You have never worked in our industry, so why are you qualified to provide me with marketing consulting?

Have you ever had the following questions: Why do you need to find a consulting company if you can't do your own business? Why do you provide consulting services if you have never worked in this industry? Can you guarantee results? The author of this article answers these questions from the perspective of consulting companies and their core role. You may want to take a look.

After the company opened, many customers came to consult and cooperate. They came from all walks of life, including household disinfection products, Hunan cuisine chain restaurants, department stores, oral care hospitals, etc. It seems that every industry has a need for marketing growth.

However, many clients are looking for a consulting company for the first time. When talking about specific cooperation, there are many doubts, such as:

• Why do we need to find a consulting company? Can't our own marketing and branding departments do your business?
• It seems that the final deliverable of a consulting company is design? What is the difference between this and hiring a design company?
• You have never worked in our industry, so why should you give us guidance?
• Strategy and positioning are very vague concepts. Can they guarantee results?

I think this is a question that most customers have, so let’s focus on answering it today:

Why do you need to look for a marketing consulting company? And why do you do consulting in an industry where you have never been a client?

1. Different perspectives and positions can provide more professional solutions

The same thing done by different people will get different results because of their different levels of understanding and perspectives on things.

Take design for example. The things designed by consulting companies, design companies and clients themselves are different. Is it because the designers of consulting companies are more skilled?

The designer’s expressive ability is one thing, but more important is the strategic guidance behind the design, that is, our essential thinking about communication logic and consumer experience, and design is only the final presentation.

For example, the packaging design of books.

The competition among publishers is about copyright. Whoever has more exclusive copyrights and high-quality IPs will sell more books. But what about public domain books? For example, what about world classics such as the Four Great Classics, The Little Prince, Notre Dame de Paris, and Jane Eyre? Every publisher can publish them, so how can they compete?

Traditional publishing houses focus their efforts on improving paper quality, clearer printing, drawing illustrations, and making gold-bound editions, believing that these are ways to differentiate themselves.

However, Duke Books, founded by Hua Nan of Hua & Hua, uses another approach. Here are a few points:

1. Continue to use the black and white checkered pattern unique to Duoke, creating an array advantage on the shelves.

2. Design three circle symbols for the Classic Library series to create a sense of series. In the circle, each book has its own unique reason for purchase. After you buy one or two books, you will recognize the "three circles" series and use it as a brand symbol.

3. Each book has a QR code bookmark that directs you to the official WeChat account. The last page has three series recommendations to guide you to buy the next book.

4. For foreign classics, character relationship diagrams and story maps are attached, which greatly facilitates remembering foreign names and story plots, and the reading experience is great.

This completes the closed loop of users seeing - purchasing - reading experience - public account sedimentation - repeat purchase. When the content is the same, it will naturally be more competitive.

I don’t see these actions in CITIC Press, Machinery Industry Press, etc. The reason behind this is the difference in strategic thinking.

Traditional publishing houses focus on the B-end, connecting with copyright companies and authors upstream and printing plants, sales channels, media, and promotional activities downstream, without considering the consumer experience.

However, Duke, from the perspective of brand strategy, sells books as if they were merchandise on the shelves, and designs a whole set of actions based on the consumer's purchasing and experience process. These actions form brand assets, which, through continuous accumulation, can give them an advantage in the competition.

If design cannot be the implementation of strategy, it is just a decoration. Design without strategic guidance will not play a big role in communication.

To give another example, when we were serving COFCO Fortune, the client asked us to make a KV to promote their own brand festival - "Family Day".

In addition to the KV content, we found that there were problems with the "Family Day" icon itself.

After research, it was found that there are two main aspects:

1. The biggest problem is the inappropriate information hierarchy. Festival IP is a self-made festival. The first level of information is the time, followed by the name of the festival. For example, Double Eleven, 315, and 618 all put the time at the maximum:

2. There is a lack of brand-specific elements, such as the Tmall cat head. It also lacks aesthetics, making it inconvenient to extend its application online and offline.

Subsequently, we upgraded two versions of the new icons for Family Day:

First, the time was enlarged, and then renamed "Fulinmen·Love Family Day" to make it exclusive to the brand and easier to extend. It is clear no matter how it is enlarged or reduced. The newly upgraded image has been unanimously recognized by customers.

We also designed a new image for the floor display:

Customers often have a good understanding of their own product manufacturing and business operations, but lack a deep perspective on brand strategy and marketing communications. This results in excellent products that are not perceived by consumers, and also causes a lot of waste in media placement and consumer communication.

Marketing consulting, from the perspective of brands and consumers, can often provide more professional advice at the communication level.

These are just two examples from the design perspective. In fact, from corporate strategy, product planning, and advertising to a leaflet or a spoken word, if there is a lack of top-level strategic thinking, many actions will go astray.

One problem that marketing consulting can help solve is to establish a brand asset system for the company and design the right communication strategy so that every future action can effectively accumulate into brand assets and make the product sell better.

2. Three core functions of marketing consulting

A client asked, what other role does marketing consulting play in the cooperation process besides delivering a set of solutions in the end?

Here I summarize the three key roles in client business. For easier understanding, I convert them into three roles: researcher, external brain, and coach.

1. Researcher - Finding Insights

An important task of a consulting company is research. This is not the desk research in the offices of advertising companies or design companies, but research that involves personally visiting the market, entering the front line, and obtaining first-hand data.

One purpose of research is to gain insights. In our own words: research is exchanging costs for secrets.

The premise for every major decision and strategic adjustment of our clients, as well as our brand creativity and design solutions, is research.

For example, after Yuanqi Forest milk tea became popular, many brands followed suit and made milk tea, and the formats were almost all based on the same template: almost the same bottle shape, packaging, visuals, prices, and the main selling points were also similar.

At that time, I was serving a fast-moving consumer goods beverage brand. They had already agreed on the production formula and bottling manufacturer, and all they lacked was the bottle shape and packaging design.

The client originally wanted to follow suit and learn from Yuanqi Forest. But after a period of research, we gave him another direction.

Research has found that the peak sales period for milk tea is in autumn and winter, and most of the buyers are young women. The reason for using a thick bottle shape is first to match the high price and appear to be in large quantity; secondly, to distinguish existing products on the market and achieve differentiation. Through the fat bottle shape, the exclusive recognition of the milk tea category is occupied, which is similar to the bottle shape strategy of Coca-Cola.

Following this logic, if we compete, our brand power is not as good as Yuanqi Forest’s.

The survey also found that many girls have small hands, which makes it difficult for them to hold the milk tea with one hand or hold the bottle mouth, especially when riding a bicycle. In addition, because milk tea is large in volume and has thick milk, it will feel sweet and greasy after drinking too much.

Finally, based on the trend of healthier tea drinks and the needs of users to lose weight and not get fat, we designed slim bottles, low- to medium-priced milk teas with a focus on traditional Chinese style for our customers. In addition, we reduced the amount of milk and increased the proportion of tea to create a "light milk tea" category to achieve differentiation.

The product slogan is "light and non-greasy, double tea fragrance", and the first flavor is "Moon Palace Osmanthus". The first "bottled Chinese style light milk tea" in China will be launched soon.

Some clients ask how to provide consulting services when they don’t understand their industry. In fact, for every new client or new industry, the first thing we do after clarifying their needs is to conduct research.

We will spend 1 to 2 months doing market research, horizontally analyzing the market from the perspectives of business operations, consumers, and competing products to clarify the current market situation; vertically analyzing the industry development history and the company's own development process to find the company's endowments and key paths to success and determine future directions.

Conducting research from a more professional and systematic perspective and providing decision-making basis for clients' strategic adjustments, brand upgrades, new product development, etc. is the first key role that marketing consulting provides.

2. External brain - assisting decision making

A consulting company is not an execution company for its clients, and will not meet all of their needs. Instead, it will assist clients in evaluating and making decisions.

How can we assist decision-making if we have never worked in the client’s industry? In addition to the above research, we also have mature tools and methods at our disposal. It is like a doctor seeing a patient. He may not know you, but he understands the physiological structure of the human body and the principles of disease, so he can give a diagnosis and treatment plan based on your situation.

Marketing consulting also uses rich cases and cross-industry experience to conduct comprehensive evaluations. The more comprehensive the perspectives and information you have, the more scientific your decision-making will be.

For example, when we were working on product strategy for Jimi, the client’s perspective was the factory’s production capacity and the product’s existing sales contribution rate, which was an internal perspective. We provided a strategic direction focusing on educational products from the perspectives of industry trends, competition landscape, consumer experience, and brand building.

We serve clients from all walks of life and have cross-industry experience. A lot of what we know in industry A is common sense but is new knowledge in industry B.

For example, when we were serving Leke before, we found that the domestic fitness industry was in its early stages of development, and the biggest problem was distrust: students were afraid that the gym would run away with the money; personal trainers were afraid that their income would not be guaranteed, so they could only keep selling memberships; shopping malls were afraid that the gym would run away and then go bankrupt, affecting the mall's image... In short, the industry is in chaos, and we need to build a big brand image to eliminate distrust.

So we borrowed a trick from catering stores: mark the number of stores on the door and apply it to the new brand slogan:

At the same time, a strong support that demonstrates the brand's strength is extracted on the background wall of the entrance, so that users who pass by and experience it will have confidence in Leke and improve the conversion rate:

As an external brain for an enterprise, analytical methods and tools in the field are indispensable. In terms of business operations, there is not as much information as customers, but when it comes to marketing communication and consumer experience, with multiple tools and external perspectives, external brains can provide more effective solutions.

For example, when I was communicating with the owner of a snack chain store and discussing how to increase the average order value of consumers, all the customers knew about were promotional methods such as buy one get one free, combination purchases, and exchange for a higher price.

We used the four consumer roles (audience-purchase-experience-communication), three purchases (purchase reasons, purchase instructions, purchase guide), jtbd model, the game between total purchase cost and total value, MOT experience design and other tools to systematically explain to customers the many ways to increase average order value.

From big things like brand positioning, slogans, and packaging design to small things like modifying an element or a word on a poster or a leaflet, we also have a clear analysis framework and evaluation method.

Sometimes when clients look for consulting firms, what they are hiring is your brain, and the models, tools, methods, and experiences in your brain, as the basis for their decision-making.

This is the second key role of marketing consulting that I have summarized.

3. Coaching - giving feedback and teaching skills

Even the Guinness record holders in the sports world and the world champions in the Go world need coaches. The coaches may not be better than them in skills, but they can provide a very important role - providing feedback, professional, correct and immediate feedback.

The coach observes you from a third-party perspective, pays attention to your every movement, and provides instant feedback to adjust wrong movements in time to ensure your professional improvement.

The same is true for consulting companies, which usually have a high degree of independence and objectivity and can provide objective advice to clients. At the same time, as a third party, they are less concerned about the interests and collaborative games of various departments of the enterprise, and can provide guidance and implementation plans from the strategic level of the enterprise.

Of course, marketing consulting does not end with the delivery of a set of implementation plans.

The solution provided is just a starting point. The purpose is to establish a new set of ideas, mechanisms, methods, standards and directions, and provide customers with a blueprint and plan. Even if we no longer provide services, customers can consciously build brand assets and continuously improve their business operations.

When I was serving Suge Fresh Fruit Tea and changing the menu, the client said that they had optimized several versions of the menu, but they still didn't have a good idea. The following is the client's original menu:

After research and analysis, we redesigned the menu structure as follows:

• First of all, brand identification and credentials are designed at the top to deepen the brand impression when users place orders.
• Three major steps in ordering have been designed to speed up the ordering process. At the same time, the action of adding small toppings that can increase customer orders and profit margins has been designed as the second step of the standard process, effectively increasing the average order value.
• The series names are clearer. The signature item at the top is the main product, recommended for new users. The "Fruity" and "Super Refreshing" series are designed at the bottom to make targeted recommendations based on user needs, such as recommending the "Super Refreshing" series right after a meal. A "New Products" area has also been added to the lower left to remind old users to come to the store frequently to try new products.
• More importantly, it is in line with the new positioning of fresh fruit tea, reducing milk tea products, increasing the proportion of fresh fruit tea, and strengthening users' mental perception of "Su Ge = fresh fruit tea".

After this action is improved, customers will know the ideas for future new product development and the continuous optimization of the user ordering experience.

Last year, a classmate from my hometown opened a tea shop in the county town, which also mainly sells fresh fruit tea. It does not use jam or powder to mix, but uses fresh fruit to squeeze the tea.

But he told me that business was average and consumers didn’t think the quality was much better than that of Mixue Bingcheng next door.

When I went to the store, I found out that all his fruit operations, such as peeling grapes, cutting oranges, squeezing lemons, etc., were done in the back kitchen and the products were not served until they were completed.

That’s the problem: from an internal perspective, the value of the product is not communicated to the consumer.

Due to renovation reasons, the store could no longer design an open counter area, so I asked him to add a display screen in the ordering area, which broadcast the fruit processing operations through the camera in the back kitchen, and made a clear promise: if you feel that the fruit is not fresh or not tasty, you can get a free cup.

In his newly planned store, I told him that he must design an open counter area and display the processed fruits as a performance, which is the key brand value.

In the sinking market, the local sections of platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou have a great influence. I suggested that he start a full-day live broadcast and let the clerks cut fruit while chatting and selling drinks; in terms of short video promotion, he also shot around the selling point of his own fresh handmade fruits.

After taking these actions, he told me that the effect was very good. Many users stood in front of the screen to watch the preparation of their cup of tea after placing an order. The short videos and live broadcasts also had a good effect in attracting traffic, and some people started to check in. Dianping also made it into the top five in the local tea beverage rankings, and its reputation is still rising.

Marketing consulting is not a one-time deal that ends when it is used up. Instead, it is about establishing a correct starting point so that future actions can have a traceable path and every penny spent in the future can be accumulated into effective growth.

This is the third key role I have summarized, as a coach to provide immediate feedback and develop effective development plans.

3. Two final words

Through this article, I tried to briefly summarize the role of marketing consulting and answer some of my clients’ questions.

In fact, not only brands need external consulting, but our consulting company sometimes also needs consulting.

For example, when serving certain fast-moving consumer goods and catering customers, when it comes to key industry knowledge, and when we want to know how our solutions are, we will also talk to the corresponding retail experts and catering experts to see if we have found and solved the customer's key problems and how to make greater improvements.

Because seeking advice from experts is the lowest-cost method. It uses other people's knowledge to save time, and the sooner you do it, the better.

However, when it comes to marketing consulting, we can only say that there is a high probability that it will be effective, but we cannot guarantee it 100%, because business growth is the result of a combination of all factors.

For example, losing weight requires reducing high-calorie food intake, increasing exercise to burn fat, and maintaining a regular work and rest schedule to stabilize hormone secretion, which is also a comprehensive result. A fitness coach can give you a training plan and plan, but if other factors are not done well, the weight loss effect will be discounted.

We try our best to keep our clients connected at the brand marketing level, cooperate with the overall business operations of the company, and achieve effective growth.

The above is the full content of this article. I hope it will inspire you.

Author: Su Laoshi

Source public account: Su Lao Shi