Blog

Lara Sinclair — 4th November 2020

5 Compliance Challenges for Financial Services in 2021

With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, financial services brands around the world are under pressure to improve compliance and credibility when it comes to regulatory and governance issues.

Lara Sinclair — 22nd October 2020

How Outfit Enables Sales and Marketing to Play Nice Together

Can marketing and sales ever be perfectly aligned or is the very thought just a pipe dream?

Lara Sinclair — 2nd October 2020

6 Ways to Help Maintain a Strong Franchise Network

A strong relationship between franchisors and franchisees is critical in the current climate: one is only as strong as the other.

Lara Sinclair — 25th September 2020

7 Tips to Help Franchise Brands Tap the Trend to ‘Shop Local’

There’s no doubt the Coronavirus pandemic is driving behavioural change, whether your immediate suburb, region or country is in lockdown, or not. Thanks to COVID-19, many of us are living more local lives.

Lara Sinclair — 16th September 2020

The Law of Increasing Returns

How many times have you bought something to find the value it generates extends way beyond what you envisaged when you paid for it? The return on your initial investment is increased and the value generated can be way beyond what you initially expected.

Lara Sinclair — 9th September 2020

5 Ways Marketing can Win Friends and Influence People

It’s never been more important to be responsive. As marketers, we inherently know there are multiple audiences for any marketing message. One thing they all have in common right now is respect for an efficient response.

Alex Walker — 4th September 2020

The Building Blocks of a Responsive Brand

Businesses today are operating in circumstances that require brands to be able to connect their customers to information and products at speed. It’s not enough just to be quick to market - brands must also be adaptable.

Alex Walker & Chris Lockwood — 28th August 2020

Social Disruption and the New Need for Speed

Relevance and utility are now more important than ever as brands struggle to keep up with the changing market. We talk need for speed in times of crisis and business as usual.

Lara Sinclair — 5th August 2020

Constructive disruption: Change, adapt and invest

We know the shape of marketing activity is changing, but how is it changing? How should brands respond to these changes in order to be adaptable and how can technology help?

Lara Sinclair — 31st July 2020

7 Ways Brand Automation with Outfit helps Reduce Marketing Costs

If someone offered you a way to shave six to seven figures off your annual marketing costs and save your team thousands of hours, would you take it?

Lara Sinclair — 22nd July 2020

Marketers: what should you automate in 2020?

To come out of the COVID recession well, marketers need to maintain brand share of voice, while looking for efficiencies. Automation can get you there.

Lara Sinclair — 15th July 2020

5 Transformative Martech Trends in 2020

We're unpacking the key shifts in the changing, post-COVID-19 martech landscape including effects on budgets, prevalence of the remote workspace and more.

Lara Sinclair — 1st July 2020

Balancing Offence and Defence in a Recession

Wondering how can you protect your brand during a global pandemic? We talk about balancing offence and defence in a recession and conserving marketing budget to defend your brand’s share of voice.

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Tim Brown — 31st March 2020

What does it mean to have a responsive brand?

Outfit enables true brand responsiveness by empowering marketing teams to self produce on-brand content quickly and at scale.

James Lee — 3rd February 2020

US venture fund backs Brisbane marketing tech firm with $19.5m

Outfit has closed its second external funding round at $19.5 million, with US-based Five Elms Capital funding the entire round, as it seeks to emulate the global inroads made by fellow local design start-up Canva.

Bek Agius — 1st November 2019

Creative Content Compliance For Financial Service Brands

Marketers and creatives working in financial services are subject to some of the most stringent policies of any industry which can prove a challenge for both creativity and the efficiency of getting campaigns live in market.

Bek Agius — 28th October 2019

5 Point Guide for Implementing a Brand Design System

Some organisations are better than others at effectively managing and evolving brand over time. For those looking to really invest in brand long-term, a living, breathing design system is just what the doctor ordered.

Bek Agius — 17th October 2019

Engaging In Community Issues Can Help Your Business

When we stop thinking of our target audience as 'consumers' and instead focus on their identity as people, we learn more about their motivation. Most people are pursuing happiness, and consumption can help people feel happy but purchasing from a brand who contributes to valuable community issues provides deeper satisfaction.

Bek Agius — 11th October 2019

What is a Design System?

Anyone who has worked around a prominent brand, be it in a marketing or design capacity or as an employee within a large organisation will be familiar with a Brand Style Guide. A weighty book that sits on a desk or is used to prop up a wonky chair. Surely there must be a better way?

Bek Agius — 3rd October 2019

5 Signs Your Experiential Marketing Campaign Lacks Purpose

Experiential marketing techniques are becoming more popular as a way to engage existing customers and attract new customers. As with most elements of a cohesive marketing campaign, there is a right and a wrong way to gain the type of attention you want.

Bek Agius — 13th September 2019

The Future of Branding

In 2019 we've been exposed to, what seems like, every sales and marketing tactic under the sun. The upside is that we're slowly learning some valuable lessons. The most notable is a move away from solely investing in traditional advertising methods and towards a stronger brand that connects with the values and desires of the customer.

Bek Agius — 6th September 2019

The Challenges Of Marketing A University And How To Overcome Them

Over many years, the university experience has evolved into more than a place to obtain an accreditation, it has become a very personal decision by a student around what kind of person they'd like to become in their formative years. The result for marketers is that students take a significant amount of consideration when selecting the right university.

Bek Agius — 29th August 2019

Using Events And Experiences As Part Of An Integrated University Marketing Campaign

Using events and experiences as a part of an integrated university marketing strategy allows the audience to be taken on a journey. Combine this recipe with authentic story-telling, beautiful creative and a strong, consistent brand message and the potential to touch people, emotionally, mentally and physically is immense.

Bek Agius — 23rd August 2019

How To Build Customer Loyalty In The Real Estate Sector

Customer loyalty is crucial to building a strong brand. The Real Estate sector deals with products and services that are highly personal. It is no surprise then, that word of mouth from well nurtured customers carries significant weight with an audience of new potential customers.

Bek Agius — 13th August 2019

The Pros And Cons Of Co-Branding For Franchises

Franchise co-branding with other businesses in psychically similar industries may take many forms. Whether the co-branding activity is the sharing of physical space or simply a shared campaign, the intention is primarily to capitalise on the strength of two brands to expand the pool of customers and attract more business.

Bek Agius — 30th July 2019

How to manage an efficient digital asset workflow

Management of digital assets is an issue that organisations of every size must face at some stage of operation. Everything from logos, fonts, photography, stock imagery document files and more must be thoughtfully stored with permissions managed appropriately so that the right parts of the business are matched to the best resources for their application.

Kate Elizabeth — 22nd July 2019

How to integrate brands after a merger or acquisition

So often the brand is an afterthought to the recognition of revenue, handling of FTE and organisational strategy. It is vital you have a strong merger or integration plan (or even new brand plan) ready to go before the contract is executed.

Kate Elizabeth — 19th July 2019

4 steps to enter new markets and expand your business through new market development

Brand managers and marketing managers tasked with business expansion often look to enter new markets and expand their business through market development.

Bek Agius — 17th July 2019

How Integrating Outfit with your CRM Can Improve Collaboration and Productivity in your Business

Whether your CRM is complex or a straight out-of-the-box solution, once you've found one that fits, you'll wonder how you functioned at all before. The other likelihood is that you'll want the data contained within it to fuel almost any customer-facing activity you conduct.

Bek Agius — 11th July 2019

5 tips for onboarding your marketing team onto a new platform

Anyone who has worked in a marketing team has experienced a wealth of platforms that are no longer used. Some careful planning can make a difference and ensure your budget won't go to waste.

Kate Elizabeth — 4th July 2019

5 ways brand consistency benefits your brand

Brand consistency is hard to measure, but that doesn't mean it isn't important. At its core, branding and consistency is an investment in a business' brand promise and a commitment to making sure all areas of the business deliver that promise.

Kate Elizabeth — 20th June 2019

Why investing in brand is key for retail

It’s easy to see how investing in brand can slide down a list of business priorities when more immediate and tangible needs clamour for attention.

Kate Elizabeth — 18th June 2019

Ensuring your franchise network is on board

Running a marketing team and strategy for a franchise requires extensive marketing knowledge, an ability to negotiate complex deliverables with diverse stakeholders and strong budget mastery.

Kate Elizabeth — 11th June 2019

Developing a great marketing strategy - Part 2

Once you have the customer at the centre and understand how your campaigns will drive the results your team need to deliver, there are two more pillars of a great marketing strategy.

Kate Elizabeth — 10th June 2019

Developing a great marketing strategy - Part 1

No matter your industry, there are some key pillars around which to build a great marketing strategy. These pillars evolve as marketing and strategy trends evolve.

Kate Elizabeth — 22nd May 2019

Maximising your existing martech stack

The martech landscape is crowded, and it can be difficult for marketers to identify whether their stack is right, or optimised for maximum impact. Do you have the right platforms?

Kate Elizabeth — 12th May 2019

More than brand compliance

Businesses that work within the additional boundaries of regulatory and legislative compliance, however, have added considerations of compliance that need to work alongside the more predictable brand compliance.

Kate Elizabeth — 17th April 2019

Using data to personalise franchise marketing

Following on from our last blog post, where we looked at franchise trends for brands, we are taking a deeper dive into the use of data to personalise franchise marketing. Personalisation has become a core component of the marketers' arsenal, to the point that it is the standard operating procedure.

Kate Elizabeth — 16th April 2019

Franchise trends for brand

Franchise brands, in some categories, can be tremendously innovative, and in other verticals can wait to see which way the wind blows before deciding whether to implement a trend to their brand or operations.

Kate Elizabeth — 10th April 2019

Best practice franchise adfund management

With the most recent version of the Franchising Code in effect from 1 January 2015 and the Fairness in Franchising report from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services issued in March 2019, the world of franchising in Australia continues to be a moving feast, particularly for marketers.

Kate Elizabeth — 8th April 2019

5 tips for great local area marketing

Local area marketing (LAM), especially for new franchisees, can seem quite daunting. LAM can certainly become a complicated beast but by following these 5 tips, you can make it work for you and your store instead of you working for LAM without results!

Bek Agius — 29th March 2019

Franchise brand reputation

Brand reputation for any business, small medium or otherwise, is a fragile and valuable commodity that takes years to establish (or a moment to tear down). So what is brand reputation and how do we build it within a franchise organisation?

Kate Elizabeth — 27th March 2019

Franchise brand building

For a franchise business, successful branding is a lot like sailing with the wind behind your sails. The excellent news for franchise businesses is – you have a considerable advantage over your non-franchise competitors because you have a powerful, and recognisable brand standing behind you.

Kate Elizabeth — 26th March 2019

5 tips for multi-site franchise management

Successful franchise networks with sustainable and successful business models naturally encourage franchisees to become multi-site franchisees. These franchisees benefit because they understand the business and can scale in and around their original territory, or even in entirely different regions.

Kate Elizabeth — 21st March 2019

Empowering marketing teams

Marketing teams within an enterprise are a powerful mix of skills, experience and perspective. Your job as a leader is to empower them as a team and individually and to build the understanding of, and respect for, the marketing team within the broader organisation.

Kate Elizabeth — 15th March 2019

What is real estate marketing strategy?

Real estate marketing strategy is a series of tactics and internal planning that essentially aims to generate sales within the business. These strategies drive the movement of people from prospects to leads, and when nurtured correctly, can convert into customers.

Kate Elizabeth — 13th March 2019

What is Local Area Marketing for franchise?

Local Area Marketing (LAM) or Local Store Marketing (LSM) is a core tenet in any franchise system and is an invaluable asset to both franchisees and franchisors.

Kate Elizabeth — 27th February 2019

Brand management for franchise

Brand management for a franchise is best suited to someone who has outstanding marketing knowledge, an ability to influence stakeholders and draw upon empathy to achieve the best result for the network. The network and revenue will grow when you approach brand management in this manner.

Bek Agius — 26th February 2019

Where Real Estate Local Area Marketing is going

The Real Estate industry has historically copped a pretty bad wrap for their saturation of the market with traditional media in a mass approach. Well all of that is about to change. We're about to see more tailored content than ever before thanks to years of data collection.

Kate Elizabeth — 19th February 2019

Why you don't need another social media channel

Social media has become ubiquitous with communications and marketing, and the new and the shiny. Indeed, in recent years some of the gloss has come off the major platforms as concerns about privacy continue to mount. This isn't a PSA about privacy, but it is about smart marketing strategy.

Kate Elizabeth — 18th February 2019

Managing a marketing budget cut

Marketers, contrary to popular belief, don't play with glitter and crayons and we have a strong sense of an impending budget cut. We can read the signs (aka sales results), and know that soon the finance manager and CFO will be sitting down with us to discuss doing the same amount of work with less money.

Kate Elizabeth — 12th February 2019

Software's rising role in brand development

Software increasingly plays a vital role in successful brand development. Gone are the days of an immovable strategy, hard copy brand guidelines and only a few channels in with to advertise. To manage the expansion of brand and brand management, a proliferation of software now supports the modern marketer and brand manager.

Kate Elizabeth — 5th February 2019

Executing extra campaigns, made easier

Agility is key to an organisation’s success – it must be able to react, adapt and pivot quickly to stay on top of its game. The business landscape is constantly shifting, and consumers are confronted with more choice and more competition than ever before.

Kate Elizabeth — 31st January 2019

Brand management for universities

Brand management for universities is a beautifully intricate proposition, weaving internal and external stakeholders together in a complex ballet, not for the faint-hearted. Brand management for an institution like a university involves the understanding and development of complex brand strategies with the aim of influencing internal and external factors and building long-term brand health.

Kate Elizabeth — 30th January 2019

The importance of measuring ROI

Organisations across all industries can benefit from taking the time to measure a campaign’s return on investment (ROI).

Kate Elizabeth — 29th January 2019

What does on-brand mean?

An on brand strategy defines how a business approaches every aspect of their marketing strategy. Marketing strategies don’t just incorporate advertising - when marketing is focused, it also incorporates reputation management, social media, search engine optimisation, visual branding, and customer service.

Bek Agius — 25th January 2019

Three ways to adopt Outfit

We understand that many of our customers' organisations have unique requirements and workflows we can't expect one size to fits all - especially when it comes to automating a brand. Outfit looks different for each organisation - take a look at just three ways to adopt Outfit.

Kate Elizabeth — 23rd January 2019

Why personalisation matters to drive better results

Personalised marketing has a wealth of data to support why marketers and brand managers are using it to drive results for their organisations. Personalisation isn't just about adding merge tags - personalisation is using data at scale to increase the relevancy of the message and the brand to the person and situation.

Kate Elizabeth — 18th January 2019

How good brand management translates to results

Good brand management is the art of moving people to full engagement with your brand. Good brand management translates to results by allowing the business and the marketing and brand teams to focus on metrics that deliver an ROI.

Kate Elizabeth — 17th January 2019

How to ensure brand compliance

Managing a brand is a complex undertaking, especially if multiple stakeholders are using the brand. The more stakeholders, the more difficult it is to ensure brand compliance. As a brand manager, 'managing the brand' can be reduced to logo control, but ensuring brand compliance involves working across the entire organisation.

Kate Elizabeth — 10th January 2019

The balance between brand and ease for franchisors

As the franchisor, your priority is to build and maintain a strong brand to increase your brand equity and the goodwill for your P&L. As a franchisee, I want a brand that is easy to use when I need to produce sales and marketing collateral.

Kate Elizabeth — 10th January 2019

The best examples of marketing mistakes

It is the truest of truisms that mistakes happen, no matter how vigilantly you guard against them. Being less than perfect beings, we make mistakes, and as marketers, many of our mistakes end up in the public sphere *gulp*.

Bek Agius — 28th December 2018

The type of print documents produced through Outfit

The high-churn, monotonous work that bogs down Designers every day is not what they signed up for. Much of this volume is comprised of localised print documents and signage that can be easily automated through Outfit.

Kate Elizabeth — 20th December 2018

Rebrands we liked in 2018

You don’t have to burrow too deep into the annals of history to unearth a slew of rebranding success stories with plenty of smart and savvy moves playing out in 2018.

Bek Agius — 12th December 2018

The power of multi-edit

Scalability and efficiency are Outfit's middle names, but there is more than one way to achieve these. Let's talk about one specifically designed to make your life easier in the short-term by using common elements in documents and allowing stakeholders to multi-edit them.

Kate Elizabeth — 10th December 2018

The history of brand in 2 minutes

To understand the history of brand management, we first need to understand where the term 'brand'originated. 'Brand' in the modern sense, is commonly associated with the name of a product or service, similar to a trademark.

Kate Elizabeth — 6th December 2018

The power of brand integrity

The power of brand integrity (saying what you do and doing what you say) is at the centre of many friction points between brands and their customers. Saying what you do and doing what you say is incredibly powerful, and cannot be replaced by advertising spend, spin campaigns or investor calls.

Bek Agius — 4th December 2018

Landing pages built in Outfit

A major component in any campaign is the landing page. It's where the bulk of digital and print collateral point customers to in order to collect responses. The great news is that you don't have to be a developer to create professional, localised campaign landing pages in Outfit!

Kate Elizabeth — 29th November 2018

How does brand automation support a whole organisation?

Brand automation removes the weight of expectation for a lot of central marketing teams while supporting the whole organisation.

Kate Elizabeth — 23rd November 2018

What does it mean to debrand?

What does it mean to debrand? Somewhat confusingly, the term debrand has two definitions. Debranding: the removal of brand elements to appear less corporate and more personal, or, the shift away from any recognisable brand to appear generic.

Kate Elizabeth — 22nd November 2018

Is it time for a rebrand?

Rebranding an organisation, particularly one at enterprise level, is a complicated prospect and needs to be approached with the right framework to support a successful transition.

Bek Agius — 21st November 2018

Throwing out the old design request process

If you have ever worked in a marketing or design role in any capacity, you will be familiar with some type of design request process. Whatever your experience, we can all agree that it's a necessary process that can be frustrating and time-consuming for all involved - until now.

Kate Elizabeth — 19th November 2018

What is brand?

What is brand? There are as many definitions of 'brand' as there are brand managers and marketing 'consultants'. Your logo is not your brand. It is not your product. It is your promise to the customer.

Kate Elizabeth — 15th November 2018

How to be more efficient with marketing production

Efficiency in marketing production seems like nirvana for most marketers and heads of marketing. Seemingly out of reach for time pressured and resource-poor marketers, we know we should be more efficient, but how exactly are we meant to achieve it?

Bek Agius — 13th November 2018

Asset Library Setup

Brands are comprised of many moving parts. From the logo, fonts, colours and even language we use, to the look and feel we communicate to our customers, we are responsible for establishing systems and processes to protect these elements.

Bek Agius — 12th November 2018

The power of metadata

Metadata is a vital component of good data use and is an incredibly efficient way to get the most out of the technology. One of the most challenging parts in managing a widely distributed network of stakeholders, be it an international organisation, a franchise network or even a multi-site education corporation, is establishing a central source of truth for generic, localised information.

Kate Elizabeth — 8th November 2018

Brand management in a decentralised environment

A brand is only as strong as its weakest usage - our cumulative experiences of a brand form our impressions, and if these experiences are in disarray, if these experiences are discordant and divisive our impression of the brand is the same. These are our tips for brand management in a decentralised environment.

Kate Elizabeth — 1st November 2018

The importance of brand architecture and hierarchy

When a brand manager begins to map and develop a brand hierarchy, it is important to consider your audiences and your product or service offering.

Bek Agius — 30th October 2018

No more V12

Design, by its very nature, is iterative. When we start to involve multiple designer and stakeholder 'cooks' in the kitchen, the versions really do start to stack up.

Bek Agius — 29th October 2018

Real estate data & print are actually friends

The real estate sector is one trapped in the ultimate irony; data is essential, and yet the industry is saturated in generalised marketing material. At Outfit, we are working with some of Australia’s leading real estate agencies to combine digital and print in more meaningful ways while also creating efficiencies for agents.

Kate Elizabeth — 29th October 2018

Asset, content and brand management software

Brand management, digital asset management, content management and branding automation management are key platforms used in traditional marketing technology stacks for enterprise-level organisations, and there is much cross-over between their features and functionality.

Kate Elizabeth — 24th October 2018

The biggest challenges for a central marketing team

Central marketing teams of enterprise companies experience six common challenges in their efforts to shape a brand and marketing presence within their market.

Bek Agius — 23rd October 2018

How does Outfit's open API work?

The landscape of marketing technology is crowded and complicated. Outfit's open API allows the platform to integrate with your existing stack to increase efficiency, to increase your data use and to make it easy for teams to create campaigns and collateral easily.

Kate Elizabeth — 19th October 2018

Strategies for a house of brands or a branded house

The question of a house of brands or a branded house leads into brand architecture and is another way to approach the development of your architecture and structure.

Kate Elizabeth — 18th October 2018

The basics of brand management

Brand management is the development and execution of strategy to strengthen brand perception in the market. Your brand is only as strong as perception, and resultant sales, so it is imperative to have a brand management strategy.

Kate Elizabeth — 17th October 2018

What is brand automation?

Brand automation may be a relatively new concept for many marketers and brand managers, but it solves very key issues for enterprise marketing teams, including branding inconsistencies and design workflow and volume bottlenecks.

Bek Agius — 17th October 2018

How you can use data through Outfit

Most marketing teams have pools and pots of data and often don't maximise, or even use, the data they have to deliver personalised content and a better user experience. Outfit integrates with your key data sources to use your data to drive creative, branded output.

Jahl Herapath — 11th October 2018

Never Not Creative: Event Recap

With help from the rad dudes at Streamtime, Andy Wright and Paddy Morgan - Outfit recently hosted the first community-driven Never Not Creative event in Brisbane, furthering the discussion around internships.

Bek Agius — 5th October 2018

One template, powerful options

Outfit templates are powerful tools because they employ the rules set out by your brand style guide and apply them dynamically, like a friend guiding you away from bad decisions and making smart, on-brand design tweaks easier.

Kate Elizabeth — 4th October 2018

More power through on-brand templates

Templates for brand control have evolved a lot over the years. Gone are the days of Microsoft Office and editable PDFs. Welcome to the world of powerful, responsive and controlled templates.

Kate Elizabeth — 28th September 2018

How to calculate the ROI of Outfit

Demonstrate the ROI of implementing Outfit using our ROI Calculator, and understand the assumptions and calculations that drive it.

Bek Agius — 25th September 2018

Inputs explained: a glossary

Inputs are a powerful feature of Outfit, allowing users to customise their documents within the boundaries of your guidelines. The different types of input range from colour to text to choice to image.

Kate Elizabeth — 25th September 2018

Design without the designer

Design without the designer can seem counter-intuitive to organisations who depend on strong brand controls and guidelines to strengthen brand equity. The right sort of design without the designer however, is a powerful paradigm shift for companies.

Bek Agius — 24th September 2018

How to use Inputs to make your life easier

Brand automation allows graphic designers to focus more on bespoke work by empowering internal stakeholders to produce their own collateral. Outfit supports this independence with inputs - allowing some customisation without decreasing brand governance.

Bek Agius — 24th September 2018

How can my real estate agency marketing be more efficient?

With real estate becoming ever more competitive, finding ways to be efficient in marketing can make an enormous difference to your time and bottom line. Outfit integrates with your existing technology stack to make it easy to produce marketing at scale.

Kate Elizabeth — 16th August 2018

Never Not Creative: Unpaid Internships

Paid and unpaid internships are prevalent within the creative sphere. The team at Outfit feel so passionately about paid internships, and the future of happy and healthy creatives we are hosting the first Never Not Creative Brisbane event.

Bek Agius — 13th April 2018

Centralised Approvals Feature

If you're interested in Brand Automation to gain more control over marketing material and reduce human error, we need to talk about Approval Workflows.

Ash Thompson — 27th February 2018

Why Does Outfit Have an Approval Process if it's All Automated?

If you're interested in Brand Automation to gain more control over marketing material and reduce human error, we need to talk about Approval Workflows.

Ash Thompson — 19th February 2018

5 Things You Need Before You Implement Outfit

Not sure if you are ready to implement Outfit? We've created a quick list below that will get you well on your way to brand automation!

Bek Agius — 13th February 2018

Seamless Updates for Dummies

Responsive landing pages, HTML email templates and blog posts are all cool tech smarts that we're grateful for, right up until we have to make changes to them. Imagine if content experts, designers or marketing coordinators didn't have to have coding cred to update a HTML landing page or email template...

Bek Agius — 16th January 2018

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