A brand and marketing strategy session for a garden designer
Running a business is tough isn’t it? Marketing, budgeting, planning, sales, people management, troubleshooting and then those “challenges” that seem to crop up that throw us off track – for a matter of hours, days, weeks, whatever! It’s sometimes easy to lose track of why you went into business in the first place. We’ve certainly had our fair share of challenges over the past couple of weeks – as well as plenty of exciting opportunities. But days like today remind me why I’m doing this.
I’ve had a blissful day working with two clients on their marketing strategies. First up, a Garden Designer needing help and focus on her brand and marketing strategy, and this afternoon, a supplier, designer and manufacturer of childrens playgrounds who is attending an exhibition in three weeks (yes! three weeks!) and needs a helping hand on his strategy. Both are industries that I’m passionate about and really identify with, so today has been a real ball.
Working with the garden designer this morning was a lot of fun. Refreshingly she had invested quite a lot of time and money in having a brand identity created (not by Flourish) which has helped give her a professional, serious and attractive look. She also has a professional looking website and a nice handout. Despite that she was just feeling a little “lost”.
Having left the city to pursue her dream, she had finally achieved what she’d hoped for. She was a fully qualified garden designer. But the work hadn’t come flooding in! And she was left confused and unsure of where to turn next. We’re going to be working together over the next three months or so to get her marketing back on track and this month we are working on her brand strategy.
We started by identifying what she’s best at. A long stint in the city had prepared her well. She has a high level of professionalism, is a great communicator and very process driven. That’s going to go a long way in such a creative environment. We also identified that she’s passionate about customer satisfaction and customer service, and has a great sense of style. We laughed as we discussed the designer on Channel 4′s Landscape Man a couple of weeks ago who when quizzed on how he saw his role as a designer answered that the clients were paying for his design and as such it was his job to bully them into accepting his vision! That’s certainly not how either of us see design – surely it’s all about understanding what your client needs and using your expertise to deliver style and substance? But I digress…
Identifying what this designer does best was our first port of call. Next up was looking at her profitable clients. Breaking each group down into what motivates them to commission a garden designer and what they would be looking for. Interestingly we had a big breakthrough here, realising that there’s a big chunk missing out of her portfolio. So plenty of “homework” was given for the next session!
We defined her “style” and came up with a list of evocative words that she can “try on” over the next few weeks to see how they feel in her business. These words are things like drama, mystique and sanctuary which will enable this designer to engage directly with her ideal clients. We also explored the myths these ideal clients hold about her business and explored how we might use marketing to educate, inform and build relationships with these potential clients.
There was a little time along the way to quickly review her website and identify how that was working with her newly defined brand strategy. And reassuringly despite being well designed, it lacked the emotion and approachability that we had defined from our earlier conversations. I say reassuringly, because now this designer has a route map forwards!
Finally we defined, in a nutshell, her brand strategy: what she’s best at, who her target clients are, her style and how she’d like to be perceived.
As the designer said, much of what we did was breathtakingly simple and obvious – but she’d needed some support and guidance to get there. We weren’t talking about reinventing the wheel today, but we were forensically examining her business and looking and what we do to maximise on this designers strengths and communicate powerfully enough to win her more business moving forwards.
Next month we’ll be looking at her pricing: how she can price herself at the right level to be able to attract the right sort of clients and make a profit. We’ll be looking to create “packages” where we can for her services which will make her business model much more streamlined and will make marketing herself much simpler. I left the session energised and rejeuvenated. It’s wonderful to be working with such a passionate, talented and committed lady – and I’m hoping that she might be thinking the same 
