Hear it directly from the CEO. I talk about What is clickTRUE and Why we do What we do.
We all have these moments.
You get asked what you do in the course of work with clients. Perhaps even during off work in social settings or evening drinks.
"What do you do for a living?"
"What do you do to pay your rent?"
"What does your company do and how big is the team?"
We'll then be searching for keywords and keyphrases to best summarise a right answer, on the fly, hoping to best match the question. The feeling is akin to a student answering the teacher and hoping to get a smile back, indicating satisfaction or acknowledgement.
Sometimes, we fumble.
Occasionally, we manage to survive the questioning with a concoction of many general keywords and jargon; often thinking that perhaps we have underrepresented our colleagues back in the office
It starts getting uncomfortable and we try to get out of the situation by asking the other party the same questions they asked us - to shift the attention away from us.
Maybe I can be of help here to make it less painful.
I was invited to a networking seminar at one of the leading universities in Singapore and I spoke to a couple of people. Here is one encounter of how I introduced and talked about clickTRUE and what we do.
Sally reads my name tag sticker and asks:
"What is clickTRUE? What do you guys do?"
Jackie: clickTRUE is a digital consultancy and advertising agency. We help businesses figure out their inbound marketing strategy before they start marketing online so that they can maximise their chances for online success. I am Jackie, and I am one of the partners of this firm.
Sally: What do you mean? Do you mean Facebook or Google? SEO or SEM? You do websites?
Jackie: Well, we work with our clients to figure out their buyer personas for their products and services. Setting clear smart and attainable campaign goals with them. Helping the sales and marketing team map out their buyers' journey from visitors to lead to customers via their touch points.
"Setting clear smart and attainable campaign goals with them. Helping the sales and marketing team map out their buyers' journey from visitors to lead to customers via their touch points."
Sally: Why do we need to do that?
Jackie: We believe helping people buy is the best way to sell. We want to help build a better customer experience while making digital marketing less painful, uncomplicated and sustainable. Many companies dive straight into advertising online without a strong understanding of who their ideal customers are. What usually makes matters worse is that the sales department, marketing department and stakeholders will each have their version of who their customers are. Thus, you always hear something from sales like "Hey marketing, your leads are useless. We cannot close these leads."
Sally: Oh yes. That happens a lot (nodding with eyes lit up). How long have you guys been around?
Jackie: Do you know Hardware Zone? The Partners of clickTRUE are the Founders of Hardware Zone. We've been marketing online, creating inbound content and managing large communities since 1998. That's more than 20 years. We sold that business to Singapore Press Holdings and created clickTRUE to help more B2B companies develop their unique inbound content strategy to grow their business better. We believe very much in developing content with context. We do this by asking questions like: "Who are you generating this content for?", "At which part of their buyers' journey are you providing value to address the pain he is experiencing?", "Does the content waste their time?". In short, working towards content that is helpful and holistic.
Sally: Hey, this makes much sense. Tell me more.
Jackie: Different people at different stages will want to read different things. You want very different content and advice when you are in awareness, consideration or decision stage of buying something. Agree?
For example, a new couple will probably not be keen about an upcoming wedding event at Suntec City and the bridal packages they are promoting. They are probably more interested in where to get value-for-money romantic meals and activities to do together. A more mature couple will probably want to read about HDB and CPF financing related information or how to run their family budget.
Most businesses start selling without providing value first. There is not enough digital asset to build up the level of trust in the buyer. The likely result is campaign failure due to the stiff competition already existing online.
"Different people at different stages will want to read different things. You want very different content and advice when you are in awareness, consideration or decision stage of buying something."
Sally: It's a fascinating insight. How do we connect should we need your services?
Jackie: Here's my card.
(I ask some question of my own and listen to what my new found business acquaintance has to share)
Let's not fail to realise that every conversation is a chance to build new relationships or refresh older ones. We can share topics that we are subject matter experts in, or simply chat about interesting stories from your workday.
People still like to talk to people. We remain as social creatures amidst this era of Artificial Intelligence. The keyword here is "conversations". We should not stress over giving textbook correct answers.
To understand clickTRUE better, let me share our clickTRUE Golden Circle.
We believe helping people buy is the best way to sell. We want to help build a better customer experience while making digital marketing less painful, uncomplicated and sustainable.
Develop an always be learning culture to become a more useful, helpful and holistic preferred marketing partner. Continuously seeking improvements to deliver TRUE value for our customers in an agile inbound way. Standardize for consistency. Contextualize for relevance. Optimize for clarity. Personalize for impact. Empathize for perspective.
People don't want to be interrupted by marketers or harassed by salespeople. They want to be helped. Every day, actively investing in developing evergreen content that keeps contributing to traffic growth, building a brand and eventually generating sales — in short, guiding customers on marketing the Inbound way.
To summarise it for Sally (or the next person you meet who asks what you do at clickTRUE), the role of a clickTRUE marketer isn't just to improve a single landing page or a social post or create a beautiful video. It's to look at the customer journey from beginning to end and then connecting the dots to create a remarkable experience.
Success is making those that believed in you look brilliant. At clickTRUE, we work passionately to make our customers look brilliant.
It always starts with a chat.
Jackie Lee
CEO, clickTRUE