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Tag: identity

Marketing Automation Can Go Too Far

With as many digital marketing programs, apps, platforms and dashboards as are currently available to the modern marketer, clearly marketing automation is an idea whose time has come. But at what point does all that automation start to mask, hide, obfuscate and cloak the real goal of the marketer – to persuade, influence, elicit emotion and garner a specific reaction by connecting in some emotional way with the individuals who make up the target market. If the machines are deciding the timing, tone, quality, frequency, subject matter and even copy point priority, is there really a relationship being created there?

While I’m still emotionally a bit of a luddite when it comes to technology, I understand it’s uses and marvel at its potential to make our lives easier, and more productive, alleviating the drudgery of some of the more mundane daily tasks and delegating the type of “step, repeat” activities that make up our daily existence to simple machines. However, there are limits to the level and type of task I’m willing to relinquish to the machines. The little voice in the back of my head that warns “If it can do this, what else could it do if I don’t keep control over it” is running that script more frequently when I take a few moments to fill the que of my social media automation platform. It speeds up knowing that the machine will be totally in charge of what people see, when they see it, how often they see it. Relin quishing that level of control is a little scary.

Now, take that a step further. The next generation of software is likely to have wider permissions within your physical and online universe. It’s possible, given the necessary set up structure, for a similar platform to deliver a message to a given recipient, with the ability to search their hard drive and cloud account, dredge up bits of information gauge their reactions to online posts by others, collect viewing habits for photos and videos, and be able to piece these disparate pieces of data together into a coherent letter rife with personal references that only make sense to them. Its invasive, it’s creepy, it gives the recipient a sense of exposure, but if crafted correctly and reigned in appropriately, it would be so personal and so relevant, it would out-pull almost any generic control letter by a factor of 10. Are you scared of the machines yet?

Currently, the overuse of personalization typically takes the form of using the person’s name or address or other key piece of publicly available information too many times. The only damage there is to the sender, as it pulls back the curtain and exposes the use of data in the letter, destroying the illusion of personal relations and destroying trust. This depresses response, but doesn’t hurt anything. But taken a notch further, say that same letter is riddled with personal information, including images of your home and kids, banking and financial “hints”, information about your mortgage or car loan, the kids’ school names or addresses, extracurricular activities. Looks and sounds personal, right? Now imagine that letter is stolen out of the mailbox, or picked up out of the delivery bin before it even gets to you. The person with ill intent now knows more about you than they could ever discover any other way, and can use that data to do anything they want, unfettered by regulations, legislation, professional ethics or legal restriction.

Used correctly, personalization and data “injection” can make messages feel relevant, feel familiar, feel comfortable, and lead to a positive response. Used incorrectly, personalization can open the door to abuse, cause damage to both the sender and the recipient, and lead to a range of problems from minor headache to legal action. When employing automation for driving or disseminating marketing messages, best to err on the side of caution and keep your human fingers in the pie at critical points – just to be sure everyone stays on good terms – be careful out there . . .

June 9, 2016
Rebranding Your Organization – Change Management At Its Finest

Imagine your future: Your brand identity has been in place unchanged since the organization was founded in the 50s; the marketplace has shifted; your brand characteristics are diffuse and have drifted and meandered virtually unguided for decades; your organization offers different benefits than it used to, because that’s what the membership has dictated; and the membership base has shifted away from the traditional manufacturers and service suppliers to a full range of peripheral industries around a few core large members. It’s time to rebrand! Now what?

Rebranding can offer your organization many things, almost all of them good. But to take advantage of them, you have to actively and proactively manage the change process. To do that, it all starts with research, planning, education and communication within your organization, almost all of it between your marketing department and the executive staff.

Start at the Top

Getting good data is key to making good decisions – that’s an axiom that few can argue with, but that very few organizations take to heart when making strategic decisions. Rebranding is a very strategic decision, so in order to do it with the greatest positive impact, some critical research is in order. A good, old-fashioned SWOT analysis will lead you down the right road in almost all instances if done honestly and thoroughly, with a little imagination thrown in.

Knowing your members’ needs, desires and concerns is also critical – it’s their club after all, and without them there is no need to have a brand at all! If you have a stranglehold on what role your organization plays in their personal or professional lives, you’re a good way toward the goal of crafting an effective new brand around that group of members.

Knowing where your organization stands in the competitive spectrum in their professional lives, and what goods and services they turn to you for, puts you even further down the right road. Ask the tough questions – if you can use a rebranding to jettison unsuccessful programs because your research shows that no one uses that program or doesn’t think of you as offering that, you form a tighter brand identity, and create an opportunity to offer something similar but better later.

The last piece of research should be to hunt for similar or related brands in your own and other related industries. If the one you want to use is taken, you need to know that before you get too far down the path, to avoid infringement of trademark problems later.

Create a Plan

Rebranding is an organization-wide event and it touches everyone in the organization to one degree or another. Some elements will take longer to prepare than others, so your action priorities should be ordered upon implementation times and logistic concerns, so that all the pieces come together at a specific point in time at the end. You’ll want to launch the new brand in a short, intense period of activity, to discourage backsliding and create impact. Some groups have tried to sneak the new brand in under the radar, with no fanfare or celebration. Those types of soft launches usually take longer to enter and become retained in the public consciousness among your audience, and ultimately cost your organization time, money and credibility.

Knowing your members’ needs, desires and concerns is also

critical – it’s their club after all, and without them there is no

need to have a brand at all!

Derive a set of newly-generated brand characteristics from your member research, and task your marketing department to create a summary statement describing the new brand in those terms. Use that statement to graphically craft a representation of its meaning and create the new brand. If done properly, it will carry all the critical information and translate those characteristics into an image that communicates them clearly. Your plan should map out these steps and give a rationale for each of them that makes concrete sense to the internal audience. That plan is the basis for your communication both internally and externally.

TEST, Test, Test

Most organizations don’t get it right on the first try. And most don’t know they’ve got it wrong until it’s too late, because they don’t test. Internal and external reviews, focus groups and first-hand interviews will give you tremendous insight as to the accuracy of the image in projecting your brand’s characteristics, and will give you insight as to the level and speed of acceptance you can expect among your target audience. If you meet with resistance, or it’s not memorable or not accurate, you can waste precious resources trying to correct it later. Research is relatively cheap insurance against launching a poorly-crafted new brand. Done correctly, it can give you the confidence to launch the new brand with pride and have it met with predictable success. This type of research has some nuances to it, and many organizations don’t have the specialized knowledge and skill sets on staff to do it justice. For them it makes good financial sense to hire out to the experts for this portion. Most cities have a selection of reliable research firms that would be happy to help you launch your new brand correctly.

Communicate, Early and Often

Once you have what you feel is the definitive brand identity nailed down, a little preliminary education is in order. The mantra that good public speakers and presenters follow will work well here as well: “Tell them what you’re going to say, say it, and then tell them what you said.” That first step, the advance alert is important, so that there is some warning, and the launch isn’t completely cold. It lets the audience know that there’s a change coming and they can brace for it. It gives you a chance to set the stage, set expectations and show a little of your rationale behind the change, show the advantages it offers and show the benefits of the change in a positive light. The better you prepare the audience, the faster your adoption curve will evolve, and the higher your acceptance level will be – and that saves you time and money. The more easily they accept the new identity, the less time and money you have to spend to convince them.

“Tell them what you’re going to say, say it, and then tell them

what you said.”

Repetition and consistency are two great keys to success. The more places they audience sees that new brand, and the more consistent that presentation is, the higher your acceptance will be. The repetition is largely a budgetary issue, but operations needs to get in on the game here too. As part of your planning, you should have conducted a brand inventory, showing each and every instance where your brand appears and in what context. Pull out that inventory and review it now, so you can order the list of changes in priority order.

The highest time priority should be awarded to the most visible instances, the places with the highest volume and widest impact. Letterheads, envelopes, business cards, forms, newsletters and other items that number in the tens of thousands used per year, and distributed in large numbers on a regular basis should come first, as those will give you the highest penetration for the dollar. Items like shipping crate stencils, and the sign on the building can come a bit later. Fax cover sheets, e-mail signatures, and meeting signs are often overlooked initially, but those are fairly high-priority items. Brochures, membership kits and the like, while produced in high numbers, aren’t distributed in high numbers, and have relatively low impact initially. Websites, blogs etc. change instantly (virtually) and should be high on the list as they are often the destination for many of your other marketing efforts. Take the ego out of your decision-making and use impact sphere to guide your priority decisions.

Out With The Bad, In With The Good

One of the resistance points you’ll likely encounter is the so-called “waste” that goes along with a rebranding. Backsliding and phasing in the new brand as supplies run low or out will slow adoption and give mixed impressions to the audience. Make a clean break, and dump everything that carries the old brand – don’t use it. Part of your planning and communication process should have been to influence decisions by those who resupply the organization, to help minimize waste. In the long term, getting rid of the 22 leftover tradeshow tchotchkeys with the old brand on them isn’t really a waste if it prevents an diluted message from being transmitted to your audience. Dump it all!

“. . . items that number in the tens of thousands used per year,

and distributed in large numbers on a regular basis should

comefirst, as those will give you the highest penetration for the

dollar.”

Timing Is Key

The decision on the timing of the new launch will differ from group to group, but one tried-and-true solution is to use the Annual Convention or other major meeting as a platform to launch the new brand. This type of timing gives you more bang for your marketing buck, and allows you to reach a greater percentage of your intended audience at once, in a controlled environment over a limited time span. It forces you to hit deadlines, to create a definitive point of impact and allows you to create the kind of repetition and consistency required to make this effort work.

Do The Paperwork

Don’t forget to record the date of first use for your new brand, you’ll need it for your new trademark application, which of course you’ve been preparing all along the way, to protect your new brand. File the initial paperwork as soon as the first use and three subsequent public uses can be shown. Launching at the Annual Meeting makes that easy, as the initial and other uses are all virtually concurrent, and you can show the quantities distributed and the reach of the new mark very easily.

Rebranding is a challenging process, but one that can drive all sorts of positive change throughout your organization. Handled thoroughly and thoughtfully, it can pay significant benefits in both the long and short term.

October 8, 2014
Guest blogger Adam Schectman of Eye Catching Creative on Branding

Branding is one of our mainstay services – it touches and influences every engagement we have to one degree or another. We focus on it so you don’t have to. I caught this article by fellow SMEI veteran Adam Schechtman, and though rather than restate it, I’d simply repost it and give him the credit he so richly deserves! Way to go Adam, nice take on one of our favorite subjects.

Guest Blogger: Adam Schechtman, VP of Business Development and Marketing, Eye Catching Creative

To brand or not to brand? That is the question so many small and mid-sized businesses tend to overlook in the early phases of their development. The problem is there’s a tendency to keep shuffling this linchpin of marketing success to the dark corners of the priority list. Then one day, we read an article or hear someone talking about a competitor and cringe in uneasiness because they did something we didn’t…built a solid brand.

Like marketing in general, branding is easy to lose focus on, especially when we have experienced some degree of success. If you agree that today’s markets have changed and the way businesses DO business has changed, then it’s time to recalibrate some of your own marketing efforts. That means its back to basics! Like the “butterfly effect,” small improvements in your branding strategy can have a tremendous impact on growth over time.

We know from marketing 101 that your brand is your identity. Beyond the visual or physical makeup… name, logo, advertising, a brand is quite simply the psychological impact you have on customers. Branding is so important because people buy emotionally and then logic steps in to support their buying decision. Your brand is essentially a part of the ongoing relationship you have with customers. It is a compilation of messages that differentiate (or don’t differentiate) your business, product or service from everyone else who plays in the same space as you do. Take a second look at the competition of today. If someone stands out, why do they stand out? Who doesn’t stand out? Which category does your company fall into and who might be able to help you to improve on that position?

From your email address to your website, to how the phone is answered to the relevance of your marketing materials, your brand must be professional, consistent and CURRENT. What the company stands for and what you’re offering should be different and clear. When is the last time you really dissected how you are perceived in the market and what your market position truly is? One easy way is to run a survey using existing customers or even some customers that you lost. Resources like SurveyMonkey.com are fantastic, free, e-survey questionnaire tools that are easy to use and easy on the budget. So let me ask you… what perception do your customers have of your business? What does your presence in the market “feel” like to customers and professional peers (aka competitors) and more importantly… are you being felt?

Adam Schechtman is an entrepreneur and co-owner of Eye Catching Creative, providing virtual, on-call design, advertising and marketing solutions to budget-conscious small and mid-sized businesses. With more than 15 years in marketing, business development and sales, he is also the former owner of Achieve Senior Home Care and former co-owner/franchiser of Advance Realty Solutions. Adam holds an MBA in marketing from Johns Hopkins University. Visit www.eyecatchingcreative.com for more information.

Get the feel right the first time – we can help you with your branding research to give you the insights to get it right the first time! If you liked this, be sure to subscribe to this blog above.

June 11, 2014