Know Your Client’s Business, And You’ll Know Your Target Market

You’ll know when you’re in creative sync with your client when the ideas and suggestions leapfrog one another giving rise to previously hidden marketing directions. Usually your clients are too ensconced in the myriad of daily affairs in their bid to run a smooth operation, too close to the inner workings for innovative and finite advertising theories and decisions - this is YOUR task. In a manner of speaking one must act as a regressive conduit for the client’s creative spirit. Persuade them to tell you how the business was built, who were its initial investors? who were its first customers? the reasons they purchased? how did the company adapt to meet the increasing demands of emerging markets? All these tidbits are gold to the creative team in shedding light on who the customers are and how to talk to them. A client will feel infinitely more satisfied with the process if they are involved in the early planning stages and so will the creative team. There are times when a client isn’t especially savvy about the potential of a new product being launched and therefor its marketability is usually based on other similar products. In this case its even more important to inquire as to how the similar product marketing was arrived at and to identify where any sales spikes occurred and if these increases occurred due to a preexisting market demand or as a result of an effective marketing plan creating new demands.

Business owners have one thing in common - great ideas.

Sometimes the best ideas come from the entrepreneur’s mind but never reach true potential without the right creative talent and experience to formalize them. Many business owners are inherently aware of effective marketing directions but lack the time or ability to lead development planning to its most effective apex and instead utilize the half formed strategies and lackluster catch phrases to promote their products. We’ve all seen businesses that we felt instinctually would have experienced greater success given a more effective and memorable advertising campaign. With so many other mandatory tasks required to run their business they’ve forgotten that the only thing standing between waning sales numbers and an expanding market are confident and knowledgeable consumers.

Learning the client company’s history and its past marketing ventures can greatly hone the creative process and produce a for more effective campaign overall. Having a set of predetermined questions ready at the initial discovery meeting can vet many wasted moments by focusing the group on the task at hand. The questions should provide a sense of satisfaction in that the past challenges and accomplishments leading to current success of the company are drawn out for discussion. Positive energy is the most important force when directing a meeting and what better way to create positive energy than to have each participant talk about their role in the company’s success and the reasons for their decisions. Observe how the company branding has changed over the years. This coupled with the historic information can give a very good indication of which direction the creative team should focus its energies.