impulsively responds, “Umm, everyone?”

Your client is targeting everyone yet finds it hard to comprehend why business is not booming.

In marketing, promoting your goods and services to more people does not automatically mean that in the long run you will obtain more clients.

Marketing to too many people, especially in the beginning, actually runs a higher chance of failure than success.

Comparatively, it is similar to fishing in an ocean using two thousand fishing nets yet only capturing two fishes in the end. This is why having a niche is important.

A niche helps you narrow your target audience by identifying only specific characteristics that are worth marketing to.

 

Finding your Niche

A niche does not come into existence by accident.

Niches are created when you thoroughly evaluate the benefits of your products or services and how they can positively correlate with the wants and needs of consumers.

All requirements within the market that are not being properly addressed by your competitors can also be conjoined to become part of your niche.

Hence, you must capitalise on your opponents’ weaknesses by creating a unique space to promote yourself.

Building on the previous “fishing analogy,” attempting to be a small fish in a big ocean is counterproductive because you use more resources to ultimately obtain an uneven aspect ratio of profits.

It is usually easier for a big fish in a small pond to capture more fishes while using fewer resources.

The latter approach permits you to worry less about size and competition because it means you have found and grasped your niche.

 

Fuelling growth

A powerful niche is one of a kind.

It is carefully planned, intrigues your customers and constantly leads you to achieving bigger and better things on a long-term basis.

To grow your niche you must go beyond isolating your target market and must strive to get to know your ideal customer as well as you know yourself.

It is natural and recommended to aspire towards obtaining multiple niches.

Nevertheless, be sure that you master one niche before attempting to develop another.

Growth is good but it must occur at a strategic pace else it runs the risk of appearing convoluted to consumers. 

A niche is so simple, so brilliant and so sustainable, that it can only be known as a working idea. This is its true power; this is the true embodiment of Mical Marketing.

You know the feeling: you come up with that one, brilliant idea that in your heart you believe is going to add millions to your bank account.

Your first instinct is to protect that idea at all costs and to wait for the right time to unleash your brilliance onto the world.

The time comes and you attempt to execute your idea, yet by all odds it fails to impress.

You become disenchanted and are left wondering what went wrong.

Was it the idea itself that was poor, the execution, or was it both?

Understanding the difference between both entities saves you needless frustration.

A penny for your thoughts

In marketing an idea is a concept or mental impression that can be developed into some form of lucrative advertisement.

There has always been a common perception that ideas are easy to come by but that the executions of those ideas usually matter most.

If the latter were true then using today’s Hollywood as an example, there would not be so many movie remakes that pale in comparison to the originals.

The truth is that economic growth revolves around the human mind and its capacity for invention, discovery, and the transformation of physical objects and ideas into valuable goods and services.

Therefore ideas are the cornerstone of the creative process and without them there can be no execution.

Ideas can either be bad, good or great.

There is no good way to implement a bad idea as the idea’s worth is based on relativity. 

Consumers will reject all executions of ideas they cannot easily relate to.

A good idea, however, is solid but requires substantial execution while a great idea requires less of it.

The art of execution

Exchanging creative ideas and imagining the fabulous rewards are awe-inspiring, yet if you have no way to bring them into reality then they remain nothing more than imaginary.

To properly execute ideas they must first be jotted down on paper as this helps free the mind and helps you view them more logically.

The practicality of the ideas must then be thoroughly evaluated by asking critical “what if” questions.

Keep the company’s branding and mission statement in mind as you go about the process while observing present and future trends in the market.

Also avoid becoming attached to ideas as feedback from a team of creative people, such as those within an advertising agency, can sometimes revolutionise ideas tremendously.

Quite peculiarly, execution has a knack for unexpectedly transforming the simplest of ideas into what is more commonly known as creativity. 

It is no secret that marketing is practically a psychological game that is played in the midst of suppliers and consumers.

As a supplier you need to sell your products and services to as many consumers as possible while consumers usually purchase only as much as they need.

Suppliers typically attempt to predict what the next great marketing tactic should be and to get more consumers to purchase from them.

Their first thought is often to attract more consumers by promoting discounts and giveaways, and upping their overall customer service experience.

But new business does not come from new customers.

It comes from “the birds already in your hand,” so to speak.

Interestingly, sometimes incorporating new game mechanics into your advertising is the only way to retain them.

Making the rules

In marketing, the term “gamification” is used in relation to transforming advertising that is lackluster into a game that is fun and exciting for consumers to play. Sadly, over the years consumers have gotten used to receiving the same types of uninspiring messages from advertisers and are tired of it.

Thus, it is no longer suggested that consumers be rewarded as a consequence of making a purchase.

Instead you must make them work to obtain your rewards in lieu of just giving it to them.

Think of an unbalanced relationship: When one party gets something from the other too easily it tends to be perceived to not be worth much and the respective party easily gets to enjoy the reward then moves onto something more interesting without having invested a thing.

Likewise, there is a much higher chance that consumers will more likely become attached to your brand once they are challenged and given valid reason to invest in it.

Let the fun begin!

There are particular psychological elements embedded within games that drive people to take playful action.

Designing an actual game, however, to promote your company’s selling points is just one option.

It is also possible to produce an interactive video or marketing campaign that simply incorporates some of the elements that make games fun to play: mystery, perplexity, acts of recollection and intelligence are just some examples.

Regardless of your marketing strategy, the key factor always remain getting consumers to take a particular action in response to your hard work.

Though you must never forget that while it may be your game and your rules, consumers always have the final say and by right they deserve a win.

Absolutely no game overs!