Communication

The marketing of consulting services needs to move beyond pens, pamphlets and parties.

“We need to be talking to the c-suite.”

“We should to be advising on strategy, that’s where we can add the most value.”

“Prospects should view us as providing consultancy, not just delivering services.”

Phrases like these are said in the boardrooms of almost all service businesses. But how can they be achieved?

Whether it’s accountants trying to expand from audits, or law firms pushing to move beyond drafting contracts, everyone’s got their eyes on growth and the larger fees that come from consulting.

The problem is that while audits need to be conducted and contracts need to be drafted, consulting isn’t a practical, day-to-day business need. Companies have to want it.

So how, in the eyes of your clients, do you move from the supplier of services to the provider of advice?

The answer is to learn from the business sector that is the ultimate embodiment of want over need: luxury.

Brand

Luxury marketing is all about the brand. Having defined its mission, vision and values, a company has a framework for creating a consistent experience for everyone it comes in contact with.

Everything from your marketing strategy to the way you answer the phone can be defined consistently and simply if you have a strong brand. To some, ensuring a consistent approach to details may seem excessive, but anyone in luxury will tell you it’s the details that count. If you want to deliver a truly consistent customer experience, you need a brand framework through which you choose the details.

Exclusivity

Another hallmark of luxury is that not everyone can have it. For consulting firms, this has two very specific applications.

The first is that your customers need to feel exclusive. Small gatherings, hard to access venues or tightly controlled attendance are key. Yes, it’s a little cutthroat but people like to feel special.

The second is that you cannot do everything. You can’t cover every sector and every specialism. If you do, then you’re not luxury, you’re mass market.

What don’t you do?

Indeed, being mass market really is the crux of the problem for most firms. Partners and directors want big fees but are often uncertain when deciding what their firm does and, crucially, what it doesn’t do. A well-defined brand can help work through that problem. It’s the first step in starting those c-suite conversations.

This article was originally published here at evolvinginfluence.co.uk.

The first image conjured up by Dickens in Great Expectations is of the main character, Pip, at his parents’ grave, imagining what they were like based upon the inscriptions and the shapes of the letters on their tombstone. If future Labour party campaign managers were to look solely at Ed Miliband’s pledge stone when judging their predecessors, I suspect they would not form a favourable opinion.

Metaphors

Politicians love a metaphor. Other than avoiding answering a question entirely, metaphors are their favourite rhetorical tool. They constantly talk of “paying off the credit card bill” or “fixing the roof while the sun shines”. Taking big concepts and communicating them clearly and simply is essential in getting your message across. Businesses should learn from this.

Ed’s stone, however is a cautionary tale. By having his pledges carved in stone Ed Miliband has made his metaphor too literal. Like almost all metaphors, when taken literally, they fall apart. Having pledges etched into stone is a grand gesture that screams, “trust me!” And one of the first things most copywriters learn is that when you tell people to trust you, they tend to be wary.

Messaging

The message implied by the gesture is terrible, but it’s made worse by the words used. The language is vague and the pledges are subjective. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, he did so with Commandments that were simple, mainly objective and bold. You know exactly where you are with “Thou shalt not kill”, however, “Controls on immigration” isn’t exactly a zinger.

The use of vague language is inexcusable when we know that Labour’s campaign team can do better. In fact, they have done much better in this election. Just two weeks ago they released this poster stating that Labour would recruit 20,000 more nurses:

It’s a clear, direct and objective pledge. People understand it and it can be measured. Somehow, this boldness got watered down when it came to chiselling some words into stone. It was changed to the nice but prosaic “An NHS with the time to care”. Who cares for people in hospitals? Nurses. What do you need more of if you want people to feel they’re getting good care? Nurses. So why not go with the clear pledge? It’s on a poster and has been shared across the web. It’s already out there. Reiterate it.

Businesses can take two lessons about communicating effectively from this campaign blunder: don’t stretch metaphors too far; and be clear and direct because vague messages just blend into the ether.

This article was originally published at evolvinginfluence.co.uk.

The New Year has brought with it the usual lists of major trends in marketing for the coming year. By and large, the lists are interesting, thoughtful and likely, on the whole, to be accurate. What these lists do not contain, however, is anything with eternal relevance. In marketing, one of the few things that will be as relevant in 1,000 years as it is today is creativity.

I first learned of the Creative Industries Federation in a newspaper article about its launch. An organisation set up to promote the UK’s creative industries sounded like a very good thing indeed, so I looked it up and requested more information. The organisation seemed to have such a clear idea of its purpose that, having only read the website and exchanged an email or two, I signed up my firm.

When I sit with a blank sheet of paper, I possess neither the arrogance nor brilliance to presume I can fill it with creativity entirely on my own.

Successful marketing needs real creativity. You cannot build brands and businesses on fluffy thoughts and lazy ideas. The question is: where do creative ideas come from?

Well, when I sit down with a blank sheet of paper in front of me, I possess neither the arrogance nor brilliance to presume that I can fill it with exceptional creativity sourced entirely from my own thoughts. I draw upon the vast creativity of the artists whose work I can access online and in galleries, at concerts and exhibitions. I speak with colleagues and friends. I stretch ideas to absurd proportions. I leave them to fester and see how they develop. I go through many creative processes but sitting at the very core of it all is the creativity of others.

Let me share a practical example. Back when I was a student, I was writing an essay on immigration. I struggled with bringing clarity to the ideas I was trying to express. At the time, Institute of Contemporary Arts had an exhibition that touched some of the issues I was writing about. I went along and was particularly struck by one work, by an artist whose name I sadly cannot recall, where a light bulb had been taken from a supermarket in Germany and placed in a Korean store in the US. There are a number of immigration narratives stitched through that piece; in particular, it makes a wonderful point about the unseen benefits of immigration very simply and clearly. It helped me greatly with my work. I’ve loitered in galleries ever since.

Moreover, many marketing specialists have arts-related backgrounds. I’ve worked with designers who started out in fine art and copywriters who are poets. It’s rare to meet a creative specialist who doesn’t have a side project or hobby. The number of screenplays, novels and short stories quietly saved on the servers or PR firms and ad agencies is astounding.

A creatively rich environment is essential for marketing. We must protect and promote the arts and creativity of the UK if our marketing and advertising potential is to be fulfilled. So, why did Evolving Influence join the Creative Industries Federation? It seeks to secure the future of a business critical resource.

This article was originally published here at EvolvingInfluence.co.uk.