Are Communications People Tough Enough?

There was a very interesting scene in the season premier of MadMen. Be prepared for a spoiler you haven't seen it yet! During a meeting with a client who was trying to market a two-piece bathing suit for modest people, Don Draper had enough and threw the potential clients out of the office. A lot of my fellow PR and Corp Com friends admitted to enjoying what Don did and wishing they could have done it themselves.

I bring this up because it focuses on the concept of toughness and doing what's right in Corporate Communications. I will also stick my neck out and say hurray for Don Draper. He went to his clients with an intelligent and well-thought marketing campaign. He obviously knew the market better than they did and when they balked at his proposals and he saw they were being stubborn for no reason than to be stubborn and closed minded, so he ended the relationship. Granted, it was for the sake of television he threw them out of the office, but ultimately, he did these people a favor by pointing out how deeply flawed their brand premise was. We can only wonder if they got the message or just went to another agency who was happy to smile, cash their checks and do what they want regardless of how wrong it is.

Now of course standing up to a client, be it internal or external is always worrisome and dangerous. Many people think that by giving us a check we surrender all intelligence and basically become some type of puppet for them to manipulate. Others, think that since they have hired a communications professional or a team of pros, they need not worry anymore about the issue of communications.

Sadly, there are a great number of communications professionals who tend towards being more reptilian than mammal. They will also do what is solely in their best interests and will tell the client what they want to hear and will focus on personal advancement to the exclusion of all else that makes for an effective and dynamic team. For some reason, the communications community focuses on people who make us feel good and tell us what we want to hear than the ones who tell us what we need to know.

Put it into a different perspective, if you're 30 pounds overweight, smoke and eat the wrong things, do you want a doctor who will keep telling you all is well and that you look great. Of course not. Now doctors HAVE to tell you the truth but communications people SHOULD do so. It is interesting when communications are direct and honest because there are two initial reactions generally speaking. The first is that the executive or client jumps back like they have received an electric shock and the look on their face is like they've been given a dose of some terrible medicine. The second reaction is that usually within 24 hours one of the snakes in the grass will offer reassuring words that all is well and try to endear themselves to the client.

We all need to understand and agree that pleasing a client is not the same as servicing their needs. Just as we need to say no to a child to help their growth we sometimes need to say no to a client to help them grow. The stock answer by the appeasers is that clients can always find someone else to do the job if you're too harsh, mean etc. That is true, but if they can find a communications pro who is willing to be bold enough and offer them the honest opinion which will make the brand stronger than the organization will be the better for it.

The question we need to ask as communications professionals is are we willing to do what is right or what is expedient? Are we going to be a profession bound by some type of ethics and guidelines or are we simply going to collect a check and do a job that requires the minimum amount of both risk and morals. These are tough questions we need to think about in our profession because the past ten years have been so brutal that survival skills have trumped good management skills. The next ten years should either be really interesting or quite scary.

How to survive a game changing application!

There is the old expression, "be careful what you wish for." This is very true. I don't know if it has an ending but if it does the ideal ending in my opinion would be, "be careful what you wish for, it may come true." One thing that every marketing and communications professional wishes for is to be there at the beginning of a potentially market changing application. We would all like to think this is very exciting and filled with moments of breathtaking, heart pounding thrills.

Well one analogy I could draw is what it must be like to be the pitcher of a no-hitter. While everyone remembers the no-hitter and we all see the players dancing around once it is over, imagine the last few minutes before the final out. That is what it is always like being with a company trying to launch a product that can change the marketplace. With one step you could reach immortality and hey, based on what players make, maybe you can make a lot of money off it as well. But there is also the potential for having a miscue mean that you're going to miss out on the opportunity and soon be relegated to the trash heap of soon to be forgotten history.

Marketing and communicating the benefits of a game changing application are simply put, brutal. For one thing, every company thinks they have a game changing application. I remember seeing an electric fly swatter being sold as a "revolutionary pest control device." Let's be honest, restraint is not really a facet one tends to see in most marketing and communications people. Nor is a judicious temperament.

But often when you have a product that is set to radically alter the landscape that is exactly what is needed. For one thing, no brand new, market altering product can be successful without properly educating the media and analysts' who follow the market. Basically, they are both the gatekeepers as well the individuals with the knowledge and insight to see if something really has the potential to change the marketplace or is once again, more hot air.

So the best way to survive a game changing application is by realizing that if you truly have a unique story to tell then you are in the drivers seat and can choose, when, where and how you wish to tell it. But remember that there is truly, very little out there that hasn't already been done or said or told 50 times 50 before. Restraint will help you, but passion will fuel you.

How to wean your CEO from a PR addiction

One thing is very true in public relations today, far too many press releases are being issued. Furthermore, no one is reading them! The sad part is that many corporate executives see the way to dig out of a hole is to dig deeper into the earth.

The appeal of the press release is not hard to see. It allows senior executives, in most cases CEO's to pontificate on what they believe is important news that the entire world must hear. Sadly, in many cases, they are speaking to an empty church. So many releases are going out and most are of such dubious value that important things like messaging and reaching customers is often overlooked in the interest of simply issuing another release. Keep in mind that it is in the best interests of your agency and the wire services to have you issue a release any time you sneeze.

So that your public relations can accomplish its real goal of delivering your message to your target audience and ultimately helping you sell more of your product or service you need to manage your PR program the way you would protect family valuables. There are some steps you can take to ensure that your PR program is run properly. Some require basic steps but like a lot of things in life, the simple things lead to the greatest result. Here are some of my key tips to reduce PR addiction.

• Bar the use of the term press release. Instruct your management team that the company only issues news releases. It may seem like splitting hairs but it forces you to ask such questions as, what is the news value of what we are saying? Will this help us sell our product or services? Will this help reinforce our message to our key target markets?
• Put the management team on a diet when it comes to issue news releases. Pick a number and limit them to roughly half a dozen releases per quarter. That is an arbitrary number but what it does is it forces prioritization on what is really valuable. Hard choices often need to be made and rather than take an easy out by issuing a press release, make a tough choice and issue a news release.
• Look for non-traditional means of connecting with target audiences. While we are evolving in our use of technology, not to many companies are using Web 2.0 technology, such as blogging, Facebook and Twitter among others, to successfully disseminate their message to their market at large.
• Use more established methods in new ways. For example, opt-in email distribution services are vastly under-utilized and as such do not people who are interested in hearing about new developments within your organizations to hear from you. Therefore in a sad irony, information is being distributed to people who don't care or who are not an appropriate target.

Many senior executives believe that they know what is the best way to disseminate information and as a result hijack the PR process. Sadly many communications professionals allow this to happen because they place temporary job security over the long term success of their careers. The ones who truly succeed at public relations are the professionals who establish a rigorous program. The organization's success is the ultimate goal and only through this type of rigorous program can the success be assured.

Preparing for when the rain will end!

I have spent time speaking to marketing professionals and senior executives and have found out something I consider very interesting. About 10 percent are very excited and believe that we've made it through the storm and in the midst of a recovery which will be quick and robust. The other 90 percent think we are in the middle of a terrible storm and that any recovery, if it comes, will be weak and tepid. As you may guess, only one group is actually planning for the future and investing in marketing.

I was thinking of an analogy which would describe these two opposite opinions and am struck by how successful one may be and how the other may miss the boat entirely. Imagine two companies which sell personal care products. The first company is always pessimistic about the weather and when he/she looks outside and sees gray skies all they see is rain. So they have the stock team move all of the sun glasses to the back of the store and instead fill the front with all types of umbrellas.

The store across the street sees the gray skies and knows that while there are gray skies today, the skies will not always be gray. As such, they put out some sunglasses and sunscreen along with the umbrella. While it might be raining that first day, some people will see the wisdom of being ahead of the curve and will respect the second company for being strategic enough to not only weather the storm, but also to plan ahead for the days when the sun comes out. No one wants to buy an umbrella on a gorgeous sunny day. But if you're selling sunglasses, you can almost name your price.

The point here is that the companies best prepared to prosper from a recovery are those who don't mind being on the starting line before the other fellow is finishing their warmups. In fact, the truly wise ones are willing to sacrifice a few sales in the very short term but see the opportunity to drive sales in the long term. They realize that it is better to give up a few inches now to gain a yard on down the line. Sadly, very few of their contemporaries see this goal and as a result will pay the consequences.

Keeping the message inside the box!

We are all familiar with the tired old cliche of "thinking outside the box." Well there is one area where we need to stay within the box and just as we were told when young, to color inside of the lines. This comes with the development and execution of the corporate message.

More often than not the corporate message is an afterthought when the brand is developed. I have seen, and been depressed by, other marketing professionals who will focus on minor details such as what shade of a color to use. Cardinal Red versus Vermilion is one argument I can remember going on for hours. These people think that all of these components will subtly influence the target audience and the result will be greater sales. Sadly, this is not the case and a marketing plan that does not revolve around a strong message is almost guaranteed to fail.

A strong message leaves the targeted consumer with a clear idea of what the end result of the purchase of their product will be. Who can forget Coca-Cola with the "Pause the Refreshes" or McDonald's saying "You Deserve a Break Today." I can remember buying services from a vendor who were more or less equal in all aspects such as price and ease of use. What ended up being the decision maker for me was a very direct marketing message. The winner said, "We help you do your job better." That was a very direct message to me that told me my life could be a lot easier if I used them.

Of course the hardest part of keeping the message in the box is that higher ups will always want to tinker with it. As many of my dear readers know, one of the most lamentable occurrences in business has been the emergence of the shortsighted mindset which only sees from one quarter to another. Great American companies tend to become that way not because they manage earnings better, but due to the fact they have a vision which extends beyond one quarter and a deep seated faith in what the organization is doing.

In addition, a good CEO listens to their smart marketing person who will tell them that changing a marketing message is similar to painting a house. You check on the damage, you make repairs along the way and maybe every ten to 15 years you do a complete overhaul in the message. In this day and age you have to fight to keep the CEO or some other senior executive from changing the message every quarter out of fear they are not meeting next quarter's numbers or even worse, out of boredom with the current message.

The corporate message is what helps influence your customers. It is something you need to keep an eye on for threats and the need to change but you also need to keep a spare eye on the number of elements who would like to change it for the simple sake of change. The message should always reinforce the mission and by doing that you're ultimately helping to sell more product.

Why fear failure?

No one likes to admit failure. That is something I find ironic because not only is failure a fact of life, in some aspects it is a cathartic action which allows for self examination and for the best to be made of a bad situation. Sadly, due to the mismanagement and in incompetence of many leaders and CEO's failure is seen as something terrible but irrational risk is not. Now that is a truly head spinning contradiction one could only suspect coming out of Lewis Carroll.

That being said, there is a point where despite all one's best efforts and every possible positive step taken, a certain product or initiative is just not working and needs to be killed. Now current corporate dogma says avoid blame and find someone to pin it on. Sadly, very little time is spent saying what did we do wrong and even more important, what did we do right? Failure unto itself is often a tremendous learning experience and something that, in the long term, can benefit the organization.

Now this is not an ode to the glories of failure. It goes without saying that an organization needs to succeed much more than fail in order to achieve its goals. However the path to success often comes from what at first glance seems a failure. Think of it this way, were it not for a failure, we would not have antibiotics or the microwave oven or teflon. In many regards, failure can be the first step on a different path to success. The irrational fear of failing is indicative of a short term viewpoint which says that only immediate and unquestioned, chest thumping success is appropriate. Sadly, that means that even a success which is 90 percent of the goals expected is often seen as a failure.

In order to succeed one can not fear failure. There is no need to aim for failure of course, nor should one just shrug your shoulders and say "oh well I have tried my best." But inversely, failure should be seen as an opportunity for self examination and quite possibly for the chance to create future opportunities down the road which will far and away dwarf the failure you have just completed.

The overlooked and often most effective PR tool!

Most PR organizations will ever be mistaken for nimble industries who are ahead of market developments. Quite the opposite of their own spin, the PR industry is often very reactive and tends to grab a certain topic they believe is hot and bite onto it like it is the second coming. As a result, legitimate ways of helping to build a client brand can be overlooked.

One clear cut example of this is my opinion is the use of speaking opportunities. I never cease to be amazed at how PR people will nearly froth at the mouth when one mentions social media, yet if the topic is speaking opportunities you get the confused puppy dog look. Yet in this age where the big books are dying and where personal, face to face, time is considered an essential for an organization to succeed in this marketplace a well placed speaking opportunity can have amazing implications for your brand.

First of all you need to understand the hierarchy of the speaking opportunity. Regardless of how great your brand concept is or how super a speaker you are, unless you are a well known organization already you need to set your sights low to begin with. You will NOT be the closing key not speaker your first time out. Sorry but that is just how things are! But there is a way that can work if you have true vision and long term goals for your organization.

First of all, when you are getting started, offer to take spots on the panel discussions. These positions are the hardest for event organizers to fill as there are much more panel discussions. Sometimes, if you make a good case that your speaker is talented and thoughtful you can get in as a panel moderator. Once you do this, and assuming you do well, you are then well positioned to move up the food chain the next time there is an opportunity with this organization. You are also well placed to offer to help out at other events and now you have the beginning of a CV that will demonstrate your thought leadership on your area of expertise.

One other area I would recommend is the use of bylined articles to demonstrate thought leadership. This should be done in coordination with the formula I listed above. Byline's are great because you can expound on a topic that rests within your area of expertise and demonstrate the innovative and creative ideas you can offer. Ideally the byline should be published first but even if you wish to present it as a "pending printing" or something like that you should be good. What you want to do is to show you have creative ideas and can present new ideas to the discussion pool.

So remember that one of the most effective PR tools, more so than releases and pounding after the media, is being a member of a speaker's panel at an event. Your organization should make a speaker's panel a key part of its organization and as a result you will see a very quick rise in the name recognition of your organization within your industry.

Marketing goes on outside of the marketing department

Marketing is a role that the marketing department in many organizations guards ferociously. There is good reason for it, not the least of which is the fact that many others try and do marketing's job or act as a type of grandstand manager to tell marketing and communications how to get the job done. But there is some education that companies need to make regarding the fact that all external facing groups are in fact marketing ambassadors if not part of the marketing department.

No one needs to be told that times are tough now and that there are greater pressures on employees now than anytime in quite a long while. However many employees who face the public usually act in a fashion that is counterproductive to a companies long term success. This runs the gamut from sales representatives who only return phone calls when it is time to renew a license on a product, to technical support who insist on only electronic communication to an HR representative who makes a candidate feel like a leper.

In difficult times like this it is doubly important for a company to take advantage of market circumstances and avoid the bunker mentality. Rather, they should be using the downturn to reach out to clients and customers and reinforce not only how important they are to the organization, but how well the two of you work together. By teaching employees the value of marketing as a positive growth tool for the entire organization, you can ensure that you are uniquely positioned for growth once the recession finally ends. Also, you can ensure the long term and steady viability for organization with consistent talent development.

In the long term, marketing strategy and execution is the role of the marketing and communications department. However any public facing facet of the organization is part of the marketing organization de facto. Each group that deals with the public should be reminded of their role as brand ambassadors and what that means to the long term health, success and viability of the company.

Do you need a PR freelancer or an agency to get going?

As most marketing people know, the first step in selling the product begins with the PR program. It helps you refine your brand and introduce yourself to key influences out there who you are and why your product/service is relevant. Of course, public relations help does not come cheap and, if not properly managed, can be a huge loss leader for your young organization. So then the question becomes who do I hire to help me manage a PR launch for my product? A full fledged agency or a sole practitioner?

One thing to keep in mind is your relative size and how that matters to anyone you are going to hire. If you are dealing with a large PR agency or even a mid to small size one, the smaller you are, the less care you will receive regarding your account. As normally happens with agencies, you are sold a wonderful bill of goods when you are applying for the agency and you see a really strong team of A plus managers who many will insist will be your account team. Once you sign that contract however you will notice that in world record time your account is being by managed by people that you never met and before you know it you are being spoon fed the normal palladium of press releases followed by the by the rote school of one size fits all, non-creative PR.

Generally when you hire smaller freelancers, you are getting motivated and, if you have done your homework intelligent and experienced, professionals who rely on your support to fund their continued success. In addition, you are most likely dealing with one or two people who represent the organization. Your work is not going to be passed onto the new hire since, most likely, there will not be a new hire to pass the work onto. You will also find someone more open to making your vision work and seeing your ideas get a shot at some sunlight.

A freelancer succeeds by taking risks where an agency fails if they do so. The agencies main goal is to have you renew the contract so they will ensure you do that. A freelancer's goal is to ensure that you succeed since that demonstrates that they can help an organization succeed. A freelancer usually does not have to pay for an office and the non-essential staff that is common among PR agencies so with that lower overhead, they can bring you a greater focus on your core PR needs.

It is pretty obvious in my opinion that a PR freelancer is the way to go when you are starting up your organization. From both a fiscal sense as well as a more product driven one a freelancer is a more common sense approach for an organization that is just building its PR program. The level of customer care and ROI is almost certainly going to be higher. The influence you have with a smaller organization can not be over estimated and can/should be leveraged for your organization's benefit.

Is your brand dying because you are trying to save it?

There is an old back yard gardeners adage that the one that kills a garden above all else is over attentiveness. Some people obsess over the slightest details regarding their gardens and as a result the garden suffers. The same can be said about brands, in some environments the corporate senior executive be it a division head or a CEO can be so focused on saving the brand that they may end up being blind to the fact they are in turn killing that which they are trying to save.

I have seen with my own eyes many otherwise strong, or relatively strong brands, which are hacked to pieces because someone higher up believes the brand is in some type of danger. Either from competition or complacency but in danger non-the-less. What is both sad and ironic is that when these people take drastic and, often unnecessary steps, to fix the problem the result is greater loss and more disruption. This reinforces the first impression that they were right about the need for drastic change and results in more change.

This second wave of change is often unneeded and even more destructive than the first wave was. More importantly it results in both customers and employees questioning the future of the brand and if management really has solved a problem or is fighting some type of hydra where two problems will emerge for each one fixed.

Obviously a brand needs to be nurtured like any plant in a garden. It needs the right materials to grow on and most importantly needs patience to reach full maturity. A farmer does not go into his or her field and pull tiny corn stalks out of the ground. Rather, they wait until the product is primed for market and that is the philosophy that today's senior executives would be smart to take as their example.

A brand will succeed if given the right amount of care and devotion. You need to take the appropriate steps and consult with the right experts to ensure both brand survival and long-term health. But you also need to let the brand grow on its own accord and be careful not to smother the brand with over attentiveness. Make sure that your cure is not worse than the illness in question.

How to test your start up brand?

Building a brand is something that takes time, patience and, of course, money. To use the old adage, "Rome was not built in a day." That is certainly relevant when it comes to building ones brand. Start up companies today are faced with the dilemma that they need to build to build a recognizable brand as soon as possible and get it to market even quicker so they can establish themselves and begin to generate revenue.

So with any product the question becomes how do you test a brand especially if it is one that hasn't seen the light of day yet? Certainly if you are Microsoft or Coca-Cola you can conduct focus groups and have test audiences to try out your product and see how it works. A new start up has maybe a half dozen individuals to share the information with and, assuming they have a new concept, need to be discrete in who they inform regarding the product.

To that end it is very difficult for a start up company to test its product and get a sense of its brand. Still, it can be done if appropriate measures are taken to protect the brand. First of all, you do have the option of selecting a small group to serve as your control and use them to test the product or concept. By doing this, you are bringing in people you believe you can trust. They need not be people you know personally but they should be screened for reliability and you should be comfortable with who you are working with.

You can also work with organizations and do a blind test. These organizations bring in people and serve as your focus group and tell you what they like about your concept and what they do not like. They are blind in every sense of the word and have no idea what your product is and in many cases may have no idea about your market. While you benefit from feedback, you are getting this feedback from an ill-informed group who may not fully understand the nuances of your brand concept.

Lastly, you can try and run your own research so that you need not work with a pay-to-play organization. This is very dangerous as you do run the risk of exposing your brand to a public audience before it is ready. There have been many incidents where companies tested products before they were ready and the bad press leaked out as most bad press does and ended up causing the type of attention that most companies would prefer to avoid!

Testing your brand before launching it is a sensible and intelligent means of not only determining the brand concepts and strengths but also in easing the product into a position before its target audiences. Sensible precautions and reasonable planning will allow you to test your brand and either adjust the concept before releasing it to the public or, in a worst case scenario, go back to the drawing board. Either way using a control group as a sounding board allows you to build a stronger brand and one more in tune with what your target audience is looking for.

How do I make my copy stand out in a flooded copy world?

One thing is for sure, there are a lot of companies issuing a lot of press releases which seem entirely to say nothing at all. Sadly the issue at hand has a lot to do with a term I used in the previous sentence; press release. A press release is a misnomer, it is something of a fake to use a boxing term.

One thing I recommend to all of my clients is to get in the habit of saying news release. While this may seem a matter of terminology I see it as much more. By using the term news release we are forcing the client to ask themselves, what is the news here? Why does this matter? Who does it matter too?

I also recommend setting a hard cap on how many news releases the organization will issue during a set period of time. This solves a number of strategic issues. For one thing, this serves as an exercise it what I would call message discipline. What do we need to say? How do we need to say it? Who do we need to say it too? This practice in self discipline is a great tool in how to manage your brand and how to speak to your audiences in a professional and refined fashion.

Another way to make your copy stand out in the market place is to know your audience. I have seen too many pieces of copy that are watered down because they are supposed to serve the needs of an overly diverse group of market segments. A news release is targeted towards the news media and as such can not be watered down to be some type of sales tool. It may have uses when dealing with customers or potential customers but that is not whom it is designed primarily for. Good copy is designed for a target audience. It's not some catch all and lazy way of approaching the market at large.

Lastly, good copy stands out because it tells a story that someone wants to read. I remember reading an interview with Russ Meyer, the director who did a lot of B-Movies who said "the critics hate me, the public loves me. Who are you going to believe?" The point here is that if you are going to write great copy, use it to tell a story that your target audiences are going to want to hear. Yes you will be informing them during the process, but you will also need to tell them a story they will want to hear so that you don't lose their attention and have them quickly forget about you in all that white noise that is out there.

Too Busy to Succeed!

There are a lot of feel good stories about the number of startups that began life during a recession or downturn. Home Depot and Microsoft are two examples that come to mind. So it is not surprising that a lot of the organizations that I deal with now are in fact start ups. It goes without saying that a lot of these organizations need a lot of help with developing and executing a strong branding and marketing program.

But there is one thing that amazes me about a lot of the start up executives. They all complain about not having enough time. I had one executive lament to me that he had too many things on his plate and would not be able to succeed. I have to be honest and say that I find this entire thought process laughable. If you are too busy to succeed I can assure you that you need not worry about success.

The first issue I believe is that we are dealing with people who have an overdeveloped sense of mission. They believe that the product they are selling is so important that its success is a linchpin of the future success of society. What is really required of these people is to step back and achieve proper prospective. They may have a great product, but they are also in a crowded market so it is important that they work smart more so than work hard to succeed.

I have also found that based on my own anecdotal observations it seems people who want to become successful with startups also seem to have a form of attention deficit disorder. Their minds fire off at 100 miles per hour in 100 different directions and as such they lack the focus and discipline to concentrate on any one area for too long. All to often the result of this is mixed messages, missed appointments and a failure to clearly define what they want to accomplish. I have also noticed they have achieved boredom with a project in a relatively short amount of time and are always looking for the next great thing.

Now normally, I would like to tie this up with a nice neat ribbon and say to do this in order to succeed. What I think needs to happen is that the start up staff needs to have people who think and act in the long term. Not only does the marketing person need to be able to provide the necessary brand and messaging guidance required of all reorganizations to succeed, but you need finance to have its eye on the ball regarding long term fiscal planning and designers or engineers committed to the concept of the product and service being offered. A concentrated and long-term plan is the most likely way that an organization will succeed. An organization where the founders and executives are too busy to look beyond their computer screens is unlikely to ever succeed.

Is change good for your product?

There was a book a few years back titled, "If it ain't broke, break it,". I never read the book because I thought the title was very silly. I have never been a fan of change for the sake of change. Yet a lot of companies charge down that road, without a good vision about why they are making change and what they hope to accomplish in the end. In today's world we seem to have moved away from the mind set of our ancient ancestors where old age was revered and with age came the perception of wisdom and knowledge.

We now live in a culture where youth is almost a pathological obsession. From the hair coloring products to diets and onward, we see nothing but a desire to change our culture so we drop out objects simply because they are old and for no other reason. The corporate world is no different than any other person when it comes to this mindset. The older a product is, no matter how well it is performing, is seen as dull and in need of rehabilitation.

What makes me chuckle to myself as I write this is that if one looks back on some of the greatest marketing failures in history, the Edsel, Crystal Pepsi, New Coke, McLean Deluxe, they were all designed with the idea of reviving a supposedly stale brand. In each case, as we all know, they bombed, but they also demonstrated quite clearly that not only were the brands they were to replace quite strong, but that the leaders of the companies in question were very out of touch with their customers.

Now I am not advocating here for standing pat. Far from it! I do believe that a brand needs to be watched over vigorously and guarded like the crown jewels. Make changes when necessary. But change should not be implemented for the sake of change itself. Change should be done to improve the product and, to a larger degree the brand. .But making change out of fear that the product is some how faltering is counterproductive and a recipe for disaster.

Remember that as the Marketing and communications person we are responsible for protecting the product and brand from any threats and that may include putting a hand up and saying no when some internal party comes hard charging, determined to change the product out of fear of being passed by. That alone is no reason to react and remember that fear is the worst instigator of change!

Protecting the brand from internal interlopers

The organization's brand is one thing that people cant help but offer input on how to improve. In some regards, managing a brand is similar to managing a sports team. You have every person around you offering you what they consider to be essential input regarding how to run the brand. When something goes wrong, as it is bound to do, these people will see you as the person responsible since you did not follow their advice. Even if there advice was completely ridiculous and silly the arm chair brand managers out there believe that their advice was difference between success and failure.

Another key aspect for brand managers in protecting their brand is to resist the urge to react to events which have already occurred. There is an old expression that goes "you can't drive a car by looking in the rear view mirror." That is ever so true in marketing and communications. But still many non-marketing people will come up and argue that such and such an event has occurred and we need to make adjustments based on it. Now I can not argue in all cases not to make the changes, but there are times when you need to review if the change is being made based on fear or some other type of knee-jerk reaction.

If there is the need to make a change, first off, make sure that the need is solid and dead on. Don't be afraid to say no and to push back on those pushing for change. Remember, you are the guardian of the brand so it is ultimately your responsibility. Review suggestions for change with an open and careful mind. Also, remember that protecting the brand does not mean keeping it away from any changes. If someone were to argue for a particular course of action look at what they are saying and feel free to cherry pick the parts you think might work from those parts you think are not useful.

Lastly, set the ground rules for any changes to the brand. Don't forget that as a marketing and communications person it falls to you to protect the brand. Put the onus onto the person suggestion the change to educate you as to why the change is necessary. Also, keep the participants in any brand change to a bare minimum . There is no need to have a grand meeting involving everyone from the CEO on down to the person who empties the waste baskets. You and the person suggesting change are the parties to the exchange. I would recommend limiting the meeting to just that. From there you can form a solid relationship which allows for two way conversation that will build a strong brand rather than a massive hodgepodge which tries to make everyone happy and leaves no one happy.

Using communcations to plan for growth.

Many organizations are driven by the idea that they are bringing a revolutionary new product to market and that once the world sees how great their product is, they will stop what ever they are doing and rush to buy it. Sadly, this model hardly ever is the case and in many cases, the world is growing more cynical and sees a new product with wary and cynical eyes.

I also hear a lot of people admiring what Apple does with the IPhone and saying what great buzz they have created. I have to be honest and say that I cringe when ever I hear the word buzz. For one thing, "buzz" has never sold a single product. The pet rock had buzz, so did New Coke and Crystal Pepsi and neither is remember today. What sets the IPhone apart from its market is the fact that it offers a unique and interesting product that differs from the rest of the market. It is quite evident that Apple did their homework here and included key target customers in the development of the product from the beginning and then designed a marketing and communications program around it.

The lesson we can draw from Apple is that when we are designing a product, we should build the marketing and communications plan along with the product. We should also design the communications plan to anticipate the changes in the market so that we can quickly react and adjust our programs in anticipation of the minor alterations that will be required during the life cycle of the product to ensure that we do not fall behind our target audience. Remember, the market will continue to shape itself and unless you move along with it you will be left high and dry.

A good communications plan is one that not only designs what we say to our target audiences, but it helps us to grow within the marketplace and helps shape future growth. Communications can serve the organization much in the same way the coal tender does on a steam locomotive. We provide the fuel that drives the engine. In addition, communications has the role of keeping abreast of market conditions and is superbly positioned to anticipate and react to any potential problems that may arise.

Communications professionals should be positioning themselves within the organization as the primary agents to drive an agenda of growth. By doing so, they can not only increase their influence with the organization, they can ensure that the process is done correctly and that the brand , marketing's ultimate tool, is both protected and enhanced. Communications is uniquely positioned by virtue of their expertise and unique understanding of the branding process to contribute to substantial and sustained growth within the organization.

How to stay focused in a rapidly changing world!

Today's world is certainly changing at a faster and faster pace. Of course, a study of American history shows you that one of our common themes is the idea that we are, for the most part, living in times of break neck change and need to slow down. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Still, we are living in times of rapid change. Thanks to market conditions and technologies, it seems products are out of date almost as soon as they hit the market. Shelf lives of more than a year for a technology product seems absurd. So how does marketing help build a brand, while facing a market that is constantly moving?

This type of dilemma reminds me of one of my favorite comic book when I was a kid, Spiderman. Of course Spiderman had a lot of enemies but the one that always fascinated me was the Sand Man. He could change his shape almost at will and at times could be either strong as a block of cement or as fine as sand on a beach. The properties one finds in real sand. Naturally Spiderman has his share of battles with the Sandman and defeats him by realizing that any strength can become a weakness and any threat an opportunity.

More importantly, from a tactical perspective he learned to anticipate what his opponent might do next and react appropriately. I think that is a key lesson for all marketing people to do. We are the people whose job is to be on top of things and try and see what might happen in the next week, month, year and so on. A great deal of ink was spilled regarding the supposed technical leadership and management skills of the Japanese in the late 1980's and early 90's. What happened was that the media saw only the positives and did not see the negatives of the Japanese model.

I remember an article from Business Week written just after Bill Clinton became president. It basically said that Japan was not as good as what everyone thought because its culture smothered innovation and new ideas. There were howls of protest about the article but time as shown it to be correct.

So back to the question at hand, how does one stay focused in this rapidly changing world. I believe the first way to do so is to know your market and most important, know your customer. Second, be a step ahead of the competition. That may sound like a cliche but not only is it true, it is also pretty easy to do. It goes back to the first rule of know your customer. The third rule that I will use for now is to have one person responsible for marketing and put all aspects of marketing growth into their hands. This will allow for controlled responsible growth and allow you to keep others, who don't have the same level of knowledge from fouling things up terribly.

Keep in mind that staying focused in a rapidly changing world is both your greatest threat and greatest opportunity. It should be taken with great concern and handled by the person you most trust with the success of your organization.

How do I market my product? Part V

The final topic I think we need to discuss is the issue of metrics. When it comes to metrics, marketing is always treading across a minefield. For one thing, there is really no linear connection between marketing and sales. Sorry marketing folks, while we may like to pat ourselves on the back and think that we sold the product, we can only make the sale possible. We do not have the ability to actually go out and execute on the sales that is the role of the sales team.

Sales and marketing and joined at the hip and neither can succeed without the other but both can fail if one entity does not fulfill its side of the bargain. So the question becomes, how do we measure success? How do we determine if a marketing plan was good and only failed because of sloppy execution or on the opposite, how do we determine if the marketing team passed onto sales poor materials to do the job.

I have to be honest that the first person who develops a rock solid, unassailable marketing metric will be like the person who invents the better mousetrap. The world will most likely beat a path to your door. That being said, there are some interesting ideas out there about how best to track marketing metrics. One I like is by looking at sales leads that have come in after the roll out of a marketing program and look at these leads at fixed periods of time. This should tell the marketing people how effective a job they have done in peaking the interest of target audiences. It does not make marketing beholding to sales and allows for an appropriate examination of who was responsible for the success or failure of a marketing campaign.

One thing I like as far as public relations is the idea of measure full coverage of an organization during a 3 to 6 month period. A lot of PR agencies are lazy and try to rest on mere mentions and include that as part of coverage. This is a colossal cop out and is simply a way to get recognition for picking off the low hanging fruit that they should be getting anyway. What I would recommend is that we identify one-half to a dozen top tier publications and ensure that we are in constant communication with them. During this period, there is ample time to draft either bylined articles, major pitches or work out from the editorial calendar existing pitches and secure major coverage.

I would recommend setting a floor that would expect at least X amount of pieces of coverage, depending on what you have that is of value. This will require an open and frank dialogue between both parties to ensure that the appropriate targets are set. Obviously, putting out a minor press release does not warrant the same amount of coverage as a major product announcement or business deal. This would require the frank discussions of goals that are all to often lacking in relationships with PR agencies. Clients defer to the agencies, the agencies are too happy to collect checks so they take the path of least resistance.

So in conclusion, metrics needs to be better refined and it will take trial and error. Until then, we will only have a nebulous idea of how successful our plan actually was.

How do I market my product? Part IV

There is a story that I like to quote a lot to clients and to friends and that is about how in the late 19th century the head of the United States Patent Office recommended that the office be closed as everything that could possibly be invented, had already had. Fortunately cooler heads prevailed. But as we all know, there are hundreds if not thousands of new products coming onto the market on a regular basis. The simple law of numbers tells us that most of these products will fade into obscurity and never become anything.

So how do you avoid having your product become one of the vast majority. Well for one thing, use your messaging to accomplish this. If there is one thing I find amazing, it is how many entrepreneurs believe that the benefits of their product or service is so self evident that no explanation is required. That is not only arrogant but it is stupid. Let me tell you that if think the benefits of your product are so obvious you will not see the bus that hits you and destroys your product.

First and foremost it is essential that you state clearly what they benefits are for your product and what they mean for your target audience. Look at Netflix for example. When they emerged they had a very simple statement of benefit. They mail you movies that you have selected, you can keep them as long as you want and when you send them back, after watching them of course, you get the next movie on your list. No trips to the video store, no late fees, very easy to grasp. What is more important is that Netflix did a fantastic job of telling you why they were better than the competition on the market and why you subscribe to their service. Now they have changed their market and knocked Blockbuster back on their heels.

Secondly, you need to understand what you want your product to say to the target audience. To be honest if you decide to say that you are offering a revolutionary product that will change the world then you had also better get out the no-doze because that is the lame reasoning of every product that can not decide how to brand themselves. You need to offer your target market a declarative statement that clearly evokes what you will do. For example, "we will make better butter because we will refine the manufacturing process and make it sweeter, softer and longer lasting in hot weather." Not, "we are revolutionizing butter."

Third, say something you can believe in. There is nothing more annoying than a startup who this week claims to be this one week and then the next week decides they are something else. When you tell the market you don't know what you are you destroy any faith in your product. Also, you send a clear signal of confusion and a lack of an articulate focus to your customer.

Last, make sure marketing is in the drivers seat when it comes to articulating the product. Other groups, especially senior management will be inclined to offer reams of suggestions which they will naturally want to see followed. However it is essential that you keep control of the marketing process within marketing. Input is always welcome of course, but marketing tends to go astray when dozens of executives stick their noses in. Please pardon the cliche but too many chefs spoil the pot.

There are many ways to differentiate your product and some of it may result in trial and error. Don't be afraid to tinker but make sure that you know what you want to say before you want to say it. Form your ideas and hit the market with a developed and well thought out plan and you will succeed.