Michael Kraabel

Having a defined philosophy is akin to having a compass that guides every decision. It sets the tone for how a brand interacts with its audience, shapes its identity, and ultimately influences its success. This philosophy acts as the foundation, aligning the brand’s values with its audience’s needs and desires.

A marketing methodology brings structure and discipline to the process. Think of it as the scaffolding supporting the brand’s growth. It outlines the steps, the strategies, and the tactics necessary to achieve specific goals. A systematic approach helps in maintaining consistency and clarity in the ever-evolving marketing environment. Whether it’s inbound marketing, content marketing, or social media-driven strategies, a defined methodology enables marketers to navigate through the myriad options available and select the most suitable path.

The approach to marketing is where the magic happens. It’s the amalgamation of creativity, strategy, and analytics. This is where the now, next, future framework comes into play. Understanding where the brand currently stands, envisioning where it should be in the immediate future, and strategizing for its long-term trajectory is pivotal. This method ensures that short-term wins contribute to the larger picture of sustained growth and success.

Why is this structured approach so crucial?

1. Consistency: A disciplined methodology maintains consistency in brand messaging, ensuring that the brand’s voice and values remain coherent across various channels and campaigns.
2. Measurable Results: By following a specific methodology, it becomes easier to measure the effectiveness of strategies and campaigns. This data-driven approach allows for continuous improvement based on what works and what doesn’t.
3. Adaptability: In a constantly changing market, having a methodology in place allows for adaptability. It enables marketers to pivot quickly and efficiently in response to shifts in consumer behavior or market trends.
4. Efficiency: A structured approach streamlines processes, saving time and resources by focusing efforts on what’s most effective for the brand.

The holistic nature of this approach takes into account not just the immediate goals but also the long-term vision. It considers the brand’s current positioning, its aspirations, and the steps needed to bridge the gap between the present and the future. By examining the ‘now’ – the current market presence, the ‘next’ – the short-term goals, and the ‘future’ – the ultimate destination, marketers create a roadmap that ensures the brand’s evolution and success are not left to chance.

In today’s ever-evolving digital landscape, having a strong brand and effective marketing strategy is more critical than ever. The competition is fierce, and consumer attention is a valuable commodity. A structured marketing philosophy, methodology, and approach not only sets the brand apart but also offers a roadmap to success, ensuring that marketing efforts are deliberate, consistent, and yield predictable results.

In the ever-evolving world of marketing, generating Authentic Content has emerged as a crucial strategy for businesses seeking to engage, build trust, and connect with their target audience. Authentic Content goes beyond the traditional advertising approaches, offering potential customers an honest and transparent look into the heart and soul of your business.

Authentic Content, in essence, is a customer-centric approach that departs from the traditional, inward-focused marketing and advertising practices. It revolves around the fundamental idea of creating content that resonates with the consumer on a personal level, akin to how one would help a friend.

Authentic Content isn’t about pushing products or services aggressively; instead, it is designed to be helpful and genuinely valuable to the consumer. It prioritizes their needs, interests, and concerns, with the intent of building a mutually beneficial relationship. In this context, businesses aim to provide information, insights, and solutions that the audience finds genuinely helpful, educational, or entertaining. This approach is all about adding value, solving problems, or addressing questions, without an immediate expectation of a sale.

By adopting an Authentic Content strategy, brands demonstrate their commitment to building trust and credibility. They engage with their audience in a way that goes beyond transactional interactions. Instead, they focus on fostering connections that lead to long-term customer loyalty. Authentic content, in its essence, is a testament to the shift from interruptive and sales-centric marketing to a more empathetic and customer-centered approach, one that resonates with today’s informed and discerning consumers.

Overcoming the Purchase Anxiety

Making a purchase can often induce anxiety in consumers. Whether it’s the fear of buyer’s remorse or uncertainty about product quality, the decision to part with hard-earned money is not one taken lightly. Providing customers with authentic content can be the antidote to this anxiety.

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach that involves creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and engage a clearly defined target audience.  The “content” discussed here refers to the creation and distribution of various materials, such as text, images, videos, infographics, and other forms of media, with the primary purpose of promoting a product, service, brand, or organization. The goal of marketing content is to engage, inform, and persuade a target audience, ultimately driving them to take a specific action, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or requesting more information. Marketing content can be found across various platforms, including websites, social media, email campaigns, print materials, and more. It plays a crucial role in building brand awareness, establishing credibility, and fostering customer relationships in today’s competitive business landscape.

Diversity of content types is the key to engaging a wide range of audiences. Blog posts offer in-depth information and storytelling, providing readers with valuable insights and knowledge. Video tutorials bring concepts to life through visual demonstrations, catering to visual and auditory learners. FAQ sections address common queries, offering quick and accessible solutions. Guides serve as comprehensive resources, offering step-by-step instructions. Photography can capture the essence of a product or experience, enticing and inspiring. Testimonials provide social proof, showcasing the positive experiences of previous customers. This wide array of content types caters to different learning styles and preferences, ensuring that your message reaches a broader and more diverse audience, enhancing the overall impact of your content strategy.

Authentic Content offers customers a glimpse into the real experiences of others. User-generated reviews, unscripted testimonials, or behind-the-scenes videos all contribute to the creation of a transparent and relatable image of your product or service. When customers see others, just like them, benefiting from your offerings, it can help alleviate the anxiety of making a purchase. By showcasing authentic stories, you assure your potential customers that your product or service can genuinely meet their needs and expectations.

Showing Your Product or Service in Action

One of the most compelling aspects of Authentic Content is its ability to demonstrate your product or service in action. While traditional advertisements often present a polished and idealized version of what you offer, Authentic Content provides a more realistic portrayal.

Whether it’s an unboxing video, a case study, or a customer’s firsthand account, these forms of content give potential buyers a clearer understanding of how your product or service can solve their problems or fulfill their desires. This hands-on, practical insight goes a long way in convincing prospects that your offering is not just hype; it’s a real solution that can enhance their lives.

Building Customer Confidence

When you prioritize Authentic Content, you’re essentially putting your brand’s transparency and integrity on display. Authenticity builds trust, and trust, in turn, fosters customer confidence. When customers feel confident in your brand, they’re more likely to choose your products or services over your competitors.

Authentic Content demonstrates your commitment to being open, honest, and accountable. It shows that you’re willing to share the good and the not-so-good aspects of your offerings, which is a refreshing change from the heavily edited and airbrushed advertisements of the past. Customers appreciate this transparency and are more likely to place their trust in a brand that has nothing to hide.

The Balanced Approach

In today’s marketing landscape, it’s common to see businesses investing heavily in media spending while overlooking investments in content or customer experiences. While this is undoubtedly important, it’s equally vital to focus on generating Authentic Content. Both sides of the media and content planning process must be viewed as equals to create better and more satisfying customer experiences.

Companies that prioritize this approach understand that it’s not just about showing their products; it’s about building relationships with their customers. This two-pronged approach, involving media spending and Authentic Content creation, results in a more holistic and effective marketing strategy.

Authentic Content helps customers overcome the anxiety of making a purchase, showcases your product or service in action, and builds confidence in your brand. When businesses view both media spending and content planning as equally crucial components of their marketing strategy, they create better and more satisfying customer experiences. By fostering transparency, trust, and genuine connections, Authentic Content is a powerful tool that can set your brand apart and lead to long-lasting customer loyalty.

Unintentional Entrepreneurship: From Experiment to Global Company – Lessons Learned Along the Way

Let me take you on a journey – a story about accidental entrepreneurship that started as an experiment, questioning conventional marketing and branding approaches. As a consultant in the field, I often wondered if the methods I believed in – emphasizing content over media and prioritizing customer transparency and experience over product-centric marketing – were truly effective.

This curiosity led to an experiment, a venture aimed at validating these beliefs. Little did I know, this simple test would transform into something beyond my wildest expectations – a global company with workshops spanning four countries and customers worldwide.

Amid this unexpected growth, I encountered invaluable lessons that reshaped my understanding of business and entrepreneurship:

1. Running a Business is Hard: The glamour often associated with entrepreneurship pales in comparison to the challenges faced daily. From managing operations to dealing with unpredictable market dynamics, the journey is far from easy.

2. Customers Are Critical: Their feedback, loyalty, and satisfaction are the lifeblood of any successful business.

3. How You Treat Customers Is More Important: Building relationships based on trust and exceptional service is a cornerstone of sustained success.

4. Cash Flow Is More Important Than Imagined: The financial health of a business is a fundamental pillar that can make or break its future.

5. Brand Is About the Experience Rather Than the Product: Customers seek more than just a product; they crave an experience that resonates with their values and desires.

6. Delivering on the Brand Position Is Critical: Promises made through branding need to be upheld consistently to maintain trust.

7. The Team and Employees Are Your Most Important Asset: A cohesive, motivated team is the backbone of any thriving company.

8. Good Content Is as Important as Good Media: Engaging content can be as influential as the medium through which it is delivered.

9. Partners Can Make or Break You: Choosing the right collaborators and partners significantly impacts a business’s trajectory.

10. Running a Business Is Hard: A reminder that despite the lessons learned, the journey remains an arduous one, demanding continual dedication and adaptation.

This accidental journey not only led to a global company but also provided a wealth of insight that reshaped my understanding of entrepreneurship and business. It underscored the significance of customer-centric approaches, the importance of brand experience, and the challenges and rewards of building and maintaining a successful enterprise.

As the story continues to unfold, these lessons remain the guiding principles, constantly steering the company’s direction and strategies in an ever-evolving marketplace. The inadvertent path that led to building a global company has been a learning experience of immeasurable value. It’s a testament to the power of questioning, experimenting, and the profound lessons that emerge from unexpected ventures.

Over a year and a half ago I stepped away from advertising and branding to to pursue something I had always wanted to do: grow a company of my own, develop a brand from the ground up, and be responsible for my own professional destiny.

I thought it was going to be a simple creative sabbatical, but it turned out way different than I imagined.

The shift from working behind a desk with my brain all day, removed from the real world, to working with my brain AND hands has been a wonderful and enlightening experience.

Additionally, it helped me realize that 99% of the advertising I saw done before was useless to running an actual business.

For those of you thinking about a second career, it is possible. If you’re brave enough to step away from the comforts of your current condition.

As for my little business venture: The Bishop+Rook Family Continues To Grow

For the past year and a half, Bishop+Rook has been working with DNA Auto Centre of Cholderton, Wiltshire, UK as an extension of our American team – assisting on several Land Rover restoration projects and providing our team with workshop space at their facility.

We are now pleased to announce the acquisition of DNA Auto Centre by the Bishop+Rook Trading Company.

A year ago, I stepped away from the world of advertising and marketing (with the exception of a few projects here and there) to focus my energy on building a buisness (and brand) of my own. I started a company called Bishop+Rook – which builds and restores vintage Land Rover Defenders – offering products and service to those with a sense of adventure and a taste for nostalgic simplicity.

After 20 years of working in an industry I loved, the process of leaving the advertising world behind has opened my eyes to why so many clients and agencies can’t seem to find the magic they all hope for. Truthfully, I’ve learned the most about marketing and advertising by not being IN marketing and advertising. By starting my own business, I was finally building my own brand, becoming my own client, and re-learning the art of running a successful start-up business.

Clients and Agencies generally fail to achieve mutual happiness and success because each side is looking for different things in the relationship. Agencies (the people working on the day-to-day account) don’t generally understand the client’s business. Clients don’t generally understand how to use external creative and strategic talent to drive their busines forward. Angst grows between the two sides (jut like politics) when it seems like each is speaking a different language and both refuse to take the time to simply talk and be honest with each other.

I can’t solve that age-old issue – except maybe to serve as a translator for client-agency relationships like a therapist may help a busted marriage. What I can offer is a list of poignant observations from a year spent growing a passion project into one of the nation’s leading Defender Restoration shops. Here are a few things I’ve learned (or re-learned) over the past year:

– People are everything. Entrepreneurship is not a spectator sport – you’re only as good as your weakest team members. It’s the duty of management to handle these talent gaps, conflicts, and relationships. Be transparent with your team and they will repay that with honest work and enthusiasm. As an owner, I’m open about the risks we have as a company, financial situation, pending projects, deadlines, capabilities, and overall operations. I hired them to be experts at what their good at – restoring cars. It’s my job now to make sure they have something to do each day.

– Take Risks. If you want to grow a business you need to take bigger risks than you feel comfortable with. Put everything on the line and don’t be afraid to fail and start again. We started Bishop+Rook with an idea that more people would want to spend more time offline and outdoors over the coming years. We wanted to offer reasonably priced, but mechanically sound and capable off-road vintage vehicles. We acquired expensive inventory, created business processes, hired team members, expanded our shop space, developed partnerships around the world, and grew our portfolio. We approached each product as if our reputation was on the line – never cutting corners or sacrificing quality. Every Defender we put on the road was a representation of who we were is a company.

– Brand Matters. How your customers perceive you is way more important than your product or service. Having clients that trust you to do the right thing goes way beyond anything you could ever do as a company. Humans are emotional creatures, with passion, fear, anxiety, and the ability to dream. If the totality of your brand persona matches with that of your prospective customers, it’s a match. If not, you need to bridge that gap in order to generate a relationship. For us, we chose transparency and quality as two virtues we wanted to highlight.

– Create Content. From simple imagery to in-depth guides, use your expertise in your category to teach people. Show them you’re willing and able to be a helpful partner by sharing your knowledge and experience about whatever product or service you’re selling. People are also very visual, so make sure you’re speaking to all of their senses. When people are researching they’re doing so not to find a solution, but because they have a question. Every conversation should begin a premise that the prospective customer has an information gap and you can be the person to close it for them by simply listening and helping them out. Content can be designed for one-to-one relationships or built for mass audiences. The key is to invest just as much in your content as you do any marketing, sales, or technology tools. If I were running a large enterprise marketing department my spend and investment would be 50/50 – 50% on content and expertise, 50% on the marketing and tools needed to reach and engage prospects.

– Lead Nurturing Works. Successfully engaging customers at the right time in THEIR journey (not YOUR sales cycle) is the most important thing you can do to close the deal. People start their journey at different levels and at different stages of the engagement process. You should be there to make their decisions easier, eliminate stress, and help build the confidence they need to make their final decision. We’ve had customers who look at our site on a daily basis – from looking at projects to reading our guides. One of them recently called us after following our story for 2 years and he said: “Thank you for all the stuff you’ve written, it really helped guide me through my options. I’m ready to adopt a Defender now.”

– Use Technology to Help You. Even as a small shop, we get a dozen calls a day from people interested in building a custom Land Rover Defender. We can’t possibly keep track of that in our head – or where they are in their buying process. We’ve implemented a very robust CRM system and we use every aspect of it – from lead tracking and scoring to communications and contact logging. We used part of the system for the first few months and it worked, but it started to truly pay off when we built out the entire system and trusted it to do what it was designed to do. I don’t know how many companies I’ve consulted with over the years that buy a platform only to use it at the bare minimum level. Invest in your tools – it’s amazing how much the return will be in the long-run.

– Schedules, Timelines, and Meetings Don’t Matter. While it is good to make progress moving forward, I’ve come to learn that unnecessary or arbitrary deadlines only create stress and anxiety among your team members, customers, and the world around you. We’re all too focused on “showing progress” rather than “making progress.” When I was in advertising, half the time (and money) was spend preparing for meetings. Not making good stuff, or making smarter marketing, but simply preparing for meetings. I’m just as guilty as any client or agency there is in the world. At Bishop, we’ve taken a slightly different approach to managing growth – we ask ourselves a simple question: “where do we want to be in the future and what do we need to do to get us there?” The answer to that question is used to reverse engineer the tiny steps needed to walk back into our starting point. Restoring a vintage Land Rover is no different than launching a marketing campaign. We assess where we want the project to end up, decide what work needs to get done to get there, figure out what type of resources are needed along the way, and then we break down the steps of the process and work backwards.

– Have Fun. If you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, no amount of money can buy that day-to-day happiness. If you’re going to be spending between 8-12 hours a day doing something, you should really enjoy it. Have passion for what you’re doing and believe in it – be enthusiastic. I’ve seen so many passion gaps in the past; from clients checking things off of lists because they have to and agencies not doing their best work because team members don’t like the client or the product they’re working on.

I’m Mike, I restore cars for a living. But what I really like to say is that I’m a Defender Preservationist who helps people find adventure in everyday life.

Michael Kraabel

Founder – Bishop+Rook

http://www.bishoprook.com