1) Branding begins with defining your agency's core values, beliefs, and attributes that differentiate you in the marketplace. This is done through introspection and input from clients, employees, and others in your industry.
2) Understanding your competition and market is key to positioning your brand effectively. Examine what opportunities and threats exist.
3) Consistently communicating your distinctive brand message through all marketing materials and in interactions with clients will build brand awareness over time. Customer service must support this brand image.
BrandExtract is a branding, marketing, and communications firm that helps growing companies develop strategic branding solutions. They assess every touchpoint between a brand and its customers to understand how the brand is perceived. BrandExtract guides clients by conducting research, analyzing the competitive landscape and market, and answering critical questions. Their goal is to align a company's messaging with its marketplace to increase value and market position.
This document provides guidance on developing an effective brand positioning strategy to improve lead generation. It discusses the importance of having a clear brand proposition and understanding your audience. It recommends using tools like perceptual mapping to analyze your competitive landscape and identify opportunities. The document then provides a step-by-step process for defining your brand values, essence, benefits, and promise to communicate your unique value proposition to customers.
This document discusses strategies for building and strengthening brand equity. It advises learning from successful brands that have built trust with customers through consistent delivery on their brand promises. Strong brands align their culture, products, customer interactions and communications to differentiate themselves and create emotional bonds with customers. The document recommends conducting annual brand audits and research to monitor the brand's perception and ensure brand-related activities are creating value and profits. It also provides tips for small organizations to focus on value and use limited resources efficiently to implement a branding strategy.
The need to develop a clearly defined MOT is emerging as a key competitive advantage for marketers wanting to gain strong customer loyalty and a clear point of difference in the marketplace by converting customers to advocates for the brand. With the advent of the web and the shift of control from the marketer and retailer to the consumer, this need to clearly map out and manage the entire customer relationship at all touch-points has become paramount.
For more white papers and webinars, go to http://www.sldesignlounge.com
Or visit us at http://www.sld.com
We transform ideas and businesses into strong brands through branding strategies and design. We help companies innovate, evolve, and achieve success by guiding and expanding their vision. Our solutions include brand strategy, identity, implementation, and management. For the past 8 years we have successfully helped clients across many sectors build and enhance their brands.
This document discusses conducting a competitive analysis of other businesses in the same industry. It recommends calling competitors to ask questions as a potential customer and request their marketing materials. It also suggests calling competitors in other areas to get unbiased advice. Additionally, the document outlines conducting field analysis by asking potential customers about familiar competitors to identify opportunities. The overall goal is to understand competitors' strengths, weaknesses, costs and public image to help strategize your own business approach.
Hamman Marketing Associates is an integrated marketing communications firm that provides services including advertising, public relations, sales literature, direct mail, package design, corporate identification, branding, and trade show promotion. It was established in 1999 and is based in Johnson City, Tennessee. The firm brings strategic and tactical experience in marketing from its founder's over 20 years of experience in sales management, advertising, and corporate marketing.
Deliver a Corporate Story That Strengthens Your Customer Experience.James O'Gara
More than ever before, businesses operate in a world of
transparency. The always-connected-and-consuming
buyer has unprecedented access to your organization.
Your strategy and story are visible to anyone, anywhere,
at any time.
How your business operates, what your organization believes in, the actions employees take and the words you use to describe what you do — as well as the value you deliver and what differentiates you — are now omnipresent. These touchpoints, interactions and messages define your customer’s overall experience with your company. They also represent the new competitive environment that businesses must contend with today. In fact, a recent Gartner report said by 2016 (that’s here and now), 89 percent of companies expect to compete mostly on the basis of customer experience, versus 36 percent just four years ago.
In the customer-experience driven world we live in, words
and actions matter. They establish perception. They
define how customers perceive their experience with
your company. While your strategy drives your actions,
your message drives the storyline customers experience
throughout their journey.
That’s why your story and strategy must be fully aligned.
When they are not, the customer experience breaks down.
The perception of your brand is damaged. Customers lose
faith and trust in your company. Customers leave and go
to the competition.
Clarity and connectivity between your story and strategy
is paramount. A recent article in the Journal of Business
Strategy stated, “In its simplest sense, a corporate story is
a narrative tool that tells the tale of a company’s strategy
in action. It is a clear, structured, compelling articulation
of ‘‘who we are’’ and ‘‘where we’re headed’’ that rallies
emotional and rational support from stakeholders.”
The article continues, “More than mere words, however,
the corporate story’s strength lies in its ability to align
leaders, drive decision making and mobilize
the organization.”
In this paper, we’ll explore the best practices for
developing and delivering a clear, compelling and
consistent story that can in fact “align leaders, drive
decision making and mobilize the organization.”
A story that is:
> Aligned with your go-to-market strategy
> Anchored in a higher purpose
> Constructed with consistent building blocks
> Packaged, comprehensive and compartmentalized
> Embraced and activated by employees
> Connected throughout the customer experience
> Designed to produce top- and bottom-line
business results
BrandExtract is a branding, marketing, and communications firm that helps growing companies develop strategic branding solutions. They assess every touchpoint between a brand and its customers to understand how the brand is perceived. BrandExtract guides clients by conducting research, analyzing the competitive landscape and market, and answering critical questions. Their goal is to align a company's messaging with its marketplace to increase value and market position.
This document provides guidance on developing an effective brand positioning strategy to improve lead generation. It discusses the importance of having a clear brand proposition and understanding your audience. It recommends using tools like perceptual mapping to analyze your competitive landscape and identify opportunities. The document then provides a step-by-step process for defining your brand values, essence, benefits, and promise to communicate your unique value proposition to customers.
This document discusses strategies for building and strengthening brand equity. It advises learning from successful brands that have built trust with customers through consistent delivery on their brand promises. Strong brands align their culture, products, customer interactions and communications to differentiate themselves and create emotional bonds with customers. The document recommends conducting annual brand audits and research to monitor the brand's perception and ensure brand-related activities are creating value and profits. It also provides tips for small organizations to focus on value and use limited resources efficiently to implement a branding strategy.
The need to develop a clearly defined MOT is emerging as a key competitive advantage for marketers wanting to gain strong customer loyalty and a clear point of difference in the marketplace by converting customers to advocates for the brand. With the advent of the web and the shift of control from the marketer and retailer to the consumer, this need to clearly map out and manage the entire customer relationship at all touch-points has become paramount.
For more white papers and webinars, go to http://www.sldesignlounge.com
Or visit us at http://www.sld.com
We transform ideas and businesses into strong brands through branding strategies and design. We help companies innovate, evolve, and achieve success by guiding and expanding their vision. Our solutions include brand strategy, identity, implementation, and management. For the past 8 years we have successfully helped clients across many sectors build and enhance their brands.
This document discusses conducting a competitive analysis of other businesses in the same industry. It recommends calling competitors to ask questions as a potential customer and request their marketing materials. It also suggests calling competitors in other areas to get unbiased advice. Additionally, the document outlines conducting field analysis by asking potential customers about familiar competitors to identify opportunities. The overall goal is to understand competitors' strengths, weaknesses, costs and public image to help strategize your own business approach.
Hamman Marketing Associates is an integrated marketing communications firm that provides services including advertising, public relations, sales literature, direct mail, package design, corporate identification, branding, and trade show promotion. It was established in 1999 and is based in Johnson City, Tennessee. The firm brings strategic and tactical experience in marketing from its founder's over 20 years of experience in sales management, advertising, and corporate marketing.
Deliver a Corporate Story That Strengthens Your Customer Experience.James O'Gara
More than ever before, businesses operate in a world of
transparency. The always-connected-and-consuming
buyer has unprecedented access to your organization.
Your strategy and story are visible to anyone, anywhere,
at any time.
How your business operates, what your organization believes in, the actions employees take and the words you use to describe what you do — as well as the value you deliver and what differentiates you — are now omnipresent. These touchpoints, interactions and messages define your customer’s overall experience with your company. They also represent the new competitive environment that businesses must contend with today. In fact, a recent Gartner report said by 2016 (that’s here and now), 89 percent of companies expect to compete mostly on the basis of customer experience, versus 36 percent just four years ago.
In the customer-experience driven world we live in, words
and actions matter. They establish perception. They
define how customers perceive their experience with
your company. While your strategy drives your actions,
your message drives the storyline customers experience
throughout their journey.
That’s why your story and strategy must be fully aligned.
When they are not, the customer experience breaks down.
The perception of your brand is damaged. Customers lose
faith and trust in your company. Customers leave and go
to the competition.
Clarity and connectivity between your story and strategy
is paramount. A recent article in the Journal of Business
Strategy stated, “In its simplest sense, a corporate story is
a narrative tool that tells the tale of a company’s strategy
in action. It is a clear, structured, compelling articulation
of ‘‘who we are’’ and ‘‘where we’re headed’’ that rallies
emotional and rational support from stakeholders.”
The article continues, “More than mere words, however,
the corporate story’s strength lies in its ability to align
leaders, drive decision making and mobilize
the organization.”
In this paper, we’ll explore the best practices for
developing and delivering a clear, compelling and
consistent story that can in fact “align leaders, drive
decision making and mobilize the organization.”
A story that is:
> Aligned with your go-to-market strategy
> Anchored in a higher purpose
> Constructed with consistent building blocks
> Packaged, comprehensive and compartmentalized
> Embraced and activated by employees
> Connected throughout the customer experience
> Designed to produce top- and bottom-line
business results
The document discusses several examples of poor translations that led to unintended meanings and branding blunders when introducing products and slogans in international markets without proper research and understanding of cultural and linguistic differences. Some key examples include the Mist Stick curling iron being called the "manure stick" in German, Kentucky Fried Chicken's slogan translating to "eat your fingers off" in Chinese, and Parker Pen's advertisement implying their ball-point pen would make users pregnant instead of embarrassed in Mexican Spanish. The importance of thorough research for international branding is emphasized to avoid embarrassing mistranslations and ensure effective communication across cultures and languages.
This document discusses customer loyalty and challenges common misconceptions about what drives loyalty. It presents a model that segments loyalty into categories based on three dimensions: involvement in the product category, commitment to the brand, and likelihood to reevaluate choices. Understanding these segments allows companies to design tailored strategies to build loyalty for each group. The document provides examples of applying the model in industries like beer and consumer packaged goods to improve market focus.
This document provides an introduction to marketing concepts. It discusses definitions of marketing, the evolution of marketing thought from a production to a customer orientation, and key concepts including needs, products/services, value, exchange, and markets. It describes the modern marketing concept with its focus on target markets, customer needs, integrated marketing, and profitability through customer satisfaction. Relationship marketing is discussed as an extension focusing on building and maintaining profitable customer relationships.
This document summarizes the services of BRANDSavvy, a branding agency that helps businesses build their brands. It discusses how the agency will help clients build a brand that suits them, understand their market and offering, launch or relaunch a brand, and unlock the full potential of their brand. The agency offers branding workshops, market research, marketing strategies, brand identities, PR, website design, and other integrated marketing services using expert consultants for each project.
Create personal brand to beat your competitorAtticus Wood
About 75% of small businesses in the US are solo-owned and operated, reflecting the owner's personality. Personal branding can turn this personal involvement into a marketing advantage by creating a distinct personal identity. Personal branding represents creating a self-promotion strategy based on one's talents, skills, and values. This personal brand identity then becomes the inspiration for all selling efforts. With a clear identity, positive perceptions of the owner and business are shaped. Strong personal brands like Oprah Winfrey have built multi-million dollar enterprises, but most small business owners do not utilize personal branding as an effective marketing strategy. Creating a powerful personal brand involves defining an ideal target customer, identifying true competitors, finding points of difference, writing a brand statement
The document discusses customer satisfaction, including its definition, importance, and factors that influence it. It also discusses tools for measuring customer satisfaction, such as complaint and suggestion systems, customer satisfaction surveys, and lost customer analysis. Customer satisfaction is a measure of how a product or service meets or exceeds a customer's expectations. It is important because satisfied customers are less price sensitive, remain customers longer, and spread positive word of mouth. Factors that influence satisfaction include the product, sales activities, after-sales service, and company culture. Delivering excellent customer service requires understanding customer needs and expectations and creating value for customers.
Small brands should understand branding to strengthen their credibility and better understand larger brands' strengths and weaknesses. While large global brands spend heavily on advertising, branding is about the total customer experience, not just media. Small brands can compete by creating a compelling, consistent customer experience through personal service and flexibility that satisfies customer needs in a unique way, focusing on building their brand without worrying that branding requires large advertising budgets.
Make a strong personal brand to beat your competitorHenry Lee
1) Personal branding represents a powerful personal self-promotion and small business strategy where you create a brand based on your talents, skills, and values.
2) Some examples of people who created strong personal brands and multi-million dollar enterprises include Oprah Winfrey, Martha Stewart, and Tiger Woods.
3) The document provides a 5 step process to create a powerful personal brand which includes defining your target customer, identifying true competition, finding your point of difference, writing a personal brand statement, and creating a personal brand marketing plan.
Make a strong personal brand to beat your competitorHenry Lee
1) Personal branding represents a powerful personal self-promotion and small business strategy where you create a brand based on your talents, skills, and values.
2) Some examples of people who created strong personal brands and multi-million dollar enterprises include Oprah Winfrey, Martha Stewart, and Tiger Woods.
3) The document provides a 5 step process to create a powerful personal brand which includes defining your target customer, identifying your true competition, finding your point of difference, writing a personal brand statement, and creating a personal brand marketing plan.
How Different is Your Professional Service Firm, Really?
Creating differentiation is a key for professional service firms, and it isn't easy. But it can be done, and there is a process.
Create personal brand to beat your competitorHenry Lee
About seventy fifth of the twenty two million small businesses within the U.S. are owned and managed by one individual. the everyday business reflects the solo owner's values, tastes and personality. most importantly, the business and its owner are inseparable within the eyes of consumers and prospects.
Create personal brand to beat your competitorleehenry14mar
About seventy fifth of the twenty two million small businesses within the U.S. are owned and managed by one individual. the everyday business reflects the solo owner's values, tastes and personality. most importantly, the business and its owner are inseparable within the eyes of consumers and prospects.
The Balanced Rebrand: The Art & Science of Brand BuildingEastwick
Read how to balance business value and emotional value to create an authentic brand that not only sets your business up for success, but also resonates to your audiences’ needs.
This document provides guidelines for developing an effective brand positioning strategy. It discusses how brand positioning needs to evolve over different phases of a product's lifecycle. A strong brand framework is important to ensure consistency across all customer touchpoints. Great brands offer rational, emotional, and personality benefits that create loyal relationships. The approach involves collaborative research to uncover insights, develop ideas and directions. Stimulus like ads and packaging are tested to determine the positioning. The outcome defines the brand differentiators, personality, and executional guidance so the brand strategy can be successfully implemented. An example case study shows how this process helped develop a new consumer brand for a bakery supplying retailers.
Create personal brand to beat your competitorHenry Lee
About seventy fifth of the twenty two million small businesses within the U.S. are owned and managed by one individual. the everyday business reflects the solo owner's values, tastes and personality. most importantly, the business and its owner are inseparable within the eyes of consumers and prospects.
Partner Plus Brand Basics Session 2 WorkbookCisco Partners
The document discusses defining a brand strategy by first understanding the brandscape - including customers, competitors, and the company itself. It provides exercises to learn more about each of these areas through research, interviews, and analysis. The key outcomes are developing a brand vision statement that describes an aspirational future for the brand, and a brand promise that articulates the brand's core value proposition in an emotional way. Together, the vision and promise will guide all brand-building efforts and ensure the brand experience delivered matches the brand message. The document provides worksheets and tips to help formulate these critical branding statements.
The document summarizes the results of a study that found a direct relationship between employee satisfaction and agency performance. Agencies with higher Performance Indicator Numbers (PIN), which measure profitability, operations, and equity, had more satisfied employees. Employee satisfaction was highest at top-performing agencies with a PIN over 5.0. While employee satisfaction was relatively high at underperforming agencies, it dropped slightly as performance improved likely due to a lack of accountability and higher standards being implemented. As agencies make tough decisions to improve performance, employee satisfaction falls briefly but then increases as rewards and experiences become aligned with higher standards.
1) Agencies that offer ownership to younger employees tend to have higher growth rates and profitability than agencies with older average ownership. Data shows that as weighted average owner age decreases, total commission/fees growth increases.
2) Younger owners, such as producers early in their careers, are more driven to continuously build their books of business in order to increase agency value and see returns from their ownership.
3) Agencies with broader ownership that includes key younger employees have higher organic growth rates than agencies with narrowly held older ownership which can foster more complacency among producers.
The document discusses several examples of poor translations that led to unintended meanings and branding blunders when introducing products and slogans in international markets without proper research and understanding of cultural and linguistic differences. Some key examples include the Mist Stick curling iron being called the "manure stick" in German, Kentucky Fried Chicken's slogan translating to "eat your fingers off" in Chinese, and Parker Pen's advertisement implying their ball-point pen would make users pregnant instead of embarrassed in Mexican Spanish. The importance of thorough research for international branding is emphasized to avoid embarrassing mistranslations and ensure effective communication across cultures and languages.
This document discusses customer loyalty and challenges common misconceptions about what drives loyalty. It presents a model that segments loyalty into categories based on three dimensions: involvement in the product category, commitment to the brand, and likelihood to reevaluate choices. Understanding these segments allows companies to design tailored strategies to build loyalty for each group. The document provides examples of applying the model in industries like beer and consumer packaged goods to improve market focus.
This document provides an introduction to marketing concepts. It discusses definitions of marketing, the evolution of marketing thought from a production to a customer orientation, and key concepts including needs, products/services, value, exchange, and markets. It describes the modern marketing concept with its focus on target markets, customer needs, integrated marketing, and profitability through customer satisfaction. Relationship marketing is discussed as an extension focusing on building and maintaining profitable customer relationships.
This document summarizes the services of BRANDSavvy, a branding agency that helps businesses build their brands. It discusses how the agency will help clients build a brand that suits them, understand their market and offering, launch or relaunch a brand, and unlock the full potential of their brand. The agency offers branding workshops, market research, marketing strategies, brand identities, PR, website design, and other integrated marketing services using expert consultants for each project.
Create personal brand to beat your competitorAtticus Wood
About 75% of small businesses in the US are solo-owned and operated, reflecting the owner's personality. Personal branding can turn this personal involvement into a marketing advantage by creating a distinct personal identity. Personal branding represents creating a self-promotion strategy based on one's talents, skills, and values. This personal brand identity then becomes the inspiration for all selling efforts. With a clear identity, positive perceptions of the owner and business are shaped. Strong personal brands like Oprah Winfrey have built multi-million dollar enterprises, but most small business owners do not utilize personal branding as an effective marketing strategy. Creating a powerful personal brand involves defining an ideal target customer, identifying true competitors, finding points of difference, writing a brand statement
The document discusses customer satisfaction, including its definition, importance, and factors that influence it. It also discusses tools for measuring customer satisfaction, such as complaint and suggestion systems, customer satisfaction surveys, and lost customer analysis. Customer satisfaction is a measure of how a product or service meets or exceeds a customer's expectations. It is important because satisfied customers are less price sensitive, remain customers longer, and spread positive word of mouth. Factors that influence satisfaction include the product, sales activities, after-sales service, and company culture. Delivering excellent customer service requires understanding customer needs and expectations and creating value for customers.
Small brands should understand branding to strengthen their credibility and better understand larger brands' strengths and weaknesses. While large global brands spend heavily on advertising, branding is about the total customer experience, not just media. Small brands can compete by creating a compelling, consistent customer experience through personal service and flexibility that satisfies customer needs in a unique way, focusing on building their brand without worrying that branding requires large advertising budgets.
Make a strong personal brand to beat your competitorHenry Lee
1) Personal branding represents a powerful personal self-promotion and small business strategy where you create a brand based on your talents, skills, and values.
2) Some examples of people who created strong personal brands and multi-million dollar enterprises include Oprah Winfrey, Martha Stewart, and Tiger Woods.
3) The document provides a 5 step process to create a powerful personal brand which includes defining your target customer, identifying true competition, finding your point of difference, writing a personal brand statement, and creating a personal brand marketing plan.
Make a strong personal brand to beat your competitorHenry Lee
1) Personal branding represents a powerful personal self-promotion and small business strategy where you create a brand based on your talents, skills, and values.
2) Some examples of people who created strong personal brands and multi-million dollar enterprises include Oprah Winfrey, Martha Stewart, and Tiger Woods.
3) The document provides a 5 step process to create a powerful personal brand which includes defining your target customer, identifying your true competition, finding your point of difference, writing a personal brand statement, and creating a personal brand marketing plan.
How Different is Your Professional Service Firm, Really?
Creating differentiation is a key for professional service firms, and it isn't easy. But it can be done, and there is a process.
Create personal brand to beat your competitorHenry Lee
About seventy fifth of the twenty two million small businesses within the U.S. are owned and managed by one individual. the everyday business reflects the solo owner's values, tastes and personality. most importantly, the business and its owner are inseparable within the eyes of consumers and prospects.
Create personal brand to beat your competitorleehenry14mar
About seventy fifth of the twenty two million small businesses within the U.S. are owned and managed by one individual. the everyday business reflects the solo owner's values, tastes and personality. most importantly, the business and its owner are inseparable within the eyes of consumers and prospects.
The Balanced Rebrand: The Art & Science of Brand BuildingEastwick
Read how to balance business value and emotional value to create an authentic brand that not only sets your business up for success, but also resonates to your audiences’ needs.
This document provides guidelines for developing an effective brand positioning strategy. It discusses how brand positioning needs to evolve over different phases of a product's lifecycle. A strong brand framework is important to ensure consistency across all customer touchpoints. Great brands offer rational, emotional, and personality benefits that create loyal relationships. The approach involves collaborative research to uncover insights, develop ideas and directions. Stimulus like ads and packaging are tested to determine the positioning. The outcome defines the brand differentiators, personality, and executional guidance so the brand strategy can be successfully implemented. An example case study shows how this process helped develop a new consumer brand for a bakery supplying retailers.
Create personal brand to beat your competitorHenry Lee
About seventy fifth of the twenty two million small businesses within the U.S. are owned and managed by one individual. the everyday business reflects the solo owner's values, tastes and personality. most importantly, the business and its owner are inseparable within the eyes of consumers and prospects.
Partner Plus Brand Basics Session 2 WorkbookCisco Partners
The document discusses defining a brand strategy by first understanding the brandscape - including customers, competitors, and the company itself. It provides exercises to learn more about each of these areas through research, interviews, and analysis. The key outcomes are developing a brand vision statement that describes an aspirational future for the brand, and a brand promise that articulates the brand's core value proposition in an emotional way. Together, the vision and promise will guide all brand-building efforts and ensure the brand experience delivered matches the brand message. The document provides worksheets and tips to help formulate these critical branding statements.
The document summarizes the results of a study that found a direct relationship between employee satisfaction and agency performance. Agencies with higher Performance Indicator Numbers (PIN), which measure profitability, operations, and equity, had more satisfied employees. Employee satisfaction was highest at top-performing agencies with a PIN over 5.0. While employee satisfaction was relatively high at underperforming agencies, it dropped slightly as performance improved likely due to a lack of accountability and higher standards being implemented. As agencies make tough decisions to improve performance, employee satisfaction falls briefly but then increases as rewards and experiences become aligned with higher standards.
1) Agencies that offer ownership to younger employees tend to have higher growth rates and profitability than agencies with older average ownership. Data shows that as weighted average owner age decreases, total commission/fees growth increases.
2) Younger owners, such as producers early in their careers, are more driven to continuously build their books of business in order to increase agency value and see returns from their ownership.
3) Agencies with broader ownership that includes key younger employees have higher organic growth rates than agencies with narrowly held older ownership which can foster more complacency among producers.
This document summarizes and updates a previous article on cost recovery and customer retention in the insurance industry. It discusses how the economic climate has changed significantly since the original article. It then introduces a new cost recovery formula that better reflects current realities, including the increased costs of acquiring and retaining customers. The new formula accounts for costs of selling, costs of retention, value-added services, and allocated overhead. It concludes that measuring the cost recovery period is important for understanding an agency's growth and profitability.
The document discusses data from MarshBerry showing that high-growth insurance agencies have a higher percentage of younger producers under age 40 compared to average agencies, with 41.1% of producers under 40 at high-growth agencies versus 28.4% at average agencies. This focus on continually hiring new young talent positions high-growth agencies to remain viable long into the future as they perpetuate their businesses through the selection and training of future agency leaders. The next two issues of the publication will examine average book of business and new business by producer age groups.
The document discusses how the average age of owners impacts agency growth. Agencies with the youngest weighted average owner age, 42.9 years, have the highest average commission and fees growth rate of 6.15%. In contrast, agencies with the oldest average owner age, 67.3 years, have a much lower growth rate of 2.66%. Diversifying ownership among younger employees benefits agencies by attracting and retaining high-quality employees who have a vested interest in driving the agency's success and continued growth. Successful perpetuation of an agency results from a well-planned transfer of ownership to high-performing individuals, rather than a single transaction.
This document discusses cost recovery and retention in the insurance brokerage industry. It defines cost recovery period as the number of years it takes to realize a profit for a new customer after considering acquisition costs and ongoing servicing costs. Data shows the average cost recovery period is over 4 years for a $3 million agency. The document suggests ways to shorten this, including increasing retention rates to reduce acquisition of new customers, lowering acquisition costs, raising revenue per account, and reducing servicing costs.
1) Startups need marketing from the beginning to define their brand, target audience, and competitive advantage. Without this strategic direction, they risk failing to differentiate themselves or reach their full potential.
2) Investors want to see a marketing plan that demonstrates how the startup will enter the market, grow, and acquire customers. Marketing is essential for securing necessary funding.
3) With more startups competing for funding today, marketing becomes even more important to impress investors and increase the chances of receiving funding. The white paper recommends startups create a strategic marketing plan from the start to guide critical branding and messaging decisions.
How professional services firms (management consulting, accounting, law firms,etc) can build their brands to stand out from their competitors - and so attract the right clients and the right staff
This article discusses the importance of branding for businesses of all sizes. It explains that branding goes beyond logos and slogans - it captures a company's essence, values, and promise of customer experience. Strong brands differentiate themselves, build loyalty through emotional connections, and are more resilient during economic downturns. The article provides five tips for effective branding: define the brand message and values clearly; ensure brand promises and actions are aligned; connect to customers through meaningful representation; develop a memorable visual identity; and invest in the brand's future vision.
This article discusses the importance of branding for businesses of all sizes. It explains that branding goes beyond logos and slogans - it captures a company's essence, values, and promise of customer experience. Strong brands differentiate themselves, build loyalty through emotional connections, and are more resilient during economic downturns. The article provides five tips for effective branding: define the brand message and values clearly; ensure brand promises are authentic; connect to customers' beliefs; develop a memorable visual identity; and invest in the brand's long-term vision.
HOW B2B COMPANIES CAN USE A CONTENT MARKETING AGENCY TO STAND OUT FROM THE CR...Tomorrow People
In our hyper-competitive world, standing out from the crowd has never been more important. Financial results from the world’s biggest advertising network WPP, run by ad boss Sir Martin Sorrell, underscore the importance of differentiation in today’s challenging economy.
The document discusses the importance of branding and positioning based on emotion rather than logic. It notes that 70% of purchases are made on an emotional level, so brands need to focus on differentiating themselves through promises and positioning rather than generic claims about quality or price. The document advocates developing an active, strategic brand that is determined by the business rather than outside factors.
This document provides 10 tips for startup branding. It discusses establishing a brand identity aligned with company goals, developing clear messaging and positioning, focusing on customers, implementing a Net Promoter Score system, managing the brand like a flagship product with ongoing development, ensuring a good user experience, allocating a brand budget, taking a team approach to branding, treating the brand as a living entity that needs ongoing nurturing, and provided resources for further information.
This document discusses aligning internal and external brands. It argues that internal branding, or ensuring employees understand and embody the brand, is crucial for delivering on brand promises to customers. Up to 40% of marketing spending can be lost if employees do not represent the brand correctly. The document provides four themes for aligning internal and external brands: 1) Get top management buy-in and commitment to modeling the brand. 2) Audit existing brand perceptions among management, employees, and customers. 3) Translate brand values into specific behaviors to empower employees. 4) Assemble the right team who embody the brand naturally. Internal branding is seen as vital for building brand equity and a competitive advantage through motivated employee brand ambassadors.
1. The document discusses strategies that high-growth insurance agencies use to build a successful sales culture and high-performance sales engine, including producer recruiting, sophisticated service staff, defined agency value propositions, and clearly communicated producer expectations.
2. It recommends agencies focus on recruiting proven sales professionals from other industries, use personality testing and accountability tracking to identify the best candidates. Having a sophisticated service staff allows producers to focus on new sales.
3. Defining the agency's value proposition and communicating producer expectations are also discussed as important elements of success. The overall message is that agencies need to take control of growth rather than being passive in today's challenging economic environment.
This document discusses the benefits of personal branding for lawyers and law firms. It states that a personal brand creates a clear identity for an individual lawyer and helps them stand out, while thought leadership brings their personal brand to life and makes it visible. Together, personal branding and thought leadership can help lawyers attract new clients, increase loyalty, and drive repeat business. The document provides tips for lawyers to develop an authentic personal brand, including defining their focus, values, skills, and developing a communication strategy to promote their unique value proposition in the marketplace.
Trust fuels the relationships with clients, employees, investors, or others. Being authentic about your brand is vital to earning that trust. Learn how to become more authentic about your brand to attract, captivate, and motivate the people essential to your success.
This document provides a guide to web analytics and marketing metrics. It discusses the importance of tracking the right metrics that matter to executives, such as those relating to revenue, costs, and business growth. It suggests metrics in key areas like brand performance, customer lifetime value, online and offline sales attribution. The document also discusses ensuring metrics are relevant to the business objectives and used properly. It provides examples of how simple and focused analytics can provide meaningful insights and business impact. Finally, it rates companies on a "metrics maturity model" in terms of how fully they integrate data, analytics, culture and processes.
The document summarizes key takeaways from the 2018 ANA Masters of B2B Marketing Conference. Several senior marketing leaders from companies like Cisco, Stanley Black & Decker, and LinkedIn provided advice. A few of the main tips included leading with what customers want to hear, investing in the customer experience, ensuring marketing drives purpose and positive impact, getting out of the office to understand customers, continuously evolving to stay relevant, and embracing marketing technology strategically.
Daiana damacus - How B2B Marketers Can Be Brave to Succeed InternationallyDaiana Damacus
A look into how B2B marketers can take that extra step to be successful in their international campaigns. The slides cover research, KPIs, social media, PPC, targeting, branding and customer service. As presented at Brighton SEO 2019.
This free e-book from Fraley AEC Solutions explains what it takes to design an A/E brand that drives selections. Whether you're an architect, engineer, or planner, you will find a concise guide that can be implemented today to create a brand that stands out in a crowded marketplace.
How to execute emotion driven design on your website, and why it's the conversion expert's best kept secret.
Read the full post: http://blog.reactful.com/emotion-driven-design/
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Branding has become a key word in the successful business world today. The simple basis for the success of branding being consumer trust.
The consumer trusts a name brand for many reasons and whether that trust is based on fact is irrelevant to the short-term financial prowess of branding itself. And that is where a danger sign should arise.
Top Branding Agencies in Dubai — Mighty Warner.pdfmightymarketing
A common misconception among businesses is that branding comprises just the company’s name, logo, design, and colour scheme. Although this was true in the past, attitudes around branding have completely shifted in the present.
This document discusses the importance of aligning sales copy with business objectives and the target audience. It states that good copy should laser focus on who the target audience is, their needs and buying process, and the unique benefits of the product to position it strongly against competitors. The document outlines the copywriting process, including extensive research of customers, competitors and the market to develop a deep understanding of the target audience. It states the copywriter should create content that speaks to the audiences' beliefs, frustrations and desires to make the product appeal directly to their needs and pain points. The copywriter then develops draft content and refines it through feedback before testing it to continuously improve performance.
This is a review by Andre Mazerolle and Michelle Class of former BDO marketing and sales director, Tamera Loerzel, now, a senior consultant with ConvergenceConsulting, LLC who spoke at an Association of Accounting Marketing event in 2006
1. Volume XXII, Number 7 June, 2006
Branding leverage this brand for more knowledge of who you are as an
effective marketing results and agency, knowledge of your
Your Agency increased revenues. competitors’ brands, and an
intimate knowledge of your
As the soft-market continues and
Branding specific marketplace.
competition for growth escalates,
____________
independent agencies need to Many agencies confuse branding
work harder than ever to write with marketing. As a rule of “As a rule of thumb,
new business and increase thumb, Branding begins at home,
retention rates. With the while marketing begins with the
Branding begins at
information technology explosion customer. Defining your brand is home, while marketing
in the insurance space, many an introspective process by begins with the
agencies are looking to new which you define your list of customer.”
technologies to increase their values and beliefs, as well as the ____________
marketing savvy. But remember, unique attributes that differentiate
most marketing efforts will fail if your agency in the marketplace. Know Thyself
they are not executed under the Branding occurs when these
umbrella of a comprehensive and beliefs, values and attributes are To determine what makes your
coherent branding strategy. consistently communicated to the agency unique in the
marketplace, over time. marketplace and separates you
The following discussion will from your competition, you do not
focus on how to define and refine Knowledge is a key component need to hire marketing
your agency’s brand and how to of the branding process: consultants. Instead, talk to your
ANNUAL MARKET & FINANCIAL SURVEY
Included with this month's newsletter is the Annual Market & Financial Survey form. The
data we receive from agencies all over the country provides invaluable insight into
agency finances as well as what is happening in the marketplace.
Please take the time to fill out the survey and return via:
Fax: 708-354-0977 - or - Mail: P.O. Box 2315, LaGrange, Illinois 60525
Or complete the survey on-line at www.MarshBerry.com
Completed surveys need to be returned no later than July 17, 2006.
All information sent will remain totally confidential. Results will be
published in the September 2006 newsletter. Thank you!
The MarshBerry Letter Page 1 June, 2006
2. clients. Ask your employees. Know Your Competition Finally, gather all of the input that
Solicit input from other you have solicited and create a
To fully understand your brand,
relationships in the industry. Your standard message describing
you must examine it within the
agency already has some type of who you are and what makes
context of your overall
brand recognition. You just need you different than the
marketplace. Study your
to figure out what that is and competition. This message,
competition and the market to
whether that is how you want which should be driven from the
determine what opportunities or
your agency to be known. top down, will be the heart of
obstacles are present.
your branding strategy going
Your clients do business with you forward.
Have your producers define what
for a reason. Ask them what this
they are up against in the
reason is. Ask former clients. Ask Make sure all of your employees
marketplace. Have them list the
prospects. You may be very not only know, but also buy into,
things the competition is doing to
surprised to learn that your your message and realize their
steal business away. Also, work
clients may not necessarily role in building the brand. Every
together to determine the brand
identify with the 60-year old employee, from producers to
identity of each of your key
agency name as much as they CSR’s, needs to be able to
competitors. After determining
do the personal service / answer the insured’s question:
the size and strength of the
relationships you afford. “Why should I do business with
agencies serving your market,
____________ your agency?”
you might discover some hidden
“To fully understand your opportunities.
Creating Brand Awareness
brand, you must Now that your agency has
Know Your Market
examine it within the created a consistent message
context of your overall Examine the trends in your local that describes your unique brand,
market to find additional your challenge is to make this
marketplace.” opportunities. Demographic
____________ message the core of all of your
statistics are widely available and communications – creating brand
can shed some light on how the awareness.
Producers are on the front lines population in your particular
every day, working with
market is changing. Keep Work to create a standard look
prospects and clients to win
abreast of local business news to and feel that communicates your
business by communicating what
see what types of business are core brand message. Be sure
makes your agency unique.
entering your market and assess that this “look and feel” is applied
Have all of your producers list
what they see as your whether you have the markets to all of your marketing collateral
competitive advantages and and expertise to meet their pieces, including agency
selling points. Have your service specific business needs. brochures, direct mail pieces and
and support staffs do the same. web content.
Just as there is a reason that
clients do business with you,
there is a reason that your Chart A
employees work there. Find the
answers to that question. To
Agency Revenue Size <$1mm $2mm $5mm $8mm
augment this, compile a list of
niche markets that you serve, Average Advertising Expenditures 2.1% 1.9% 1.5% 1.3%
any unique carrier relationships as % of Total Commissions & Fees
that you maintain, and any value-
added services that you offer. Source: MarshBerry Database
The MarshBerry Letter Page 2 June, 2006
3. Find out which publications your
clients read and advertise in those Chart B
magazines and journals. Be sure
to incorporate your standardized Agency Revenue Size $800,000 $2mm $5mm $8mm
look and feel into your
Retention Rate 80% 85% 90% 95%
advertisements to maintain your
brand. As it is often difficult to $ Value of Lost Business 160,000 300,000 500,000 400,000
measure the effectiveness of any
advertising campaign, make sure Value of Increasing Retention
Rate by 3 Percentage Points 24,000 60,000 150,000 240,000
you track where new business
prospects learned about you and
focus your efforts on those that
are the most productive. Remember – a consistent existing business is not growing.
delivery of your core brand Take a look at Chart B which
You can use Chart A to gauge message is the key to building a illustrates the importance of
how much you are spending on bond with your customers and focusing on customer retention.
advertising versus your peers. increasing awareness of your
However, you also need to agency in the marketplace. Chart B shows that the sample
consider that any re-branding agencies each lose a sizeable
and market awareness Customer Service portion of their revenue each
campaigns may easily result in A brand is only as good as the year by letting their current
higher than average expenses in customer service that supports it. customers walk out the door.
the first year or two. It would be futile to spend the ____________
____________ time to refine and market your
brand if you are not capable of “Be sure to document
supporting the new business that
“Make sure that your you attract to your agency, while
what you plan to do and
customer service maintaining a high-level of monitor your progress
supports the brand image customer service for your current throughout the year.”
that you have created in accounts. Make sure that your ____________
customer service supports the
the marketplace.”
brand image that you have The good news is that by
____________ created in the marketplace. increasing your retention rate as
little as 3 percentage points can
Consider publishing articles in
The old axiom, “your best mean substantially more revenue
your local business journals and
customers are your current for your agency. In fact, if your
newspapers or speaking to local
customers” seems trite, but there agency is paying a higher new
business or civic organizations.
is a lot of truth to it. The cost of vs. renewal producer commission
You may even host your own
acquiring new business is much rate (i.e. 40/25), your agency is
educational conference for
greater than the cost of actually losing money by selling
clients and prospects at a local
maintaining existing the same amount of business
hotel. This will establish you as a
relationships, so make sure you that you lose. In the above
community-minded business
are doing everything you can to example, the agency would
leader, further strengthen your
keep your existing customers realize flat revenue, increased
brand awareness and expose
happy. Remember that an payroll and less profit. So,
you to new business
agency that writes $100,000 how do you keep your
opportunities.
worth of new business in a year, customers happy?
but loses $100,000 worth of
The MarshBerry Letter Page 3 June, 2006
4. Out-serve Your based on size and account consuming part is ensuring the
Competition profitability. Consider the following content is relevant and valuable
examples: to your customer.
Simple things like returning phone
calls promptly, getting quotes ♦ Offer a risk-assessment at Finally, take the time to call the
turned around in a timely manner, the time of renewal accounts that you lost and find
and proactively communicating
♦ Make quarterly visits or out why they left. Most people
will separate you from the
phone calls will let you know what you did to
competition. Great service and a
lose their business, or what
personal touch breeds top-of- ♦ Sending an industry you did not do to keep it. This
mind awareness and satisfied overview / update 100 days exercise will provide some
customers. These customers, in prior to renewal
valuable insight for your firm and
turn, will create a “word of mouth”
may open doors for you to bid on
marketing campaign, telling These things will demonstrate that
the business again in the future.
friends and colleagues of the you are serious about customer
excellent service they received service and doing things your
Elevating your level of customer
and increasing your exposure in competition is not. Be sure to
service will increase the chances
the marketplace more effectively document what you plan to do
that your current customers will
than any advertising you could and monitor your progress
trade on factors other than price.
ever buy. throughout the year. When you
The byproduct of better service is
meet with your customer at the
more satisfied customers and
Work with your producers to time of renewal, you can illustrate
higher customer retention for
create a list of your top prospects what you did, versus what you
your agency.
and define a strategy for touching promised. You may also include
each of these prospects once a a proposed stewardship program
Defining your agency’s unique
month. More sophisticated in your prospecting efforts as a
brand is an exercise that will
agencies might consider utilizing way to differentiate yourself while
engage your employees in your
an account tiering system, justifying your compensation in
business and help you determine
whereby you divide your clients the new era of transparency and
the core message that you will
into A, B, or C tiers, in order of disclosure.
take to market. Consistent
their importance to your agency.
communication of this message,
Devise a strategy for reaching Another low-cost, high-impact
over time, will build brand
each tier of clients each month, idea is to send out a monthly e-
awareness. And, if you work to
with a special focus on your newsletter to your current
ensure that your customer service
“A” accounts. customer base. You can write
reflects the brand you are trying to
about issues faced in the
create, you will realize increased
Consider implementing value- insurance market overall, or if
sales and higher retention rates.
added service timelines and applicable, write more specifically
stewardship programs by account about your local area. Even
* * * * *
size. Create a menu of value- easier, there are several services Craig Niess is a Product
added services that your agency available that let you create a Manager / Consultant at
can offer. The services do not customized e-newsletter by MarshBerry. Contact him at
need to be expensive. Then, offer simply selecting various pre- 888-429-0161 or by e-mail at
these services to each customer written articles. The time Craig@MarshBerry.com.
The MarshBerry Letter Marsh, Berry & Company, Inc.
P.O. Box 2315 / LaGrange, IL 60525 7466 Auburn Road / Concord, OH 44077
(708) 354-0344 (440) 354-3230 / (800) 426-2774
Patrice@MarshBerry.com MarshBerry@MarshBerry.com
Copyright June 2006 www.MarshBerry.com
The MarshBerry Letter Page 4 June, 2006