One of the biggest criticisms of social media is the amount of time it appears to take to get involved in it. The platforms may be ‘free’ to use, but time is money and definitely a roadblock to companies getting involved, especially when there’s not a lot of hard evidence of the ROI, especially for B2Bs. However, we believe social media activity is important as part of a complete marketing map. And, with a little planning, it doesn’t have to be a big time suck for B2Bs. (more…)
Archive for the ‘All-inclusive Marketing’ Category
Marketing: How Many Vendors Do You Really Need?
Saturday, March 26th, 2011It’s not uncommon to go to different partners for different marketing needs. What’s the harm in that? Well… depending on the circumstances the harm can be wasted time, wasted money, wasted impact and lost opportunities. All the things a successful business does NOT want.
Unarmed & Dangerous
Monday, March 14th, 2011In the business world it’s often very easy to get carried away with an idea and run long and hard with it. And it happens more often than you might think. Why? Because ideas are seductive. They’re attractive. And if you have what you think is a good idea, it’s very easy to convince yourself that it’s the be all and end all that’s going to make your brand famous and build your business to astronomical heights.
But what if the idea turns out to be wrong. What if it simply sails over everybody’s head? What if it doesn’t do the job you thought it would do? What if, instead of being the be all and end all that you convinced yourself it would be. It turns out to the torpedo that ends up sinking your ship?
Creating a tagline for Toronto…
Sunday, October 24th, 2010I was recently approached by fellow branders; Ken and Ian from Blueprint with a fun opportunity. They usually work with companies to help them uncover their core proposition (why one should buy from them over the competition). But, with the upcoming municipal elections, it seemed like a fun exercise for the city. In the first two of three articles, journalist Jennifer Wells explained the Blueprint process and reported on the progress in uncovering the city’s DNA, also asking readers to share the words they felt best fit Toronto. The response was staggering – 500 replies in three days.
They ran the responses through Wordle which indicated the top three words were ‘Toronto’, ‘World’ and ‘City.’ That’s very cool because a key statement from Blueprint’s work was ‘Toronto is a World City.’ Nice to know you’re on the same track as so many others.
The core proposition statement they arrived at was ‘Embracing the World.’
The Creative Challenge
The original idea wasn’t to come up with a tagline, but the core statement and story of Toronto’s DNA – it wasn’t a marketing exercise. Once the exercise was complete, they realized the statement sounded like a tagline, which could be confusing, so why not actually develop a tagline?
Enter, Rapport. Blueprint approached five Toronto agencies including us, with less than five days to deliver. Though rushed and free, a fun exercise and good exposure, so we agreed. The creative brief boiled down to this: Toronto is a city that truly embraces different cultures, allowing a lot of great things happen here. Because of this attitude and results, Toronto is a model for cities around the world to follow.
Summing up Toronto’s DNA in One Clever Statement
I assembled our top writers Beth Parker and Jim Murray, plus our brand strategist Terri Carson and new Rapport team member Samantha Esteves for a brainstorming session. With Blueprint having done the foundation work, we got right into the creative part. There were many ideas like ‘I belong. We all belong.’ and ‘Make Yourself At Home.’ They were compelling, but none hit both notions: embracing the world, and Toronto as a model for the world. Then suddenly, an idea formed in Jim’s head and the top contender popped out: ‘Toronto… It’s Where the World is Going.’
This bit of creative genius was included with the other agency’s submissions in the Sunday Star October 10, 2010. Read the article here: http://bit.ly/b63PX4 – you’ll find ours and the other submissions at the end. Which one is your favourite?
The Best Advertising I have Seen in Years
Sunday, October 3rd, 2010Election day is coming in Ontario, which means there are candidates and confusion everywhere. In the midst of it all, I had the rare pleasure of witnessing some brilliant advertising.
The Context
In the summer of 2010, one of Toronto’s main north/south streets changed from a 5 lane street to 4 lanes. The 5-lane street was a thing of wonder. In the morning, 3 of the lanes were dedicated to getting cars downtown, and in the evening, the middle lane was switched from southbound to northbound, providing 3 lanes for people to get out of downtown. During the day, there was on street parking. It was possible for trucks to unload, and cabs to pick up people and drop them off without causing a major backup.
The change to a 4 lanes was put in place to accommodate a bike lane. The problem: 100,000 cars in gridlock versus some bikes does not make for an environmentally friendly situation. Leaving the politics aside, it has been day-long gridlock ever since the change.
The Event
This week, driving home in a rainstorm, the traffic was worse than usual. Sitting in my car, late for an evening meeting, I was fascinated to see a guy in a raincoat holding a big florescent cardboard sign that said “Simon Wookey”…I thought “Interesting, wonder what that’s about?” 20 feet up the street was another guy holding a similar sign that said, “will”. Ultimately a total of 5 signs that ended out reading:
“Simon Wookey…will…get your… middle lane… back”
B
rilliant. Talk about understanding people’s pain and offering a potential solution during their moment of pain.
Alongside of answering my unasked question regarding whether the lane could possibly be returned to its previous state, I now have heard of a candidate that I was unaware of, and it made me smile. In the middle of a traffic jam! Thanks Simon.
A Re-branding Project Plan
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010Picture it, January 2002. A solo designer, just recovering from being laid-off, decides to give this freelancing thing a try. She sits at her rented desk and works up a logo using her name, and a business card. A fellow tenant helps her by building a website – it’s so cute with her dog on it.
Fast forward to summer, 2007 – she has a good reputation, four employees, many clients and a lot of experience under her belt. But, prospects and new colleagues still get the impression she’s a freelancer renting a desk. Her salesperson has trouble explaining that Faith Seekings is someone’s name and the firm is not a religious cult. She’s embarrassed by her brand and it’s time to change – new name and all.
Skip ahead again to December 2008 when the business has doubled, due partly to buying another, and the brand needed to mature again in look and messaging, to reflect the growth. No new name this time, but there’s an entirely different dog on the website.
I tell you this story because I not only re-brand clients regularly, but I’ve done it myself. Once you’ve decided to rebrand (see past post The Right Time to Re-brand), what would the steps involved be?
First, choose the right firm to do it.
If you are rebranding, at this stage you need more than a designer, you need a brand strategist and copywriter as well. A brand is mo
re than a pretty logo, it’s how you tell your ideal clients who you are and why you’re different. That takes strategy and words, especially if there’s a renaming involved as well.
This doesn’t mean you have to go to a large firm, just one that offers this depth of service and experience. Ask for recommendations from colleagues, meet with at least three, make sure you look at their work and see diversity, yet evidence they can work with your kind of company (size, industry, etc). Don’t discount the importance of liking them and feeling good about communication style.
Our re-brand project plan
All design firms will have their own processes and approach, but would likely include the same basic principles as ours.
Step One: Look backward, look forward.
This would likely be covered initially in the discovery meeting, then in more detail – after we decide to work together. Look back at where you started and why you made the brand/design decisions you did. Review where you are now and what has changed in the interim – with your company, the competition, the marketplace, technology, etc. Then, look at where you want to be in three to five years. I give that time-frame because it’s not unusual to do at least a brand tweak every few years as things continually change. It also reduces the pressure of thinking you’re making decisions that have to work forever.
Step Two: Research, research, research.
Depending what you sign up for with us we may do a complete competitive analysis of your industry. At the least we use one of the best ways to gage how your company is seen: by asking existing ideal clients what they think about your firm, why they keep coming back and refer you. So they’re encouraged to be candid, I recommend having an outside (branding) team do it and explain that all results will be reported back anonymously. Once you’ve got your client’s permission, they set up calls and go. This may show things you need to change, but most often reveals strengths that the company didn’t realize they had, and what competitive advantage is most meaningful to your ideal client. See our May newsletter for more on this.
Step Three: Essential Message Session
This half day session uses the essential message, a method for uncovering your best competitive advantage, articulating it and generating a brand brief. It includes the closer look at your past and future goals from step one. There are interactive exercises to dig deeper into what core challenge your company really solves for your clients and all the ways you do it better than the competition. The research previously done plays a role by throwing new ideas into the discussion. It’s ideal for us not to have preconceived notions, so sometimes we swap step two and three.
From this session, both sides should have a rough positioning statement and a really good idea how the brand character is shaping up, with consensus. If a second session is needed, we book it. We should have enough of a creative brief to begin work on the tagline and brief for the logo.
Step Four: You won’t hear from us for a while
We then take everything we learned and results of the session away to work on. We may do further research or call with further questions. What we’ll come back with is a refined positioning statement and tag line options. The positioning statement is an internal statement meant to guide us in the rest of the branding, but can also turn into content for the website, your LinkedIn profile, or even your verbal introduction.
We also send a long list of tagline options with instructions like eliminating the ones that are definitely a no, highlighting the ones you like best and how to ask for feedback.
We consider both documents iterative. However, clear guidelines on rounds of revisions should be outlined at the outset. We gladly discuss and incorporate your feedback on what works, what doesn’t, and why for the next round.
I believe the positioning statement should never be ‘written in stone’ as the world changes and companies grow, it should do so with you. Ideally after a couple rounds we have a tagline direction nailed down if not the exact words, because then we can start the fun part.
Step Five: The fun part – my favourite book is the Pantone colour book.
I’m a designer at heart, this is the best part for me. With the brand character defined and a tagline selected, the design studio begins generating logo ideas. We present the first round in black and white because personal colour preferences and dislikes are strong, and can adversely effect the impression of a great design. We hate to see a good concept rejected because someone hates orange. We present two to three concepts (or more) including the tagline, with our recommendation and rationale. The same suggestions for getting feedback apply.
The client provides feedback with change requests, mix n’ matches, but definitely narrows down options. Next round or so we show colour options for the favourite logo (or two if it helps with decisions). Again, there may be alteration requests. Seeing it in context also helps finalize the wording of the tagline, if not yet final.
Step Six: A brand is born.
With a strong brand base of positioning statement, tagline and logo finalized, we deliver a package of logos in all formats, colours and file types you’d need. Perhaps a brand guidelines document, and anything you may need to trademark it. We can also then begin design and writing all the support elements the brand needs to be taken public, i.e. stationery, business card, website, brochures, marketing materials, etc. There’s more that needs updating with the new brand than you think (what about company cheques?), so it can be an ongoing process.
Please remember that a brand is much more than a logo. It’s every way your company interacts with the outside world – your website and marketing tools, how your team talks about the company, to how your receptionist answers the phone. This is where your strong, well-defined positioning and tagline really come in to play.
Common Marketing Challenges of B2B Marketers – Part I
Thursday, July 8th, 2010B2B covers a broad range of products and services, so to pick some common marketing challenges is no easy task. The challenges can vary hugely depending on whether you are selling a product or a service, but one common characteristic for all types of B2B organizations is that they don’t invest enough in marketing.
Not big budgets, budgets set for impact
Some may argue that B2B companies often have a limited number of organizations that they can sell (or market) to, so they don’t require big budgets. Versus companies that are selling to the masses, it is true B2B marketers don’t require big budgets. However, the argument here is not for creating big budgets, but for allocating budgets that are big enough to allow your organization to “out shout” the competition. To stay in the prospects mind so that, when the time comes to purchase, your firm is high on the list of potential vendors. Ideally, to be looked at as being different and better than the competition, so in any pitch or bid situation, you come from a position of strength.
In categories that have only a handful of customers that may buy from them, the marketing plan and recommended spend is going to look a lot different than for companies that have hundreds or even thousands of prospects.
What is the right amount for a marketing budget?
So how does one decide what the appropriate spending levels are? A common approach is to look at the competition and figure out what they do and how much they spend, and to 
make sure you invest similar amounts and do more impactful things.Another approach is to put together a detailed marketing plan. If you do not have the right resources internally, outsourcing a plan can be a great way to bring rigor to the process, and to look at the possibilities from a fresh perspective. A good marketing consultant should be able to take your experience and industry knowledge, combine that with information about your market, your prospects and techniques that have worked in similar industries, and provide you with a disciplined plan that will deliver against your objectives. B2B marketers often lack the discipline to do a plan and execute it faithfully, let alone measure the results. No wonder spending levels are low!
The wrong way to go about setting the budget is to either base it on what was spent the year before, (unless that budget was set based on the methods described above) or what you think you can afford. Unlike rent or other expenses that are necessary evils, marketing should be looked at as a “spend to get” approach. If you are strategic, your marketing spending should pay back, sometimes many times the original spend.
Be aware
Incidentally, the organizations with the fewest prospects can often have marketing budgets that are much bigger than you would think. Marketing budgets that allow for sales to take decision makers on high-end trips, play regular golf games or go out to events on a regular basis. Don’t get caught thinking the playing field is level without getting a full perspective on the decision making process from the customer’s viewpoint.
Social Media – How to Separate Personal From Business.
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010Last week I participated in a panel discussion on social media for SugarCRM. One of the questions that came up was ‘how do you keep business and personal separate?’ The three panelists gave various answers, the main theme being whether used for business or personal, as a salesperson or an employee, remember that it’s there forever so be careful, professional and aware.
However, a more advanced way to help keep them separate is to go in with a plan and share it with all company participants. Give them the tools and training they need to be successful in this new arena.
Don’t Just Dive-in – Social Media is a Marketing Tool
I’m often heard to say that using a social media platform is just like any other marketing tool. Before jumping in you should figure out who your target is, where to find them (Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn?) and what they’re looking for from a company like you. You would use this information to strategize on the best way to communicate with them and use your marketing tools effectively.
Are you using social media to raise awareness, educate about your service or industry or stay in touch with existing customers? What are they doing there? What’s their pain?
Social Media and Your Brand
Also like any other marketing tool, you’d need to hold it up to your brand and consider it in relation to everything else you use, like your website, brochures, etc. Chances are you’ve developed a look, a voic
e, a style, and specific marketing objectives. Though social media is often more of a personal approach, corporate brand should apply here too.
Your Social Media Marketing Plan
Your plans for social media should include:
- Where you should focus efforts (Twitter?)
- What you should do there (ie: discussions on LinkedIn)
- What you should talk about, your angle
- How it fits in with other efforts
- What are the objectives and guidelines for our participants (ie: no personal political comments)
With this basic plan in place it will be much easier to keep business separate from personal.
Educate Your Team
Just as you provide brochures and help prepare presentations, give your people the guidance they need to represent your company using social media. Remember that if you’re asking your professionals to be active like blogging, they may not be aware of brand guidelines at all and need briefing. It doesn’t hurt to do a little awareness education with other employees as well so they know what you’re doing and a little guidance as to what you’d prefer they did or didn’t do with their personal accounts. You can’t control their personal accounts but it doesn’t hurt to say ‘because our message is ____, we’d prefer if you didn’t mention ____.’
Top 10 Elements Often Lacking in Marketing Materials.
Monday, June 28th, 2010How many of them are lacking in yours?
Next to your actual sales force and your own undeniable powers of persuasiveness, web sites, corporate brochures and identity kits should be among your hardest working marketing tools.
In order to make sure you’re maximizing the power of these tools, we have put together a checklist of attributes which no self-respecting corporate identity package should be without.
1. Synergy With Your Company’s Overall Image.
This synergy is the key to building awareness of your company as a brand. Everything should look like everything else, because that’s what makes you look professional.
2. A Strong Essential Message.
This is the promise you make to your potential customers or clients, and it’s one of the most important pillars upon which your communications is built.
3. An appealing Look & Positive Feel…
that’s both ‘in character’ and inviting to read. People read things that look appealing and interesting. Anything else, they tend to ignore.
4. Obvious Corporate Identification.
It’s all the rage in the design world to play down logos. But that’s how most readers end up missing them.
5. Bad English Ain’t Good.
Bad grammar is running rampant in communications these days. Bad grammar can make you look like a not-so-bright, and therefore not-so-trustworthy company.
6. First Person Focus.
Never talk about your company in the third person. If you do, people will think you’re weird. Talking about your company in the first person naturally personalizes the communication and makes it more inviting for the prospect to read.
7. Simplicity. Simplicity. Simplicity…
in the use of supporting language and graphics. Remember, you know more about your business than anyone you are talking to. Showing respect for what they don’t know will always be rewarded.
8. A Positive Selling Attitude Throughout.
This is all about keeping the tone and manner of your communications positive, upbeat and on point, and one of the most important keys to stimulating response.
9. Testimonial & Case Study Support.
Your satisfied customers are, bar none, your best salespersons. Anything that quantifies results is going to be more meaningful to your readers than abstract notions or platitudes. You’ll be surprised how powerful these underused selling techniques can be.
10. Concrete Reasons Why The Prospect Should Be Doing Business With You.
Too many companies fill their communications with reasons why they are so great, but they seldom turn it around and give their prospects a real sense of what’s in it for them.
Why B2Bs Should Care About Optimization (SEO)
Friday, June 18th, 2010Should I care about Search Engine Optimization for my B2B company? The answer is yes.
In recent years many clients have come to us with search engine optimization (SEO) as an item in RFP for websites. Once they see what it takes to really make a go of it, to compete for first pag
e, they’re turned off. They think it is not important or relevant to their business after-all, or at least not enough to pay so much. ‘We’re B2b, we provide a professional service, not sell products. People find us through word-of-mouth, not Google.’ I used to feel that way myself, but now I’m a convert.
Social media has created reasons to care about SEO from both ends of the spectrum.
First, because we all know how much user generated content, blogs, review sites are out there, more and more people are using search to find information or do research. When you search you are most likely to land on a blog or such like. If you generate content, people will find it.
Second and from the other end, social media has made it easy for companies to create opportunities for their brilliant content to be found in search, by writing blogs, participating in other blogs or discussions, having key people involved and hopefully active on sites like LinkedIn and Twitter – which all leads back to your company site.
Two sides to Social Media
There’s the literal driving people to your site, but those link-backs to your site also tell Google you’re important and socially active.
There are a number of things Google evaluates to rank your site; like in-bound links, conversion forms, alt text for images, blogs, meta descriptions, etc. They change the algorithms all the time but recently made a higher than usual significant change placing importance on social relevancy. Do you have an active Twitter account associated with your domain? Etcetera.
So what this means is, it’s not hard to build a website with good search-ability right from the start, like conversion forms, alt text for images, meta descriptions, etc. but then why not use social media to generate the content to be found? Google is a hungry beast, give it something to gorge on.
By the way, I learned a lot of this stuff from brilliant Smojoe, who we hire to help Rapport clients learn to make that content more findable and use social media for search with really different and interesting campaigns.
