Selecting the Name… Creating the Brand

One of the main elements that you need to think about when considering launching a new business is THE NAME!

It was proven over and over again that great names are powerful in the marketing and advertising process that a company goes throw.  Your Name is what differentiates you from others while helping you getting positioned in your audience mind.

Now how do you go about choosing The Name?

One of the first steps to take into consideration is to stay as objective as possible wihtout allowing subjectivity affect your decision making.  Remember, once you come up with the name, it is there to stay for a long time hopefully.  So make sure that you choose something unique and memorable that differentiates you from the competition.  And of course, do not forget to consider the name and how it is related to your services and/or products.

Choose a name that is easy to remember, unique and full of energy! yes, full of energy where it can carry a marketing campaign all the way to success.

Once you decide on a name, and I totally realize that it is not as easy as it sounds, the next step would be to come up with a tagline to complement and add power and life to your name.  Consider companies such as Nike and their “Just Do it” tagline and the power it delivers in its simplicity taking the company beyond the concept of only selling tennis shoes for example.

Manal Richa

The MarCom Network – Communications, Branding & Advertising Solutions
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Are you doing it all?

Now that we are almost half way through the fourth quarter of 2009, I think it is time to take a look at where we are in terms of image.  2009 brought lots of changes with companies merging with others, those changing their image and branding, others closing their doors for good, and of course those who are in a start-up mode.

While we will be missing some, consumers are definitely welcoming new additions and even accepting the new brand for some such as Jack in the Box and their new logo.

So this is the time for you to think about re-branding or even re-vamping your image when it comes to your graphics, print and online as well.  Remember, your collateral and web presence are your tool to deliver your message to prospects and clients.  They are your tool to accomplish what you have planned in your marketing plan.  Are you taking into consideration the 4 Ps of Marketing: Price, Product, Place and Promotion?

Just because you have been established for 1 or 20 years does not mean you do not need to keep visiting and revising your marketing material including print and online of course.  You have to always revisit and reconsider what you have in there… time and technology are evolving quickly and by continuously evolving your marketing material, you are opening more doors and venues to success.

When you are a business owner, you ought to wear multiple hats in order to respond to your business needs. But keep in mind that you are supposed to be working ON your business versus FOR your business.  So why don’t you concentrate on what you excel at doing and hire the expert to do your accounting, shipping, marketing, graphic design… or whatever you are not the expert at!

This year, many businesses decided to cut back on unnecessary expenses. And guess what? Marketing was added to the top of the list when it comes to these expenses… This is WRONG!  Since most businesses are cutting back on their marketing, this is the time for YOU to spend more because your dollar will go a long way with less competition out there… Your chances of standing out and appealing to consumers are greater believe it or not!

Another mistake I noticed this year is that businesses admittedly claimed that they do not need help when it comes to marketing because they can do it themselves.  I smile and wish them good luck!  because they really need more than luck to be able to plan, put together and execute a full-blown successful marketing campaign.  They need to be honest with themselves that they really cannot do it all, especially when it comes to marketing. They simply need to accept the fact and hire someone who can help by either setting the grounds with a solid communication plan, revamping their image when it comes to print and online, and/or executing a full-blown marketing campaign that is worth their investment.

Manal Richa

The MarCom Network – Communications, Branding & Advertising Solutions
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Connecting Effectively with others

While working on building relationships, some of us lose track and no longer concentrate on what matters in order to connect effectively with others. Here are couple of tips on how to stay on track:

Create your own opportunities
There are hundreds and thousands of groups that meet on a regular basis. Once you have your mind made up on implementing networking in your routine, work on allocating time slots in your weekly calendar for events and mixers. Plan by selecting a limited number of those groups that best suit your needs.

Do not sell
The purpose behind attending networking events is to meet others and create relationships. Therefore, when people network, the last thing they want to encounter is a sales person. Avoid selling. Offer advice instead. Ask others how you can help and you would be amazed at how they will open up to you.
Be present and listen to what they have to say. Ask more questions and show interest: that is how relationships start to develop.

Manal Richa

The MarCom Network – Communications, Branding & Advertising Solutions
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A Situational Analysis for Your Marketing Plan – Part I

As a follow up to my previous blog, “A Marketing Plan… so What?” today’s post is discussing Situational Analysis.

Conducting a situational analysis will help you put into perspective where things stand.  Although this step is time consuming, it is extremely important to spend all needed time working on it.   Keep in mind though that this analysis should be continuously visited and reviewed to ensure its accuracy.

Here is what you need to take into consideration when putting together the situational analysis:

- Product

This section should include a detailed analysis of  your product such as its strengths and weaknesses; Is this your core product? or are you offering any secondary or extended products or services that are also included in the sales process? What about your product’s attributes? Describe your product’s main features and benefits. Include pricing at all levels (end-consumers, distributors, discounts…)  How are you planning to make the product accessible to end-users.  Are you running any promotions?  If so, talk about strategies in terms of marketing, sales, positioning…

- Target Market

Examine your target market based on customer-focused research.  Initiate by including a description of your approach to tackle the target market: are you planning to target a large market through a mass marketing strategy? or are you just planning to reach out selectively to a specific niche using a segmentation approach?

Include a demographic and psychographic analysis of your target maket including gender, income, age, occupation, family, geography, education, lifestyle, attitudes, purchasing habits… Also concentrate on the pain:  what kind of needs is your product responding to? what kind of benefits is your product filling?

What about product usage? Include an analysis on Who, Why, When and How?

- Who is/will be using the product?

- Why do they or will they be using the product?

- When do they or will they be using the product?

- How is or will the product be used?

Then position your product by evaluating how it is perceived by customers and how it is compared to what your competition offers.  In addition, discuss your target’s attitude towards your product and towards the general product category as well while describing the purchase process (decision-making, source of information, timeline…)

Stay tuned for more on putting together your marketing Plan…

Manal Richa

The MarCom Network – Communications, Branding & Advertising Solutions
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An Executive Summary for Your Marketing Plan

As promised in my previous post titled “A Marketing Plan… So What?” I will be covering in more details each element starting with the executive summary.

Although the executive summary is usually located at the beginning of your marketing plam, it should be the last part you write.

The purpose of the executive summary is to offer your readers with a quick overview of your plan.  It is an introduction to your business, goals and strategies. That is why, your executive summary should summarize the following:

Description of your company, including your products and/or services

Mission statement

Management and team

Market and customer

Marketing and sales

Competition

Operations

Financial projections and plans

… concluding with a statement tailored to convince the reader that your are building a successful business!

Use the list above as a guideline to start putting your executive summary together adding couple of sentences about each topic.  Remember, this is a summary and it should be limited to a maximum of two pages while including enough intriguing information to encourage the reader to go beyond the two pages.  Make sure that you are using a positive and strong language targeting your audience in a way where it generates interest and excitement about what your business has to offer.

Manal Richa

The MarCom Network – Communications, Branding & Advertising Solutions
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A Marketing Plan… so what?

Regardless if your core business is based on service or products, and regardless of how large or small your business is, you should layout a written marketing plan detailing specific steps in order to achieve your marketing objectives.

Based on tons of research, your marketing plan will guide your marketing team providing them with information on past marketing decisions and outcomes.  It will also offer insights on your target audience.  In addition, your plan should include goals for future marketing efforts while allocating the right budget.

Your marketing plan should include the following:

An Executive Summary including your Purpose and Mission

The Challenge with a brief description of your products/services along with your goals (sales figures)

A Situational Analysis including a detailed Company Analysis (goals, focus, strengths, weakenesses, market share…) in addition to a Customer & Competitor Analysis.

Marketing Strategy and Objectives

Budgets, Performance Analysis and Implementation

Additional Consideration

Based on the assumption that you have a working understanding of marketing principles, you should be able to implement a fully detailed marketing plan.  Othewise, I would suggest that you spend some time learning about the principles of marketing or hire an expert to help.

I am planning on covering the above bullets in more details in upcoming posts… So stay tuned!

Manal Richa

The MarCom Network – Communications, Branding & Advertising Solutions
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Reflecting on a Personal Experience

When I got up this morning and figured out that I lost my voice due to a virus, my first reaction was wondering how my day would go without being able to express myself orally.

It was much easier than I expected – all thanks to the latest technology!

I was able to close deals, schedule meetings, conduct conversations… basically have almost a normal day… all thanks to emailing, scheduling tools such as TimeBridge, and social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

I got a phone call from a partner – I unfortunately was not able to pick up, but I was able to listen to his voice mail.  Since we communicate by email most of the time, he wanted to make an exception this time and communicate with me using an “old technology,” as he called it referring to the telephone. It was the wrong timing though

I started thinking: with all the technology out there, all the new tools, all the new strategies to connect with each other… Are we creating a chaos or simplifying our life?

I guess it all depends on how we decide to get involved and to what extent.  It all depends on what we want to accomplish by getting involved and how we want to accomplish it.  I mean, seriously, we can waste the whole day, the whole week, the whole month… jumping from one tool to another conducting meaningless conversations OR we can simply set a goal ahead of time and decide how we want to use technology to make our life easier and bring success home.

On the other hand, there was one element I definitely missed today – Human interaction.  I had to reshuffle my whole schedule, cancelling meetings and skipping networking events.  By doing so, I was able to catch on tons of office work, but I lost the opportunity to meet with other professionals.

So although technology can facilitate our life, it definitely cannot replace the human interaction.  it is a tool to help us stay connected with each other and have access to each other at all times; but do not allow it to replace meeting others in person.  Looking others in the eye and shaking their hands are important factors of starting, building and leveraging relationships based on trust!

Manal Richa

The MarCom Network – Communications, Branding & Advertising Solutions
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How to Tailor your Marketing Message

Tailoring your marketing message is very important to everything you do when it comes to your marketing planning and execution.  It is very crucial to spend time, thoughts and possibly money (hire a professional) to create a powerful marketing message that would help you stand out amongst the clutter and beyond your competition.

Simply said, your marketing message is the content for your collateral material, website and any marketing initiatives (print, online, TV, radio…) you use to promote your products and services. If well put together, your marketing message should speak to your prospects while grabbing their attention and clearly explaining how your products and services will solve their problem; what is unique about you; and what differentiates you from your competition.

In order to create a powerful marketing message you need to take the following into consideration:

- Your Target Market:  Work hard on identifying your target market and narrow it down so you can tailor an effective message that appeals to that group. 

- Problems and Solutions: While you are selling products or services, you need to be aware of the need in the market.  So identify how what you are offering might be THE solution to your target’s problem.  You need to define the pain so your marketing message addresses it while offering an immediate solution through your company. Concentrate on the “what is in it for me?” and how your services and products are geared towards offering a solution.

- Share Testimonials: Go beyond telling the audience about your solution by proving to them that what you have to offer actually works.  We are bombarded by over 3000 promotional messages on a daily basis which is resulting in building resistance to any sales pitch we encounter.  On the other hand, we tend to believe others who are similar to us and who experience positive results. That is why, it is important that you share testimonials from your customers showing results that were achieved.

- Why You?  Make it clear why customers should choose you over your competition.  What makes you different?  Communicate your differences in an understandable fashion.

Manal Richa

The MarCom Network – Communications, Branding & Advertising Solutions
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Building Relationships That Last

As a business owner, a crucial part of my business is to concentrate on building relationships that last and which I can leverage on the long run.  How? you might ask… Well obviously through networking, attending events and mixers, following up with people and helping others.

Some of us, who are not “born” with the skill to network, need to understand that networking is a skill that can be taught, learned or developed.  It is doable, I promise!

While for some individuals, networking is intuitive, it could be a very challenging and intimidating process for others.  I experienced it and watched other going through the overwhelming feeling of networking and not receiving results and finally giving up!

The more you practice, the more events you attend, the more people you connect with… the better you get at it! You can learn how to approach strangers, how to break into closed groups, how to generate conversations and how to leave a lasting impression on others so by the end of a networking event you are remembered.  You basically learn how to break through the networking barriers.

Keep in mind though that networking requires a lot of time commitment, consistency and tons of practice starting with the elevator pitch all the way into adjusting your follow up strategy to fit the recipient needs.  It is a constant process: you can learn it one step at a time and improve on your skills one step at a time as well. 

Although networking is a lot of work, it should not be perceived as a burden.  In my opinion networking is a needed survival skill – and most of us are in that mode nowadays!  We all need to survive the new economical environment out there… We all need to break through the challenges to succeed.

Manal Richa

The MarCom Network – Communications, Branding & Advertising Solutions
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Are you listening to your customers?

One of the elements that increases the success of your marketing campaign is to concentrate on listening to your customers and their needs.

Large successful companies such as Starbucks are using social media to listen and monitor… to get feedback… so they can respond quickly to their customers needs. Are you doing the same?

Although small businesses do not allocate a large budget for their marketing needs (not as large as Starbucks, for sure ); business owners need to keep in mind that no matter what their goal is, the end-result should always be customer satisfaction.

Stay connected with your customers through newsletters, for example.  Once in a while, send them a survery or a note asking for feedback regarding a new product or service.  We all love to voice our opinion and we love it even more when we are asked to do so.  So get in touch with your clients and ask for their feedback.

Once you do, you need to truly understand your customers… don’t listen to what they say; LISTEN TO WHAT THEY MEAN!  Listen beyond their words!

Manal Richa

The MarCom Network – Communications, Branding & Advertising Solutions
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