The Step Change Blog

The latest thinking on business, strategy, marketing and sales

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August 24, 2023

Marketing Budget: How Much Should You Spend on Marketing?

Predatory Marketing, Business Strategy, Branding, Marketing Strategy, Decision Making, Business Growth, Challenger Brands, Alignment, Brand Building, Strategy Frameworks, Brand Positioning, Measures That Matter, Strategic Planning, Brand Saliency

Finalising your budget? 

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November 3, 2022

Brand Strategy: 5 Steps To Unlock Powerful Business Opportunities

Predatory Marketing, Customer Journey, Ashton Bishop, Step Change, Branding, Customer Centricity, Differentiation, Distinctive Brand, Brand Positioning

UPDATED: As of 3 November 2022

Let’s face it— we’re in a marketing battleground. Your business is only one of the hundreds or even thousands competing for your customer’s attention. If your goal is to win the war for attention, you need to differentiate yourself in a way that actually matters to your customers.

While this sounds obvious, it’s not. All too often, businesses assume they understand what is important for their customers.

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February 10, 2022

5 Elements You Need to Create a Powerful Value Proposition

Predatory Marketing, Branding, Popular Posts, Value Proposition

UPDATED: As of 2 June 2022

When creating your value proposition, one thing you should never forget is that people make emotional decisions and then rational justifications. They are not buying the product or service. They are buying the benefits or outcomes they receive.

A truly great value proposition focuses on this by including these 3 things to get maximum value:

  1. Ground in insight and an understanding of what your customers really want
  2. Powerful and relevant brand messaging 
  3. Alignment with your purpose and tone to be memorable and believable
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September 25, 2018

Predatory Marketing: How to Increase Your ROI without Spending Another Cent [with Examples]

Predatory Marketing, Marketing Strategy

Predatory marketing is what the big and memorable brands and fast-growing startups use to differentiate themselves and cut through the marketing noise. It’s all about striking at the weakness that arises from your competitor’s greatest strength.

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December 14, 2017

The Power of Predatory

Predatory Marketing, Marketing Strategy

Webinars deliver tremendous value both to the business and the audience. It’s a great and cut-through way to share, engage, connect, and educate your audience wherever they are in the world. That’s why we’ve always been fans of webinars.

Recently, Step Change had the privilege of leveraging the power of webinars.

Our CEO, Ashton Bishop, presented “Predatory Marketing: Repositioning the Competition to Build Business” to 76 CEOs, CMOs, and Marketing Directors for a series powered by GoToWebinar.

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June 16, 2017

How to Beat Amazon in Australia: Get Predatory Marketing

Predatory Marketing, Marketing Strategy

The retail giant is making its long-awaited move into Australia, bringing its new brand of instant retail distribution to Down Under. While previously only available with expensive shipping and sales in USD, the average Australian consumer will now have easy access to products from around the world in local currency and a higher level of convenience.

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March 21, 2017

Top 3 Marketing Pitfalls FinTech Companies Make

Predatory Marketing, Marketing Strategy

FinTech is a unique industry. It is the merging of the two areas that require the most credibility in any given industry — finance and technology. It requires trust from the customer and a certain degree of transparency from the company.

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November 11, 2016

What’s Going on at Step Change?

Predatory Marketing, Step Change, Powerful Presence

Super producer wanted, November Powerful Presence wrap-up, predatory marketing — this week's news bits at Step Change.

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October 21, 2016

5 Minutes of Predatory Marketing with Ashton Bishop

Predatory Marketing, Step Change

This week, Ashton had the pleasure of speaking with Dawn Russel of The Heartware Group, in her new episode of Adrenaline Shot Interview.

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July 14, 2016

Turning Marketing on Its Head: The Rise of Predatory Marketing

Predatory Marketing, Marketing Strategy

All of us want our message heard. Predatory Marketing is the way to go if you want to stand out from your competitors, rise above the marketing noise and create impact in your industry.

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February 26, 2016

Friday Finds: Robot Workforce, Bad Roads and Bending Phones

Predatory Marketing, Ashton Bishop, iPhone, Marketing Strategy, Robots, Ford, Bendy Phones

Machines running the world, building the worst road on Earth and the iPhone mistake that turned into a technological success. This is Friday Finds - our take on the top three things happening in the world today

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August 31, 2015

How do we beat Vegemite?

Predatory Marketing, Stump the Strategist, Business Growth, FMCG

Watch us tell David how to take down Goliath in under nine minutes.

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February 6, 2015

5 steps to a predatory marketing campaign for small business

Predatory Marketing, B2B Sales, Marketing Strategy

Find out who your biggest competitor is, what their greatest strength is, and how you can create a campaign based around the weakness arising out of that.

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February 4, 2015

Virtual Stump the Strategist - Marketing problems solved in 9 minutes

Predatory Marketing, Distribution, Branding, Stump the Strategist, Cause-Related Marketing

This week's Virtual Stump The Strategist answers questions on consumer apps and coffee shops live in 9 minutes. See if these answers can apply to you here

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February 3, 2015

How the Robin Hoods of marketing give small businesses a fighting chance

Predatory Marketing, B2B Sales, Marketing Strategy

The smaller your business, the more resourceful you need to be with your marketing. A strategy called predatory marketing may be just what you need to grow.

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November 3, 2014

Why predatory marketing is not private about your privates

Predatory Marketing, Our Work

By giving permission to be not so private about their privates, UbyKotex gave young women freedom of expression. Controversial- yes, but very successful!

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October 28, 2014

How Predatory Marketing Got Australians To Like Pork Again

Predatory Marketing

We needed to find the advantages of Australian pork over beef. Find out here how we used predatory marketing to force reappraisal of pork with a health message.

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October 14, 2014

How We Created A Master Brand Story For Sanitarium

Predatory Marketing

The Sanitarium brand wasn't as well known as some individual product brands. Find out here how predatory marketing was applied to share their brand values.

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October 9, 2014

Bundy Red Converts Bourbon Drinkers With Predatory Marketing

Predatory Marketing, FMCG, alcohol

Bundy Red needed a core message that wouldn't cannibalise the Bundy Yellow market. Find out here how predatory marketing was applied to this scenario.

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October 2, 2014

Predatory Marketing Vs A Top End Beauty Product Leader

Predatory Marketing, FMCG

How do you compete with a brand that took top-end beauty products mainstream? Find out how you can strike at the weaknesses that arise from this strength.

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September 23, 2014

The Predatory Marketing Strategy Of Making People Think

Predatory Marketing

The Australian, the leading national news brand, effectively forced their readers to form their own opinion on a subject using predatory marketing techniques.

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August 22, 2014

You Don’t Have To Be Nudie To Get A Good Drink

Predatory Marketing

Nakula, small player in the coconut water industry, positioned themselves in the marketplace to overcome the big guys, like Nudie. How did they do it?

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August 19, 2014

How McDonald’s Got Beaten At Their Own Game

Predatory Marketing

Don’t get us wrong, McDonald’s are brilliant marketers but they often do chicken ads where everybody goes, “yeah I fancy chicken” - then they go to KFC. Why?

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August 1, 2014

Predatory Inspirations Part 1: MAC VS PC

Predatory Marketing

People who say competitive advertising does not work obviously have not seen the worlds most loved brand in action.

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April 22, 2014

Go Predatory… With Class, Elegance And Dignity

Predatory Marketing, B2B Sales, Domenico de Rosa, Animation, Marketing Strategy

Are you a classy predator? In a dog-eat-dog market we need to be predatory with our competitors, but the best way to do it is with elegance, class and dignity.

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