Marketing Services is Different Than Physical Products

Like any service business, we do a fair bit of reading and research on the clients and markets we work with. We tend to work with clients of a certain size (neither small nor ginormous, just somewhere in the middle of revenues with a number of employees), but we cross verticals, hence the ongoing need to keep up on our research.

We find a similarity in the kinds of audiences we need to communicate with based on company size in spite of the differences in products and the split between B2C and B2B. Core marketing principles don’t change, but messaging focus does, and methods come and go very quickly in a digital landscape.

Without naming names, one client provides automation software for bulk materials shipping. Another makes decks and other accessories for trucks. A former client was more diverse with curtains for stage and institutions plus installed athletic equipment.

In another similarity, often our clients had never engaged an agency for a sustained period.

One, very much aware of the multiple challenges facing businesses right now, told us that the cost of ongoing marketing efforts always had them hestitating to invest, but in the end the consequences of not marketing were more important for them to avoid. A few months in, the indications are that they made the right decision by engaging us.

When it comes to marketing our own business, we do our best to be objective about what we offer, and as with any other client we research the field, even if it all feels a little meta some days.

Service Marketing – A Different Beast

Marketing a service like ours is different than selling a product and this article outlined the primary challenges for services:

• Intangibility – You can’t feel and touch what we do, generally. We create messages, we package ideas, we make websites. It’s information people can use and sometimes interact with, but you can’t put it in your driveway like an SUV. Though a nicely-printed brochure can be appreciated in your hands, and a box of them make a great doorstop.
• Inseparability – What we do is inseparable from us, the people who do the work. We have our own style and process that we bring to bear when we create for a client. That’s been built up over the decades of experiences each person at Infinity Reef has gained. Go to a different agency and you’ll get their services aligned to their perspectives and values.
• Perishability – In terms of marketing, there’s an understood “best by” date to any messaging. Eventually, audiences will stop responding to something that they’ve seen before. That can mean needing to simply refresh a proven course, or it can mean rebuilding from the ground up. For a client, if they trust their agency, they’ll work together to choose a new direction. Lose a client’s confidence and they’ll be looking elsewhere for that new team for new success.
• Variability – Consistency of service improves with the number of years you work with clients. While variability is prized in being able to work with different clients with different offerings for different audiences – being able to communicate effectively with all of them – the working relationship between an agency and its clients is best built on being able to have a good working relationship day in and day out.

Applying That Knowledge

What you get when you come to Infinity Reef are people very focussed on working with the clients we serve. Our first commitment is building the confidence, trust and respect you need to have when you commit your ongoing marketing budget to us.

We do the research. We listen to what our clients have to say. We develop an understanding of what they need. Too many times we deal with the wreckage of what other “marketers” did before us.

We’re really big on the basics, which we often refer to as laying the bricks in the right order as we build your pyramid. Forget the core of messaging and strategy and everything will collapse sooner than later.

We don’t promise immediate results. To do it right requires thought, planning and an awful lot of really unsexy work behind the scenes. That’s going to be at least a few months.

A recent rebuild of an ecommerce website – the client’s core digital asset – had nothing to do with redesigning it, but optimizing hundreds of images and rewriting every piece of text to be clearer. But since then, the site has been gaining traction in Google’s search results. With that done and out of the way, we were able to move onto the more visible advertising and storytelling pieces. You know, the fun stuff.

For our clients, we appreciate you when you appreciate what’s involved and how long it takes. Our best clients know they’re the subject matter experts on anything we ask them for, and they trust that we’ll maximize whatever they give us and turn it into something their customers want to see. We know we’re on the right track when we develop fresh insights about a business we didn’t know about before we began on it.

That keeps us engaged day to day. Even when we’re slogging through image resizes. We keep our eyes on that goal. It grounds as well as inspires us. Providing that service and doing it well so that you, our client, succeeds is the only way we succeed.