GMCC Business Beat
The Marketing/Communications Edge
07/12/2011
Savvy Professionals Can Help You Triumph Over Your Competition
By Judy Dahl
Consumers have myriad choices when purchasing products and services. One way to ensure they choose yours is to work with marketing/communications professionals—on staff, outsourced or both—who can make your product stand out from the crowd.
“The ideal situation is to have outside people when necessary, and augment with inside staff that can handle tasks you don’t need to pay a marketing professional for,” suggests Wayne Glowac, CEO of Glowac + Harris. “You need someone who isn’t afraid to look you in the eye and say, ‘I don’t agree with you.’
“An employee, by the nature of the relationship, will work to keep the boss happy,” he continues. “Great marketing requires collaboration and sometimes different opinions.”
Bill Giest, host of a national CBS Sunday Morning TV show segment, talks with Lake Geneva mail jumpers just prior to covering the action. Joan Collins, owner of Joan Collins Publicity, arranged the national coverage. Learn more in sidebar below.
One advantage of outsourcing is the outside perspective you gain. “Sometimes [employees] are so close to things they can’t see the advantages,” observes Joan Collins, founder and president of Joan Collins Publicity, Inc. “And with people changing jobs frequently, having a stable outside resource might provide more consistency. They have expertise and contacts, so it’s not like starting over each time a new person starts.”
Focus On Organizational Goals
When working with marketing professionals, businesspeople should think about overall goals for their companies—not just marketing goals. “People will come to us and say, ‘We want you to get us more Facebook hits,’ or something,” says Rebecca Kopf, president of PR Etc. “We help them step back, to see if they’re trying to attract new customers, or what the goals are. Marketing has to meet and achieve business goals or it’s just a lot of hoopla.
That’s not what companies pay for,” she adds. “They want to grow their businesses or their constituency base. We help figure out what marketing activities can help achieve those goals.”
And when selecting activities, your marketing professional can recommend four or five tactics that work together, aligned with your business goals. “Having a marketing mix—promotions with the same message—rather than just one or two tactics, is incredibly important,” says Greg Sanders, principal at Sortis Marketing. “Businesses can fail because they don’t do marketing correctly.”
The tactics should be measurable, too. “We don’t recommend a tactic if we can’t track the results,” Sanders says. “We spend a lot of time up front understanding a client’s business, because one type of marketing plan doesn’t fit all. Each one is an individualized, ROI-based plan, and we give clients analytics monthly that measure the impact.”
Be Open With Your Marketers And Don’t Micromanage
When you work with marketing professionals, be open. “Be totally honest and don’t hide anything,” Glowac emphasizes. “They need to know the good, the bad and the ugly about the business. For instance, if you have an issue with customer service and you don’t tell your marketers, it’s devastating. If you run a marketing campaign and don’t have the follow-up, it’s a huge problem.”
One way to keep marketers informed is to bring them to the table. “Too often, especially with internal marketing people, executives will have closed-door meetings, determine what they want to do, and assign it to marketing,” says Kopf. “Marketers should help develop the strategies and plans.”
And let your marketers do what you’re paying them to do. “Don’t micromanage,” Sanders advises. “We’ll have frank conversations up front and listen intently to what clients expect, and then we’ll go to work. We’ll be sensitive to clients’ opinions, but they aren’t always aware of how to position things most effectively.”
Remember that it takes time for marketing to work. “It’s a two- or three-year process before you see real results, and you’ll continue seeing results after that,” says Sanders. “It takes that long to get that foundational market presence. Marketing programs take time to seed themselves and then bear fruit.”
He’s seen companies try campaigns for a couple of months, then pull the plug and conclude marketing doesn’t work. “We work to help educate clients about that,” he says.
PR Is A Vital Component
Public relations (PR) is a vital component of your overall marketing plan, and should align with your advertising and other marketing components. Your marketing professional or a separate resource can manage PR for you.
“It helps you continually build awareness among your customer base and the core people who should know about your business,” says Collins. “You need to remind them regularly that your company is out there, what you do, that you’re reputable, and that things are happening.”
You’ll want to talk with your PR people regularly. “They should ask a lot of questions—that’s so important—and come up with ideas to communicate,” Collins says. “They should find out if you have new hires, new products, or any special events. If you don’t have events coming up, the PR people should plan some.”
PR professionals think a year ahead when developing plans for clients, so inform them well in advance of upcoming events or business milestones. “We’re working on some magazine features that won’t come out until next year, but we need to get reporters to cover them this summer,” says Collins. “You need many balls in the air at once, because not all will stay up.”
PR people also tie into current events and cultural phenomena. “We stay on top of what’s happening locally, regionally and nationally, and develop plans that take advantage of trends,” says Collins. “We also think about what clients are doing philanthropically—they should get credit for it.”
Your PR person may be able to publicize stories about interesting people in your company. One of Collins’ clients, Lake Geneva Cruiseline, got international attention for an employee story (see sidebar below).
Do Your Homework When Selecting Marketers/Communicators
When selecting marketing/communications professionals, get recommendations from your peers, recommends Sanders. “That’s how a lot of us purchase anything today.”
Check their references, too, as you would when hiring an employee. “You don’t really know people until they’re on the job, so do everything you can to mitigate risk,” says Glowac. “Talk to their clients and review case histories of their work that are as similar as possible to your situation.”
He recommends interviewing at least three candidates. “Spend time and get to know them, but don’t ask them to come up with ideas—you can’t expect them to work for free.”
Sanders recommends having meaningful dialogue about their creative approaches and strategic processes. “Ask about their analytics and how they’ll document what they’re doing for you. If they’re not documenting results, they’re missing a step.”
Make sure they understand what your budget is, and that you know who will work on your account. “Ask that person to come to the interview so you can see if there’s a connection and an energy,” says Kopf. “Suggest having more than one person work on your account. That ensures you won’t have downtime during vacations, and you’ll get more ideas and creativity, and more people thinking about your company on a daily basis.”
Every summer day, “mail boat jumpers” leap from Lake Geneva Cruiseline boats onto the piers of lakeside homes to deliver the mail. The Cruiseline holds jumper tryouts each spring, and this year an 84-year-old former jumper helped judge the competition.
Joan Collins, founder and president of Joan Collins Publicity, Inc., got a local TV station to interview him. “We took it from the angle of young people having a hard time finding jobs in this economy, and here’s a plum,” she says.
The story has all the right ingredients. “It’s packed with action,” Collins says. “As PR people, we have to make sure it’s set up correctly. In this case we had a chase boat for media people to get the right angles on people jumping off the mail boats.”
ABC picked up the story and CNN covered the general mail boats angle. “Now it’s on YouTube and all over,” notes Collins.
The whole purpose of the tryouts is to garner reservations for the mail boat tours, which fit 200 people. “The tryouts show how much fun it can be, and reservations for the tour are way up,” Collins concludes.
Judy Dahl is a Madison-based freelance writer and editor specializing in the areas of business, finance and technology. Reach her at judydahl@charter.net.
Savvy Professionals Can Help You Triumph Over Your Competition
By Judy Dahl
Consumers have myriad choices when purchasing products and services. One way to ensure they choose yours is to work with marketing/communications professionals—on staff, outsourced or both—who can make your product stand out from the crowd.
“The ideal situation is to have outside people when necessary, and augment with inside staff that can handle tasks you don’t need to pay a marketing professional for,” suggests Wayne Glowac, CEO of Glowac + Harris. “You need someone who isn’t afraid to look you in the eye and say, ‘I don’t agree with you.’
“An employee, by the nature of the relationship, will work to keep the boss happy,” he continues. “Great marketing requires collaboration and sometimes different opinions.”
Bill Giest, host of a national CBS Sunday Morning TV show segment, talks with Lake Geneva mail jumpers just prior to covering the action. Joan Collins, owner of Joan Collins Publicity, arranged the national coverage. Learn more in sidebar below.
One advantage of outsourcing is the outside perspective you gain. “Sometimes [employees] are so close to things they can’t see the advantages,” observes Joan Collins, founder and president of Joan Collins Publicity, Inc. “And with people changing jobs frequently, having a stable outside resource might provide more consistency. They have expertise and contacts, so it’s not like starting over each time a new person starts.”
Focus On Organizational Goals
When working with marketing professionals, businesspeople should think about overall goals for their companies—not just marketing goals. “People will come to us and say, ‘We want you to get us more Facebook hits,’ or something,” says Rebecca Kopf, president of PR Etc. “We help them step back, to see if they’re trying to attract new customers, or what the goals are. Marketing has to meet and achieve business goals or it’s just a lot of hoopla.
That’s not what companies pay for,” she adds. “They want to grow their businesses or their constituency base. We help figure out what marketing activities can help achieve those goals.”
And when selecting activities, your marketing professional can recommend four or five tactics that work together, aligned with your business goals. “Having a marketing mix—promotions with the same message—rather than just one or two tactics, is incredibly important,” says Greg Sanders, principal at Sortis Marketing. “Businesses can fail because they don’t do marketing correctly.”
The tactics should be measurable, too. “We don’t recommend a tactic if we can’t track the results,” Sanders says. “We spend a lot of time up front understanding a client’s business, because one type of marketing plan doesn’t fit all. Each one is an individualized, ROI-based plan, and we give clients analytics monthly that measure the impact.”
Be Open With Your Marketers And Don’t Micromanage
When you work with marketing professionals, be open. “Be totally honest and don’t hide anything,” Glowac emphasizes. “They need to know the good, the bad and the ugly about the business. For instance, if you have an issue with customer service and you don’t tell your marketers, it’s devastating. If you run a marketing campaign and don’t have the follow-up, it’s a huge problem.”
One way to keep marketers informed is to bring them to the table. “Too often, especially with internal marketing people, executives will have closed-door meetings, determine what they want to do, and assign it to marketing,” says Kopf. “Marketers should help develop the strategies and plans.”
And let your marketers do what you’re paying them to do. “Don’t micromanage,” Sanders advises. “We’ll have frank conversations up front and listen intently to what clients expect, and then we’ll go to work. We’ll be sensitive to clients’ opinions, but they aren’t always aware of how to position things most effectively.”
Remember that it takes time for marketing to work. “It’s a two- or three-year process before you see real results, and you’ll continue seeing results after that,” says Sanders. “It takes that long to get that foundational market presence. Marketing programs take time to seed themselves and then bear fruit.”
He’s seen companies try campaigns for a couple of months, then pull the plug and conclude marketing doesn’t work. “We work to help educate clients about that,” he says.
PR Is A Vital Component
Public relations (PR) is a vital component of your overall marketing plan, and should align with your advertising and other marketing components. Your marketing professional or a separate resource can manage PR for you.
“It helps you continually build awareness among your customer base and the core people who should know about your business,” says Collins. “You need to remind them regularly that your company is out there, what you do, that you’re reputable, and that things are happening.”
You’ll want to talk with your PR people regularly. “They should ask a lot of questions—that’s so important—and come up with ideas to communicate,” Collins says. “They should find out if you have new hires, new products, or any special events. If you don’t have events coming up, the PR people should plan some.”
PR professionals think a year ahead when developing plans for clients, so inform them well in advance of upcoming events or business milestones. “We’re working on some magazine features that won’t come out until next year, but we need to get reporters to cover them this summer,” says Collins. “You need many balls in the air at once, because not all will stay up.”
PR people also tie into current events and cultural phenomena. “We stay on top of what’s happening locally, regionally and nationally, and develop plans that take advantage of trends,” says Collins. “We also think about what clients are doing philanthropically—they should get credit for it.”
Your PR person may be able to publicize stories about interesting people in your company. One of Collins’ clients, Lake Geneva Cruiseline, got international attention for an employee story (see sidebar below).
Do Your Homework When Selecting Marketers/Communicators
When selecting marketing/communications professionals, get recommendations from your peers, recommends Sanders. “That’s how a lot of us purchase anything today.”
Check their references, too, as you would when hiring an employee. “You don’t really know people until they’re on the job, so do everything you can to mitigate risk,” says Glowac. “Talk to their clients and review case histories of their work that are as similar as possible to your situation.”
He recommends interviewing at least three candidates. “Spend time and get to know them, but don’t ask them to come up with ideas—you can’t expect them to work for free.”
Sanders recommends having meaningful dialogue about their creative approaches and strategic processes. “Ask about their analytics and how they’ll document what they’re doing for you. If they’re not documenting results, they’re missing a step.”
Make sure they understand what your budget is, and that you know who will work on your account. “Ask that person to come to the interview so you can see if there’s a connection and an energy,” says Kopf. “Suggest having more than one person work on your account. That ensures you won’t have downtime during vacations, and you’ll get more ideas and creativity, and more people thinking about your company on a daily basis.”
Lake Geneva Cruiseline Tryouts in the News
Mail Boat Jumpers Are All Over YouTubeEvery summer day, “mail boat jumpers” leap from Lake Geneva Cruiseline boats onto the piers of lakeside homes to deliver the mail. The Cruiseline holds jumper tryouts each spring, and this year an 84-year-old former jumper helped judge the competition.
Joan Collins, founder and president of Joan Collins Publicity, Inc., got a local TV station to interview him. “We took it from the angle of young people having a hard time finding jobs in this economy, and here’s a plum,” she says.
The story has all the right ingredients. “It’s packed with action,” Collins says. “As PR people, we have to make sure it’s set up correctly. In this case we had a chase boat for media people to get the right angles on people jumping off the mail boats.”
ABC picked up the story and CNN covered the general mail boats angle. “Now it’s on YouTube and all over,” notes Collins.
The whole purpose of the tryouts is to garner reservations for the mail boat tours, which fit 200 people. “The tryouts show how much fun it can be, and reservations for the tour are way up,” Collins concludes.
Judy Dahl is a Madison-based freelance writer and editor specializing in the areas of business, finance and technology. Reach her at judydahl@charter.net.