More than just a set of marketing tactics!

A branding program should be an “outside-in” & “inside-out” activity that includes and resonates with customers, prospects and stakeholders in the target market and business environment that your company participates in. Vendors, customers, prospects, distributors… all experience your brand in different ways. By staying in touch with these stakeholders, you can gain valuable feedback that can be pumped back into managing the brand strategy and preventing potential slippage.

Fully implemented, a company’s branding strategy and plan should touch and transform every aspect of your company’s operation, enlisting your employees as enthusiastic brand representatives who deliver the brand promise and influence brand strength.

Controlling your brand

Effective brands are built on an in-depth understanding of a company’s competitive position in the marketplace, its product & service strengths, its promises, its values & ethics, its sales process, its after-sales support, and its strategic plan. Understanding the factors that build and affect the brand will enable the creation & implementation of a solid brand or re-brand plan, essential brand elements and branding tools/materials that will effectively help the company engage with the needs and desires of the market, prospects, customers and stakeholders. Through consistent and targeted implementation of the branding plan, a company can dramatically impact brand strength and perception.

Understanding your company’s persona

Positioning:
Where is your company in your specific market space with respect to the competition and what the market needs are?

Unique sales proposition (USP):
What do you see as benefits to your client choosing your products over your competition? What makes your company so special? Even if you are a me-to company, there needs to be a compelling reason why a prospect would chose your products over the competition. Find that positive unique feature and make it part of your brand.

Your market:
Understanding and keeping in touch with your market is a pretty obvious requirement in any business. Being close to it, will keep you on the cutting edge, allowing you to predict the markets direction and adapt your offerings to potential niche opportunities. By staying synchronized with your market, you can address and publicize changes quickly, giving the impression that you are an innovative driver of the technology.

Your competition:
Continually audit your competition, understand their products and analyze the features and benefits they use to promote their products. Do your products out perform the competitions products? Make sure that you capitalize on the things that you do better by promoting the differentiators. Keep your literature and marketing pieces current, dispose of outdated materials, provide opportunities to update current and potential customers. Keeping current will help you build your brand.

Integrated marketing and consistency

Once your identity elements have been established, our integrated marketing approach ensures that future projects employ your identity standards for brand recognition, message consistency, and support of your strategic direction.

Actually, by asking about your budget, we are attempting to make life easier for both the client and the agency. It’s simple, once we know the details of what is wanted and how much can be spent, we can ensure that the solution we come up with is realistic, caters to the clients needs and goals, and fits within their budget.

THE RESULT

For the Client:
- The client gets pricing they would expect
- The client gets an understanding of what compromises might be required, if any to deliver a program within their budget

For the Agency:
- We quote a solution that won’t be rejected on price
- We get an opportunity to explain project details and realities to make sure the solutions will work for the client

A well thought-out marketing communications plan supports the objectives laid out in your business plan. It allows you to focus your marketing and corporate communications, making sure that all activities work together to support the big picture and fit within your budget. The strategy is very important because you are building the components of your company (brand, identity, and everything in between) And in doing so, your plan needs to put the required pieces in place at the right time.

So, what’s a marketing communication plan?
A marketing communications plan is a written document that lays out your promotional and communication tactics and identifies collateral material requirements and expenses that will be needed to support your tactics within a specified budget, over a period of time (usually 1 year). The plan answers the basic question, how and where am I going to make potential customers aware of my company, products, or services and what will I need to support my sales force? A plan helps you determine the most effective means of distributing your company’s messages to prospects and stakeholders.

What are the basic steps to creating an effective
marketing communications plan?

• Determine your budget
• Identify your business and marketing goals
• Research & analyze your target audience
• Look at what your competition is doing, and where they are doing it
• List and analyze opportunities for communications
• Evaluate and prioritize potential tactics
• Determine the costs of your plan & compare them to your budget, adjust accordingly
• Schedule proposed tactics into a calendar

What activities should a marketing plan include?

1. TACTICS – marketing activities that you want to do:

• Public relations
• Advertising
• Trade shows
• Direct marketing
• Search engine/internet marketing
• Seminars
• more…

2. COLLATERAL SUPPORT – things you’ll need to support your tactics:

• Web site, blog, wiki…
• Advertisements
• Trade show graphics
• Brochures/data sheets
• White papers/articles
• Sales presentations
• Pre & post design costs such as photography, printing, image processing…
• Product tours or demos
• Shipping costs
• more…

Marketing plan goals
You want the biggest bang for your buck. You want to reach as many real prospects as you can. You want to use the tactics that will give you the best results. You don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket. Consider building in some flexibility – what would happen if circumstances were to freeze or decrease the budget?

How much should be spent executing an annual marketing plan?
There is no rule that says how much you should spend on a executing a marketing plan. It really depends on the company and it’s goals. Typically, a company’s marketing budget is based upon a percentage of forecast revenue for the upcoming year (1-3 percent). For start-ups, a marketing communications plan is usually budgeted within their business plan and may include oly some of the basic requirements to get the business out of the gate fast:

• Identity, logo, corporate guidelines, stationary, business cards…
• Web site, hosting plan, domain name…
• Collateral, brochure, data sheet, presentation, demo…

If you’re a start-up company, be sure to check out the Hutchins Crang special Kick-Start Program for start-up and developing companies.

If you’re involved with a start-up or an emerging technology company, you definitely have your hands full with planning, funding, operational, sales, and other issues. Generally, a marketing plan is a part of this mix, too – it better be! But even when a company has its own marketing manager, it’s often difficult to execute an effective marketing campaign that establishes and builds the brand while developing awareness and supporting sales.

Realizing this, Hutchins Crang has developed two new services that are specifically designed to help small companies establish their identity and get the word out – with help and advice from B2B technology marketing experts!

Our Marketing Kick Start Plan includes logo design, message development, identity materials, a brochure, and a content-managed web site – for one low price.

Our Public Relations Kick Start Plan includes development of a company backgrounder and FAQs, executive bios, a PR/news contact list and editorial planner that are relevant to your business, and the development of your first company and product press releases. Again, all for one flat fee.

For more information or discussion on our KickStart Program, please add your comments, or contact us directly.