Your sustainability journey begins by reducing waste, starting with better targeting and strategy. The first step is a goal. Goals can be as lofty as changing your industry, as precise as a 10% increase in sales, or as incremental as five new qualified leads at your next trade show. What are your immediate, medium-term and long-term goals? We must have clear objectives to know if we've reached them. The more specific and realistic, the better.
Our first goal was to save a forest, and we did. There is now a park there.
Please reconsider simply putting your logo on swag and handing it out. This is not a viable strategy.
Here are a few of our promotions that have made a difference
Reducing marketing waste involves minimizing the impact of the products you select and minimizing the time and resources spent on improper targeting or poor planning. It's essential to tackle both aspects equally.
Objective: to introduce a new branded service to a small target group of high-value prospects.
Strategy: created a unique Dimensional Advertising™ piece with a two-part sequence and sent it to 20 prospects.
Results: a 6000% return on investment within six months.
How can we help your small business Do Better?
The competition for skilled talent is fierce! Headhunters charge a fortune and are often a gamble.
Empathizing with the individuals you are trying to recruit has been our most potent magic. Understanding what they need to make a life-changing decision and enabling them with the resources to make it sets our clients apart.
Paul Ruffell CEO at EBA Engineering Consultants Ltd. says:
We were headed to the UK to try to recruit talented staff and sell them on a new life in Canada. However, we were going with our competition, who were also going to try to hire these same folks. David's solution? A focused marketing effort that played to the move that our potential employees would have to make: A leather travel case packed with Canadian stuff. It was expensive!! But it left the potential employees with a massively great impression about who they were talking to - a company that was serious about moving them across an ocean that cared about quality.
Our competition brought hats.
We hired three senior staff on that trip: Our goal was one.
Your brand is your most valuable asset; sometimes, it becomes a revenue stream. When you have raving fans, your brand becomes part of how they express their personalities. Many brands then decide to create merchandise for sale.
We work with many festivals and attractions to increase revenue streams by selling branded merch.
We even won a national award for the results we created for one.
Merchandise sales increased by as much as 300% in some categories.
Changing the world takes the support of others. It may be through direct action, sharing your message or funding your cause. Yet there is so much competition to reach and engage the limited pool of people who can help you make a difference.
Your message needs to stand out, be memorable and be actionable.
Objective: to deliver sensitive information regarding spousal abuse and the plight of women’s shelters to a group of male business leaders.
Strategy: create a unique Dimensional Advertising™ piece that was given to business leaders at an event.
Results: the promotion was so successful it was repeated in two other jurisdictions in Alberta and then used as an example to 40 different women’s shelters nationwide.
When you need your message to stick in the minds of your audience, you need to frame it in a way they will remember. Sometimes it changes their perspective; sometimes, it moves the abstract to the concrete. The better someone understands and remembers your message, the more likely they are to take action on it.
An example we like to use is when Good Growing Edmonton approached us to get the message across to citizens to conserve water by turning off their sprinklers after watering their lawns about 1.5 cm. This is an abstract concept. Who knows how long it takes to water a lawn 1.5cm? Different sprinklers have different flow rates and radii.
So, we came up with a simple idea. We printed instructions on a 1.5" deep flying disk. When the disk was full, it was time to stop watering. The water conservation message was easy to understand and easy to implement. The bonus? After watering their lawns, people could play with the messenger.
Leads are not all equal, and attention does not always equate to leads.
Just because someone comes to your booth at an event does not mean they are a lead. They may just be a freebie-seeker.
Handing out shiny things at an event may get attention but probably not from the right people. You want people who have a need for your products and services, a connection to your brand, and the ability to pay what you are asking. What you want are qualified leads.
It takes strategy and process to ensure you attract qualified leads instead of freebie-seekers. With our SimpleLeads™ smart funnels, you can attract leads from places you may never have considered, and they will qualify themselves before they even reach out to you. Better yet, they can help you prove which lead sources are generating the greatest number of qualified leads so you can focus your marketing budget where it is most effective.
That means more time to spend in your business instead of chasing time vampires and energy suckers.
Safety awareness is paramount! Accidents can be devastating on a human level, but they also express themselves in increased insurance costs and the ability to win contracts.
Sometimes the simplest, most elegant solutions are the best:
"One item of note that was significant to our company was a program that Dave initiated. It was an accident prevention measure that took our total recordable on-site vehicle incidents from well over a dozen to 0 in its first year. The direct repair savings exceeded $50,000, however the indirect savings due to less investigations, lost productivity and credibility with clients would far exceed $250,000. This trend brought our total recordable incident frequency (TRIF) well below industry standards which has given us an advantage over our direct peers in the challenging marketplace that is Alberta’s current oil industry. We have enjoying stable workload during these hard economic times and are seeing future opportunities still coming forward. We attribute this to better efficiencies and high productivity that programs like these create"
Clint Weir, VP of Projects at Big Country Energy Services
Part of changing our world is inspiring others to make fundamental changes in their habits and behaviour. The common mistake many make is preaching a message or using shame to change habits. It doesn't work.
The message and program must be easy, actionable and, if possible, entertaining.
Action steps must be simple and easy to understand. They must be framed within the larger goal. Resources must enable action. Rewards and incentives are key.
We are masters at this one. From creating a national campaign that resulted in a provincial park in B.C. to raising the profile of the global amphibian crisis to Edmonton's Localmotion project and the Crawford Creek Regional Park project... we are all over making a difference. The best part is that we have 30+ year's experience becoming experts.
Recognizing and saying thank you to those who make a difference is just the right thing to do. It not only keeps your team inspired. It creates that strong emotional attachment to your brand because you are doing the human thing. You are giving back and thanking those who helped in your success.
The best recognition is something that can't be bought for any price. This is what we call premiums. They are specifically created for a brand; the only way to receive one is to earn it.
Premiums make great speaker gifts, rewards for team members, distributors and key fundraisers.
Differentiation is critical to getting your key messages through the clutter and standing out in a sea of competition.
Brand, strategy and framing are your most powerful tools. But beware! Your brand is not your logo or visual identity. It is not your website or your colours.
Your brand is the movie that plays in people's heads and the feelings associated with that movie every time they hear your name. Branding is your attempt to positively influence that movie so it makes a memorable and lasting impact.
Our process was created to find the beating heart in your brand and express it so it connects with the beating hearts of your audience.
After all, hearts open wallets, move hands and feet to action, and open mouths to share your magic with others.
Keeping a team motivated and on track takes an inspiring vision, incentives, rewards and recognition. The vision engages your team in something greater than themselves. Incentives and rewards keep members engaged and inspired. Recognition identifies and rewards natural talents and emerging leaders.
Incremental goal setting is key, as is empowerment and enabling individuals with the resources they need to be successful and stay inspired.
Reminding your team of the bigger picture and WHY it matters is fundamental.
Promotional products can become useful daily reminders of core messages, including staying on brand, customer service, and safety.
Instead of simply "logoing" a thing, we transformed a simple lunch cooler into a powerful reminder with tips to stay healthy on the job.
How can we help you Do Better employee orientation?
Our biggest win to date:
Objective: was nothing less than to preserve an endangered forest in the interior of B.C. forever.
Strategy: Involved recruiting a nation of unlikely advocates. See our story
Results: The West Arm Provincial Park stands a testament to six years of dedication.
People love our GreenShows™ virtual and hybrid event platform. It is full-featured. Every event is fully hosted and supported, carbon-neutral and even plants trees.
GreenTaps™, SimpleLeads™, and GreenShows™ are all brands of Do Better Marketing (a division of Avatar Brand Management Inc.)
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