Kickstart Your Marketing Thinking

Introduction

When you bring together customer insight, analytical and commercial rigour and combine it with creativity, you are marketing.

Our tips and insider advice will help you start thinking about your business in a creative yet practical way. At Capsule, we know how hard it can be to get your mind into this space, so we’ve created this guide to get you started.

Despite a great working environment and a tight-knit team, at Capsule, we’ve all experienced a creative block. Whether it’s a big project with a tight deadline or something else going on in life, it can be really difficult to ask yourself for great ideas in an instant. We’re here to help with our tips for better and sustainable creativity, both in your campaigns and the way you think about your product or business.

We’ve pooled our knowledge to form five steps to better marketing for your business. From finding the right working space to defining how you brand yourself and changing your focus, Capsule will show you how to kickstart your marketing thinking.

Capsule’s 5 Steps to Better Marketing

Read on to find out more about our 5 steps to better marketing:

• Creativity
• Occupy a Niche, Define your USP
• Think Proposition, not Product
• Become a Storyteller
• Review your best markets

1. Creativity

Speaking about the experience of shopping at physical stores in Asian markets, co-founder of HubSpot Brian Halligan picks out the importance of standing out and taking risks with your content, especially in crowded markets. But how you achieve ‘envelope pushing’ content is another struggle entirely, and one which is driven by the ability to welcome new and unconventional ideas.

“What separates good content from great content is a willingness to take risks and push the envelope.”

Brian Halligan, CEO & Co-founder, HubSpot

Our founding director, Simon Isaac, has 30 years of experience in marketing and has been a creative since his daydreaming-in-school days. On his experience with the creative process, Simon says:

“I believe that creativity can be learned, but it can take years to develop. Some people are born naturally creative and spend their lives thinking about new ideas all the time.”

Simon Isaac, Founding Director

If you don’t consider yourself naturally creative, there are many ways in which you can begin to introduce it in your daily life, at work and at home. Work culture changes, such as group brainstorming and co-working spaces, are a good place to start. Furthermore, allowing yourself to find a creative environment in your personal and professional life can stimulate new pathways and ideas. Trying freewriting, or another creative activity which you enjoy, is a great chance to unwind and learn how to appreciate new ideas.

Most importantly, changing your approach to ideas is key in achieving risk-taking marketing campaigns. When you allow yourself the freedom and opportunity to explore boundary-pushing proposals, you’ll arrive at fresh creative concepts for your business. If it all gets out of hand? You can always pull it back and pursue a different angle.

2. Occupy a Niche, Define your USP

Douglas Warner and Brian Chesky highlight the absolute importance of a clear USP and niche. Warner, former CEO of J.P Morgan Chase & Co, calls attention to the challenges of online presence in crowded markets. Building on this challenge, Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb, responds with a call to intentional niche marketing. Capsule recommends a niche and strong USP to combat the problem which Warner describes, in order to build the loyalty and brand presence that Chesky values.

“It’s important to remember your competitor is only one mouse click away.”

Douglas Warner III, Former CEO, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co

“Build something 100 people love, not something 1 million people kind of like.”

Brian Chesky, Co-Founder & CEO, Airbnb

Finding a niche is often a nervous sticking point for businesses, because turning down work seems adverse to growth. However, generic, product-focused marketing usually fails to impress your core target audience. By focusing on your expertise and offering, you’ll win work that suits you, from clients who trust your knowledge.

The essential questions to ask are as follows:

• Who are you, as a brand?
• Who are you trying to reach?
• Why should your customers choose you over your competitors?

If you can answer these questions, you’ll be able to identify the USP in your business which appeals to your core audience. It’s possible that you aren’t getting it right, because you’re focusing on your product when customers truly value your service quality, pricing or legacy in the market.

3. Think Proposition, not Product

“Don’t push people to where you want to be; meet them where they are.”

Meghan Keaney Anderson, VP Marketing, HubSpot

Ultimately, your business is made by your customers. Meghan Anderson underlines a necessary shift in thinking which enables better content. Instead of focusing entirely on who you are as a business and expecting the customers to be attracted by that, try meeting your target market where they are today.

Shifting your messaging focus in order to satisfy the customer’s needs, not your perception of your product, is an essential part of marketing strategy. It’s a difficult task, because, as the expert on your business, you know what is special about your offering. But what’s important to you in a product could differ from what the customer values, and this is where improvements can be made.

At Capsule, we use pain point modelling as the foundation for our proposals. It helps us to understand what the customer struggles with, so we can market your product as an effective solution. By starting here, we always keep the customer needs at the forefront, thinking proposition first and product second.

Developing a proposition is a skilled process that can take years of experience and application, so we’re sharing our model here. We usually start developing a brand with this model, which isn’t a sexy, trendy strategy, but a robust and proven formula:

4. Become a Storyteller

“Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind.”

Walter Landor, Founder, Landor

Once you’ve shifted your mind to prioritising the customer, you can establish emotional ties and begin to think of your content messaging as storytelling. As Walter Landor points out, your brand identity is created in the mind of the customer. Appreciating that story as both emotional and logical builds a relationship with your customer.

When you build brand stories that relate to your customers, you engage them and help them contextualise what it’s like to work with you and your products or services. This is more memorable than a straightforward list of what you offer, as you are beginning to forge relationships along emotional and logical lines. Great marketing has always focused on telling compelling stories. Whether it’s about your brand, the customer, or you together, a unique story built around your proposition puts you ahead of competitors.

Consider your pathway through a new website. Are you frustrated by pop-ups and information overload? Or is it unclear where to find what you need to know? If you’re answering yes, the company behind the site hasn’t considered user experience. On the other hand, the best websites keep you engaged with a traceable story throughout, as well as effective signposting and clarity.

Then, telling a story is essential to engage your audience, but you must be clear on your message. If you aren’t, that disarray can translate to your content. Your messaging should be as uncomplicated as possible whilst still illustrating your brand story.

5. Review your best markets

“Marketing’s job is never done. It’s about perpetual motion. We must continue to innovate every day.”

Beth Comstock, Former CMO & Vice Chair, GE

Innovation and agility are key skills in maintaining an interesting marketing strategy. Beth Comstock underscores the importance of frequent review and recalibration, which allows you to keep up with the constantly changing trends and customer bases which you engage.

If you’ve followed us this far, you’ll be welcoming new ideas, with a clear sense of brand, niche and USP. You’ve shifted your focus to the needs of your customers, and you have a story ready to tell. With the pace at which advertising and marketing changes, you also have to consider how your story adapts with it. Capsule recommends and practices at least a quarterly review. This allows you to change with your customers and their priorities, which consequently builds your brand as an attentive and supportive partner.

Review is also an important practice for testing and refining which messaging works. If you are still developing your story or have a few avenues which you are considering, reviewing what performs best can help you choose a direction. Tools such as HubSpot or Google Analytics are perfect for this sort of work.

Case Studies: Our Steps in Practice

At Capsule, we understand that it can be difficult to visualise these concepts in practical campaigns. To help you apply these new approaches to marketing, we’ve picked out some examples of campaigns which demonstrate what can happen when you change your approach.

‘Got Milk?’ — California Milk Processor Board, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, MilkPEP

The iconic ‘got milk?’ began in 1993 and was originally created for the California Milk Processor Board to promote slumping milk sales. The slogan was conceptualised after a study on milk use in homes highlighted the routine use of milk and the inconvenience of an empty carton. The marketing team at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners employed deprivation marketing in response to these findings, building on that familiar inconvenience in TV advertisements.

Lighthearted comedic overstatement in the ads lead to characters, usually with a mouthful of dry or sticky food, in desperate need of a glass of milk. Closing with a screen and voiceover reading ‘got milk?’, the slogan became so popular it entered common speech.

In 1995, ‘got milk?’ was licensed to MilkPEP, who used it on their milk moustache ads. Featuring actors, sports stars, celebrities, singers and more, the campaign and slogan grew larger. Names such as Jennifer Aniston, David Beckham, Shaquille O’Neal, Kermit the Frog and Angelina Jolie participated in the campaign, and lactose-intolerant celebrities such as Whoopi Goldberg advertised lactose-free varieties. Photographer Annie Leibovitz worked on over 100 of the images, which were printed in editorial and high-end magazines. Rather than a boring staple, Milk was being successfully presented as glamorous and exciting. In 2014, the milk moustache campaign was replaced by MilkPEP, only to be picked up in 2020 by Silk to promote Next Milk’s plant-based alternative. Their featured stars include children of the MilkPEP originals, such as Brooklyn Beckham, Myles O’Neal and Ella Travolta.

The ‘got milk?’ campaign is a great example of storytelling and the potential of creative and lateral thinking. Beginning with the simple inconvenience of dry cereal, the marketers at Goodby Silverstein & Partners created a star-studded campaign that reformed milk’s image and remains iconic today.

Wholetime Firefighter Recruitment — Essex County Fire and Rescue Service (ECFRS), Zero Above

Capsule were engaged by the ECFRS to design a creatively-driven digital marketing campaign to promote their ‘message of change’. They had an initiative to support and engage diverse applicants within and without the fire service. Looking for new recruits which diversified the male-dominated firefighting force, we developed a multifaceted approach with longevity in mind.

Creatively, the campaign was focused on myth-busting, targeting misconceptions about firefighting which might deter applicants, especially women, from applying. Considering the potential anxieties of prospective recruits allowed us to develop this messaging effectively into ‘myths’ and real stories’, with a view to challenge common deterrents.

These messages were employed in a multi-channel marketing on social media, as well as on a dedicated landing page. We also developed physical assets for distribution, each element of which was designed with longevity in mind.

The landing page was launched two weeks prior to the application date. In this time, more than 6,300 users visited the site to register their interest. When applications were opened, the 1,200-cap was reached in two hours. Furthermore, the diversification of the Fire Service, which was a key objective, was achieved. In the successful applicant group, 10% are female, a 6% increase on service-wide firefighter teams.

By prioritising the target customer, or applicant in this scenario, we presented a new story to applicants, which empowered and encouraged them to apply. Specifically addressing their ‘pain points’, or reservations around firefighting, allowed a significantly higher number of underrepresented women to apply.

Meta — Creative X, Facebook, Meta

Since it was founded in 2004, Facebook has come to encompass more than just the social media site. So when Mark Zuckerberg announced a rebrand to Meta in 2021, it signalled an essential review and retargeting by the parent company. Facebook no longer functioned effectively as the name of the umbrella that encompasses Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, Horizon Worlds, as well as Facebook itself.

With a presence in many tech industries, including social media, VR, hardware, software, gaming and haptics, Facebook Inc. had grown beyond the social media platform it began as. Internal marketing team Creative X developed Meta to encompass the current and future directions of the parent company.

Meta, from metaverse, was selected to realign the company with the newest developments in social media. As Facebook introduced the age of social media, Meta represents the next evolution of social technology and communication. The infinite loop logo is evocative of the possibilities of these future technologies, appearing beyond the physical, both two- and three-dimensional. Longevity was a main concern for Creative X, who aimed to create a brand which functioned in software, hardware and metaverse contexts. Whilst the logo can be displayed in ‘Facebook blue’, it can also take on a shifting gradient when used for new products.

In order to effectively retarget for their new markets, Creative X reviewed the ways in which Facebook Inc. operated, the associations consumers had with the former brand, and created Meta. Designed for longevity and future work, Meta represents a new story aimed at new and existing markets.

Our Philosophy

Our method of blending creativity and performance is what drives us. As a full-service digital agency, we work beyond just creating great design and content – we make sure that it reaches your target audience directly.

Our process is designed with the changing face of marketing in mind. A three-step framework that begins with research, takes that knowledge to curate and plan, before delivering the project, analysing the results, and continuously optimising. If you are interested in working with us to kickstart your marketing and brand, contact us today.