ebook: Exploding Brand Value at the Local Level

Distributed
Marketing
Leadership
Series

Exploding
Brand Value
at the

Local Level
an ebook

Table of Contents
Chapter One
Exploding Brand Value at the Local Level Revisited: The Six C’s...........................................................2

Chapter Two
Creating Common Objectives Between Corporate and Local Marketers.........................................7

Chapter Three
The Importance of Consistent Messages....................................................................................................20

Chapter Four
Coordinated Message Delivery.......................................................................................................................30

Chapter Five
Cooperative Customer Management...........................................................................................................39

Chapter Six
Engaging the Competition...............................................................................................................................50

Chapter Seven
Communication Strategies for Keeping Local and Corporate Aligned...........................................59
Concluding Thoughts: Taking Action - Synergy that Explodes Brand Value..................................65
About Saepio........................................................................................................................................................66

Exploding Brand Value at the Local Level

1

Exploding Brand Value at the Local Level:
The Six C’s

Introduction
Brand marketers invest billions of dollars every year to create an emotional connection
between their brand and the prospective customers of their branded products and services.
With media now fragmented and mobile connectivity, smart phone and tablet use now
mainstream, customers increasingly engage with the brand in ways outside the direct
control of the corporate marketer. As a result, control of brand positioning, messaging and
the building of emotional connections with consumers is more challenging than ever.
When a distributed marketing network is involved, thes challenges that arise are even more
accute, but alongside those challenges is a huge opportunity. Unlike the marketer who has
little or no help with brand messaging at the point of customer engagement, the marketer
with a distributed network has an army of brand warriors ready, willing and able to help
deliver and manage marketing messages. When trained, organized and mobilized, this army
of local marketers can explode brand value at the local level, creating exponential value for
the corporate investments in brand creation, positioning and messaging.


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Chapter One: Exploding Brand Value at the Local Level: The Six C’s

Section One

Power of Brand in Local Buying Decisions
Brand matters more at the local market level than at the national or international level but it
is a symbiotic relationship. It’s at the local level that brand messages become actions taken
by the customer or prospect. Actions in the form of product or service chosen. In money
spent. In loyalty sustained or lost.
Brand value must also often be shared at the local level. For some brands, such as a quick
service restaurant, the brand message is consistently and singularly delivered throughout
the interaction process.
For many marketers, however, the environment is less controlled. Take an organization that
sells through an authorized dealer network where the product or service brand must be
shared with the name of the store or service provider. Instead of “York Heating & Air Conditioning” as the primary brand, it’s “Dave’s Heating & Cooling” – which sells the York brand as
part of its business. Dave needs York and York needs Dave; the brands must synergistically
support each other. Both brands matter because many local purchase decisions are made
on trust and the relationship to the brand.
Still others, such as a consumer packaged goods manufacturer, must share brand preference
with a separate branded conduit such as a retail or grocery chain. In such cases, the
consumer’s correct presumption that the manufacturer’s branded product is available or the
ability to search for a local retail outlet is key.
These same scenarios can be told a hundred different ways for a hundred different products
or services. In any local buying decision, two things matter:

1) The brand of the product or service.

2) The relationship to the branded provider of the product or service.

When these two entities work together, brand value can absolutely explode at the local
level. Even when the brand of the product or service and the brand of the local provider is
the same, the important interaction of the two elements still applies.
In this ebook, we first introduce you to the Six C’s of exploding brand value at the local level
and then we dive deeper into each topic to examine the unique challenges coprorate
marketers face when working with distributed marketers and the opportunities each of
these challenges create.


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Section Two

The Six C’s of a Win-Win Brand Strategy
Managers of distributed marketing networks have long been challenged with keeping
corporate and local marketing messages aligned and working together. At the root of the
challenge is the fact that there are often legitimate reasons for a disconnect.
Corporate marketers are very brand-focused. Local marketers are all about driving traffic and making sales. These two perspectives can easily collide, with the result being
less-than-effective marketing. But it doesn’t have to be that way; employing Six “C’s” to the
distributed marketing process can go a long way towards making a brand explode at the
local level.

Common Objectives

While it may seem logical that one would begin any marketing effort with common objectives already established, Saepio client service managers too often observe the opposite.
Corporate marketers and local marketers simply think differently, each protecting their own
turf. They do so for a good reason. The corporate marketer who manages the distributed
marketing network is the keeper of the brand and brand messages for that network.
S/he must constantly focus on corporate brand objectives and deliver those to – and then
through – the local marketer. The local marketer is often not on that same page. Store traffic
and a ringing register is paramount and, if the marketing message isn’t perceived as focused
solely on generating sales, the local individual likely isn’t interested. They like the support
but insist that it be relevant to their operation.
These different perspectives, however, in no way preclude the formation of common
objectives. They just require the corporate marketer to, as Stephen Covey would say in his
best-selling book, “seek first to understand and then to be understood.” Listening to the
needs of the local marketer and gleaning knowledge from the school of practical application via those on the front lines, enables the corporate marketer to identify common objectives and create campaigns that truly support them.

Consistent Messages

Understanding the importance of delivering consistent messages across the entire
distributed marketing network is easy for many marketers. Doing so is more challenging.
Consistent messaging to consumers begins with effective resources for local marketers.
While a local marketer will often want to localize a national message, s/he also frequently
wants to leverage the power of the national brand for local benefit by somehow altering
the corporate message to make it more applicable for his or her local environment. It is key


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for the corporate marketer to provide resources that ensure consistent messaging but allow
some local flexibility. Distributed marketing management systems that include marketing
asset management technology are an excellent starting point. These solutions provide all
of the marketing resources the local marketer needs in one, easy-to-access location. As long
as the corporate marketer is diligent in keeping the library of resources current, messages
across the distributed marketing network will stay consistent.

Coordinated Message Delivery

Just as consistent messaging is important, coordinated timing of delivery is also critical.
When a local marketer’s messages are timed to coordinate with national messages,
investments in marketing can be optimized.
At the heart of successful coordination is successful communication. And that means
two-way communication. Often coordinated message delivery is dependent upon one way
communication and a great deal of hope. In this scenario, corporate develops a merchandising
kit containing marketing materials and sends it to the local market with the hope that it will
be used properly, if at all.
Local marketers want to be successful and want the benefits of the resources the corporate
marketer provides, but their worlds don’t revolve around what corporate marketing is doing.
They are focused on what they can do to drive traffic to their locations and view their
corporate partners as a helpful ingredient of that plan. When the marketing kit arrives for a
coordinated campaign, it may or may not receive the priority the corporate marketer seeks.
What happens is dependent upon how effective communication has been up to that point.
While it takes more work, engaging communication between corporate and local marketers
is vital to coordinated message delivery. When local marketers know which message is
recommended and why; what’s in it for them; and what is expected as part of a campaign,
coordinated messaging naturally follows.

Cooperative Customer Management

Brands only hum when customers hum in harmony with them. The brand exists to create
an emotional connection with the customer, to establish and to grow a relationship. That
doesn’t happen without a corporate role and can’t be sustained without a local one.
For a brand to hum, the experience a customer or prospect has through national brand
messages – coupled with the experience they have upon entering a local retail outlet or
interacting with a branded product or service – must be completely harmonious. The local
marketer is critical to this process. Store decor, in-store promotions, digital signage,
merchandise bags and many other physical items all contribute to the brand experience.
So, too, do the personal interactions that happen in the store.


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While corporate marketers can’t always control customer management, they should always
consider it when creating local options for national brand messaging. One cannot assume
that a local marketer or a local sales associate will be able to provide a continuous brand
experience for the customer without being coached on how to do so. Often, adding this
“last mile” of instruction adds very little time to campaign development but can make a
huge difference in the effectiveness of that campaign.

Engaging the Competition

We’ve added Competition to the list of “C’s” this time. Every corporate marketer faces a barrage
of competition for the attention and focus of the local marketer. This comes from local
newspapers, radio and television stations, agencies, direct marketers and more. There are so
many channels for communicating a brand or selling a product today and so many individuals
suggesting solutions to the local business person.
Rather than fighting these entities, the corporate marketer should engage them. Find creative
ways to guide local marketers to make quality decisions about which resources to use and
when to use them. Further, when a local resource is used, put systems and resources in
place to ensure that the brand message is properly and strongly represented. Often, local
marketing that is outside brand compliance is not ill intended. Rather, the local marketers are
ill-equipped in both knowledge and access to brand assets. With guidance, they can keep
local “competitors” on track.

Communication, Communication, Communication

You simply can’t over communicate WITH a local marketer, yet you most assuredly can over
communicate TO one. Remember, effective communication is a dialogue. Any successful
relationship starts with listening, including that between the corporate and the local
marketer.

•

Communicate what’s important to your brand by first listening to how it’s
important to your local marketer.

•

Communicate what you need them to do by first listening to what they need
you to do.

•

Communicate what resources you’ve made available to them by listening to
what they need those resources to be.

There they are. The Six C’s for making your brand explode at the local level. There’s nothing
magical about them, but they are so important. We’d love to call them profound, but they’re
simply applications of common sense. Yet too few apply them well, and as a result, too few
see their brand really explode at the local level.


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2

Creating Common Objectives Between
Corporate and Local Marketers

Introduction
Local marketing and corporate marketing is simply different, yet fully interdependent.
Corporate marketers may think or claim they don’t need local marketers, but they do.
Conversely, local marketers often question the value of corporate marketing. But they
shouldn’t. Brand value can only explode at the local level when the two entities work
seamlessly together.
In this chapter, we explore the importance of common objectives between corporate and
local marketers. As a concept, determining common objectives sounds easy. As a practical
reality, it’s hard.
Local and corporate marketers bring different perspectives to the marketing process. Each
has a slightly different definition of “win” that can put marketing objectives at odds. But
that doesn’t have to be the outcome. Understanding why the perspectives are different can
begin a journey towards creating common objectives.
Finally, learning to collectively focus on the common goals for customer and prospect
engagement can often help organizations move from an “us/them” to a “we” approach to
marketing. As outlined in this chapter, five simple steps can go a long ways toward helping
achieve this goal.


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Chapter Two: Creating Common Objectives Between Corporate and Local Marketers

Section One

The Challenge of Different Perspectives
If you have seamless engagement between corporate and local marketing, count yourself
among the lucky few. Alignment is challenging and not frequently attained for a myriad of
reasons:

•

Who determines what message to highlight?

•

Whose money is being spent?

•

What is the right blend between the corporate and local brand?

•

What is the offer?

•

What advertising channels should be used?

•

Who owns the customer?

In nearly every one of these examples and in dozens more, the corporate and local
perspectives may be different. And that’s okay.
The challenge comes when corporate attempts to force its perspective on local and/or
when local ignores corporate and implements its own independent marketing based solely
on its perspective. Both entities are right, just different.

Corporate marketing brings key roles and strengths to the relationship:

•

It is the creator and keeper of the brand and brand preference by the consumer.

•

It has insights into the consumer and what messaging will mobilize the consumer.

•

It has resources for quality creative development.

•

It can drive traffic to local retailers and service providers based on brand preference.

Local marketing brings key strengths too:

•

It has the front-line relationship with the consumer.

•

It has insight into local preferences and events.

•

It potentially has a strong, independent brand.

•

It may generate traffic apart from the brand that turns into point of sale
opportunities for the brand.

Whether these unique strengths are viewed as conflicting or complimentary is largely in
the choice of the participants. When both parties view themselves as complimentary, not
conflicting, and build their interactions accordingly, common objectives emerge and brand
value can be maximized at the local level. This symbiotic relationship begins with pausing to
first understand what defines a “win” for each party.


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Section Two

Defining “Win” for a Local Marketer
Defining “win” for a local marketer
The definition of “win” in the local marketer’s mind centers on three things:
New revenues from loyal customers.
New revenues from new customers.
Turning new customers into loyal customers.
The local marketer views corporate marketing’s contribution through the filter of how it
contributes to these objectives.

Driving New Revenues from Loyal Customers
Local marketers, like no one else, understand the importance of loyal customers. Repeat
business from the loyal customer base provides the foundation for business stability and
consistent cash flow. Loyal customers provide the word-of-mouth marketing and/or
additional purchases that fuels business growth.
In the local marketer’s mind, marketing begins (and sometimes ends) with customer
experience. If corporate brand value, brand preference and brand loyalty can contribute
to this in a measurable way, great. If not, it’s a distraction. It’s not that the local marketer
doesn’t understand, and perhaps even appreciate brand value, it simply becomes secondary
to customer traffic and sales. For cash to flow, activity – and particularly activity from loyal
customers – must be taking place.
Local marketers welcome help in generating repeat business with point-of-sale engagement
that expands cart size or service add-ons.
A “win” happens in the local marketer’s mind when corporate marketing helps support
customer experience, improves customer loyalty and increases loyal customer purchases.

New Revenues from New Customers
Local marketers look first to word-of-mouth marketing to drive first-time customer
encounters. Word-of-mouth marketing, particularly that coming from loyal customers, has
always been the primary driver of new customer trial use and is even more important today
thanks to social media.
That noted, local marketers do, however, recognize the need to augment word-of-mouth
marketing with general marketing and brand awareness activities. While the extent of the
investment in advertising and the type of advertising used will vary based upon a local businesses’ go-to-market strategy, one common goal is consistent with local marketers: they
want measurable results quickly.


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Local marketers are often at small businesses and cash flow is king. As a result, marketing
investments are typically judged based on short-term results. For example, will an advertising
expenditure return the investment within the cash flow window of the ad placement and
the payment due date (or at least within the operational expenses of a month or quarter)?
Thus, any brand-focused or brand-centric advertising campaign designed to create firsttime customers must be designed to also drive immediate return on investment.
Campaign effectiveness must also be easily measured. A direct, visible correlation between
advertising activity and consumer action is part of the local marketer’s definition of “win.”
Any assistance from corporate marketing for creating highly impactful, localized advertising
content and campaigns is greatly appreciated, but it must be call-to-action oriented.

Turning New Customers into Loyal Customers
Finally, the importance of turning first time trial customers into loyal customers is not lost
on local marketers.
Service industry marketers focus on this by investing in branded, leave-behind materials
with strong shelf life (or front of the refrigerator life in many cases). Retailers provide special
second and third visit incentives to move trial purchase towards long-term shopping
patterns. Loyalty programs are often offered to any non-participating consumer.
No matter what the industry or frequency of product or service purchase, local marketers
seek to develop strong customer loyalty. Any support corporate marketing can provide on
this front is not only appreciated, but often used by the local marketer.
A “win” for local marketers is defined by consumer traffic and sales. A growing base of loyal
customers, growing revenues from those customers and a strong word-of-mouth marketing
engine are viewed as key. Corporate support of these objectives in tandem with new
customer acquisition marketing campaigns that provide fast, measurable results and which
return cash quickly on any cash dispersed are what local marketers seek most.


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Section Three

Defining and Creating a “Win” for a Corporate Marketer
Ultimately, the definition of “win” for the corporate marketer is very much aligned with that
of the local marketer: Loyal customers, greater share of customer, creation of new customers
and developing new customers into loyal customers. How the corporate marketer must
compete to “win,” however, is much different.
Corporate marketers can only win at the cash register if they’ve won at multiple decision
Defining and creating a ‘win” for a corporate marketer
points prior to the transaction:

In tandem with the local marketer, they must create demand for the
product or service vs. other consumer options.
They must position the brand to be visible and preferred at the time
demand occurs.
They must help connect the consumer with an affiliated local retail outlet
or service provider.
They may have to win versus other choices at point of sale.
To accomplish these tasks effectively, the corporate marketer needs to remain actively
engaged with the consumer and fully aligned with the local marketer, both of which can be
challenging.
(Note: While it is not the purpose of this ebook, it is important to note that how a corporate
marketer engages in the local marketing does vary widely based on the go-to-market nature
of the business. This ebook does not address these relevant differences – see the Saepio white
paper “Exploding Brand Value at the Local Level“ for this information – but rather looks at
common needs from a more generic perspective.)

Demand Creation and Brand Preference in the Local Market
Corporate and local marketers collectively face a lot of competition for the consumers’
dollars. To win, the product or service they collectively offer must first become part of the
consumer’s overall spend and second, they collectively must become the supplier of choice.
That’s a tall order, particularly if an established loyal customer base is not in place.
This is also a point where sometimes corporate and local marketing objectives don’t fully
align. A local marketer that offers more than one brand option for a particular product,
doesn’t likely care significantly which brand is selected. The front-line marketers, the retail
clerks or service individuals, most certainly don’t care. Thus, to “win” at the local level, the
corporate marketer must control his or her own destiny for demand creation and brand
preference in that local market.
To accomplish this, independent of local marketing involvement, a corporate marketer most


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often must employ traditional brand marketing strategies and encourage brand loyalty and
promotion by customers (more on loyal customer marketing later). In many cases, brand
marketing won’t have a local aspect to it. National ad buys, event sponsorships, celebrity
endorsements, social presence, search marketing, online content, public relations and other
tactics are implemented largely independent of a local connection. However, with the
exception of e-commerce applications, for the actual purchase to happen, a local connection
between the brand and the consumer must exist. Thus, for the demand creation and brand
preference generated through brand marketing to culminate in product or services sold
(part of the definition of a corporate marketing win), a partnership with local marketing
must be established.
This partnership, however, can’t simply be about both corporate and local marketers promoting the product or service. It has to be about a coordinated brand message arriving to
customers and prospects. These consumers never view the brand from the perspective of
corporate and local roles. Instead, they see, hear, feel and touch one brand message.
A critical definition of “win” for the corporate marketer is the seamless continuation of
national brand marketing and messaging into the local market through local marketing
efforts.

Consumer Connections at the Local Level
As with local marketers, satisfied customers are critical to the national marketer. These
“brand spokespersons” are waiting to be mobilized to make repeat purchases, influence
prospective customers and lift overall brand awareness, value and preference. Connecting
to these individuals is nearly always part of the corporate marketer’s definition of a “win.”
For the corporate marketer to create and “own” this customer relationship, local participation
may be needed. Who owns the customer, however, is likely to create tension between
corporate and local marketers, and for obvious reasons. Just as the local marketer may not
ultimately care which branded product a customer selects at time of purchase, a corporate
marketer probably doesn’t really care which of its affiliated local marketers succeeds in
winning the business of the consumer, just that the business for the brand is won. Proactively
addressing this critical issue is essential to exploding brand value at a local level, yet many
brand marketers fail on this point. In so doing, they fail to gain the access to the customer
they want and the partnership with the local marketer that they need.
For the corporate marketer, no brand marketing activity may equal the importance of
“mobilizing satisfied customers as brand ambassadors.” Concurrently, creating common
objectives with local marketers around customer ownership and customer mobilization
may be one of the biggest challenges the corporate marketer faces (the issue of customer
ownership will be addressed at length in Chapter Five). To achieve the corporate marketer’s definition of “win,” common corporate and local objectives must be found for this
critical issue.


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Winning at the Point of Decision
The corporate marketer’s job is not done until the cash register rings. All the work to build
category demand, brand awareness and preference, and consumer action comes down to a
single moment of truth when the consumer makes the purchase choice…

•

A new car from the brand portfolio vs. a used vehicle from the lot.

•

An HVAC unit option the service technician provides that is slightly less in cost.

•

A hair cut for the kids from a salon two blocks down because its parking lot
wasn’t full.

•

Or a choice to make no purchase at all…due to a competing use of the allocated
money or a lack of brand message continuity at point of sale.

POPAI research clearly shows that brand preference going into a point of purchase often
doesn’t translate into brand purchase. So many point-of-sale distractions and competitions
come into play. For the corporate marketer to win at this high-stakes moment, local marketing help is needed.
In fairness, and as outlined above, local marketers can’t be expected to judge “win” in the
same way. If a customer is engaged and a sale made, a local win occurs. Plus, a local
marketer may have multiple corporate marketers competing for the local marketer’s loyalty
and the consumer’s purchase. A point-of-decision “loss” for one corporate marketing
partner may be a win for another.
Given this scenario, is it even realistic for the corporate marketer to expect to find common
objectives with the local marketer? Absolutely. But, whether the point-of-sale environment
is one that involves a single brand and a buy versus no-buy decision, a field environment
where a salesperson or technician is influencing selection, or a retail environment where
multiple brand and product options are presented, the corporate marketer must take 100
percent responsibility for ensuring that brand visibility and advocacy is strong. Of course,
local marketer participation is needed, but corporate marketers must:

•

Make brand marketing content easy to place or inject into the point-of-sale
environment.

•

Provide informative resources for the local marketer and the consumer that
extend beyond brand specific messaging. For example, a resource that helps
front-line marketers close the sale.

•

Provide packaging and point-of-sale brand marketing materials that are so
compelling that front-line marketers want to share them with consumers.

•

Provide attention-demanding point-of-sale creative such as high impact
banners that are compelling not only to the consumer but also for the local
marketer to use (this strategy will be addressed at length in Chapters Three
and Four).


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•

Reward local marketers, where appropriate, through an easy to use and access
MDF or co-op funded marketing resource center.

The corporate marketer must remember that local marketers are consumers too. Winning at
the point of sale with the consumer begins with winning with the local marketer. Exceptional,
compelling point of sale creative that wins the hearts of the local marketers is much more
likely to be displayed for consumers to see. People naturally like to share stuff they like. To
pass this test, the content must be viewed by the local marketer as lifting up the overall point
of sale environment.
Winning at the point of decision requires skillful execution by the corporate marketer but
can be a compelling win for both parties.

In summary, the definition of a “win” for the corporate marketer is similar to that of the
local marketer, yet requires a very different course of action. Creating demand and brand
preference, mobilizing customers and winning at the point of sale are all critical to the
corporate marketer. While all of these steps can be approached in isolation from the local
marketer, none of them should be. As shown above, the power of a blended corporate and
local marketing approach can bring positive results for corporate marketers, local marketers
and consumers alike.


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Section Four

Five Steps for Creating Alignment
As the previous sections establish, corporate and local marketers think and act differently,
for good reasons. Yet underneath these differences lay common objectives. The savvy corporate marketer will seek to find, develop and communicate these common objectives in a
manner that meets the definition of win for local marketers.
The following five steps are a good starting point. While they are not an end-all recipe for
achieving common objectives, each has proven over time to be an effective tactic by leading
brands. Note that each step is not an item to be completed, but rather a mindset to be
initiated. Success in finding common objectives between corporate and local marketers is
never defined by a time period or project, but is an ever evolving process.

Step 1: Create objectives from a local marketing perspective
Throughout his career, revered business author Stephen Covey stressed repeatedly the
importance of seeking first to understand and then to be understood. Nowhere is this
principle more important than in the relationship between corporate and local marketers.
Together, the two parties can explode brand value at the local level. Misaligned, they will
confuse and under serve consumers to the detriment of all parties.
Alignment begins by first seeking to understand what “win” means to the local marketing
partners. Once this is fully appreciated, common objectives can be built, strategies developed
and tactics implemented.
To create common objectives through the lens of the local marketer:
•

Recruit trusted local marketing partners for the process. Include both advocates
and adversaries from this group.

•

Have a deep understanding of your own objectives and what “win” means to you.
Then be flexible in how you get to your definition of win.

•

Be comprehensive and be diligent. Work first to define areas of easy alignment
and opportunity before working through the challenge areas. This will help
define for all parties the potential common objectives offers.

Step 2: Create compelling content
As a corporate marketer, your most challenging and judgmental audience will be your local
marketers. They come with a few hundred, make that thousand, opinions! And, they’re
pretty convinced you are clueless as to what matters to them. Prove them wrong.
One of the keys to gaining local marketing alignment will come through how well you
articulate the strategy that is behind the resources you provide. Take the time to explain


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why the marketing resources provided was selected for them and how it benefits both the
local and corporate marketing objectives. Use your local marketing partner group to evaluate
the credibility of your case.
Another key is to simply wow the local marketers. Compelling content, particularly
extremely compelling graphic presentations, seems to subjugate petty local marketing
chatter. Like all marketers, local marketers are highly visual individuals who find great content appealing. Anchoring your local campaigns with compelling point-of-sale visuals can
help facilitate alignment of objects (no matter how “wrong” this approach may seem).
Some key considerations for your content strategy should be:

•

Explain the strategy behind all marketing content. While the strategic reason for
the content might seem obvious to you, don’t presume that it will be to the local
marketer. Make sure to tell the strategy story from the local marketing perspective.

•

Provide a proper blend for corporate and local visibility. Make sure content is
flexible and can easily be versioned to highlight local product preferences and/
or local branding.

•

Keep content fresh. Pace the release of new marketing content so that you are
constantly providing new materials. Frequency of new content lets you continually
reinforce messages around shared objectives, constantly instruct what you
recommend local marketers do with the content you provide and constantly be
top-of-mind and viewed as a vested partner.

Step 3: Build an easy, strong brand content resource that fits their needs, not yours
This step is pretty straight forward and obvious; if you want local marketers to partner with
you in exploding brand value at the local level, you have to provide the resources for them
to do so.
Most organizations have some form of a brand content library. The one’s who excel, however, have a solution that is specifically built around local marketers’ needs. These often
include raw marketing assets (images and the like), al a carte marketing materials (stand
alone ads/emails), customer communications tools (e-newsletters) and turn-key campaigns.
These also incorporate the principles outlined above of providing content from the local
marketing perspective versus the corporate perspective.
When building a resource center, consider the following:

•

Provide a single resource. Resource centers that send an individual to one
location for print ads, another for email, another for digital display and still
another for mobile make participation difficult. Look for solutions that allow you
to put all content in one location.


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•

Make marketing campaign implementation easy. One strong benefit you can
provide to your local marketers is automating the process of campaign
execution. Make sure your solution does this well.

•

Automate the local versioning. Don’t make your local marketers do the work of
localizing the marketing content. Do this for them by applying a dynamic
content assembly philosophy to your resource center. Plus, this will provide great
down-the-road benefits to you through easy updating of both future and
previously localized content.

Step 4: Create a viable method for sharing a customer
Finding alignment on what sharing a customer means is really important and not at all easy.
Loyal customers are so important to both corporate and local marketers and often there are
different motives for the relationship that are contradictory.
On the other side of the experience, the customer doesn’t think of the corporate and local
brand marketing as separate. The customer only looks for a common, consistent and
coordinated message. As a corporate marketer, create a strong focus on this customer
perspective. If you can design a program to fit the customer needs, the corporate and local
issues may self resolve.
Consider the following as you address how to share a customer:
•

Strive for consistent messaging to the customer. While this can be the starting
point for a shared customer relationship, keep in mind that the local marketer
may need to communicate with the customer in ways beyond those that meet
your needs.

•

Use email as a starting point for shared list management. Distributed marketing
organizations have unique email marketing challenges that include the impor
tance of consistent messaging but that primarily center around coordination of
message timing and message content and the management of email compliance,
opt-out and deliverability. As a result of this complexity, email marketing to
customers is an excellent starting point for joint customer management.

•

Localization of all shared customer communications. As a corporate marketer,
respect the local marketer’s relationship with the customer by making sure to
include a visual or text connection between the customer and the local marketer in
all of your communica tion with the customer.

Step 5: Lift all aspects of the local marketer’s business, not just the branded product

or service
Finding the right blend of corporate brand advocacy and local marketing enablement can
help create common objectives. Note the importance of the word blend. Many organizations


17


try to find balance and therein fail. It is a nuanced but important differentiation…common
objectives are blended objectives while balanced objectives simply co-exist. Exploding
brand value at the local level requires blended objectives.
Blended objectives happen when personal objectives are subjugated. As noted at the
outset of this chapter, as a corporate marketer you do not need to give up what you want to
accomplish, but you may need to be flexible in how that is accomplished. Many of the most
successful corporate/local marketing partnerships begin with corporate marketing first
looking at how to make local marketing successful and then looking at how to be central to
that success.
Any genuine interest in the local marketer’s success will show through in the resources
provided. Consider the following to ensure this focus:
•

Profile the brand experience expectation from the perspective of a customer or
consumer. Like with the local marketing perspective, role play as the consumer.
Look at what communications you want, when you want it and how you view
the brand and where you experience it.

•

Build a local marketing strategy before you build a corporate one. Put yourself in
the role of your local marketing partner. Outline your objectives. Determine
what support you want from corporate. Do this exercise for the various customer
facing environments you support.

•

Build a customer and local focused corporate marketing strategy. By helping all
partnering parties meet their objectives, you often will meet yours.


18


Summary
Creating common objectives between corporate and local marketers can be a challenging
process. It is, however, a most critical one for exploding brand value at the local level.
The challenge primarily lies in the differing perspectives of corporate and local marketers.
Both perspectives are relevant, correct and valuable but the definition of “win” for each
party is slightly different.
“Win” for a local marketer means a loyal customer base, strong word-of-mouth marketing
from that base, sales growth from existing and new customers and turning trial customers
into loyal ones. While corporate has the same objectives, the pathway to “win” is different.
Corporate must focus on creating market demand and brand preference, on consumer
connections at the local level, and on winning at the point of decision.
Given these different perspectives and needs, creating common objectives between
corporate and local marketers is critical for the corporate marketing manager of a
distributed marketing network. Five steps that should be implemented in this endeavor are:

•

Create objectives from a local marketing perspective.

•

Create compelling content.

•

Build an easy, strong brand content resource that fits their needs, not yours.

•

Create a viable method for sharing a customer.

•

Lift all aspects of the local marketer’s business, not just the branded product
or service.

With common objectives defined and corporate and local marketing strategy aligned,
exploding brand value at the local level is one step closer to a vibrant reality.


19

3

The Importance of Consistent Messages

Introduction
The concept of integrated marketing – where all marketing efforts are complimentary and
consistent – is far from new. However, in today’s environment of fragmented customer
attention, a consistent message across all channels and locales is critical.
No individual knows this challenge more acutely than the corporate marketing manager of
a distributed marketing network where corporate and local marketing messages need to be
consistent and coordinated and where local marketer involvement is essential.
This chapter addresses the unique challenges faced by these marketing managers. It outlines
why consistency matters (particularly in the era of omni-channel customer engagement),
the importance and power of local brand messaging, systems needed for mutually beneficial
corporate and local marketing and three key steps for creating consistent brand messaging.


20

Chapter Three: The Importance of Consistent Messages

Section One

The Often Confused Consumer
Consumers are a complex and independent lot. At the same time, they are also a lot like
sheep, waiting to be guided.
An mBuys Consumer Insights Study revealed that “72% of consumers want to be engaged
with an integrated marketing approach, but only 39% are receiving that.” Clearly, consumers
are willing to be guided, advised and assisted in product and service selection. But often,
they are simply left confused instead by inconsistent messages across channels/mediums or
different themes from corporate and local marketing.
The complexity of consumer engagement with a branded product or service adds to the
challenge. Not long ago marketers were debating the appropriate mix between traditional
and digital marketing channels. But consumers quickly have made that conversation no
longer relevant. Consumer engagement preference is not about a medium, it’s about a
point in time and place in a decision process. They expect the marketer and marketing
message to be consistently there at all points and all places in time.
As an example, a recent xAd/Telmetrics Mobile Path to Purchase Study showed that 1 in
4 consumers use a mobile device all the way through a decision process. Further, and not
surprisingly, the use of a smart phone versus a tablet is heavily influenced by whether the
individual is in or out of home. But that’s far from the whole story. The same study notes
that while 40 percent report that mobile is the primary source for retail related information,
traditional PC-based web browsing, television, newspaper and yellow pages also contribute
to decisions.
Thus, the high potential for confusion.
Clearly, communication strategies must be agnostic when it comes to channel selection or
whether messages are presented by corporate or local marketers. If brand messages in a
television commercial don’t connect to the website or the website messaging isn’t consistent with the print ad run or email sent by the local marketer, the consumer gets distracted
and potentially derailed. From the marketer’s perspective, it’s nice that consumers indicate
that they would welcome being led through a discovery and decision process. But delivery
on that is really, really hard. Consumer complexity, in many ways, has outpaced marketing’s
ability to respond and stories of “fumbled” customers abound.


21


One of the most critical potential points of failure in effectively engaging and guiding a
consumer is in the local delivery of brand messages. As discussed in the previous chapter,
creating common objectives between corporate and local marketers can be challenging.
But it is critical that the consumer feel, see, hear and experience one unified brand message
between corporate and local. Consumers don’t view a brand in corporate and local buckets.
They experience – or at least want to experience – one brand that has global awareness and
local delivery.
Year after year, Saepio research shows that corporate marketing managers of distributed
marketing networks view brand consistency in local marketing content as their top priority.
Clearly they must. Consumers are expecting that consistency. And due to differing objectives,
local marketers will never fully shoulder that responsibility.


22


Section Two

The Power of Locally Delivered Brand Messages
Consumers, for whatever reason, find local advertising more relevant and more trustworthy
than national advertising. Perhaps it’s because they can look the advertiser across the
counter and in the eye or simply have a tangible mental connection between a
physical structure and the ad message. Whatever the underlying reason, recent research
shows what savvy local marketers have known for decades, local marketing efforts can
powerfully drive brand messages.
In a survey conducted by the Newspaper Association of America, respondents noted that
advertising on local websites is more likely to be trustworthy because it is “more likely to
be current” (78%), more likely to be credible (48%) and tend to be “more local” (46%).
The agency world is observing this trend too. A Corona Insights study noted that “Today’s
findings show that national advertisers, and their agencies, understand that local ads in a
local context are more than four times more effective, and are becoming a mainstream tool
to reach consumers locally.” Additionally, 73 percent of the respondents believe that media
with a local context outperforms simply geographically targeted advertising.
With such strong supporting evidence and the ever-expanding options for delivering
personalized, localized advertising directly to consumers, shouldn’t all brand marketing
efforts be corporate yet “local”? Yes and no.
Certainly research suggests that localized content lifts results with or without the aid of a
local marketer. Additionally, as outlined in the next chapter, a marketing asset management
platform for local marketing makes execution of such campaigns easy to implement. Given
these factors, a corporate brand marketer can legitimately question if the role of a local
marketer delivering locally branded messages is even a necessary one. However, data may
be telling less than the whole story.

•

•

•

Data doesn’t shake a customer’s hand. No matter how accurate it may be,
corporate insight doesn’t look a customer in the eye, audibly thank him or her
for the business or ask about how the kids’ soccer team is doing.

Data doesn’t live in the local market. Corporate insight doesn’t know about
the “Western Trails Festival” that everyone in the city knows about or that the
high school football team is going to state.

Data doesn’t always have win-win at heart. As outlined in Chapter Two,
finding common objectives is critical to a long-term win for both the corporate
and local marketers. Analytics driven campaign management systems focused on
driving personalized, localized communications won’t always be able to consider
the nuanced win-win relationship needed.


23


Saepio has long observed and endorsed the concept of blending corporate marketing
insight and local marketing intuition. This powerful combination leverages the strength of
both entities for the goal of consistent messaging that engages local consumers.
Consumers, and particularly customers, want marketing messages with a local touch. They
respond better to them, find them more current, more local and more credible.


24


Section Three

Single Source of Content is Critical
Consistent messaging from corporate and local marketing to local consumers will only
happen when consistent ingredients are going into those messages.
Before simply writing that off as a quote from Captain Obvious, consider for a moment how
many “chefs” are attempting to insert “ingredients” into the local brand messaging mix.
In addition to corporate marketers, reps from local papers, radio stations, direct mailers,
yellow pages, local ad agencies, search marketers, freelance creative professionals, national
small business marketing services firms, image libraries and “brand marketer wanna be”
friends and family of the local marketer all have marketing message “ingredients” to offer
(this challenge is the focus of Chapter Six). With so many competing to influence the brand
messaging, the corporate marketers not only must have the loudest megaphone, they must
also have the most complete and easiest to use content library for brand messaging.
These systems are typically referred to as distributed marketing management platforms or
marketing asset management solutions and contain four key elements:

1.

marketer would need to consistently message the brand in the local market
should be found via the marketing storefront.

2.

They are a complete, searchable repository of images and other digital
assets. If local marketers – or those serving them – can quickly and easily find
the content they are looking for, they’ll use it. If not, they’ll look elsewhere. A
robust digital asset management foundation must be at the heart of any
marketing asset management solution.

3.

4.

They dynamically create content and campaigns, and do so for all channels.
A dynamic content approach is critical because it allows for the content a local
marketer sees to automatically be versioned to the local market. It also lets the
local marketer participate in content selection within a framework established
by the corporate marketer.

They provide a single marketing storefront for local marketers of all things
marketing. From campaign creative to branded apparel, anything a local

They automate marketing fulfillment.
Local marketers don’t have the time or the expertise to implement a marketing
campaign whether that campaign is a simple, outbound email series or a
complex, multi-channel campaign. Top-tier distributed marketing management
platforms automate these processes to limit local marketer involvement.


25


As an additional benefit, the same platform technology that enables local marketer engagement in the creation of consistent brand messaging can be used by corporate marketers to
automate creation of personalized, localized content for local placement as part of a national
campaign. The dynamic content creation and marketing fulfillment automation can turn an
otherwise rather complex process into a highly automated, relatively easy campaign execution
processes.
A marketing asset management system can just as efficiently be used as a stand-alone
resource for local marketers, as a shared environment where corporate marketing controls
part of the content but enables local involvement and as a corporate to consumer content
creation engine. Further, advanced platforms can stage content for campaign execution or
build and deliver it in real time based on analytics guidance and consumer actions.
This powerful, flexible approach to content creation and management is becoming increasingly
essential for consistent message delivery across the corporate and local landscape.
With such a resource in place, consistent messaging to consumers from corporate and local
marketers operating in tandem or individually is not difficult. Without this resource, as noted
earlier, it is virtually impossible.


26


Section Four

Three Keys for Ensuring Consistent Messages
Ensuring that consumers receive consistent messaging from corporate and local marketers
without doubt is challenging. But the goal is very attainable, even in a complex world where
consumers seek consistency across all mediums and all points in time. However, consistent
brand messaging won’t happen without a concerted, focused effort on the part of corporate
marketing. Within these efforts, the following three steps will be critical:

Key #1: Embrace Localized Marketing
Consumers are asking for localized marketing. Whether generated by corporate or local,
consumers view it as more relevant and credible.

•

Think local. Turn the corporate mindset to global branding locally delivered to
increase performance.

•

Think relevance. Organizationally internalize what it means to deliver on the
consumers’ desire to receive content when, where and in what medium they
want.

•

Think analytics. Utilize corporate insight to drive local engagement and brand
messaging consistency. Do so, however, in a manner that values local, intitionbased input.

Key #2: Relentlessly Pursue a Partnering Attitude
Consumers don’t view the brand as having corporate and local parts. They view one brand.
Relentlessly pursue a partnering attitude between corporate and local marketing to avoid
consumer confusion.

•

Engage local marketers. Strive to find the correct blend of corporate insight and
local intuition.

•

Guide the consumer. Consumers are willing to be led through a product or
service decision process. But they do expect a seamless experience with the
brand at all points in that process. Map it out with corporate and local roles
identified and relentlessly pursue a corporate and local partnership that delivers
on this expectation.

•

Keep it simple. Local marketers are busy and are not sophisticated marketers.
Keep them involved but make partnering with corporate easy. Create “wins” for
them that don’t require lots of time or money.


27


Key #3: Put Systems in Place to Make Blended Marketing Easy
Consistent messaging across a consumer’s engagement with a brand won’t happen at any
level without a technology infrastructure to support it. This is particularly true when corporate and local marketers must team together to manage the consumer communications.

•

Start with the content. Content is the engagement point with the consumer.
Getting an advanced distributed marketing management platform or marketing
asset management solution in place is critical. Don’t cut corners either, as limited
technology will limit your ability to engage customers.

•

Utilize big data and analytics. The exploding capacity of hardware and software
technology in tandem with incredible volumes of consumer data now available
provides insights never available before. Blended with a content creation tech
nology and the intuition of a local marketer, this insight can be a powerful force.
Use it fully.

•

Implement locally focused real-time campaign management. Also known as
real-time decision engines, this technology enables consumer actions to dictate
marketing reaction. These engines absorb consumer interactions (what, when,
where, why and how the consumer is engaging with the brand), call on big data
and analytics within the context of these actions and then instruct the dynamic
content engines to assemble and deliver marketing campaign content both in
real time and in drip sequences. This technology is way outside the capacities of
the local marketer to manage (let alone most corporate marketers!). Implement
it in ways that are “behind the scenes” and simple to use for the local marketer
but make sure to engage your local marketers in creating the content that will be
automatically and dynamically created and served to consumers.

(See the Saepio DMLS Guidebook “The New Technology Trinity for Real-Time Consumer
Engagement” to learn more about the roles of these three technologies in customer
engagement management.)
These three keys provide the framework for creating the consistent messaging that is
needed to explode brand value at the local level. The keys are primarily philosophical with
a technology infrastructure to support the shift in thought. Ironically, many in corporate
marketing still view such approaches as futuristic. Unfortunately, most consumers have
arrived at that “future” and are waiting for the brand marketers – both corporate and local
– to respond. That noted, don’t wait for the full technology infrastructure to be in place to
start. Many steps can be taken immediately to facilitate, and even ensure, consistent
messaging from corporate and local marketers.


28


Summary
Consistent messaging must be in place across corporate and local marketing activities for
brand value to explode at the local level.
While they are individualistic and complex, today’s consumers are begging to be guided
by consistent communications across the myriad of devices, channels and locations where
they engage with a brand. Further, they don’t think about a brand in corporate and local
buckets, just in terms of information and accessibility. And, they respond better to locally
versioned messaging about the brand and the point of interaction with the brand.
Unfortunately, too often instead of guiding the consumer and capitalizing on this local
advantage, corporate and local marketers confuse them through out-of-sync marketing
messages.
Implementing strong distributed marketing management technology is key to creating
blended, consistent messages from corporate and local marketers. However, equally
important to technology is the embracement of localized marketing content and an
embracement of corporate and local partnership in the delivery of these messages.
The savvy corporate marketer will see the importance of pursuing robust technology
infrastructure to drive localized messaging while at the same time implementing readily
available operational steps to facilitate consistent messaging and help explode brand value
at the local level.


29

4

Coordinated Message Delivery

Introduction
Consumers don’t see brands as corporate or local. Instead, they view them personally, and
in the way they consume them. As a result, they not only expect consistent brand messages,
they want coordinated ones.
To provide this, corporate and local must have complimentary marketing campaign schedules.
Corporate marketers can localize media buys with relative ease, particularly digital buys,
and can “buy” an individual rather than a locale. This is powerful and effective and consumers respond. However, consumers also react when corporate and local messaging overlay
one another or competes with one another. In such cases, corporate and local also waste
precious media dollars.
When coordinated, however, the blended personalization or localization can have a highly
positive outcome. Both corporate and local marketers have long sought to be in front of the
consumer as close as possible to the key “Moments of Truth” where purchase decisions are
made and word-of-mouth support is mobilized. Organize this well, and strong results will
follow.
Coordinated messaging can’t happen without, well, coordination. While it is impractical for
this to transpire in any manual way, it is both possible and probable that it will if the proper
automation systems are implemented.


30

Chapter Four: Coordinated Message Delivery

Section One

Revisiting Local Moment of Truth (LMOT)
For decades, the concept of consumer “Moments of Truth” was neatly wrapped in a package
with a bow on top. The First Moment of Truth (FMOT) occurred when the consumer was
standing at the point of decision and reviewing the purchase options before him or her. The
Second Moment of Truth (SMOT) followed shortly thereafter when the consumer began to
consume and experience the product and determine if it lived up to the expectations they
had set for it.
Connectivity and the “Always On” consumer have changed this sequence. In addition to these
First and Second Moments of Truth, the corporate and local marketers now must collectively
also address Zero Moments of Truth (ZMOT) and Local Moments of Truth (LMOT).

Zero Moments of Truth, or ZMOTs as introduced by Google, occur before any product

considerations are given. These happen when an individual utilizes a search engine to begin
research on the types of products or solutions available to them to solve a problem and to
read reviews of customers who have previously used the solution. Search results, customer
reviews and online shopping options all now come into play in an online venue. As implied
in the name, a Zero Moment of Truth typically occurs prior to the First Moment of Truth, and
in some cases precludes it.

The Local Moment of Truth is centered around where and when the consumer will

take action (LMOT’s largely involve mobile marketing exchanges). With so many consumer
decisions being impulse or time-limited decisions that are also location aware, the ability to
deliver call-to-action messages hyper-locally and immediately deliver a product or service
hyper-locally becomes critical. It’s at a Local Moment of Truth that the consumer determines
if an immediate action will be taken and if that action will be fulfilled locally rather than
online or at another location and time. It capitalizes on the consumer’s location at the time
of decision and is indifferent to the existence of a Zero Moment of Truth or First Moment of
Truth. A marketer’s ultimate goal is that Local Moment of Truth stimulus equals favorable,
immediate response which leads to a sale and a positive Second Moment of Truth.
In this context, coordination of message cadence between corporate and local marketing
becomes critical. The messaging consumed online, whether from the brand or users of the
brand, must be coordinated with the messages received in-store and experienced through
the branded product or service. In particular, corporate brand messaging that creates category demand and brand preference must be paid off in the correct time sequence by local
brand messages that are call-to-action focused.


31


Further, as outlined in the previous chapter, messages from corporate marketers and messages from local marketers must appear harmonious to the consumer, particularly during
a Local Moment of Truth. While the duration of a Local Moment of Truth varies based on
the type of product or service, there is a defined endpoint, and therefore a risk of a lost sale
either from waning interest or a change in location.
To fully explode brand value at the local level, corporate and local marketers must both
understand these moments of truth and have a coordinated plan of attack for interaction
with the consumer throughout each of these moments of truth. While this objective is
relatively easy to address in cases where the corporate and local marketers share a single
brand identity, as explored in the next section, it can be very challenging when this is not
the case.


32


Section Two

Sharing Your Brand with Local Marketers
Among the biggest barriers to coordinated messages between corporate and local marketers
are the questions of who manages the consumer experience and who owns the brand
preference.
If you manage a distributed marketing network where every product or service and every
product or service delivery channel is within a single brand identity, count yourself lucky
and feel free to move forward to the next section. For everyone else, read on.
Co-branding with a local marketer is hard. Really hard. Keeping messages coordinated in
these scenarios is harder still…especially throughout all the Moments of Truth. For example,
•

Who’s in charge of ensuring excellent messaging at the Zero Moment of Truth? If it’s
corporate marketing, how do you pass that message forward to the local brand?

•

Who’s in charge of being visible and setting the message at the Local Moment of Truth?
And will a local marketer carry your brand message forward into their store or to product
selection discussions during a services delivery (i.e. replacement of an air conditioner)?

•

What coordinated messaging and visibility for your brand in a retail environment is fair
to ask of the local marketer when a consumer is choosing between your brand and
another (that First Moment of Truth)? Often, you aren’t the only one competing for this
visibility.

•

Who responds at the Second Moment of Truth if a customer shares the experience in a
social venue? Who gets the credit and word-of-mouth marketing win?

•

How do your actions differ if you have a stronger brand than the local brand? What if the
opposite is the case? What if most local views of the local brand simply don’t usually
connect your corporate brand to the local brand?
Clearly, these are challenging questions. In a co-branded environment, it is unfair to ask the
local marketer to solely advocate your brand. It is equally unrealistic to expect that the local
marketer will keep brand messaging coordinated and the sequence of communications
with the consumer coordinated through these moments of truth. Thus, coordinated messaging
and a single consumer experience for your brand will only happen when corporate marketing
assumes full responsibility for every engagement in every moment of truth.
This responsibility extends far beyond the traditional influences of providing localized
marketing materials or MDF/co-op funds. Traditional MDF and co-op programs can certainly
help address these questions and guide actions (although, as outlined in Chapter Six, spend
of these funds is often heavily influenced by “competitors,” the sales networks focused on


33


helping small businesses help them access your co-op dollars). Historically, these programs
have been heavily about generating local brand awareness in a local context for the purpose of creating consumer traffic for a First Moment of Truth.
With the arrival of Zero and Local Moments of Truth, however, has come a whole new hierarchy
of importance and complexity for a coordinated sequence of communication. Consumers are
simply making purchase decisions in a different manner than traditional co-branding marketing
strategies and tactics have supported.
As a corporate marketer operating on behalf of the local marketer, you must message to
the consumer in a coordinated sequence that enables you to win at these Zero and Local
Moments for both your brand and the local marketer’s brand, including the call to action
that generates a response for the local marketer’s brand. Then, working with and being
dependent on the local marketer, you must continue through to also win at the First Moment
of Truth when the product decision is sealed through a purchase made.
Everything the corporate marketer does must be structured around this premise. Corporate
can only win when local wins and the local marketer’s odds of winning increase significantly
when corporate also wins.
The following examples provide some practical application (and the Moments of Truth involved):

•

A corporate brand marketing team may choose to fund a co-branded hyperlocal search marketing campaign that drives consumers to a local store. In
exchange for this support, the local marketer agrees to product placement and
point of sale marketing messages that provide coordinated messaging
throughout the consumer experience. (LMOT and FMOT)

•

A corporate brand marketing team implements a customer experience and
individualized campaign management program that determines the messages,
mediums and sequences of communication to a consumer (loyalty program
member or otherwise) to mobilize a purchase decision and manage follow-up
communications. In exchange, local agrees to incorporate this individualized
consumer insight into its in-store customer engagement. (ZMOT, LMOT, FMOT &
SMOT)

•

A corporate brand marketing team funds short-tail Pay Per Click search
campaigns that feature the branded product in tandem with a local, co-branded
call to action coupon. In exchange for this service, the local marketer provides
placement of shelf-talkers that visually connect the CTA offer to the product
offered. (ZMOT and FMOT)

•

A corporate brand marketing team monitors social chatter and rewards positive
corporate brand posts through co-branded “thank you” discount for additional
purchases at the local retail or service outlet. (SMOT)


34


By driving the process and structuring it as co-branded and local call-to-action oriented,
corporate marketing can help ensure that message delivery is coordinated. Unfortunately,
none of these efforts will guarantee the local marketer’s acceptance, adoption, or interest
in coordinating with the corporate marketing programs that are needed to explode brand
value at the local level. This is especially the case if they don’t easily see how marketing
efforts benefit them. To that end, the first target audience for the corporate marketer must
be the local marketer network. While this topic is addressed in detail in the Chapter Seven,
the following four key considerations are most relevant to attaining coordinated
communications between corporate and local brands.

Key #1: Know Your Role
Objectively evaluate how to best partner with the local marketer to lift the value of both
the corporate brand and the local brand. Understand that to carry a coordinated message
sequence through the Moments of Truth to assure a consumer purchase, corporate
marketing must find creative ways to educate the front-line marketers at the store or in
the service encounter. Point of sale and product literature can play an important role in
providing this education.

Key #2: Show off the Local Brand “Win”
Getting local marketers to coordinate messaging begins with them clearly seeing how their
local brand wins. Strong graphics, shared brand emphasis, and call to actions restricted to
their retail location or service will help them see and appreciate the investment corporate
is making with them. A remarketing campaign focused on local marketers and front-line
marketers can help.

Key #3: Make it Profoundly Easy for Them to Co-Brand With You
A lot of brand marketers, local marketing sales organizations and media outlets will constantly
be competing against a corporate brand marketer for the attention of the local marketer.
These other entities could care less about whether messaging to the consumer is coordinated
between you and the local marketer. Win through ease of use and innovative solutions.
Make both DIY and DIFM co-branded marketing campaigns PROFOUNDLY easy for the local
marketer to implement or opt into.

Key #4: Be Very Visible and Make Them the Hero
Everyone wants to be associated with a winner. If the corporate brand has a strong consumer
awareness and preference, use that brand position to lift the local marketer’s brand value. If
the corporate brand equity isn’t as strong, use creative applications that both enhance the
corporate brand and reinforce the local brand’s leadership position.
In summary, when local marketers see that you have their local brand’s interest at heart,
they reciprocate. Gaining this alignment is hard work but is critical to attain if consumers
are to experience coordinated messages between corporate and local marketing, which, in
turn, is essential for brand value to explode at the local level.


35


Section Three

Four Steps for Message Coordination
While many tactics can be applied to creating coordinated messages between corporate
and local marketers, most can be organized around the following four steps:

Step One:

Revisit how consumers want to engage both the corporate and local brands.
The manner in which consumers want to engage with both corporate and local brands is
changing rapidly. The desire for an omni-channel, personalized and localized experience
across all the moments of truth necessitates a new approach to coordinating marketing
messages. The corporate marketing manager of a distributed marketing network should
proactively revisit how consumers want to engage both corporate and local brands:

•

Map out your consumer’s omni-channel journeys to determine which engagements should be corporate marketing’s and what elements are best served locally.

•

Develop a phased roadmap from your program today to the end destination.
Identify the key marketing process or infrastructure changes that will be needed
at the corporate level and identify the types of supportive actions you’ll want
from local marketers.

•

Look for natural transition steps that feel simple and logical to your distributed
marketers.

Step Two:

Win the hearts of the local marketers by rethinking how/where you support
them.
Moving a call to action through to brand selection at point of sale or service (a traditional
First Moment of Truth), will require a coordinated, blended sequence of messaging from
local and front-line marketers. However, there’s no coordination of messaging for the
corporate brand at this critical point of decision if there’s no interaction between the local
or front-line marketer and the consumer. Such a critical moment can’t be left to chance. To
create engagement with local and front-line marketers, the corporate marketer must:

•

Win the hearts of the local and front-line marketers by making them the heroes.
The local brand must be strongly blended with the corporate brand at the Zero
and Local Moments of Truth. Local and front-line marketers seeing this blended
branding is almost as important as the consumer seeing it as these individuals
help influence the still critically important First Moment of Truth when and
where purchase decisions are made.

•

Provide graphically compelling content for point-of-sale or service display. Front
line marketers are consumers too and want to be associated with cool stuff.

•

Create brand awareness campaigns focused on local and front-line marketers.
Digital display remarketing technology makes focused ad placement easy. Create
a campaign designed to keep corporate brand awareness high with this critical
audience. Keep ad content fresh, interesting and educational.


36


Step Three:

Redirect your MDF/co-op fund management to LMOT and FMOT.
If MDF or co-op funds are available as part of the corporate marketing’s local marketing
support, begin to shift the focus of these programs to the Local and First Moments of Truth.
These are the critical call to action and product/service selection points and the points
where the local brand is most relevant.

•

Structure programs to incent a strong, co-branded point of sale/service presence.
Strong creative will be key to local participation as the local marketer’s first incli
nation will be to utilize funds to drive traffic, not product or service selection.

•

Support local search campaigns but require messaging control through to a
co-branded landing page. This will help manage the influence of the sales
advisors from local media outlets, agencies or marketing sales organizations.

•

Make assurance of compliance and reimbursement easy by providing a resource
library of MDF/co-op eligible marketing resources.

Step Four:

Provide systems that jointly manage marketing activities to ensure proper
message cadence.
Coordinating marketing messages between corporate and local marketing efforts becomes
massively easier when a single distributed marketing management platform is involved.
This goes well beyond simple ad building technology. Advanced platforms, for example,
will control cadence of media placement such as when a corporate or local email is sent to
keep consumers from receiving overlapping messages. Advanced platforms will also enable
joint list management, again for coordination purposes, and allow for easy updating of both
corporate and local content. When considering a distributed marketing platform, look for
solutions that:

•

Provide all of the local marketing resources in a single location. Coordinated
messaging is much easier to attain if digital display, landing pages, email, pointof-sale printed materials, store signage, print ads and all other ad content is
created in one location.

•

Automate the marketing fulfillment process. Media buying and marketing
fulfillment is too complex for corporate marketers or agencies, let alone local
marketers. Look for solutions that automate these processes, facilitate the
coordination of messaging, and integrate with MDF/co-op if relevant.

•

Automate local market versioning across all channels. An effective distributed
marketing management platform will provide dynamic content creation across
all channels that makes participate easy for local marketers and message
management easy for corporate marketers.


37


Summary
Coordinated brand messaging – the cadence and sequence of messages – when combined
with consistent brand messages can lead to powerful marketing results for corporate and
local marketers alike.
Coordinated marketing, however, often isn’t easy, especially in cases where the corporate
and local brands equally influence the consumer’s decision process. The addition of Zero
Moments of Truth due to search and local moments of truth due to mobility adds even
more complexity for coordinated marketing messaging. The emerging consumers’ desire of
an omni-channel brand experience further challenges the blending of corporate and local
brands and the coordination of messages.
In response, corporate marketers must implement marketing systems that coordinate
the consumer’s experience with the corporate brand messaging throughout a decision
sequence, but in a manner that also values the local brand and creates local call to action.
Engaging local and front-line marketers in the process is critical as they must carry forward
a coordinated message at the point of sale, the traditional First Moment of Truth where
purchase decisions are made.
Traditional corporate-to-local support programs often aren’t focused on these new
realities. The savvy corporate marketer will start today to:

•

Revisit how consumers want to engage with both the corporate and local
brands

•

Develop programs designed to win the hearts and support of local marketers

•

Restructure MDF/co-op resources to help ensure coordinated messaging

•

Implement platforms that support coordinated, blended marketing messaging
to consumers from both corporate and local marketing


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5

Cooperative Customer Management

Introduction
How corporate and local marketers share customers is key to exploding brand value at the
local level. Both the corporate brand and the local outlet where the brand is delivered and
experienced strongly feel that they should own the customer. And both should. In turn, the
customer should feel connected to both the corporate brand and its local delivery.
Many brands struggle to do this well. Local marketers don’t always trust the corporate marketer to act in the local marketer’s best interest. Sharing the customer, in their minds, puts
the customer at risk for a direct sales relationship with the brand. Corporate marketers aren’t
always eager to share the customer with the local outlet. Often they have nurtured the
customer through an online discovery process and are wary of turning over the customer
to a local front-line marketer who doesn’t have the insight needed to continue the engagement through to a sale.
In the mean time, the customer just wants to experience the brand in both its corporate
and local facets. The customer often has created a connection with the brand persona or
the attributes/benefits of the product or service. The customer will gladly define how they
want corporate and local to collectively manage their relationship with the brand. It is now
in the hands of the local outlet to deliver on these expectations, not just for the single brand
encounter but for many repeat purchases to come.


39

Chapter Five: Cooperative Customer Management

Section One

Defining Shared Customer Management
To understand the roles of corporate and local marketing in customer management one
must first create some definitions around what constitutes a customer. These definitions
vary based upon the role played.

For corporate marketers, the definition of a customer looks something like this:
•

An individual who is a member of a loyalty club.

•

An individual who has purchased a product or service and registered for warranty
protection.

•

An individual who has purchased a product or service and who through some means
has provided a name and contact information to the corporation.

•

An individual who is not known to have purchased a product or service, but who is a
frequent visitor to the corporate or product website.

•

An individual who is not known to have purchased, who is researching a product or
service.

For local marketers, the definition is slightly different:
• individual who is a member of local loyalty program.
•An An individual who is a memberaof a local loyalty program.
•

An individual who has made a purchase at the retail outlet or ordered a service,
whether for the corporate marketers brand or otherwise.

•

Anyone browsing the store (in-store or online).

Given these scenarios, clearly not all corporate customers are also local customers or local
customers, corporate customers. Even in scenarios of a single vertical branding (such as a
quick service restaurant chain), corporate, if it’s brutally honest, doesn’t ultimately care if a
product or service is consumed by one location over another.
Thus, a shared customer is an individual who meets at least one criterion from both of the
definition lists above. Distributed marketing management strategies involving corporate
and local marketer management of shared customers should be designed around these
intersection points.


40


When previous purchases are involved and local and/or corporate brand preferences are
established within the customer (such as membership in a loyalty or ongoing service
program), designing shared customer management strategies is relatively straightforward.
However, it’s important to note that individuals with no previous product or service
purchase may be included in the “customer” definitions. How corporate and local marketing
share these “customers” and respect one another in the process will also be key to effective
shared customer management and the exploding of brand value at the local level.


41


Section Two

Your Customers Are Making It Clear: Local Needs Corporate and
Corporate Needs Local
While the fact that local needs corporate and corporate needs local is obvious, getting to a
point of full shared customer management between corporate and local marketing requires
the corporate marketer to honestly examine why local marketers would want to share
customers and why they wouldn’t.
Local marketers should be fiercely possessive of their customers. There are many historical
reasons why they should be wary of a corporate marketer wanting access to a customer list,
particularly if it’s not a shared list by the customer’s choice. Here’s what they fear most:

•

Corporate will guide the customer to another location (this legitimate concern
is explored further in the next section).

•

Corporate will sell to the customer directly through an online store or connect
a customer to an online store.

• The corporate brand will replace the local brand as the dominant brand in
the customer relationship. Multiple brands may be involved in the local
relationship. The local brand cannot afford to let a customer’s relationship
depend on a single brand experience.

•

Corporate campaigns will conflict with their local campaigns.

Clearly, these are legitimate concerns. But there’s another side to the story. The local
marketer has a lot of ways to protect and/or win customer business through the aid of
corporate marketing as well.

•

The local marketer is the local access to a branded product or service. A
corporate brand preference, particularly when there is a loyalty program
involved or a previous purchase with a positive experience (see the Second
Moment of Truth discussion in Chapter Four), dramatically increases the likeli
hood that a purchase will be made from that local marketer.

•

Many consumers start a decision process via online search. The search is often
generic, not brand specific. These Zero or Local Moments of Truth (again, see
Chapter Four for more on ZMOTs and LMOTs) must often be won by the corporate
brand before they become a call to action that will be delivered by the local
brand. This is particularly relevant with higher price point products and services.

•

Corporate marketing can simply outspend local marketers. In particular, they
can apply the insights gleaned from customer analytics to guide a customer to a
purchase decision.

•

Corporate marketing can make the point-of-sale come to life graphically with
innovative, highly creative materials that would be beyond the capabilities or
affordability of the local marketer.


42


Simply stated, there’s a lot to win by working together and a lot to lose by not addressing
the legitimate local concerns. At the same time, often lost in considerations of common
concerns and opportunities between corporate and local marketing is the fact that the
customers have an opinion too. In most cases, the customer has provided a ton of input into
the relationship they think corporate and local marketing should have when serving them.

•

If they’re in a loyalty club, they’ve asked to experience the corporate brand
locally delivered again.

•

If they’ve registered for a warranty program, they have invited an ongoing
relationship that creates a continual second moment of truth and a repeat
purchase at the appropriate time.

•

If they’ve provided their name to receive special promotions or offers, they want
you to keep them informed of ways to give you money.

•

If they’ve visited your website, they want to learn about your brand and where
they can experience the brand locally.

•

If they’ve searched on a keyword that is relevant to you, they want your help in
making a local purchase decision.

•

If they’re in a retail store, they have a purchase decision in mind.

•

If they’ve accessed you through the corporate brand or the local brand, they’ve
invited you to engage them.

Customers are asking for a single experience. Corporate needs local to deliver on
this and local needs corporate. But, corporate marketers must take the lead.
When a single brand identity is involved, corporate marketers must find a way for the customer to select the local connection to the brand and structure a seamless communication
pathway in support of that choice.
In cases where corporate marketers have a single brand focus but local doesn’t, the action
must be different. In such cases, it’s not fair of corporate to ask a local retailer or service
provider to always promote their brand, but that doesn’t restrict the ability to influence
them to do so. Sharing customers in such cases comes with greater challenges. But those
corporate marketers who provide the most compelling approaches to local marketers will
best explode brand value at the local level and ultimately win at the point of sale.


43


Section Three

Pathways to Purchase: Lists, Cadence, Timing, Frontline Marketer
Training and More
Effective customer sharing typically breaks down not because of ill intentions of the corporate
or the local marketers but rather because of ill timing of good intentions.
It’s not easy to stay coordinated.
In the example alluded to earlier, through the efforts of a corporate marketer, a consumer may
have walked into a retail environment intending to buy the corporate marketer’s branded
product but is immediately presented with multiple alternatives to that product. As the
consumer stands in the product aisle, a well intentioned front-line marketer engages him
or her and provides guidance through to the purchase of a product from a competitor. The
consumer appreciates the assistance provided and goes home happy and the front-line
marketer experiences the appreciation of the satisfied customer. The competing brand, of
course, is happy too. But something has gone terribly wrong. The potential power of
sharing a customer has not just been lost, it’s been violated. Worse still, no one has a clue.
Sharing a customer must be more than just a premise. It must be a well thought out,
well anticipated game plan that address each potential misstep in the consumer’s
pathway to purchase. It’s easy to blame the frontline marketer or even the behind-thescenes local marketer involved in the illustration above, but to do so would be totally
unfair. The absence of an organized plan is to blame.
Creating such a plan begins with anticipating the various pathways to purchase, that a
shared customer might take. Does he begin with a search process (the Zero Moment of
Truth from Chapter Four) and connect to the corporate brand that way? Is the buy more
impulse and driven more by a “Local Moment of Truth” where location and ease of purchase
are the most critical factors? Did a loyalty club initiate the engagement? Or, was this a
response to local or corporate brand advertising?
Each of these scenarios takes the consumer down a unique pathway to purchase and both
the corporate and local marketer must play key and potentially varying roles at critical
points in that journey. As shown in the example above, without the help of the local and
frontline marketer, the corporate marketer’s work can quickly become in vain.
It is helpful to outline these often-complex customer pathways to purchase on a white
board with each step labeled as corporate controlled, local controlled or shared. When this
exercise is completed, the potential pitfall points of managing a shared customer become
obvious. The corporate marketer now has the insights needed to begin to build a strong
customer sharing plan.


44


Look for opportunities to create communications that connects the dots
between corporate and local for the customer. In many cases, like a single branded

auto dealership or a restaurant chain, this is easy. But in other cases, a strong brand/visual
connection will be needed between the brand communications the consumer first saw, the
retail brand and the product brand at the point of product selection.

Look for ways to ask the consumer to provide the connection between
corporate and local marketing interactions. In the case example, if the consumer had
carried a printed or electronic offer with them to the point of sale, the frontline marketer
would have known that the business was courtesy of the brand and could have guided the
consumer through the completion of the sale he or she came to make.

Make sure local and frontline marketers are prepared to receive the customer
hand offs. The best means to accomplish this is by thinking of frontline marketers as a

target audience too. After identifying the key messages needed at point of handoff, create
marketing campaigns aimed at frontline marketers and focused on those points. Use point
of purchase signage and materials to educate. Find a means to gain access to frontline
marketers for remarketing campaigns that sell the value proposition of the product or service. Where reasonable, provide incentives for local and front-line marketers to experience
the product or service themselves.
Provide a synchronized experience for the consumer too.
Where possible, share email and direct mail lists between corporate and local marketers.
This will help ensure that the consumer receives coordinated messages. Find a distributed
email marketing solution that includes both shared list management and cadence
management features. This will keep the right flow of information from the correct entity
arriving in the consumer’s inbox or mailbox.
Also, as noted earlier, make sure the timing and sequence of communication to the
consumer from both corporate and local marketers is done in a manner that guides the
individual seamlessly down a pathway to purchase and that provides the correct content
for the consumer to carry to the frontline marketer.
As you white board diagram the customer pathways to purchase, make sure to take into
consideration both brand initiated and customer initiated engagement.
Customer initiated engagement should be structured in a manner that lets the customer
guide the process but within a framework that moves down a pathway to local purchase.
This is particularly true in cases where the engagement begins during an LMOT encounter.
When more than one local option exists for a product or service purchase, putting the
decision in the hands of the customer helps corporate marketing stay neutral.


45


Brand-initiated engagement, on the other hand, can be more easily organized around a
shared customer concept. In a brand-initiated engagement, the primary consideration is
how and/or when corporate, local and third-party customer data intersects (It’s important
to note that the sharing of data for campaign purposes does not require the permanent
sharing of customer data). Data may include information on the preferred entity/location
for the delivery of a product or service. In cases where such a relationship isn’t known or
doesn’t exist, if corporate initiated the engagement it can guide the consumer to a location
selection. In cases where the local marketer creates the engagement, the customer can be
guided to the local marketer’s point of product or service delivery.
Regardless of what pathway has brought the consumer to the point of decision, at this
point it is imperative the frontline marketer realize that this is a shared customer and take
on the representation of the brand through the conclusion of the sale process.
A distributed marketing management platform can play a helpful role with shared
customer management. Such platforms can receive data input from customer initiated
engagements and return locally focused brand messages. Similarly, through a distributed
marketing management platform, brand initiated campaigns can be localized both in
content creation and message dissemination.
Advanced distributed marketing management platforms can enable corporate managers
of distributed marketing networks to manage:

•

The sharing or merging at point of campaign of corporate and local lists

•

The cadence of communications (to ensure, for example, that corporate and
local campaigns are coordinated)

•

The brand messaging of content in local-, corporate- or customer-initiated
communications

•

The creation of powerful, localized point of sale materials and the automated
fulfillment and timing of campaigns

When properly structured, these platforms can heavily automate content creation and
delivery in support of the various customer pathways to purchase. Without them, shared
customer management between corporate and local, while possible, is challenging.


46

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