The Full Blog

Full Effect Marketing is both a philosophy and a methodology.  It has to be both because while there are plenty of people out there with new angles on how things should be done, its a big step from having an idea to actually making it happen.  That’s where most organisations fail, it’s why I’ll stick around at your place that bit longer and that’s an important distinguishing feature of Full Effect Marketing.

Full Effect Marketing starts with the understanding that all businesses are marketing organisations and that marketing is involved in every function at every level.  From a large scale perspective that’s not such a big paradigm shift, the world’s most successful companies are working with that idea already and in about five years time, maximum ten, there won’t be any organisations around that don’t (because they just won’t survive with the old approach).  However, to make it work for you, your organisation has to be built around your brand and marketing has to be firmly in the driving seat.  For most organisations that represents a significant shift in mindset for a lot of people, changes in the way they operate and new structures and practices, which is why so few have, so far, made it happen.

The brand thing works in every type of business and it has been proved time and again that the old objection “but that doesn’t work for business to business organisations” is well and truly buried now, so just don’t go there.  If you don’t believe me you should take a wander over to Mobium who have that argument taped.  Buddy, can they paradigm!  Whatever we are buying from hi-fi to heavy plant we can’t get away from that old right brain action.  Emotion always comes into it.  Maybe not as exclusively as Kevin Roberts suggests in his Lovemarks theory, but, hey, he’s an advertising Johnnie, let’s cut him some slack!  Anyway, as guardians of a brand (we don’t own brands any longer - right?) its our duty to ensure that they deliver their inherent “promise” and that’s very much what Full Effect Marketing is all about.

I don’t have a plug-in solution for you, Full Effect Marketing means identifying your unique opportunities and laying the path to them.  There’s a process, but the rest is what we are creating.  I’m not precious though, where they’ll do the job, we’ll adapt and adopt tools that are available, but where there aren’t any established tools or approaches (remember we’re in uncharted territory here a lot of the time) we’ll invent them together.  Because Full Effect Marketing combines marketing and operational elements in a single strategy we get into a very wide range of processes from sales chain management, training processes, distribution chain management, internal marketing, product development processes, data management and analysis so we’ve invented quite a few tools along the road - some might work for you.

If you don’t already have your brand defined, I promise you I will insist that you kick off with my Brand Discovery Programme.  That will give you a nine-part brand model that will feature at every level, in every area of your business and most of the decisions you make from that point forward.  Its an essential starting point for any business that wants to move any way, but backwards.

Brand Discovery will also lead you to develop an internal marketing culture that’ll put many standard communications tools to use in new and exciting ways and a process that’ll keep it all on track.  Its important that the formula you adopt is right for you, but I’ve been involved with more of these than most people, I know where the pitfalls lie and I’ve seen successful as well as unsuccessful solutions, so I will be able to guide you through this minefield too.

If you want to be certain that you are getting your money’s worth from your advertising you’ll need to evaluate the efficiency of every advertising communication you have - I’ve a framework for a tool that helps you decide whether the creative solutions your agency are proposing will work.

Your sales chain will always have some links that are stronger than others, but that’s no excuse for not addressing the weakest ones.  A while ago I worked with one of our best-known data management organisations to develop an optimisation process and you could adopt that as an integral part of your business.

Full Effect Marketing is an approach to business that’s right for today and essential for tomorrow.  Any organisation is only as good as its next big idea and Full Effect Marketing will not only ensure that the ideas will keep comming, but will see to it that you don’t waste time on the ones that aren’t important to you.  There’s only one thing that separates a succesful company from an unsuccessful one and that’s efficiency and Full Effect Marketing is the most efficient way for an organisation to work today.  Bottom line?  Well, I guess, if you are still working with old model marketing and you want to be in business in five or ten year’s time we should talk.

A quick run-down of the Full Effect Marketing process

I work with clients direct and with marketing services firms and I operate both as an outsourced strategist and as an advisor on business development for clients and marketing services firms.  Organisations of all types love Full Effect Marketing because it increases their ROI and marketing services firms love it because it opens up new and valuable opportunities for growth.

My work with client organisations covers all aspects of marketing:

Brand development

I use my “Brand Discovery” programme to help my clients establish their vision and mission, align their brand character to consumer expectations, pin-point their positioning and develop a promise and proposition ready to go to market.  The end product of this phase of my work is the nine-coordinate Brand Model - the basis of everything the business will do from that point forward.  (See LinkedIn for recent delegate reaction to my Brand Discovery Programme)

Traditional communications

The development of the “big idea” (One of the three components of a marketing campaign) and the integrated, media neutral communications strategy (the second component) that applies experiential initiatives like Roaching, Buzz and Guerrilla marketing in Lean Marketing strategies with web and other electronic media forms, plus even less conventional tools alongside traditional media to transport the promise to market.

Internal marketing

This is where I extend the boundaries of marketing and it may be the areas where my approach differs most from the mainstream.  All the evidence that I have seen supports the idea that businesses that adjust their internal/external balance in favour of internal communication are more successful.  By doing so I am better able to tackle the issues that influence the organisation’s ability to deliver its promise and that’s the key to business success.  By using communications in new and exciting ways in programmes aimed at all stakeholders (not just employees) I give them the understanding, tools and enthusiasm to play their role in the delivery of the promise to the full.

My clients normally take on the ongoing management of the strategy themselves, although I tend to stick around to help them over obstacles, find or create the toools they need to tackle tasks along the way and ensure that the programme stays on track.  If they don’t feel ready to manage the process from day one, I have been known to step in, build a team and take that job on for a while too.

The end result is efficent marketing.  Marketing that delivers the right answer to consumers’ needs, quickly and without wasted effort or resource.  Which is really all you need to do to be a successful organisation.