I’m often surprised that the most overlooked audience, when it comes to communicating with key constituents, is the internal or employee audience. Companies are generally pretty good about recognizing that they need to communicate with customers and prospects, but employees tend to be an afterthought. This may be because of the assumption that since employees are part of the organization they somehow “know” what’s going on. After all, it was in the newsletter or on Slack, wasn’t it? The fact of the matter, though, is that companies can’t leave it to chance that employees are paying attention to the messages they’re sending, or that they understand which are the key messages that they should be paying attention to. (more…)
Archive for the ‘Marketing and Branding’ Category
What Your Employees Don’t Know Could Hurt You: How Effective Communication Builds Strong Brand Ambassadors
Thursday, September 16th, 2021Why Your Company, Product, or Service Name Doesn’t Really Matter
Tuesday, September 14th, 2021
Throughout my career, I’ve been involved in numerous naming and branding initiatives and am always struck by not only the intrinsic challenges of getting a group of people to agree on a particular name/brand for a company, product, or service—but also by the enormous amount of angst and emotion that becomes part of the process.
In truth, the process of coming up with a name—whether for a company, a product, a campaign, a department, or whatever is a process that is virtually destined to be an emotional and difficult one from the get-go. Why? Because everybody has an opinion, everybody has an emotional stake in the outcome and everybody wants their brand to be the next Nike.
5 Quick Tips for Writing Headlines for Digital Marketing Efforts
Friday, September 3rd, 2021
In the newspaper business, the above-the-fold headline is a crucial aspect of grabbing a potential reader’s attention and enticing them to pick up the paper and read on. The same is true of online headlines – the hyperlinks that come up in a list when you search for something in a search engine. In addition to page ranking, an enticing headline is an important way to drive traffic to your site. With that in mind, here are some tips for generating great headlines. (more…)
Tips for Finding Experts in Content and Content Marketing
Tuesday, August 17th, 2021
I do a lot of presentations (and since the pandemic emerged, webinars) on marketing-related topics. When I do, I try to provide as much practical and useful advice as I can. I don’t worry about “giving away my secrets” for a couple of reasons:
- They’re not that secret—they’re just good, proven, elements of effective marketing and communication.
- Telling someone how to do something rarely translates into the ability to actually do that something.
- The small business owners and entrepreneurs—and, often, even senior and very seasoned marketing executives in large organizations—simply don’t have the time to do it themselves.
They often need to call upon others—agencies or freelancers—to help them out. (more…)
Tackling the Special Challenges of Building and Sustaining Strong Service Brands
Thursday, August 12th, 2021
Much of my work over the years has been with “service brands”—brands that are not tied to a particular product, but to the delivery of some type of service—educational services, healthcare services, energy services, engineering services, consulting services, etc.
Developing and maintaining a strong brand for a service is, in my opinion, significantly more challenging than developing and maintaining a strong brand for a product. Why? Because a service is less tangible, more ephemeral—and often involves multiple “touchpoints” that really determine the “brand experience.”
Critical Elements of a Strong Brand
What makes a strong brand? Recognizability. Performance. Consistency.
When we’re talking about a product—a carbonated beverage, for example—recognizability can come through a logo and design, performance comes through the taste of the beverage, consistency is an element of the manufacturing process.
But, when we’re talking about a service, the process of brand management becomes much more complex.
Recognizability
While recognizability is impacted by logos and design elements, there are other factors to consider. If you practice out of an office or a clinic, your physical location and how it looks, how it’s furnished, etc., will impact your recognizability and your brand. Consultants who travel to client locations, for example, are themselves a key component of the brand – including how they dress and the type of vehicle they drive (and how well maintained it is).
Performance
How is a healthcare organization’s performance defined? By the physician? The registration clerk? The distance from the parking lot to the front door? The cleanliness of the facility? The magazines in the waiting room? The delivery of care (and how do we, as non-clinical consumers, measure that?)? Yes—all of these things, and more! For healthcare and other service organizations (which would include restaurants, retail stores, etc.), performance is a multi-faceted process with multiple touchpoints and multiple opportunities to either strengthen or weaken the brand.
Consistency
And, finally, consistency. The greatest challenge of all. While product consistency can certainly be challenging, there are more tangibles to deal with in the product arena. The challenge for service marketers in managing a brand involves managing human inputs and human actions. Significantly more challenging than ensuring that the right physical ingredients are combined in the right proportions in the right environmental conditions to produce a consistent result.
…and the People!
It often comes as a surprise to those in service businesses that managing the marketing process, specifically the branding process, involves a significant amount of focus on managing people. This involves developing and communicating standards and processes. It involves ensuring consistency in such things as how the phone is answered, how employees dress, service standards, hand-offs between departments, how employees talk to and about each other, etc.
Too often as we focus on other important elements of the brand—like the logo, the name, the company colors, the design templates, etc.—we can have a tendency to forget about what is most important about the brand (recognizability, performance, and consistency). In service organizations, we may also tend to forget about the people and the significant impact they have on the customer experience.
About Us
Strategic Communications, LLC, works with B2B clients to help them achieve their goals through effective content marketing and management with both internal and external audiences. We work with clients to plan, create and publish high-quality, unique content. Whether on- or offline, or both, we’ll help you achieve desired results.
(Strategic Communications is certified as a Woman-Owned Business Enterprise through the Wisconsin Department of Administration.)
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Recommended Reading:
21st Century Secrets to Effective PR
Direct Mail in the Digital Age
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Strategic Planning
Marketers Must Have Good Products But Sometimes Good Isn’t Good Enough
Tuesday, August 10th, 2021
Not many people remember a product called Zima, and that’s the point of this post. As a marketing professional, I’ve always been interested in new product introductions and advertising campaigns in general— how well do they work? how long do they “run” (suggesting that the positive effects are continuing to produce results or, if nothing else, that the agency and client haven’t “pulled the plug” prematurely).
In addition, as someone who is not a “beer drinker,” I was interested several years ago when a new product was introduced—Zima—a beer-based beverage that was supposed to be light and refreshing. Hmm. Sounded interesting. The campaign was extensive, attention-getting, and effective—to a degree. It raised awareness. It generated preference (at least initially). All was good. Right? Wrong. (more…)
Best Practices for Finding Freelancers: Top Go-To Sources of Talent
Monday, August 2nd, 2021
Content is king, as the saying goes, and that’s certainly true in a digital world. Consumer appetite for content is at an all-time high and continuing to grow. That’s great for organizations that have well-oiled content creation teams in place to meet the demand. For others, though, developing content on a regular basis that is high-quality and focused on issues and topics that resonate with their audiences can be a challenge. The gig economy can help. A wide range of freelancers and contract content creators are available to organizations to help produce content for any format. (more…)
When To Give Your Work Away, and When to Charge
Tuesday, June 29th, 2021
I saw a very interesting question in an online group I monitor recently: “Is it ever a good idea to give your work away?”
In this case, the question was related to consulting services but the question could just as easily apply to companies selling tangible products. And, perhaps, it is in comparing the two ─ services and tangible products ─ that this answer can make the most sense: “Yes, there are definitely times when giving your work─or your products─away can be a good idea!”
But when?
How Marketers Are Using Video in 2021
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2021Video continues to be a popular and effective way to boost marketing efforts, especially with the emergence of video-first platforms such as TikTok. And, with the proliferation of do-it-yourself (DIY) video options, the demand for professionally produced, high-production-value video content no longer looms as the must-do priority it used to be. Today, marketers of all types and sizes—even those with very small budgets—can successfully use video to augment their marketing communication efforts. (more…)
Tips for Remote Selling During and After COVID-19
Thursday, June 17th, 2021
COVID-19 has upended a number of industries and jobs. Among the professions that have been hardest hit are sales and business development, which have traditionally relied on face-to-face interactions to build networks and relationships. People who ply those trades have had to pivot to remote selling with mixed success. (more…)
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