Thursday 31 January 2008
An Introduction
I've recently had some really kind offers of help with designing logos, so this is probably a good time to start sharing the basics around brand building...
The success of any branding or marketing strategy is primarily down to exploiting the medium to your advantage. The net has transformed the nature of communication. With a multitude of options just a click away, branding needs to be designed to capture those 'sticky eyeballs' and focus them on your product or service.
As with offline marketing strategies around positioning, brand building and target marketing also apply to the virtual market place. Anyone extending products and services to the virtual world must adopt a branding strategy that will synchronise with any existing or future terrestrial banding. This is not only to ensure higher brand equity, but also to achieve the necessary differentiation of products and services.
The key however, is to think differently and not simply replicate terrestrial branding models. The online audience is different and interactive, and has greater choice coupled with a lower threshold of patience. Online branding is therefore about an experience rather than the traditional one-way bombardment of messages.
Offline, branding is about crafting careful visual and textual images that potential buyers passively consume. Branding on the Web is entirely different, because it needs to be active and not simply about associating a colour, phrase or character with a service. Everything you do online becomes part of the brand building experience, with people forming an image of brand based on their experience and the messages they perceive.
The point to note is that a brand will acquire an identity through association and interaction, whether it is proactively planned or not; so it makes sense to develop branding strategies that allow you take control of this process.
The next few posts in this series will walk through the basics you need to know to build your brand. I'll try and update these at least once a week. Probably every Thursday, so hey now you have a reason to come back! If you have any questions, leave a comment and I'll do my best to answer it.
Saturday 12 January 2008
'Methodology' is a big word that basically means approach. All you really need to know for this is that you need at least one hypothesis - another big word for a what is just some statement that you're trying to prove.
The easiest one is around whatever you're planning to base your startup on. e.g. You want to sell niche jelly beans, then your hypothesis would be something like "There is a gap in the market for little jelly beans made of mud...". Who cares if there isn't. Your aim is to find out whether you're right or wrong before you go off and start a mud factory employing tiny little jelly bean engineers!
So here's your basic research methodology
The easiest one is around whatever you're planning to base your startup on. e.g. You want to sell niche jelly beans, then your hypothesis would be something like "There is a gap in the market for little jelly beans made of mud...". Who cares if there isn't. Your aim is to find out whether you're right or wrong before you go off and start a mud factory employing tiny little jelly bean engineers!
So here's your basic research methodology
- Create a hypothesis
- Decide on appropriate research technique
- Decide on realistic level of detail you need/want
- Plan timeframe
- Get on with it!
Think of strategy as a cyclic loop. You need a vision and some goals to have some kind of starting point, and then you need to do some research and analysis to figure out whether they are sensible or not, and then you need to revise them based on what you've learnt and back again until you're happy you're in the right place. And then a little while later you have to repeat the cycle again, just to make sure you're still on the right track, and so on periodically.
So this post is about the next step... Market Research & Analysis.
Why?
Some people make the business of research and analysis very complicated, and you can go into as much detail as you like, but for start-ups at stage 1, the important thing is to understand what’s happening around you for two reasons
So this post is about the next step... Market Research & Analysis.
Why?
Some people make the business of research and analysis very complicated, and you can go into as much detail as you like, but for start-ups at stage 1, the important thing is to understand what’s happening around you for two reasons
- You don’t waste your time and money doing something that either won’t work, or has already been done to death by lots of other companies with more resources
- You are able to show possible investors:
- how your offering differentiates, and
- that it has opportunities to succeed financially or otherwise in whichever market you are planning to enter
Market Research is fundamentally about two things.
- Finding out what your potential customers or target audience will make of your offering; whether or not they want it, will use it and/or will pay for it in the way you are hoping they will.
- Finding out about who else is in your space, what they're doing, how they're doing it, and how they stack up against each other. It is about checking to see if there's any demand for what you're offering and which bits of it your audience will really like.
- Segmenting (categorising) your competitors and audience
- Looking for trends
- Reading, reviewing and making notes - Online vs offline
- Capturing both qualitative and quantitative information
- Running Questionnaires, Surveys & Interviews
- Group discussions with stakeholders and focus groups
- Subscriptions to research houses – Datamonitor, Forrester, Mintel
- Subscriptions to blogs and news related to your idea
Friday 11 January 2008
Amazingly enough after my mention of School of Everything, I went along to a w00t session last night for social innovators looking to share ideas and help; and it was run by the School of Everything guys, which was a great coincidence. Still not quite sure what w00t is, but got invited to the Disruptive Social Innovators event in Feb which sounds great. Definitely like what they’re doing, and particularly Andy Gibson’s new political philosophy of Sociablism! Even found out there is actually a School for Social Entrepreneurs. Kept trying to push away mental images of Jack Black and the School of Rock, but it really highlights how far the capitalist circle has turned.
My friend Meriem also pointed me to an Entrepreneur test set up by Rachel Elnaugh, who it turns out is one of the women off Dragon’s Den. Check it out if you like. Beware she uses terms like Alpha and Zeta, which should’ve been a warning sign, but I needed a break so gave it a shot out of curiousity. First note – if you’re not a fan of tests where you have to order multiple options that all seem equally applicable this will pain you. And of course there’s always a few in there that simply don’t apply at all – on any scale. Leaves you desperately trying to figure out which order won’t conclude you to be no kind of entrepreneur at all!
Rachel has 9 different types of entrepreneur – yes 9!
(source – Rachel Elnaugh)
I quite wanted to be a ‘mumpreneur’ for the sake of bucking a trend, but apparently I’m a ‘sociopreneur’ which I guess is about right; and so while I apparently want to ‘change the world’, it seems that Rachel has decided I ‘may lack drive and commercial skills‘. A few years here or there of business consulting to multinational corporations don’t count I suppose. More than a touch of the old star sign bullsh*t about the categorisation I fear! Nevertheless an interesting bit of fun.
My friend Meriem also pointed me to an Entrepreneur test set up by Rachel Elnaugh, who it turns out is one of the women off Dragon’s Den. Check it out if you like. Beware she uses terms like Alpha and Zeta, which should’ve been a warning sign, but I needed a break so gave it a shot out of curiousity. First note – if you’re not a fan of tests where you have to order multiple options that all seem equally applicable this will pain you. And of course there’s always a few in there that simply don’t apply at all – on any scale. Leaves you desperately trying to figure out which order won’t conclude you to be no kind of entrepreneur at all!
Rachel has 9 different types of entrepreneur – yes 9!
- Ultrapreneur
- Alphapreneur
- Passionpreneur
- Sociopreneur
- Bosspreneur
- Execpreneur
- Dadpreneur
- Mumpreneur
- Safepreneur
(source – Rachel Elnaugh)
I quite wanted to be a ‘mumpreneur’ for the sake of bucking a trend, but apparently I’m a ‘sociopreneur’ which I guess is about right; and so while I apparently want to ‘change the world’, it seems that Rachel has decided I ‘may lack drive and commercial skills‘. A few years here or there of business consulting to multinational corporations don’t count I suppose. More than a touch of the old star sign bullsh*t about the categorisation I fear! Nevertheless an interesting bit of fun.
Sunday 6 January 2008
Strategy is simply a plan to achieve a goal.
Defined in order of goal, then plan - ideally in an evolving feedback cycle.
What I'd add is that both goal and plan must be feasible and flexible. If a goal isn't clearly achievable, break it down into goals that are and plan to achieve those instead.
Be aware that starting goals are very likely to change when reality bites - and it does! So make sure your goals can evolve and your plans are flexible enough to adapt to change. Ours for example are already evolving and it's only been a month!
How do you know if your goals are achievable? Well, research and analysis is the answer. Has it been done before? Was it successful? Is there really a gap you can fill?
Trawl the Internet; get to a library; ask your friends. At startup stage it's about viability and sustainability. You must be able to validate your startup's vision with data - primarily your unique selling points, the size of your target market and the realistic financial opportunity.
Anyway I said I'd keep it simple, so here's the USP overview on Strategy
Defined in order of goal, then plan - ideally in an evolving feedback cycle.
What I'd add is that both goal and plan must be feasible and flexible. If a goal isn't clearly achievable, break it down into goals that are and plan to achieve those instead.
Be aware that starting goals are very likely to change when reality bites - and it does! So make sure your goals can evolve and your plans are flexible enough to adapt to change. Ours for example are already evolving and it's only been a month!
How do you know if your goals are achievable? Well, research and analysis is the answer. Has it been done before? Was it successful? Is there really a gap you can fill?
Trawl the Internet; get to a library; ask your friends. At startup stage it's about viability and sustainability. You must be able to validate your startup's vision with data - primarily your unique selling points, the size of your target market and the realistic financial opportunity.
Anyway I said I'd keep it simple, so here's the USP overview on Strategy
Following on from my last post What is an Enterprise? here's how I'm looking at it - The USP Guide to Modeling the Enterprise :)
I guess I should reiterate that this is a high level overview and there is no particular significance to the order. However, I'd recommend starting with Strategy, which at its most basic is defining what you want to do, understanding if it is really feasible, and figuring out how you're going to go about it. In case you're wondering, obvious stuff like setting up your company/enterprise, planning, competitor/stakeholder analysis, marketing and communications etc. fall in as sub-categories in different areas, and I'll explain more about these when I get to them.
Meantime for anyone thinking of setting something up, my advice is consider the implications of each of these categories to check for any major red flags before you gamble anything serious. If you're not confident about any one of these areas, and don't know anyone who can help you understand a bit more about what they mean for your enterprise, think very carefully before committing.
I guess I should reiterate that this is a high level overview and there is no particular significance to the order. However, I'd recommend starting with Strategy, which at its most basic is defining what you want to do, understanding if it is really feasible, and figuring out how you're going to go about it. In case you're wondering, obvious stuff like setting up your company/enterprise, planning, competitor/stakeholder analysis, marketing and communications etc. fall in as sub-categories in different areas, and I'll explain more about these when I get to them.
Meantime for anyone thinking of setting something up, my advice is consider the implications of each of these categories to check for any major red flags before you gamble anything serious. If you're not confident about any one of these areas, and don't know anyone who can help you understand a bit more about what they mean for your enterprise, think very carefully before committing.
My original reasons for modeling the enterprise were:
So what is an Enterprise really?
An enterprise is of course anything from a one man show to a group or collective of groups achieving something.
But regardless of whether it's Fred beavering alone in his garage, or lots and lots of people collaborating towards some global goal, we are still talking about a multi-dimensional meeting of disciplines and specialisms.
Enterprises then are about strategy, ideas, research, brand, people, marketing, accounting, audiences, legalities, risk, planning, operations, technology, knowledge and a host of other detail that you have to consider.
In the next posts I'll chuck up some simple visuals that walk through the process I'm using to get this project off the ground. Lets hope they hold up as we go along!
- To have a way of making sure I don't miss anything while setting things up, and
- So that people who want to get involved can see that it isn't just about volunteering, young people or web design
So what is an Enterprise really?
An enterprise is of course anything from a one man show to a group or collective of groups achieving something.
But regardless of whether it's Fred beavering alone in his garage, or lots and lots of people collaborating towards some global goal, we are still talking about a multi-dimensional meeting of disciplines and specialisms.
Enterprises then are about strategy, ideas, research, brand, people, marketing, accounting, audiences, legalities, risk, planning, operations, technology, knowledge and a host of other detail that you have to consider.
In the next posts I'll chuck up some simple visuals that walk through the process I'm using to get this project off the ground. Lets hope they hold up as we go along!
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