Anthony Davidson

Growth

Growth and innovation

How do you identify growth opportunities for your business? Sometimes it serendipitous – you are presented with it. Other times, it emerges from conversations, reflections and insights. Is there a systematic way to explore growth opportunities? Believe it or not, one of the best tools to use is still Ansoff’s Growth Matrix… but with a twist – combining it with deep dive analyses, decision criteria and the horizon planning. In the 1960’s Igor Ansoff identified four growth strategies that businesses can pursue: market penetration to increase your share of the available market with existing products/services; market development to open up new markets for your products/services; product development to introduce new products/services to existing customers; and diversification to enter new markets with new products/services. Although different variations of the Growth Matrix have been created, the power of the matrix lies in how you use it to deep dive into potential growth opportunity areas. For example, if you look at how to increase market share with existing products, how do you determine the potential increased market share. This can be done by analysing customer demand and preferences, competitor behaviour, and switching costs. Then you can assess the relative attractiveness of this growth strategy compared to other growth strategies. But which criteria should you use to evaluate growth opportunities. Is it just return on investment? Or are there other considerations, such as alignment with your purpose, vision, capabilities and culture. Developing a set of criteria that you can use to objectively assess opportunities is critical. Ironically, the criteria also become the basis for how other business decisions are made. Once you’ve identified the most attractive opportunities for growth, then you need to prioritise the level of investment and resources needed, and timeframe required to realize it. That’s where horizon planning kicks in – ensuring resources are properly allocated to improving your existing business while investing enough time and effort into realizing new opportunities that could innovate your business. #strategy #growth #innovation

Anthony Davidson June 9, 2022

Strategy

Make a difference

Sustainability is back on the agenda at a political and corporate level. But how serious is the commitment from leaders this time round? Will a potential recession impact their resolve as we experienced with the GFC? Or will consumer pressure remain strong. Much has been written about sustainability and the role of business over the last 50 years. And while progress has been made by some businesses to adopt or fully embrace sustainable practices, “greenwash” and “carbonwash” is more commonplace. It is now widely acknowledged that to make meaningful progress toward sustainability, radical solutions are needed that promote and encourage sustainable business practices. Sustainable business model innovation is exciting and disruptive. Like any opportunity, the potential rewards carry risk and it requires the right mind-set, resources, technologies and methods to be successful. It also requires reshaping of customer behaviour through better awareness, education and engagement. Many examples of sustainable business models exist, including circular business models that close resource loops, social enterprises that focus on social impact, bottom of the pyramid solutions for the most disadvantaged, and product-service systems that transform customer outcomes. The challenge for businesses is to take the first step and build a new business case for sustainability. #strategy #sustainability #businessmodel #innovation

Anthony Davidson June 2, 2022

Engagement

Spin or Engagement

Australia’s Federal Election on May 21 revealed some great lessons in marketing, especially the merits of spin versus engagement. Three lessons are worth noting: Don’t take your customers (voters) for granted and use spin or false claims to manipulate them – eventually you’ll be caught out and they’ll turn. Properly address the concerns/issues that customer segments (different constituents) face and offer a real alternative through the way you engage them. Invest your campaign money wisely and you’ll get a better than expected result. The success of the Independents and Greens demonstrates the effects of good marketing and engagement with well-directed spend. In contrast, the UAP only increased its national vote by 1.4% on a $100 million plus spend and lost the seat of “our next PM” Craig Kelly, showing the folly of spin, misinformation and poor marketing practices. I’m not going to miss those annoying ads and invasive text messages! #marketing #spin #engagement

Anthony Davidson May 23, 2022

Engagement

Giving Memorable Presentations

If you’re one of many presentations, how do you engage the audience and make it memorable? Start strong, show your passion, make the story relatable, keep it simple, and use your voice and eye contact to connect. This week my MBA class delivered eight back-to-back presentations over three hours. Each team had ten minutes to present their campaign dashboard, analysis and recommendations, followed by 5 minutes Q&A. Each team focused on a recent campaign undertaken by an organisation of their choice and critically evaluated the effectiveness of the campaign. As part of the analysis, key campaign metrics were identified and a campaign dashboard created to demonstrate how campaigns should be monitored. What were some key learnings from this exercise? Context is everything – engage the audience by making the context of the campaign relevant and interesting Quality, not quantity – the ease with which an audience can understand information and gain insights is all important Dashboards are powerful but only if they make sense – explain the power and relationships between different metrics Questions are a blessing – take advantage of audience interest to encourage discussion and reinforce key points Don’t fluff – be confident and convincing because you know your content Congratulations to all teams on a great effort. #marketing #presentations #campaigns #dashboard

Anthony Davidson May 19, 2022

Marketing & Sales

Make the Most of Martech

Choosing the right marketing technology for your business can be overwhelming with over 8000 martech solutions on offer. But the benefits are huge if you can streamline and automate marketing and sales processes. Fortunately major vendors in this space are creating platforms that make it easier to plug in other specialized and custom apps. So decisions about which software to incorporate into your martech stack really revolve around ease of use, functionality, cost and integration. Scott Brinker has identified 5 trends in marketing technology for this decade that present exciting opportunities: No Code tools that enable businesses to build their own websites, apps, workflows, chatbots, and voice assistants, as well as workflows, data analysis and machine learning; Platforms, Networks and Marketplaces that allow businesses to centralize and decentralize their marketing operations; The Great App Explosion which provides businesses with an array of new specialist and custom apps; From Big Data to Big Ops where businesses can leverage apps and automation to take advantage of big data Harmonising Human and Machine so that marketers are freed up to do more valuable work If you have 20 minutes to watch his video, it’s worth it. Understanding how the martech space is evolving is critical to making strategic decisions about your current and future marketing technology stack. #marketing #technology #martech

Anthony Davidson May 12, 2022

Leadership

Successful Business Owners are Resilient

What happens when you blindfold 16 business owners and ask them to work in teams to assemble a tent within 3 minutes? At this week’s Australian Owner Manager Program, we found that successful business owners can be a resilient bunch. Most teams easily completed the blindfolded task because they’re experienced in responding to challenges and know how to best contribute to a team’s performance – even if it’s a newly formed team. Earlier in the day, business owners revealed key obstacles facing their business in panel sessions with other owners and business experts. A common theme emerging from discussion was that no matter how frustrating business can be, owners are committed to finding solutions to difficult problems. This resilience is something that has been developed over time. Resilience is often associated with personality traits but recent research shows that it’s a learned skill – the mental strength to adapt to hardships and cope with setbacks. And it fluctuates based on how you respond to different circumstances over time. For business owners, it’s essential to have. #leadership #resilience #businessowner

Anthony Davidson May 5, 2022

Digital

Developing Digital Marketing Capability

How does a local business become a world leader? Choose a niche to own, be the best at it, and put in place a global digital marketing system to make it happen. Big thanks to Martin Van Der Linde for sharing the story of Noja Power. Brisbane-based Noja Power is a world leader in Medium Voltage Electrical Equipment, with a global footprint across 104 countries. Unless you’re an electrical engineer, you’ve probably never heard of them. But their products are everywhere – typically at the top of your street’s electricity power pole. As GM Marketing, Martin has been responsible for developing a global digital marketing system to generate the sales leads and referrals needed to achieve the company’s growth objectives and revenue targets. Through the clever use of marketing technology, he is able to manage inbound and outbound marketing activities on a global scale. Inbound marketing activities focus on providing potential customers with information and education at each stage of their search and evaluation process. Once potential customers show purchase intent, qualified leads are passed to the sales team to begin the sales process. Outbound marketing is largely confined to tender platforms and sales-initiated prospecting with existing clients. How effective has it been? By switching the emphasis from outbound marketing (finding prospective customers and chasing them) to inbound marketing (customers search for a need and find us), Noja Power has been able to optimize its return on investment in marketing and create a more automated marketing system that can support company growth. Integral to this has been the close working relationship between marketing and sales who have shared responsibility for achieving revenue targets. Thanks again Martin for sharing the Noja Power story. #marketing #digitalmarketing #inboundmarketing

Anthony Davidson April 28, 2022

Branding

What Do Brands Stand For

Strong brands are valuable assets that contribute to sustained revenue growth. But the values behind the brand – what it stands for – is what’s most important. The rise, fall and repositioning of fashion brand Abercrombie and Finch is a great example. The latest documentary on A&F shows how an iconic all-American fashion brand was built from a forgotten 19th-century outdoors retailer to the epitome of late-’90s teen fashion based on aspirational values of being cool, attractive and mono-cultural. A&F’s brand strategy combined the sex appeal of Calvin Klein and the elite preppiness of Ralph Lauren at more affordable prices. Advertising showcased an army of “ripped” males and good-looking employees were recruited from college fraternities and sororities to be models and store workers. This “exclusivity” positioning ultimately backfired when it was revealed the company deliberately engaged in “exclusionary” practices in terms of hiring and recruitment – only hiring “cool white kids.” Subsequent lawsuits for discrimination forced the company to settle out of court and make superficial improvements to its increasingly controversial products and practices. But the damage was done when the company wound up in the US Supreme Court responding to a prominent case of religious discrimination. By this time, those offended by A&F’s brand positioning and marketing practices took to social media. Very quickly, the A&F brand became “uncool” with sales plummeting. A change of CEO led to a compete rethink of what the A&F brand stands for with new campaigns focusing on diversity and inclusion. What’s the lesson here? Douglas Holt says that an iconic brand enables consumers to think differently about themselves, and goes beyond the product – it’s the identity value that allows them to be at the cutting edge. This was certainly the case with Abercrombie and Finch. The brand deliberately depicted a lifestyle that was culturally relevant to its audience and connected with them on a deeper level, representing a certain selection of cultural values. The problem with iconic brands is that when accepted cultural norms shift, they must redefine their meaning within this new context. Brands like Apple, Coca Cola and Nike have done this well. Let’s see if it works for Abercrombie & Finch. #marketing #branding #iconicbrands

Anthony Davidson April 21, 2022

Advertising

Getting Cut-Through with Customers

How do you get advertising cut through if you’re being outspent? How do you get cut-through when a competitor outspends you in advertising? Clive Palmer’s UAP is set to spend $80 million on TV, print, radio, outdoor and digital advertising this election – seven times more than political rivals. If it’s a repeat of the 2019 election, it will “drown out” advertising from both major parties and maybe provide an indirect benefit to the Liberal Party. However, will it lead to UAP picking up any seats or prevent a major party from gaining office? Depending on UAP’s objective, the challenge is that they have low market share and low brand loyalty. In marketing, we call this the law of double jeopardy – brands with lower markets shares suffer both from low purchases and low brand loyalty. That means UAP has to spend much more on advertising compared to larger parties in order to get the attention of voters and convert a very small number of them. Businesses face the same challenge. To build a strong “sticky” brand, you need to invest in marketing communications that attract and retain the best-fit customers. If you already have a strong brand with a dominant market share, it is much easier to do this because of the double jeopardy effect, providing you have the right mix of content, media and channels. But if you have low market share and low brand loyalty, it’s much more difficult to draw customers away from larger competitors unless you have something compelling to offer. Even if you do, the challenge will be to reach them without being “drowned out.” Often, a better strategy is to target customers of smaller competitors who are a good fit. Then as you grow market share and develop a stronger brand, customers become your most powerful form of advertising. #marketing #advertising #doublejeopardy

Anthony Davidson April 14, 2022

Customer Experience

Marketing Professional Services

My colleague James Rimmer has some great insights on marketing in professional service firms, in particular the need to balance internal and external marketing efforts. James has led marketing teams in both local and international law firms and has seen how marketing can play both a strategic and tactical role in developing clients, identifying new growth opportunities and optimizing the client experience. As Director of Marketing and Business Development at Cooper Grace Ward, he works closely with the firm’s partners to guide the firms’ strategic direction, develop marketing strategies to grow new sectors, segments and revenue streams, and provide tactical support for practice areas to attract new clients and improve existing client relationship management. With 200 staff, it’s a juggling act that requires effective engagement with law firm partners and legal teams to prioritise where to focus marketing efforts to gain the best impact. James emphasized that internal marketing is just as important as the firm’s external marketing activities to get alignment and consistency with how clients experience the CGW brand. My MBA cohort had lots of questions for James, ranging from how technology is changing and disrupting law firm services through to how data is being used to personalise the client experience. #marketing #professionalservices

Anthony Davidson April 7, 2022

Weekly insights to help you run your business.