Strategy – Veronica Stenberg

How to become a better strategist

Veronica — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 14:32:00 +0000

Here are my ten tips for anyone who wants to become a better strategist. Why is that important you ask? well, it will benefit not only a person who aims to build a business or work as a business leader. A strategic mindset, no matter if you want to employ people or be employed, is key.

1. Play board games, start with Settlers and work your way up to board games with higher complexity and more layers such as Seven Wonders or Scythe (aka, you cannot win relying on one single tactic and you play a game in a dynamic context).

2. Read books, even those you do not agree with, to understand the world from different perspectives, don’t feed your own bias.

3. Look at and practice art, such as drawing, painting or sculpture. Or music, if that is your thing.

4. Write down your thoughts.

5. Engage in healthy, respectful discussions with people who think in ways other than you do, and try to both understand and learn from their perspective.

6. Learn to listen.

7. Listen to podcasts on various topics, not just tech or business. Understand humans, behaviour, philosophy, art, and business, and learn from others and their life stories.

8. Learn new things, take a course, and keep educating yourself. Be a student for life and explore not just one subject but many.

9. Use technology to your advantage, not the other way around.

10. Nourish your body, brain and soul, aka sleep, move your body and be conscious of how and what you spend your attention on. You want to be in a positive state, that helps you think better thoughts and ask better questions, no matter how stressful your contact may be.

How to be nimble in an uncertain world

Veronica — Thu, 17 Dec 2020 12:17:00 +0000

My dream is to serve and to help other people.

Today I’ve taken a leap of faith.

Faith to continue to have the best job in the world and to have others join me on that journey and mission.

I’ve created Nimble & co. A partner for you who are seeking to make better decisions, reach your business goals and craft better customer experiences through your digital presence.

It’s for you, the brave person who dares to seek change for real. Because you know that the future success of your business depends on it.

I hope that I get the privilege to help and serve you.

Curious to know more about what I can do for you? Then head on over to Nimble & co.

A framework for a Mission Vision and Value template

Veronica — Mon, 12 Oct 2020 06:50:05 +0000

In order to align a group of people to work effectively and achieve progress, one of the tools that you need in place is a shared goal, a vision and a way to follow-up both progress and success with KPIs.

Having worked in many different companies, ranging from having the values clearly displayed on the walls in the offices, following up on results each week to companies without a clear framework for this in place. I can honestly say that I personally prefer the former. As I think many people do as it gives ones work meaning and it helps employees understand how to add value and help a company grow.

When I enrolled in the Google Elevator program our teachers presented one of the best frameworks for this type of template I’ve seen. I got very inspired by this and made my own version of this and have used this type of framework previously in my work to create clarity of the way forward.

This framework is easy, visual and straight to the point. It can even be used on a team level with a few tweaks.

You can download my template here and make your own version and layout with the components.

Why you should define and display mission, vision and values with key objectives:

A tool to align the organisation towards the same desired output and result
Create clarity on the type of culture you want to build though defining values
Create clarity on the type of customer experience you want to create
Motivate and engage your employees through relating their work and responsibilities directly towards a business objective
Define KPI’s that help you follow-up on progress and gain insights on where and why you need to improve
Create focus and know what to prioritize and what to say no to

DOWNLOAD TEMPLATE

Photo by Gabriel Tovar on Unsplash

6 factors to consider to create a successful customer loyalty program

Veronica — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 06:01:35 +0000

The market for loyalty programs is saturated. Looking to the US market, each US citizen is a member on average in 9 different member clubs*. Today’s customer is highly aware of the trade of their personal details and data for deals and discounts.

The paradigm shift that came with social media has also affected the customer club’s context and the issue of customer retention. The customer is at the centre today, not only in regards to marketing and communication but also in regards to their experience of being a customer of different brands.

If we look at member clubs of companies such as Sephora, Starbucks etc, they base their loyalty program on customer insight and engagement. They are both brilliant examples of brands that focus on creating an enhanced customer experience by digital partnerships with complementary brands and other new tactics to delight their most loyal customers.

Sephora has also found the key to motivating its customers to share their experiences in stores through social media. By rewarding their members when they behave in a way that is beneficial to the brand. Sephora is often praised for its innovative ideas and successful customer club. Which indicates that it is no longer about discounts and deals, instead Sephora focuses on being able to give the customer such a positive experience as possible of the brand. They also drive customer engagement by including their members in the decisions and development of the company’s product offering to lay the foundation for early commitment to both new services and products.

The roles of loyalty have changed, now companies need to prove to their customers that they are a loyal company, not a company with a loyalty program*.

So what does this mean for you who want to create a customer club, loyalty program or work to decrease customer churn in an existing customer base? This means that you need to rethink and adapt to the new game plan. There are five components that you need to consider:

A great product or service

Your product or/and service is an important component in creating loyal customers. Without a great product or service that customers appreciate, it is not possible to build customer loyalty or a customer club.

Incorporate customer insight and dialogue to your everyday work

Your team needs to work continuously to gather insights, opinions and reviews and to have a real dialogue with your customers. But insight without action is worthless, you need to know how to act and implement the findings in your business to drive both engagement and loyalty that effects the bottom line.

Craft better customer experiences

The customer experience today is your brand and a way for your business to truly deliver on your brand promise and ethos. It includes everything from

service level, product, the path to purchase, to personalization and beyond. To be able to create better customer experiences, you need to see the big picture.

Good customer experiences with your brand are the foundation to increase both repurchases, reduce customer churn and increase recommendations from existing customers to potential new customers.

Stay authentic and deliver on your brand values

Your brand values play an incredibly big role in whether the customers come back or if you want to get customers to become members of a loyalty program. An example of a complete disaster is Dolce & Gabbana that lost both customers and market share during 2018. This after one of their racist ads got questioned in social media and photos of one of the founder’s racist comments where spread in social media. To add further insult to injury he tried to lie to get away. Which in turn generated photos and videos of people burning their D&G clothes and accessories. And photos of department stores packing up D&G merchandise and sending it back.

Proving the point that both having and delivering on those said values are incredibly important to make customers want to buy from, make repurchases and recommend your brand to others.

Customers want to be able to stand for their choice of buying products from you. Just like Seth Godin says “people like us but things like this”. This is especially important when it comes to larger brands and especially so for millennials. You don’t want people that are more digitally savvy than your business to be against you in social media.

Understand the perceived customer value outside of your product benefits

In addition to being able to offer customers a great product, the perceived customer value is a big part of getting loyal customers. Both in the form of supporting repurchases but also when it comes to getting existing customers to want to join a customer club. How can your customer club add value to your existing customers? This does not have to be in the form of discounts. It can be other things like priority access for sales, events or other things that you know your customers appreciate and make them delighted or surprised. By working continuously with customer dialogue and insight, you will know exactly how to give your customers an increased value from the interactions with your brand.

Dare to collaborate

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, you do well to find complementary brands that you can collaborate with to delight your customers. Such as Starbucks and Spotify that collaborated together.

Who can your brand collaborate with to create experiences that will delight your customers?

Mentioned sources

* Source: Forrester – Rethinking customer loyalty

Links to inspiration for customer loyalty programs and initiatives

Useful statistics to use in internal debates and educational activities.

More information about Sephoras customer engagement tactics

Photo by Amir Mahmoudi on Unsplash

An action list to build the foundation for modern marketing for your business

Veronica — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 06:44:27 +0000

During April I put down some of my thoughts on what I would have done if I was a CMO or CEO for a small business during Covid-19, in regards to marketing and communication. (It’s available over here, no email etc required to download it).

To make it easier the PDF also included a summary of actions that if you haven’t implemented them already, you should do so now. As some of them contribute towards creating a competitive advantage for any business that incorporates these. As well as some Covid-19 specific action points.

DOWNLOAD ADVICE PDF

Each action item is associated with the specific section from the PDF in question and is explained in more detail. So if you want to access all the full picture and explanations just download the marketing PDF.

Even though some action items are specific to communicating during a more sensitive time or scenario, many of the action items in the PDF are hygiene factors that should be part of your foundation when working with modern marketing. As they allow you to save time, work more effectively and focused as well as provide you with valuable insights for your business.

Therefore I decided to include the entire list in text and as a separate PDF to download in the end of this document.

Data

Utilize UTM-tags
Identify a few KPIs you should follow up on for your business

Paid marketing

Identify low hanging fruits
Target basket abandoners
Build audience lists based on behaviour
Twins/look-alikes

Automate

Use software plugins & functionality
Identify autoresponders
Use HubSpot’s list building functionality
Test responsive display ads

Follow-up

Ask the right questions from your data
Build automatic reports and dashboards
A/B Test

Marketing & communication

Be mindful and stay current
Be mindful of choice of images
Focus on giving
Double down on communication with your online community

Work with purpose

Know your priority
Have a strategy
Act with purpose – don’t react

DOWNLOAD LIST PDF

Photo by Jo Szczepanska on Unsplash

About when I got thrown out from Facebook and the future of social platforms

Veronica — Mon, 31 Aug 2020 09:27:51 +0000

I got thrown out from Facebook once. The reason was that I thought that it would be a great idea to have a Facebook profile for the retail company that I worked for at the time. The purpose would be to have a platform for a dialogue with the customers and get more customer insight at the time.

The formal explanation from Facebook at the time was that it was not permitted to have a Facebook account for an entity that was not a person.

Later on Facebook Pages for brands where launched.

I remember that when I returned back to Sweden in 2011, I held a talk on the subject of how brands could leverage Facebook for various pulses such as driving offline engagement in stores, gaining at the time free awareness, learn more about their customers and other such nifty things. The primary focus of the talk was on how to have a strategy for Facebook that merged customer behaviour and business goals, on the terms of the customer.

The representatives from the companies attending were quite sceptical.

I guess that having been brought up in a rural small town in Sweden, with my only window to the world that I was so curious about was though various IRC channels and later ICQ have granted me with a different point of view.

Later having seen various platforms such as MySpace, LiveJournal, YouTube, FlickR even start out as one thing and the ultimate progress into something else (MySpace was for everyone then it became mainly a source for bands to have band pages with music). It’s easy with that type of background to spot the possibilities early on with new platforms or the behaviours that will ultimately lead on to further progress of a platform. What can be done and how it can be used.

I’m not surprised that Twitch now offers streams on everything from painting to concerts.

It’s inevitable that platforms progress and with that, it’s inevitable to have a curious and open perspective. To dare to try new things as well as being curious about your own customer. Their behaviour, their perspective, life and point of view.

Photo by CJ Dayrit on Unsplash

Free Business and Marketing Resources

Veronica — Mon, 04 May 2020 06:05:38 +0000

The purpose of this website is to share my experience and knowledge. To teach and to help. It’s my way to giving back to the magical world of the internet that has thought me so much. This rich, creative space is where I have learned so much and is a foundation to where I am today. As I operate in a space where no education is on par with the developments I’ve relied on other people to create and share things.

I’ve always followed the trail of my curiosity and with that discovered books to read, podcasts to listen to, frameworks, ideas, perspectives that have nurtured me.

To both give back and contribute I’ve made some of my templates and publications available for download on this website.

My hope is that you download anything that may inspire you, help you or interest you. That you find it valuable, adapt it, develop it further, share it.

The internet is magic and this is my small part in offering what I know to this community for free to create, learn and be able to progress from.

This is what is available right now:

A guide to creating a marketing strategy

The customer experience playbook

Templates for roadmaps, planning, and other project management goodies:

Meeting minutes template (word)

Project proposal template (word)

Project evaluation questions (word)

Account Director Sales Target Template (excel)

Strategic worksheets

Manuscript with key questions to optimise your business online presence (word)

Customer Journey to online purchase (power point)

KPI framework – version 0.5 (excel)

Checklists

Simple SEO task and checklist – lists tasks you can do yourself & what to ask a developer to help you with (pdf)

SEO Content Checklist – a checklist to have in handy when you create and work with optimizing content on your website for search (pdf)

Brief templates

Programmatic display brief template (word)

A framework for conducting content creation workshops based on data

My framework and power point for conducting content workshops, based on the customer journey and insights from search data (ppt)

And much more are available for download on my templates and documents page. Feel free to use, adapt and share.

Business and marketing tools, software and sources for insight

If you want to know what marketing tools, insight sources and social media tools I recommend here are my list of business and marketing related resources that I update continually.

Do you have any requests for templates?

Feel free send me a line through the contact form. I’d be delighted to hear from you.

Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash

Modern marketing rule No 2: You need a strong why that aligns with your strategy

Veronica — Mon, 26 Aug 2019 04:59:07 +0000

To be able to handle this wonderfully fast-paced world of marketing you need a solid strategy in place. A strategy is key in knowing where you are going, why and how you define success. It’s the very essence that helps you navigate what to focus on, prioritize and what to actually say no to.

A well-defined strategy is a foundation upon which you build both your business marketing and communication.

In a fast-paced context, it can be easy to slip in pure reactive and operational mode, however, that is not going to take your business to the next level. If you only react it’s challenging to steer a business towards its goals and solve the real challenges ahead.

However a strategy is not rigid, it’s agile and adaptable but always with a focus towards the business end goal.

The framework to successfully market your brand and products on podcasts

Veronica — Mon, 15 Jul 2019 05:00:14 +0000

I’ve been an avid listener to various podcasts for years. As the medium grows in momentum I’m delighted to find even more shows to subscribe to from famous profiles, coaches and even celebrities. As more and more people dare to start their own podcast and try the waters for themselves.

Podcast is a new treasure throwe for me for knowledge, satisfy my curiosity, helps me see the world from another perspective but also keep me updated that requires no effort at all while I’m doing other things. Such as preparing my lunchboxes for the week or other usually quite mundane tasks.

I enjoy noting the progress over the years from the sidelines and its become quite a powerful medium for sharing and distributing knowledge. From a holistic perspective I think it’s absolutely beautiful that we now have a way to create shows from one’s own bedroom and connect with people all over the world, share both perspectives, experiences and knowledge. It’s another one of those magical “internet enabled things” that I think makes the world a much better place to be.

Today I stumbled across a post from one of my favourite authors on life hacks and productivity, Mr Tim Ferris, who has a podcast I’ve listened to for years.

He recently introduced an experiment, going from an ad-supported podcast to a subscription supported model, where fans subscribe monthly through donations.

True to form, Tim Ferris always communicates eloquently in terms of why he was making this change/experiment, and so forth in the most impeccable manner. (If you go a couple of episodes back and listen to that message alone, you can take away a great lesson in regards to effective and elegant communication alone.)

Anyway. First I thought perhaps that this was a trend towards going more the Patreon route, that both large and small influencers can crowdfund creative endeavours without a large corporation getting involved in any way. Thus cutting out the middle ~~aged white~~ man and enabling artists and fans to interact on their own terms. That benefits them both.

However, I’m happy to see that Tim Ferris is scrapping the fan supported donation model (despite being successful) and taking back the ads, as a result of a massive wave of feedback from his fans wanting the ads back. It turns out that many others with me enjoy the ads that Tim Ferris creates to the products and brands that he chooses to collaborate with.

Here are my two cents on why that is:

He is trustworthy – because Tim Ferris has huge credibility in his personal brand.

They are personal – he has used, tried or tested the products or service and talks about the value they add to his life.

The products are interesting choices – as one of the comments that Tim Ferris highlights in the post are that he has a large audience that wants to know about new products for effectivity, productivity, business and optimum health. To live their best life and they are often not mass market products, that are easy to find. Which brings me to the next point.

Relevancy – the brands and products are selected are highly relevant to Tim’s audience and instead of being “ads” in their true meaning, many people view this as a way to find new products for them to try that they otherwise (myself included) may never have heard of before. That is curated by Tim Ferris.

(As soon as I heard that Chaga and Lionsmane are available in convenient beverage sachets and that the brand was Finish, of course, I placed an order. Instead of having to cook lumps of Chaga for hours in my kitchen to make tea, I don’t have time for that!)

I immediately draw the conclusion that in today’s attention economy that this phenomenon will only grow but will only be successful for personalities such as Tim Ferris. Personalities that have huge credibility associated with them. That is crafted over the years.

Of course this is no silver bullet for marketing, however, if you want to reach people that are inspired by Tim Ferris and what he stands for, this will work. But it has to be highly relevant, a quality product and so forth and delivered with a personal endorsement.

I don’t believe that mass-market brands can achieve the same effect advertising on podcasts in quite the same way. Especially not the brands that take “radio commercials” and add them through the podcast app. This is both incredibly lazy and irrelevant.

Instead, if I was a CMO I would do the following:

Identify suitable profiles that your target audience truly are inspired by and look to for advice, inspiration and knowledge. Podcasts that delivers high value towards their audience.
The product needs to be relevant high quality for the individual/s in question, audience and the podcasts overarching theme.
The collaboration needs to have an authenticity to the audience and also in terms of the profile who creates the ad. (To illustrate my example – Would Seth Godin make or have an ad for Coca-Cola on his podcast? I deem that as highly unlikely)
The person who hosts the podcast should be able to create an “ad” of the product with full creative control that suits the podcast format, personality and the listeners.
Use a specific link, code or similar to track the results because the best ads will most probably yield a high amount of conversions if done right.
Avoid irrelevant radio commercials at all costs. Podcasts are an entirely different medium. You talk to specific people in a specific way.

I highly recommend to read the entire post made by Tim Ferris here and note the interesting conclusions and results he and his team have assembled from this experiment.

Photo by Alphacolor on Unsplash

The 3 keys to be more successful in your marketing – no matter the channel

Veronica — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 05:19:01 +0000

If you want to reach everyone, you are relevant to no one. Yet, with the most advanced technology available for marketing today, there is still a huge gap in terms of being specific in both targeting and messaging towards the desired audience.

One can, of course, argue that with increased targeting parameters comes an increased cost for a specific campaign or activity. However, the cost of being irrelevant is far greater. Why risk your company’s brand by being irrelevant? And in the long run, you want to craft marketing that reaches the right people when it matters, something that I argue is worth paying a premium for. Especially since in order to be able to make decisions based on data you cannot “spray and pray”.

Relevance is the key.

To increase the relevance I’m sharing the incredibly three key questions and steps that will take your marketing to the next level.

Who specifically do you want to reach?

The first thing you need to do is identify who specifically you want to reach. Create well-defined target groups from an overarching perspective.

Examples:

People in New York City that want to discover things to do nearby/outside New York City

Can be broken down into

Residents of New York City

Tourist in New York City

From these two overarching segments, you can drill down further

Residents of New York City: retired couples, hipsters, couples with children etc

Tourists in New York City: US tourists, UK tourists, German tourists etc

Goal: get specific about who you want to reach

What do you know about them?

For each specific and identified target audience that your company wants to reach, what do you know about them besides the classic demographic data? Can you craft a story about an individual that represents a person from each identified target group from the exercise above?

To be really on point with creating your customers’ persona, add their pain points. That is, the challenges they face. As well as including the gain points, in terms of positive results they are looking for. This helps you position yourself in your customers perspective and avoid the illusive trap of thinking from the “inside out”.

From here, you can start building a persona that helps you to increase the relevance of both communication and marketing tactics to specific audiences. Then you go from a personalized target group to a more specific person, with a laser focus on their specific needs.

Goal: craft a persona

Where are your target groups online and what existing behaviour can you tap into?

Once you have clearly defined and specific target groups, with a persona for each group you are in a much better position to start crafting compelling and relevant communication towards each specific customer target group.

As well as starting to research and brainstorm where you can find them online.

What channels to utilise and when in their decision journey they may be relevant.

Goal: channel selection based on existing behaviour for each target group

Photo by Amy Shamblen on Unsplash