When we think about marketing strategy, we think about purpose-led marketing plans.
Plans that are a platform for growth; over and over again. We think research into new markets & industries. We think business structure and business goals. We think business owners.
We think about the lives of our clients and how we might help them achieve whatever it is they’re going for – profit, passion, being a change agent. We think about how what we do, and what they do, can improve their life or the lives of others.
These are the beautiful problems we task ourselves with everyday. At The Marketing Lab, we think about all of these things.
OUR STORY
We've designed a business that attends to all our ideals and goals for us and for our clients.
Our story comes from knowing that we have to drive a profit (obvious and unavoidable). But never at the expense of accessibility, purpose, well-being and quite frankly, fun.
Our story reflects our deep passion for what we do and the people we work with.
It's about being a change agent, with the goal of ensuring marketing is fundamental and accessible to New Zealand small businesses. That the work we do is purpose-led and purposeful.
This is the heart of what we do. For us, purpose-led is expressed in the ability to pick up the kids after school, to have time to follow dreams during the week, to walk in the great outdoors on a Friday, to volunteer our time to organisations we believe in, to start a magazine, to be ambitious both within and outside of our work day. We know we're better marketers if we give ourselves space to be creative. We know we're better humans if the work we do adds up to more than just dollars in the bank.
SOLVING PROBLEMS NOT JUST GIVING ADVICE
When we looked around the marketing landscape we realised many people were receiving ‘marketing advice’ but very few were getting advice that was tailored and relevant to their individual business, to their individual needs.
Clients would tell us they had engaged ‘experts’ who would either consult with no action, or act with no consultation. They felt like they had walked into an expensive restaurant where the chef was absent and the patrons were paying to prepare and cook their own flambe duck, with no recipe to follow, or instructions on how to start.
Some businesses were just getting on with it: succeeding through grit, determination, trial and error. But many others we met were struggling from one season to the next, throwing good marketing dollars after bad, wondering why the advertising spend wasn't meeting their objectives.
It’s those struggling or stuck who find their way to us. They come to us with beautiful problems.
Sometimes that problem is as simple as trying to work out if the quote they had for a website or a logo design is value for money or not. How to implement the recommendations they got from a Google expert.
Sometimes it’s more complex. Maybe it's looking at a name change after a very long time in business to meet a changing, fast paced market. Developing a new product. Setting up systems to help scale. Or maybe it’s taking a new idea and helping to shape it and nurture it to launch.
At The Marketing Lab, marketing isn’t just promotion or advertising. Those are the pretty wrappers. We love pretty wrappers but first we’re interested in what makes a business hum, tick and gurgle.
We’re interested in setting up a brand story, the support systems, the communication streams, the messaging, the steps for you to follow – all of it – once. Just once. Then, when you engage experts to help you execute the thinking we do together, not only is the brief elevated but the response is too.
What we know – and have seen over the many years of doing this - is that when you spend time looking at what you want (or hope) to be known for as a business (and a brand) and if you can match these business goals to your personal aspirations, the results you get are that much more satisfactory.
We don't over-promise big financial returns. We'll never tell you that you'll get 1000% more fans in three days or 775% increase in margins. We're not about blunt short-term solutions like price hikes or flashy discount led campaigns.
We do promise a solid thoughtful foundation of marketing knowledge, considered planning to meet your business, brand and personal goals now (and into the future). We do promise you that you'll feel more in control of your marketing. That you'll understand how to achieve your targets. That you'll have access to the creativity that will set you apart.
We created The Marketing Lab for every New Zealand business to succeed. Talk to us if you've got a beautiful (marketing) problem that you want to solve.