Archive for October 6th, 2009

Just as in the world of Real Estate it is all about “location, location, location”; in the world of marketing it is all about “consistency, consistency, consistency”.

In conjunction with a sound brand strategy, you need a clear and concise message that resonates with your customers. These messages need to be integrated across your brand and into every customer touch point.  Now, you don’t need to use the same words over and over. However, each communication needs to reinforce the key messages that have been developed to support the brand.  It is a case where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts – when the brand is consistently conveyed across multiple touch points, the customer is left with a clear understanding of what the company, product, service, or solution is and how it solves their problem. Simply put, they know what your brand is about.

Unfortunately, as marketers we often get bored with the messages we’ve developed.  We’ve spent hours fine-tuning them and testing them.  Finally, our campaigns launch and the messages are out there, but by that time they feel old and stale to us.  There is a difference between a “fresh” message (with unique language, a clever play on words, a connection to a current event) and a “different” message (not aligned with strategy, not related to existing messages, different for the sake of being different).  Research shows that it takes anywhere from five to nine impressions for an individual to actually internalize a marketing message.  That means they need to see it over and over again.  Not the same words, but the same idea supported by the same brand.

For example, an article in a trade publication mentions the company and their new product; the customer sees an online banner ad, they click on it, and get to a landing page with a compelling offer; they do a Google search to see what else comes up and there is a link to your latest white paper; at an industry tradeshow the company has a booth and is hosting a panel discussion…and the story continues.  With consistent use of key messages across multiple touch-points your customers comes away with the sense that your company is worth their consideration.

Now you have a place to start engaging and driving purchase decisions.  This model holds true for consumer and business marketing.  People are people, whether they are buying high-end mission-critical software or a new plasma HDTV for their living room.  They have a problem.  Through your consistent messages, you have convinced them to consider your product or service as they evaluate their options.  You still have to convince them that your product or solution is really the only one that really addresses all their needs – from technical specifications to user support, maintenance and financing (again, these apply to consumer and business purchases.)

Again, consistency is key.  Your customers need to see and feel that your company is honest and trustworthy.  If there is a disconnect between what you say and what they experience, you will lose the sale, and worse, probably the customer.  So, while consistency in messaging is important…consistency in execution is critical, too.  Both pieces of this puzzle need to be addressed in order for the whole thing to work.  If you only focus on the messaging, then your experience will fall flat.  If you don’t explain your differences and benefits, then you won’t get the chance to display your stellar experience.  No matter how you look at it, consistency is the key to growing you brand and your business

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This article is contributed by Laura Lowell, Author of the Amazon bestseller ’42 Rules of Marketing’ and the upcoming ‘42 Rules to Build Your Brand and Your Business’. You can follow her on twitter at @42_rules.

Tagged as: active garage, Brand, brand strategy, Branding, Communication, Consistency, customer, engagement, financing, laura lowell, location, Maintenance, purchases, technical specifications, Trust

In a recent post, we discussed the significant difference between the financial acquisition value and the strategic acquisition value of a privately held company.  Obviously, before you can convert your company into an attractive strategic acquisition candidate, you have to learn just what that means in your industry.  But, how can you do that?  You certainly can’t just walk up to a key acquisition executive and ask, can you?

Actually, with a few important modifications, that’s precisely what you can, and should, do!  Well, not you personally, because it will be important to keep your company unidentified.  Just have a trusted advisor conduct these interviews on your behalf.

Once you and your team have developed a list of likely buyers, design a questionnaire that will take no more than 15 minutes to complete on the telephone.  The questions you ask will largely depend on your industry and the data you want to gather on where these executives think the industry is headed.  However, two questions will be common to all questionnaires, irrespective of the size of your company or its industry.

1. If you were to acquire a company in this industry today, which strategic assets would be most valuable to you?
2. How are these preferences like to change over the next few years?

If your interviewer talks to enough acquisition executives (15-25 should do it) and compiles the responses, s/he will have put together the profile of the attractive strategic acquisition candidate from the perspective of the marketplace.  Next, conduct a “gap analysis” that compares this profile with the strategic profile of your company.  In other words, how does your company stack up on each strategic asset regarded by a number of interviewees as important?  In most cases, your individual strategic asset ratings will fall roughly into three categories.

1. We are in very good shape, and need only fine tuning.
2. We have made significant strides, but we have a long way to go.
3. We are pretty close to the starting blocks.

Once you have made these judgments, you can decide which strategic assets to acquire and/or enhance in order to move your company’s strategic profile closer to what the marketplace has specified.  Consider these possible scenarios.

1. Many interviewees indicate that they would be very interested in acquiring a leading regional company in your industry, but not a local one.  This would suggest that acquiring one or more companies in your industry or, perhaps, merging with a larger competitor elsewhere in your region, would make the equity in your company much more valuable.

1. A number of executives indicate that some important product development opportunities are stalled because the components currently available in the market are technically inadequate.  One or more of these components is within your company’s technical expertise.  This information could affect your strategic product development effort in a very positive and targeted way.

1. You have been planning to expand into a new market niche, and have narrowed the choices to three that appear to be roughly equally promising.  The interviews yield the information that one of these three would be considered very valuable to many prospective buyers.  Case closed.

Once you have made these decisions, you need only incorporate them into an effective strategic plan, complete with areas of individual responsibility, deadlines and standards of performance.  Good luck!
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This article has been contributed by Steven D. Popell. Steve has been a general management consultant since 1970. Steve is a Certified Management Consultant, business valuation expert, and inventor of ExiTrak®- a process designed to assist the privately-held company owner/manager to build an attractive strategic acquisition candidate

Tagged as: active garage, assets, Business Strategy, candidate, exitrak, gap, gap analysis, industry, liabilities, market, market niche, marketplace, plan, planning, steve popell, strategic acquisition, strategic planning, trusted advisor