When working with our corporate customers, we plan our strategies and tactics to result in business growth - this includes increasing our clients’ customer base, increasing the amount of business conducted with existing customers and broadening marketshare and brand recognition in their industry as a whole. These same tenets can be applied to workforce investment organizations and their partners; however there is one important difference: Corporate clients charge their customers for their products and services; as such, the “sell” is more challenging. Conversely, workforce investment and business support organizations provide pre-paid services to their job seeker and business customers. What’s more, job seekers and businesses are truly appreciative of the services they receive, making it easier to convert them from a “prospect” to a one-stop customer. But why then do some workforce investment organizations seem to do a better job of reaching out to businesses and the community? The answer is simple: Some one-stops are more actively reaching out.
Developing and implementing a strategic outreach campaign is not difficult, but it does require an organization to place a greater emphasis and focus on outreach and marketing activities. This can be accomplished by establishing a marketing committee comprised of key staff and partners. The committee can then discuss options internally, and/or they can bring an outside agency in to review existing outreach campaigns to determine if other strategies or tactics would be beneficial.
We have worked with several One-Stops to develop strategic marketing plans and targeted outreach tools, and we have also encouraged organizations to leverage relationships with partners and the media to take advantage of “free” marketing and PR opportunities. Here are some suggestions your marketing committee may wish to consider:
Professionally Designed Outreach Collateral: Develop new full-color brochures, datasheets, flyers etc. Consider designing and printing a presentation folder to house the new materials. Distribute your new collateral at job fairs and community events as well as during rapid response. Be sure local media outlets also receive the materials. Materials can also be disseminated to One-Stop visitors.
Video Production: Create one or more videos that can play in your lobby as well as stream from your website. Ideas include: customer success story video, one-stop orientation video; video focusing on the one-stop partnership; video discussing in-demand occupations; employer services orientation video
Interactive Media: Develop and produce an interactive CD with click & read content as well as links to relevant web resources; if you have developed a video, include the video on the CD as well. Distribute the CD to job seekers, businesses and the media.
Updated Website: Refresh your website with a new look and feel as well as fresh content; be sure your web content is updated frequently so that it is always relevant to job seekers, businesses, partners, internal staff, the media and the community at large.
Social Networking Tools: Create Facebook and MySpace pages; launch a Twitter account and assign a few staffmembers to post updates - be sure your youth services staff participate in these activities as social networking is a major communications tool for teens and young adults.
Large Format Printing: Forgo “motivational posters” and stock imagery and instead improve the decor of your One-Stop by designing and printing large images that spotlight your organization’s success. Have a professional photographer shoot custom photos of your clients and staff; seek out “success story quotes” from job seekers and businesses and include them in some of these prints.
Upgrade your PowerPoint: Design an attractive background template for your PowerPoint presentations, and ensure all staff utilize only this approved template. Standardize font style and size, and prohibit use of “clip art” imagery.
Leverage Media Contacts: Submit press releases to local media contacts to promote client success stories as well as upcoming events. Reach out to contacts with follow-up calls and emails to encourage them to print the releases, but also to request that a custom story be written. Due to the recession, reporters will likely be more receptive now than they have been previously - take advantage of the opportunity to finally get the press your organization deserves.
Should you decide to engage an agency or marketing consultant to assist your organization, attempt to determine a budget before you begin. Knowing the available budget will help the chosen agency/consultant to make recommendations for how best to allocate the dollars in a way that gives you the “most bang for your buck”. Be sure that the agency or consultant you choose has experience in your industry and that they understand your challenges. This will not only ensure a smooth working relationship, but will also help to limit the expense of a learning curve.
Most technology companies don’t give much thought to branding, either because they think they can’t afford it, or they just don’t know how to go about it. In this paper, we’ll discuss how building brands has a direct effect on the bottom line, and how you can effectively brand your company without spending a fortune.
Developing Your Strategy
If you are a marketer or CEO, work in a technology company, and mention branding in a meeting, you’ve probably heard some of the following statements:
“We don’t need to brand, we just need to sell.”
“Branding isn”t measurable.”
‘It’s too expensive.”
“We’re great technologists. How hard can branding be?”
“We’ll do it ourselves.”
“Our product is so good it will sell itself.”
During the boom of the late 1990s, it was possible for technology companies to stay afloat without paying too much attention to their brand since it seemed to be raining money, but today’s market climate is radically different. The technology companies that will thrive and prosper going forward are the ones able to command customer loyalty, a premium price, and a premium valuation. Central to these successful
companies is a well-defined and focused brand.
Create the Offer
Let’s get a few of the preliminary definitions out of the way: a brand is a unique combination of rational and emotional values and qualities associated with a single product, service or organization that leaves an impression in the audience’s mind, and which acts as a credible guarantee of quality. Over time, a brand can become a valuable asset through accumulated customer experiences based on investment made in quality, clarity, and consistency of communication.
Brands begin as ideas, making their way into planning and strategy documents, yet ultimately reside as consumer perceptions. For some companies, brands are their most valuable asset. The space a brand occupies inside a customer’s head can create enormous value to the company, as a relationship grows out of the cumulative memory and the experiences customers have of products or services.
As such, brand building is about creating value through the provision of a compelling and consistent customer experience that satisfies customers and keeps them coming back.
The Layers of a Brand
Brands are made up of four layers: the core product or service, the basic brand, the augmented brand, and the potential brand.
Product / Service
At the most basic level, customers buy products to meet certain functional needs. However, most products and services cannot survive on functionality alone since other products will eventually become more competitive over time and lead to commoditization. Therefore, building a strong brand can be an effective barrier to competition.
The Basic Brand
The basic brand consists of the “name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors.” Essentially, it should support the offering’s performance and differentiate the brand from those of competitors.
The Augmented Brand
Successful companies seek a competitive edge through the enlargement of the core product or service (with supplementary products and services) that enhance the customer’s total purchasing and use experience. These products and services add value and make the offering much more difficult for competitors to emulate.
The Potential Brand
A brand achieves its potential when added values are so great that customers will not willingly accept substitutes, even when the alternatives are cheaper or more readily available. Some consumer companies that wield a powerful potential brand are BMW, Starbucks, Coca-Cola and Nike. A few technology companies that have strong potential brands are Hewlett-Packard, Sony, and Nokia.
How Brands Create Value
Why has the interest in branding spread beyond the traditional consumer goods area? Customers now have a vast array of choices available to them through traditional channels. The Internet has added to the confusion, providing an even greater selection of goods and services without geographic restraints. Without the familiarity of trusted brands, the consumer can be overwhelmed. Certainly it is difficult for a company without a strong brand to make a market impression in the face of so much competition.
Whereas companies once measured their worth by their tangible assets―plants, assets, inventories and cash―they are now realizing that a strong brand has the power to command a premium price among customers and a premium valuation from investors.Ford Motor Company, ranked number eight in brand equity, had a rough 2001. The Firestone tire episode took a toll on the company, as did a series of quality problems and the departure of Jacques Nasser, the company’s CEO. Although the company’s position rebounded somewhat by the end of the year due to some aggressive (and debatable) financing offers, in August, first half earnings were down 91% from the previous year. The brand took a beating and as a result, the company’s ability to attract customers and command a premium price declined. As a result,
the company’s brand was worth $30.1 billion, down $6.3 billion from 2000.
There are several key points to remember about building and maintaining your brand:
The Brands, The Market Share and The Profits ― In a typical consumer market, a brand leader obtains twice the market share of the number two brand, and the number two twice the share of the number three. The brand leader is the most profitable and all beyond number two tend to be much so.
The Brand Leverage ― The brand leader benefits from two main effects: higher volume leads to economies of scale in development, production and marketing; and premium pricing increases revenue.
The Value of Niche Brands ― Dominating a niche market is usually more profitable than being fourth or fifth in a large market.
The Brand Loyalty and The Beliefs ― Strong brands are more attractive to investors. Brand loyalty also reduces marketing costs and enables firms to override problems.
The Brand Barrier ― Brand leaders usually have the financial strength to fend off competitors.Potential competitors are usually reluctant to enter the market if existing brands satisfy customers. In addition, brand leaders can exploit their superiority in the market.
Can Small Brands Compete?
Definitely. Granted, if you think of a strong brand, chances are you’re going to say something like BMW, Nike or Tylenol. In each case, it’s a global brand that’s had millions and millions of advertising and promotional money put behind it. Even so, there’s room for a small brand to be successful in its own market space, and you don’t have to break the bank to do it. Whatever the merits of the Nike “swoosh,” we’ve all seen it so many times that the brand image is pretty well burned into our heads. Large corporations like Nike must spend huge amounts of money to be present everywhere, and to maintain their brand. That’s a weakness that can be taken advantage of by a small company. (Not to mention that large companies can have a very difficult time managing their brand through the long and complex delivery chain that might involve subcontractors or franchises.)
A company’s brand, in addition to all the things we mentioned earlier, is a collection of experiences that satisfy the consumer’s needs, whether an intellectual, emotional or ego appeal. Consider things like service, packaging, public relations, sales interactions and office culture all part of the brand, and this is where small companies can win at branding. The key is using existing communications channels to reach your target market with your brand message.
Branding Services Companies
Many technology companies are service oriented. There are stiff barriers to effective services branding, since these companies don’t have a boxed, tangible product. Trying to put a brand around a methodology can also be difficult, because business consumers can have problems creating a brand image around an abstract process. Systems integration methodology is just not very sexy. That said, services companies must build and maintain their brand by focusing on other areas.
Services companies can build their brand by creating and promoting a corporate personality. This might involve promoting certain executives at market events, training consultants to convey the corporate personality in their client interactions and in their project delivery.Branding is not accomplished so much through advertising and marketing as through focusing on instilling the corporate brand into the consultants who are interacting with clients.
People who have worked for Electronic Data Systems (EDS), the large systems integration firm founded by H. Ross Perot, intimately understand services branding. The first two weeks of every new consultant’s career is spent at a high intensity two-week “boot camp” that sets the tone for his or her initial assignments. During this time, consultants learn the EDS dress code, EDS philosophy and ethics, the EDS coding style and approach, and even the EDS style of making presentations. What may seem like an unnecessary waste of two weeks to these new consultants is in fact EDS’ significant expenditure in protecting its brand.What EDS is selling is a serious, rigorous, competent approach to solving problems, and the consultants are the delivery vehicles. By investing time and money in this process, EDS ensures with a high degree of certainty that its clients receive a consistent product regardless of the specific consultant assigned to the project.
Marketers can increase their profitability by as much as 85% by decreasing customer defections by a mere 5%.
A more recent example of a services firm that took a more aggressive approach to traditional branding is Scient. A systems integrator whose methodology might or might not have been any better than their competitors such as Viant, Sapient and CTP, Scient rose above the fiercely competitive Web integration marketplace by bursting out of the gate with a focused, repetitive message: We hired the “dream team.” For competitors in the market, the news of the hire of Bob Howe, founder of IBM’s consulting practice, was greeted with jitters and dread.
This messaging ran a few months while the company’s executives aggressively courted big name clients.As win announcements began to hit the wires, the company shifted tack to promote themselves as thought leaders, playing off the term “systems integrators” with the slogan “systems innovators.”The slogan has since changed to “eBusiness innovators,” but the idea’s the same. Every press and analyst contact with their executive team strengthened this message as they created a lexicon of Scient terminology, which in turn led clients to believe that the company was onto something in solving the technical problems of the “new economy.”Scient suffered from the Web integration market collapse like everyone else, but while the space was especially hot, the value of its brand was huge. In fact, their branding efforts contributed to a big upside in the company’s bottom line, from launch to IPO and beyond.
“Adaptability is not all you need to succeed; it is inherently reactive and relies on luck. Strategy is what you need—and if you don’t have one, you will become part of someone else’s.”
Tom Johnson, Toffler Associates and Alan White, MIT
What Business are you In?
Every branding paper is compelled to mention Disney at some point, so here goes. What business is Disney in? They have amusement parks, films, Broadway shows and other entertainment vehicles, so it could be entertainment. But how does the Disney-planned town of Celebration, Florida fit in? What about mall stores? Neither of those is really entertainment, per se. Disney’s business can be thought of as keeping alive the magic of childhood.In this context, all the different businesses Disney operates begin to make sense.
What if Arm & Hammer thought baking soda was only good for baking at home? When that use became less common, they adapted, suggesting other uses for baking soda. Now they sell an entire line of fresheners and cleaners that contain baking soda. They defined a business strategy and adapted their brand accordingly. According to Stan Richards of The Richards Group in Dallas, a good business definition gives you the latitude to exploit new opportunities and adapt to changing market conditions while providing the parameters to know when not to expand into businesses that don’t fall within your definition.A clear definition will:
Be specific enough to influence the strategic and resource allocation decisions within your company
Focus on satisfying customer needs rather than on the current physical characteristics of the product being sold
Reflect the essential skills of your organization and signal when those need to be expanded
Enable the organization to recognize future threats beyond your normal set of “blinders”
Be attainable, but with difficulty
Be brief and memorable so that everyone in the company can be inspired by it.
On the Other Hand…
A wise venture capitalist said that all the dot com funding over the past few years was like playing a baseball game with the outfield fences moved in about a hundred yards. All of a sudden, business plans that were doubles were getting knocked out of the park.Pets.com was a small brand that competed vigorously, but was doomed by an untenable business plan. It was a case of a company that ended up with a brand that was ultimately worth more than the company’s core business.Not that they understood this from the beginning.Early in the company’s existence, a technology partner called up the public relations person who he had been working with to see if he could get a sock puppet. It wasn’t the first time she had been asked, and she had her answer ready. “Oh no,” she said. “We aren’t selling the sock puppet. He’s too valuable.” That attitude changed a few months later when it became clear that sock puppets were cheaper to ship than 50-pound bags of dog food.
Pets.com faced a crowded B-to-C pet care market with fairly low barriers to entry and a business plan that focused on getting customer share at the expense of profits. Against competitors who might or might not have run a tighter business, Pets.com definitely had the mind of the consumer. That the brand had overtaken the core business was especially evident on Good Morning America in which the sock puppet had an entire segment with Diane Sawyer. A few months after it was over the sock puppet was still being advertised in a closeout catalog.
All in all, Pets.com was a case of a brand that was strong, memorable and contributed to a definite increase in customer business, loyalty and mind share. It was just tied to a company with a business plan that was a double.
About NIA Creative
NIA was founded in 1996 and has grown to become one of the most trusted go-to partners for technology, medical/biotech, public/non-profit, financial service and consumer firms around Silicon Valley and the U.S. More than 225 major clients have turned to NIA for their branding needs, including Adobe, Apple, Baxter BioScience, Biogen Idec, Carl Zeiss Meditec, City of San Jose, Genentech, Hitachi Data Systems, Honeywell, Kaiser Permanente, Nikon Precision, NuGEN Technologies, Philips, Samsung, SellPoint, Sun Microsystems, Themis, Workday and Zhone Technologies. NIA has also worked with venture bankers to create more than 75 IPO road show presentations.
NIA is unique in that both traditional agency and full-scale production services are available in-house. This enables our team to have greater creative control, while simultaneously reducing costs. And because we are a boutique agency, our clients experience highly personalized services that are conceived, driven and led by key members of the executive and creative teams - not by junior account people. NIA’s services include advertising and branding, web development, video production, animation, interactive media development and tradeshow/ event marketing.For more information, visit www.niacreative.com.
Creating and supporting your brand is more important than ever in rising above a noisy market and differentiating yourself from your competitors. If you’d like more information on how we can analyze and revitalize your
In recent years, there has been a great deal of interest in building business via social networking. MySpace initiated the trend, but it wasn’t the best vehicle for business development. Then came LinkedIn, a powerful career-building tool for professionals.But it was really the growing blogosphere and Facebook that made the greatest impact on marketers, followed more recently by Twitter.
Some marketers have made attempts with social networking, but felt that the effort wasn’t worth the return – they didn’t see the expected increases in traffic to their corporate site, nor did they see an increase in revenue that could be attributed to the time spent creating profiles, writing creative blog posts, digging, mixing and tweeting…On the other hand, some businesses have found amazing success with social networking.The difference?Like so many other activities, it takes practice and persistence to develop and refine the skills needed to effectively market your business and products with social network tools.
Here are some strategies that will help you improve the results of your social networking efforts:
Overall:
Choose just a few social networking sites and stick with them – don’t try to be active on all of them or you will find yourself overwhelmed with posts and updates spread too thin across a lot of sites.
Be sure that if you sign-up, that you will take the time to participate to a certain degree – the more active you are, the more people will get to know you and your business.
Facebook:
Create a unique profile to grab the attention of customers, prospective customers and strategic partners.Be sure to complete the profile form in detail, emphasizing the strengths of your company and its products and services.
Post relevant content on your wall:Industry news, tips on using your products/services, testimonial commentary and/or case studies about how your producst/services have helped people, special offers, links to reviews of your product, etc.
Blogs:
Write intelligent and interesting blog posts, focusing on relevant topics. Don’t be afraid to express an opinion – blogs should not just be informative; they should create an emotional response from your readers. By creating an emotional response, you will encourage readers to comment on your blog as well as to share the post with others.
Share content via social news and bookmarking sites like Digg, Delicious, Stumble Upon, Technorati and more. Sharing your content will result in better search engine indexing as well as increased traffic to your site.
Visit related blogs on other sites and post comments with links back to related articles on your own blog.
Twitter:
Tweet about business news and events, and share links to blog posts & white papers, keeping your updates fresh, relevant and professional.
Tweet often enough to keep things fresh and relevant, but not so much that your followers will be annoyed.
Avoid trying to sell your services on Twitter as you will quickly turn-off your followers.
When someone chooses to follow you, consider returning the favor. And spend some time looking for like-minded people and businesses that you would like to follow and reply to.
Spend some time looking at tweets from competing companies so that you can better target your customers.
While there are many advantages to social networking, it is important to understand that it is just one of several tools in the marketing arsenal.Social networking enables you to cast a wide net for a very low cost, but you’ll find that, in general, more direct marketing efforts will be more effective in generating qualified leads and closing sales.
At NIA, last year we launched a blog and just recently we established a Facebook Page and also can now be followed on Twitter. We’re still refining our presence on these sites and hoping that over the next few months, our efforts will result in some “critical mass” leading to increased site traffic on our corporate site as well as new opportunities to introduce our services to potential customers. The greatest challenge is the amount of time and energy it takes to be effective with social networking – but we are committed to the effort and in a future newsletter will report back on how things are going.
As evidenced by its ramping popularity, humor is uniquely capable of entertaining and persuading audiences that have become cynical and unresponsive to run-of-the-mill content. While this makes satire and parody common in late-night television, the application of humor in advertising and marketing can be very effective as well. Consumers inevitably grow more and more savvy to traditional marketing and advertising tactics. Often, after a lifetime’s worth of exposure to marketing that demands attention, consumers train themselves to ignore these efforts altogether. Similarly, on the trade show floor or during a pitch, sometimes a good idea will be overlooked because it sounds little too much like standard boilerplate. In either situation, it is common for the most important messages to be filtered out.
Humor offers marketers a different option. Intelligent, unexpected and impactful, humor is unique in its ability to move in “under the radar.” It should be noted that marketers should consider what type of humor they want to employ - options include satire and parody as well as general humor. Humor offers an advantage in that it can appear to be something else at first glance. For example, truly deadpan forms of satirical advertising might not even resemble a traditional ad, and allow great flexibility. While the effective use of inductive advertising is well known, satire uses a special formula. There is an extra layer of information behind satirical ads that must be teased out by the audience in order to be understood. The viewer needs to actually think about the content being delivered, which naturally increases their involvement, and ultimately, their retention of information. Satirical content in ads can disarm cynicism. A self-referential, satirical ad allows the advertiser to create a perceived distance between themselves and their product. If the audience identifies with skeptical ideas about a product, providing those ideas directly makes it possible to control the narrative and ultimately change their perception to positive.
Parody can be useful with both internal and external customers. We have explored parody via tradeshow booth presentations that parody popular television programs as well as feature films, creating a live interactive presentation for the audience that entertains as well as informs. Our client Tensilica finds that offering a truly entertaining booth presentation can make the difference in attracting not only crowds of attendees, but also qualified leads. This year, we produced a booth presentation that spoofed Dr. Who for Tensilica’s booth at the Design Automation Conference (DAC). In previous years, we produced parodies of Star Trek episodes.
We have also had great success with developing entertaining presentations for annual sales meetings for Cadence Design Systems, OnStation, Verisity Design, DEY LP and more. Examples include parodies of Mission Impossible, The Apprentice, Pulp Fiction, etc. Some clients worry that using humor at a sales event might detract from messaging and tactics they need to present - but we have found that sales teams respond much better to presentations that are motivating and fun, and a stronger relationship between marketing and sales can be forged at these events.
It should be noted that humor isn’t appropriate for all industries or all audiences. As such, if you are interested in exploring options for an upcoming campaign or event, share your ideas and concerns with your agency to ensure that your project achieves the desired impact.
As Creative Director in a boutique integrated marketing communications agency, I see an interesting, albeit fragmented view, of the marketing world from where I sit.
It seems that no matter what industry a client represents, and regardless of messaging and positioning or customer buying trends, the bottom line basic B2B strategy is generally the same: Increase corporate brand awareness and product awareness to result in increased revenue. Traditionally, this has translated into familiar marketing tactics: Print ads, brochure(s), datasheets and direct mail. In the current belt-tightening economy, marketers need to consider other options – options that are not only more cost-effective but also offer measurable results. That said, it is truly surprising how often our clients feel compelled to allocate their dwindling budget towards the former rather than the latter. Perhaps this is because the traditional marketing methods feel more “comfortable” than venturing into something new. Or perhaps there is some uncertainty about customer trends and the effectiveness of newer tactics such as web banner ads, e-blasts, online product demos etc. These are important concerns, so let’s take a moment to review current trends and some statistical data. ….click here to read more
When I was growing up, color came in a crayon box. It showed up with mysterious names like periwinkle, and it revealed itself as shades of difference when I rubbed it against my coloring book page. As I became a more sophisticated artist, I began to draw a dark outline around the empty space and color the inside lighter. Little did I know that I was dealing with values variations. I would come to learn that there is much more to color than what Crayola taught me. ….click here to read more
It’s a random Tuesday morning. You have hardly blown the froth off your double cappuccino latte grande when you get an urgent call to the CEO’s office. “Fire drill. We have to cut the marketing budget by 20%” she says.….click here to read more
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That said, it is truly surprising how often our clients feel compelled to allocate their dwindling budget towards the former rather than the latter. Perhaps this is because the traditional marketing methods feel more “comfortable” than venturing into something new. Or perhaps there is some uncertainty about customer trends and the effectiveness of newer tactics such as web banner ads, e-blasts, online product demos etc. These are important concerns, so let’s take a moment to review current trends and some statistical data.