The 7 Thinkpoints of Effective Marketing

by Jim Van Meer

There comes a time in every organization’s marketing journey that they will reach a critical juncture, called a Thinkpoint. Understanding what a Thinkpoint is and determining a course of action are paramount to fulfilling your marketing objectives. 

think•point

/thingk-point/     noun

• The place at which design thinking and design doing intersect, from which a person or organization takes marketing action to connect ideas with objectives and plans.
• The stage at which a person or organization recognizes the need for strategic creativity and marketing prowess.

Determining if you’ve reached a Thinkpoint, and taking action on that Thinkpoint, is crucial to reaching the next level of advancement for your business. Here are the seven major marketing Thinkpoints organizations find themselves at during their lifecycles, and why it’s important to have a trusted advisor to help navigate the path. 

1. The Branding Thinkpoint. If you’ve finally figured out that your brand is more than just your logo, then you’ve reached the Branding Thinkpoint. One of the most powerful Thinkpoints, if not the most powerful Thinkpoint of all, branding is your organization’s voice in the marketplace. Branding is what your customers think about you, how they interact with you, how they remember you, and a compelling reason they choose to do business with you. For branding to be successful, you not only need to manage your brand, you have to build awareness, create an identity, build trust, bring value to your brand, plus enable extension of the brand. No matter the size of your company, your brand is the foundation that everything else is built upon. Make sure that it is rock solid.
   
2. The Advertising Thinkpoint. If you need to create messages that entice and engage your customers, you’ll probably recognize the Advertising Thinkpoint. This is the point you will find yourself when you want to draw attention to your business, induce a reaction from your audience, and build a memorable  experience with them. Good advertising does all three things, while greatadvertising benefits your brand as well, making a connection and building a sense of commitment between you and your customers. Advertising methods run the gamut, from print and digital advertising, to social media marketing, out-of-home (OOH) advertising, and sponsorships of events. Advertising is where you appeal to the emotions of your customers, telling your story in memorable ways. For an Advertising Thinkpoint to generate results, it needs to generate an emotional reaction. It’s how connections are fused.
   
3. The Collateral Thinkpoint. Marketing collateral is an amalgam of media that supports the sales of your products, services, and ideas. The Collateral Thinkpoint is often one of the first places a company finds itself at, discovering a need for brochures, videos, landing pages, white papers, sell sheets, and information packets. While collateral can encompass a variety of marketing tools and methods of distribution, knowing what types are best for you and when it’s best to employ them remains an integral step in their planning. One should never assume a particular form of collateral will fulfill the marketing needs of a company. For collateral to work properly, it needs to be planned and integrated into an overall marketing campaign, with defined goals and objectives addressed in its creation. Collateral Thinkpoints are always emerging as marketing plans evolve, and they always need to address your brand as it unfolds.
   
4. The Digital Thinkpoint. Everyone will reach the Digital Thinkpoint very early on, and throughout the course of doing business. Digital Thinkpoints are most often comprised of apps, websites and UI/UX design. Your digital presence is your portal to the world, and your digital footprint has to be strong to be effective. It’s imperative that your website be designed properly, that the user interface (UI) be human-focused, and that the user experience (UX) be designed around your customers first and foremost. While UI is more device-specific, UX is all about people. UI and UX design should go hand-in-hand, to better the interaction your customers have with your website, and to help build your brand story. Positive interactions lead to positive outcomes, so your UI needs to reference your UX throughout the strategic and creative processes of development. If you want to create a dedicated communication channel for your brand, if your business is deep into e-commerce, or if you need to offer more beyond your website, you should consider creating an app. Apps can leverage the potential you have with your mobile customers and can help you better showcase your products and services, enabling you to reach more customers, and in turn, further the scope of your business.  To ensure you leverage the Digital Thinkpoint completely, make sure you have an expert by your side.
   
5. The Social Media Thinkpoint. Most organizations reach the Social Media Thinkpoint when they recognize that a social media strategy and presence is no longer an option. Establishing a presence and activating a strategy is only the beginning. To be successful, you need to intrigue your audience, build a community, and create/curate engaging content. To do so, you’ll need to gather the data from your accounts, analyze it for insights, optimize for impact, and adjust accordingly. Social media opens new avenues for distributing your messaging and solidifying your brand with your audience. It also presents an opportunity to increase sales leads, win new customers, retain customers, and achieve exposure in a crowded marketplace. The Social Media Thinkpoint is just the starting block for your efforts. Social media is more of a marathon than a sprint. It takes savvy content creation, professional account management, and the willingness to venture outside of your comfort zone to maximize your reach. 
   
6. The Experiential Thinkpoint. Better engagement with your customers leads to increased trust with your products and/or services, which in turn leads to better brand impact. It’s the customer experience that most directly affects sales, so if you recognize that as a factor in your company’s success, you’ve reach the Experiential Thinkpoint. Experiential marketing, also known as engagement marketing or event marketing, is literally where the live experience augments your brand story, building engagement and connections. Today’s experiential marketing is both live, in-person, and virtual as well. Thanks to augmented and virtual reality technologies, your customers can experience your products, services, and ideas in ways unimaginable a few short years ago. Whether offline or online, the majority of customers look to branded experiential marketing while making purchasing decisions. Offering them an avenue for such actions is an effective tool for building a relationship, leading to what could become a lifetime commitment to your brand. 
   
7. The Strategic Creativity Thinkpoint. Every business, no matter what size, will reach the Strategic Creativity Thinkpoint, most sooner than later. You’ll recognize you’re there when you begin to see the signs you need help–you feel the need for better marketing planning, you’re not sure if your brand is up-to-speed, or you’re not sure where the gaps may be in your marketing strategy. Often, the first sign you’re at a Strategic Creativity Thinkpoint is you’re not sure of your target markets. This is where you need a trusted advisor to help you navigate your way out of the woods, to establish a clearer picture of who you are and where you want to go. The Strategic Creativity Thinkpoint is built of the other six Thinkpoints, plus complementary Thinkpoint positions that form an overarching strategy. Some of the analogous Thinkpoints that fall under strategic creativity include persona development, media selection, visual mapping, prototyping, package design, and the big daddy of them all, design thinking.

Do you recognize yourself at any of the seven Thinkpoints? Your perceptive ability and your desire to do business better is the first step toward taking advantage of your brand, ascending to the next level of growth. A good leader realizes when their business is at a Thinkpoint. A great business leader acts on it.

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Jim Van Meer is the Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Thinkpoint Creative, Metro DC’s premiere branding, marketing, and design agency. Thinkpoint Creative helps businesses get the results they deserve through a blend of strategic planning and creative development. When Jim’s not helping companies leverage their Thinkpoints and building their brands and markets, he roams the halls of academia at George Mason University, where he’s an adjunct professor in the university’s Art and Visual Technology program. 

Is your business at a Thinkpoint?

by Jim Van Meer

No matter what stage your business is at—startup, growth, shake-out, or mature—there will come a time when you will have reached a Thinkpoint. You’ll know you’re there because you’ll recognize that you need to connect ideas and objectives to plans and actions. 

Thinkpoints occur in a variety of ways and by a variety of means, but they share one crucial element—discovery. The principle of discovery, when set into action, becomes the point at which businesses gain traction to make it to the next stage, or begin to explore new markets and opportunities to sustain success.

How and when you attain a Thinkpoint can be dictated by a number of reasons, and one of the top ways to achieve Thinkpoint success is through marketing and strategic creativity. It’s not enough to simply declare you need marketing. Everybody needs it. It’s how you go about strategizing, planning, executing, and sustaining it that helps you advance your business.

Going about developing a marketing strategy, planning what will get done, executing on that plan, and then sustaining the entire effort is no easy task. The art (and science) of marketing continues to evolve, and more and more businesses are relying on design thinking to help build a better marketing experience, not only internally for their company, but for their customers as well.

Today’s modern marketplaces demand that business put a greater emphasis on the design of things and experiences because consumers interact with brands more closely than ever before. How your brand and your business connect with customers may not be what you think it is. Consumers run the show now, and they want to have their brand interactions evolve on their terms, during their time periods. Breakthrough technologies and innovations have given consumers more choices, and they now command a presence in your marketing plan.

This is where design thinking can play a major role. Design thinking is a coalescence of different skill sets, methodologies, and technical expertise, tempered by careful introspection, perception, and consideration. Customer-centric design thinking helps companies map out customer journeys at any stage of the business. For start-ups, design thinking can provide much-needed insight into the customer’s mind, revealing what drives them to build a relationship with the brand, allowing for a more focused plan. For growing companies, design thinking keeps strategies and plans on track, bringing to light unforeseen issues and exposing the good vs. the bad vs. the indifference, helping your business to readjust and refocus your efforts, all in real-time.

During the shake-out phase, companies can employ design thinking to help reduce costs, and to further delineate the company from its competitors. This helps lead to better positioning in the market, which can lead to the identification of new opportunities. As companies mature, design thinking can bolster the sales cycle and stabilize the business, allowing for the exploration of new markets, or markets ready for a rebirth.

Is your business at a Thinkpoint? If you’re ready to take your brand to the next level, ready to explore new marketing opportunities, or ready to examine how design thinking can help you identify what’s over the horizon, you’re at a Thinkpoint. It’s where design thinking and design doing intersect, and it’s where business gets done.

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Jim Van Meer is the Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Thinkpoint creative, Metro DC’s premiere branding, marketing, and design agency. When Jim’s not helping companies leverage their Thinkpoints and building their brands and markets, he roams the halls of academia at George Mason University, where he’s an adjunct professor in the school’s Art and Visual Technology program. Discover more at ThinkpointCreative.com. 

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