Revisiting Your Brand

As we approach the end of 2010, it is important for business owners to revisit their company’s brand identity. Does your brand still represent your company’s mission and goals? Does it continue to effectively showcase your company’s products and services? Does it appeal to your target audience? Once you’ve determined how your brand measures up, it is important to evaluate whether your company’s marketing pieces reflect this direction. Consider these tips for evaluating your brand.

Strategy. When revisiting your brand, it is important to take the time to meet with the decision makers in your company to evaluate your company’s strategic direction and if it still holds true. Through CMA’s Marketecture™ process, we take clients through a strategic planning session to determine an appropriate direction for branding and marketing their company.

Logo. As your logo is an important element to your company’s brand identity, make sure to evaluate whether it continues to standout in the minds of current and prospective clients. Does your logo format, color and design represent your company and speak to your target audience? You ultimately want to ensure your brand is identifiable throughout your targeted market.

Sales brochure. Your company sales brochure is consistently utilized by your team during the sales process. Make sure you determine whether it effectively showcases your company and its products and services, as this is a main tool in helping to bring in new business. Also, evaluate whether the information in your brochure clearly explains to your target audience why they should select your company’s products and services to fulfill their needs.

Need help re-establishing your brand? Give us a call today.

Jeffrey Barnhart
President and CEO
jbarnhart@cmasolutions.com

Brandished Brands: How Yours Can Be a Household Name

A brand can be so strong, you don’t even use the general name for an item—“pass me a Kleenex,” “I’ll get you a Band-Aid,” “I owe you a Coke.” These are all excellent consumer success stories, but building a brand in the business-to-business space requires much more careful strategy to make sure you communicate your value well.

Whether you’re focusing on tapping new markets or maintaining existing ones, it’s important not to lose sight of how the right strategy and effective marketing tactics can position your brand as an easily identifiable entity. Even in complex B2B markets, keeping it simple sends a clear message. Cisco Systems, for example, has a vast product offering of network systems, collaboration/voice/video services and data center components, which can seem overwhelming to the prospective customer. But their brief, memorable taglines “see it, live it, share it” focus on the solutions they can provide businesses, automatically enhancing the perception of the brand.

In the business-to-consumer world, becoming a household name means you’ve created such awareness and positive perception that customers believe they have no other alternative. In the B2B world, your marketing approach is obviously more targeted to specific market segments. Often the most effective brand strategies are those that zero in on becoming the household name of a certain price class, geographic area or vertical market. The brand is brandished with creative key messages to instill certain beliefs in the customer.

For example, CMA recently worked with a 102 year old manufacturer of sound proof wall board made from recycled newspaper. With 4-5 other competitors vying for the loyalty of the same market segments, CMA advised the company to take the approach of being the “premium performance alternative for sound control.” This way, the company staked claim to the middle of the road price point and built brand loyalty among a specific clientele who would keep this in mind long term.

Let us help you become a leader or maintain your brand loyalty with fine-tuned strategies and tactics that communicate and resonate. Check out www.cmasolutions.com to learn more about our expertise.

Jeffrey Barnhart
President and CEO
jbarnhart@cmasolutions.com

Marketing Throwdown: Print vs. Digital Newsletters

Many business owners might agree with me that an external newsletter is an effective marketing tool for driving deeper brand recognition and awareness of a company’s expertise, verve for customer care and knowledge of industry trends.

However, if your company produces a printed newsletter, there may currently be an internal debate about switching to an electronic alternative. Digital communication is hands-down the timelier format for news, updates and announcements. It’s about access, speed and convenience. But it’s also about brevity—concise, cut-to-the-chase content—and the savings on printing and postage are obvious.

On the other hand, a printed newsletter provides opportunities for insight and depth—trend analysis, idea pieces and thought leader articles, which are great tools for building brand admiration and credibility. Your company’s e-newsletter hits your recipient’s in-box accompanied by a jumble of spam, other commercial email and inter-office exchanges—a volatile communications environment ruled by a trigger-happy Delete key. What’s more, due to the inherent immediacy of the medium, digital communications do not age well. A high-quality printed piece may sit on a person’s desk to be read or referred to over time, serving as a constant ambassador for your business.

An e-newsletter has true functional advantages over print. The digital ability to instantly link to your company’s website, as well as related information sites or articles of interest can enrich the reader’s experience and regard for your company and its communications.

What’s important to ask yourself is, why not both? A monthly or bi-monthly e-newsletter covering news, promotional programs or new products and services can dovetail effectively with a quarterly printed publication focused on trend analysis and think pieces which position your company as an industry expert by mining and sharing your company’s knowledge and know-how.

Whether it be print or electronic, give CMA a call and we can develop communications that elevate your company’s brand, products and services and position your business as an authority figure throughout your targeted market, ultimately helping to create new opportunities.

Jeffrey Barnhart
President and CEO
jbarnhart@cmasolutions.com