In our work with organizations, primarily in service professions (e.g. healthcare, consulting), we often find one critical audience overlooked–employees. Particularly for service organizations, employees are everything. They literally are the product! If they aren’t kept informed about your company’s mission, vision, values and desired brand image, they can’t help you support your brand.
The big question for you: do your employees understand your desired brand image? (more…)
Expanding communication opportunities bring both benefits and challenges to marketers today. While the availability of a wide range of communication options can be empowering, it can also be overwhelming. Which to use? When? How? How can you ensure that you’re not just wasting your time?
Marketing staff at both large and small organizations are finding themselves faced with significant opportunities today, but these opportunities can translate into a significant amount of work. What can they do to ensure that their time is being spent most effectively? (more…)
The best product or service in the world won’t be well received by customers if it is delivered poorly. Businesses of any kind and any size — whether virtual or bricks and mortar — must deliver exceptional customer service to compete effectively in what has become an increasingly competitive business environment. With businesses able to sell their goods literally around the world, your field of competitors has increased exponentially.
That means that you need to ensure that your employees are prepared to
Why do strategic planning efforts so often fail? It’s a question I ponder a lot and one that I’m asked frequently by clients and business colleagues. I work with companies of all sizes and in a variety of industries on strategic planning efforts. Previously as a marketing manager/director of corporate communications in the education, energy and healthcare industries I was involved in a range of strategic planning activities from business planning to the development of marketing plans and project-specific plans.
Most of these plans are developed, reviewed, revised–and, sadly, forgotten. Here are some of the key factors that I believe contribute to the successful execution of a strategic plan — whether it’s a business plan, a marketing plan, or a project plan. The process is the same, and so are the potential pitfalls.
We recommend these best practice steps: (more…)
We all make mistakes and most of us have learned over the years that making mistakes and, most importantly, successfully recovering from those mistakes can be great learning experiences. In fact, I’ve noticed in the communication classes that I teach that it’s one thing for me to tell students, for instance, that they need to proofread carefully and that they should be particularly attentive to client and company names and another thing entirely when they actually make such an error and the client notices it. They learn far more from the latter.
The most important thing that anyone can do to recover effectively from a mistake is: (more…)
Subcribe to This Blog
Brand Evaluation
We’ll help you assess the gaps between how you’d like to be perceived and how you are perceived. More
CONTENT CREATION
Whether you need web copy, blog posts, whitepapers, ghostwriting--or RFP or report creation, we can help. More
PR/MEDIA RELATIONS
We can provide you with media training and coaching, help you identify relevant media and help you generate media coverage locally, nationally and online. More
SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media isn’t for everyone, but if it’s right for you we’ll help you identify, implement and assess the impact of your online communications. More
STRATEGIC PLANNING
Our name says it all! We’re passionate about strategic planning and work with clients to develop marketing and communication plans, as well as broader business plans designed to provide actionable--and measurable--direction. More
