First, we all know that branding isn’t just for businesses, small or big. Non-profits need branding to attract members, donors, volunteers. Institutions need branding to attract people to come see, hear, learn.

So if you haven’t got a coherent brand, do you exist? I mean out there in the world?

The answer, unfortunately, is probably not. And the terrible reality in market-think is “It doesn’t matter how good you are, how excellent your programs, how valuable your benefits are, how effective your products. With no clear identity you cannot sustain and grow your audience / client / member base. (Of course I welcome any comments from those who disagree. That’s what blogs are for!)

During this downturn, competition is fierce at the same time that marketing budgets are cut to the quick. If the “face” of your enterprise isn’t a strong, unified one across all of your marketing “touchpoints”, how can you hope to compete?

Not Just a Logo

By now many of you are probably savvy enough know that the world’s greatest logo won’t do it. Not without a socko message. And that presumes omitting terms like “Commitment” and “Quality” and “Excellence.” Why? Because everyone says they’re the best. The challenge is to communicate your unique benefit, since unless you can make someone’s life better, they don’t care.

What did I just say? That’s the key. Identify the need of your audience that your offering can fulfill, and say it. Find the itch and scratch it. Just like that.

A Fairy Tale
Once upon a time, folks believed that since websites were a kind of technology, that technological experts (aka techies, indeed, nephews!) had to create them. Today we know that websites are powerful marketing tools that can persuade and convince. And only marketing professionals understand just how to most effectively communicate the needed information, to whom, and organize the content for easy access.

Of course the web really is a technological phenomenon—one that is still becoming. And that means that change is a constant, some of which can significantly enhance the effectiveness of how your message is being received. A good thing!

Dinosaurs Still Roam the Hills
You know who you are. Or if you are and don’t know it, here’s how to tell if you are still marketing in the pre-historic age:

Do you print up the same catalog in massive quantities and mail to as many addresses as you can afford? And then do the same exact thing over again in a month, maybe with a different cover? Same catalog, same list. And how current is the list? NOW you know who you are!

So not only are you single-handedly supporting the printing industry and the postal service, but you’re likely not to get a very strong response. Why? Because the recipients likely aren’t receiving the kind of information they need. The content of the mailing may have something for everyone; which typically translates to nothing for anyone. Because to find it they have to dig for it, and they won’t because they don’t have to). Of course, the law of averages will ensure that you do get some responses, but how much will each one cost you?

Wake up and Smell the Integrated Marketing
Today’s marketing landscape is new and, to some, unfamiliar and a little scary. But we’re all learning fast. We have to. Because in this case at least, the new tools are less expensive and more efficient. In other words, new is better. More tools, working in tandem, creating a (I love this word) gestalt to drive home a message tailored for and received by those people who need to hear it. How lovely is that?!

—Sarna Marcus, Pres. & Creative Director

P.S. Remember too that since your competitors are likely cutting back on their marketing budget, whatever you put out there will get more exposure than it would on a crowded stage (see my blogpost from last February “An Argument for Marketing During a Recession”).

GW Summer Programs Initiative ("Bloom": a 3-year branded campaign)

Autumn may seem like an odd time to talk about summer, but not when you’re talking about University Summer Programs.  As those of you responsible for marketing these programs know, it’s time to nail down your marketing strategy for summer 2011.  How will you increase enrollment? What’s the best way to market new seminars?

When it comes to marketing Summer Programs, universities pull out all the stops. Top schools vie for attention; they strut their stuff.  Why is that?  For most colleges and universities, summer programs mean pure revenue. No financing. No scholarships.

So how do you beat last year’s enrollment figures or perhaps more important, how to you top  your competition?  This latter challenge is tougher than ever these days. Attractive study-abroad opportunities abound; new programs promise “Learn a New Career” in four weeks. Even urban archeological digs are luring new students. Add to that the thousands of summer classes giving students a chance to get a jump on next year and you’ve got a crowded marketplace to break through.

The answer?  Treat Summer Programs like a product line. Consider each group of offerings an individual label within that product line and focus on the audience for each label.  You know this; it’s target marketing.  And it’s the most effective card to play in a down economy. You can relax knowing that when your message resonates with recipients, the chances of their responding is greater. Here’s how it would play out:

1. Develop a distinctive brand. Create a single unified branding for all summer offerings. This is your product line, otherwise referred to as your umbrella brand. Make it visually strong to attract attention away from the competition and to engage the recipient in that split second that you have to make your case.

2. Create needs-based messaging.

(a) Identify  the audience groups that would benefit most from each group of summer offerings. Who are they?  Why would they need what you are offering?

(b) Choose your audience groups (or market segments) wisely. Most budgets won’t allow for focusing on more than just a few segments, so select those that hold the greatest promise.

(c) Based on this information, develop a brief but convincing ‘value proposition’ for each grouping, directed at the needs of its audience.

3. For each group of offerings (each label), create a secondary branding so it can be promoted on its own particular merits within the larger brand of your school’s Summer Programs.

Too expensive? Not when you consider the cost of ‘buckshot’. That’s when you print many thousands of expensive catalogs and mail them to the largest lists you can get your hands on. First of all, the mailing alone can cost almost as much as the printing. And if you buy lists….. Well, you get the picture. (Is anybody still doing this?)

Of course with buckshot as your strategy, the law of averages may be on your side,  since you’re bound to get a few  new enrollees.  But the price you pay for each student you acquire is enormous. That means a negative return on your investment, or negative ROI.

These days people spend money only to make their lives easier, to give them hope for a brighter future.  Speak to that need but mention specifics and you’ll likely realize a greater response, yielding a greater pay-back on each dollar spent.

In summary: (1) Create an attention-getting brand for your summer “product line” and, (2) Sell the value of each group of offerings to the audience segments most in need of those specific “products.”

Last week she admitted to me that she’s not sure what all this social media is about. Not sure how Facebook would or could support the marketing goals of “any respectable organization.”  She looked at me —meaningfully. “It’s just for kids!”

FACT: Facebook members
currently comprise almost a quarter of all internet users. That’s more than five-hundred million.

It occurred to me that many of you, dear readers, may be like M but won’t admit it. That’s the “dirty little secret” I’m referring to in the title. Not only do you look down your nose at the notion of social networking sites, my guess is you don’t understand how they work. Or more importantly, how they all work together.

(Note to Reader: If you’re already a social media maven skip this article.)

It’s true that kids do love Facebook. But so do many marketing professionals. So what is keeping so many of you from jumping in? Here’s my guess:

—Fear. Fear of the unfamiliar; and
—Time, or lack of it. Time you would have to devote to getting past your fear and integrating a new concept into your familiarity zone.

So, like my friend M, you squeeze your eyes shut repeating “Facebook’s for kids. Facebook’s for kids…”

By coincidence, the day after M and I talked, the NY Times came out with an article “For Those Facebook Left Behind.” “Wow” thought I.  Here’s the “Explain it to me like I’m 3 years old” explanation for the M’s of the world.  But unfortunately the writer, David Pogue didn’t really nail it. (If you disagree with me, let me know in “Comments” below.) However, what this article did signal by its very existence was how many competent and creative individuals like you won’t admit that they just don’t ‘get it.’

So here’s MY explanation:

—Facebook works like word-of-mouth only faster and in many more ears.

—It’s also like your family’s Annual Holiday Letter—updating friends & family about important events in the previous year, with snapshots.  It’s the same with Facebook: You write your letter, gather your snapshots, and plunk them onto your Facebook page. But in this case, with that one action all your friends and family can see your news.

In the professional arena—whether you set up a Facebook page for/with an organization, a retail establishment, or a services enterprise—you have an excellent platform for reporting your news—whether it’s a new initiative in response to legislation just enacted; or the appearance of your new VP on TV, or an upcoming sale discounting your products or services, or the article you’ve just published. What’s more, unlike Holiday Letters, you can announce it right away (I promise I won’t say “instantly”).

And Facebook friends or fans can respond with ideas and recommendations of their own.  Remember too that they when they visit your page, they see your brand and gain a greater understanding of the value your organization offers. …Is this helping? Well, it’s that time now.  Time to start up a Facebook Page for your or your/or your client organization. Yes now.

• Create your Facebook Page. You can find “how to” guides online through Google. There are plenty of “for Dummies” books you can buy, but I learn best from video tutorials.  There are a few on this YouTube link.
• Keep it going. Once your page is up, don’t let it just sit there. Keep it open on your monitor.  Update it with news, ideas, quotes, what you’re working on today. Keep it interesting (obviously).
• Encourage active participation. Spread the word that you’ve got a Facebook page.  You can everyone in your professional network, your associates,  prospective clients/members/students/campers, etc.  (how-to’s for all this also on YouTube, same location).
• Respond quickly. And if you get an email alerting you that you have a comment on your page, first check out the individual that posted the comment and respond within a few hours if at all possible.  Check out this helpful article on responding to comments on Facebook.

Just keep it going every day (I know I know) and see what happens over the next couple of months. I think it takes that long to understand the value, to see your organization move up on Google.   Then let us know how it worked in our Comments box below.

You CAN do this.

How did this happen? Nobody beats Microsoft, right? A number of factors have to be considered, namely anything with a lowercase ‘i’ in front of it. iTunes, iPod, iPhone, and now iPad (to name a few) have paved the iWay for Apple to take the lead in the dog-eat-dog tech race.

Add in the stable and revolutionary OS X operating system, along with powerful, reliable Mac desktop and laptop computers, and it’s no wonder Microsoft is not only behind Apple now, it’s also losing Google’s business. Hop over here to read more about that.

The bias, Apple-loving designer in me is not surprised to hear any of this news. However the consumer in me is a bit surprised. Apple’s products continue to clean out my wallet on a semi-monthly basis. But comparing them to Microsoft’s products, I’m not only a sucker for great marketing, branding, and design—I’m also happy to pay for quality. Take notes, Mr. Gates.

It’s sort of a twist on the Beta-vs-VHS slap fight from a few decades ago. Beta was superior, but never fully caught on in the consumer market. Apple’s fate has been the opposite. It not only caught on with consumers, it now consumes them.

Congratulations to Apple and Mr. Jobs. Well done. Onward.

But how often should you email your audiences, what should you say or offer, and where do you start?

Here is a brief Q and A:

Q: Should we be emailing our target audiences and / or customer base?
A: Yes. As previously mentioned, email is one of the (if not THE) most cost effective ways to reach your audience. Emails cost a fraction of a penny per address which is a far cry from a print* run which could cost you in the thousands with postage.
*See Sarna’s post from April 19th to see why you can’t completely abandon print design.

Q: Where do we start?
A: Start by calling The Page Group (shameless plug). What you will learn when you call is that you should start by pulling together your existing database of email addresses and have it cleaned up and updated.

Q: We don’t have very many email addresses, what can we do to grow our database? Can we buy a list?
A: There are plenty of ways to gather more email addresses but purchasing them is NOT a good idea. Email is different than traditional direct mail. Email addresses are very protected and if you’re caught emailing individuals who have not opted in to your email offerings, you can be blacklisted and banished to Spam Island, never allowed to email again. One easy way to gather email addresses is by networking. Another way is to send out a simple (snail) mailing asking for people to submit their email addresses. The list goes on and on.

Q: We’ve got lots of addresses. How do we get an email out?
A: Next you will want to be set up with an online email service. This is the number-one way to go and the reasons will be discussed in a future post.

Q: What should the email look like and how do we have one put together?
A: You need an HTML email masthead design and template. This design should visually reinforce your current branding so your clientele can recognize you. It should also be the template you use for every email you send. You can get a designer (hint) to vary the design a bit if you’re sending different kinds of emails for different reasons—such as a full-blown marketing effort vs. newsletter or company announcement—but the designs of your emails should be similar and should always be aligned with your brand. Leave the design, construction, and programming of said template(s) to a professional (another hint).

Q: What do we say, and how often do we say it?
A: That all depends on what exactly your services, products, or offerings are. It’s a good practice to jump in front of your audience now and again to let them know you are still in business, and to keep your company on their radar. However there is a line that should not be crossed. Don’t email for the sake of emailing. You will learn quickly that a constant barrage of emails just ends up being deleted or unsubscribed from.

Use emails to announce new products, services, etc. Perhaps there has been an important new hire in your company or firm and it’s important that your audience hear about it. Maybe you’ve launched a new website, changed locations, lowered (or raised) prices.  You can also email select segments of your client lists to offer them exclusive coupons, deals, etc.

The best time of day to send an email (to your database), in our humble opinion, is 10AM. This way, the morning rush of emails has passed and your email is less likely to have ended up in the digital trash. Never on Mondays, Fridays, or too close to either side of a holiday.

This is just the tip of the e-berg. Email can be pretty versatile and used for many different initiatives. We appreciate your questions and opinions in the comments area.

A LITTLE BACKGROUND: A high-end organization, this client is undergoing an across-the-board re-branding concurrent with its name change. We’re working in concert with a well-known marketing maven whom our client firm had consulted over the years. A month ago during a conference call, he shared his decision that there would be no brochure per se. “Creating a brochure would just cost trees.” And the client agreed—enthusiastically—that paper in this age of internet marketing served no useful purpose, since everyone got their information from the web.  A single sheet would suffice—a single sheet that would drive the prospects to the website where they could find out the value of this firm. And he wanted to know: didn’t I agree?  Well……..not really.

There was no way that I could disagree with this guy in front of our client. It still makes my stomach flip when I think about that moment. About the loss in market share that will inevitably result. And worse, much of this firm’s client base is of retirement age. They like paper. They’re used to paper and expect that paper will give them the information they seek. You don’t tell this group to go online to get a marketing proposition. THEY WON’T.

How can I be so sure? Experience on the ground.

I remember the words of other marketing gurus: “Print is history!” Articles and keynotes proclaiming: “The web rules.” Clients of our firm who were otherwise intelligent people, insisting that their marketing materials—capability brochures, catalogs, marketing kits—were passé; now websites were all anyone needed . Time and again I’d explain about building in a transition phase, about alerting your core constituents to the impending change, about not throwing hard-earned brand equity out the window. In some cases I would lose the battle, and would watch while vibrant product lines disappeared, while formerly thriving enterprises hit the dirt.

Look. Everyone is facing the same quandary: to print or not to print. The answer varies widely. But the best rules of thumb are:

DON’T use print to tell the whole story.  But DO use print to persuade and to motivate.  NEVER eliminate a print brochure, catalog, or marketing kit without an in-depth marketing analysis.

FACT: It is true that marketing has moved away from paper as the central component for promotional initiatives, except to drive prospects to the web for more informative content. The key word here is “drive.” Prospects will only go from print to web if they are convinced absolutely that it might make their life better.

FACT: In cases of repositioning an enterprise as best of breed, print materials can be essential. In the case of our high-end client, shaping perception is part of the rebranding process. A tactile, luxe experience that can be gotten with a beautifully designed brochure can be key to communicating value of the highest order. A skillfully done website can then reinforce.  But in these cases, paper is the direct tactile communicator.

FACT: You’ve all heard this before: Consider your market. The younger they are, the more educated, the higher their comfort level with web communications. And that’s a lot! But when it comes to conservative market segments and older audiences, don’t make the mistake of abandoning traditional communications practices or you’ll be wasting marketing dollars. If the audience spans both age groups, you need to employ both print and web.

*************************

A HELPFUL RESOURCE for when and how to use print, here’s a presentation I gave to marketers of higher ed: The Changing Role of Paper in an Internet Age.

What does your company or organization’s website look like? Furthermore, what does it offer your target audience, and, in turn, what does that say about you?

Let’s start slow. What has changed about web design and development? Tons. Too much to write in one post. The short list would definitely include items such as clunky tables being replaced by freewheeling CSS, the ever-growing importance of search engine optimization, the demand for content-rich, content-management-system-based sites, and a more polished design approach.

Gone are the days of straight, hand-coded html text on a nasty tiled background. For a trip down memory lane, click here. These days your site needs to offer much more to your audience than the webbernets of old.

One example of this that came through our firm some months ago is the Publishing program at the George Washington University. While this site is still in development, it has gone through a major transition from the way it was designed and built 6 years ago.

GW’s off-campus, professional education programs are marketed under one umbrella, GW Near You, offering Master’s degrees, graduate certificates, and more to busy working professionals.

The Publishing program came to the realization that the micro site our firm developed for it in 2004 wasn’t fulfilling its needs, or the needs of its targeted audiences, in 2009/2010. Originally, the site was built to be informational, pretty, and basically an online brochure. A visitor to the site could find everything they needed to know about all of GW Near You’s degree programs.

Jump to present day. The Publishing program not only covers traditional paper-based media such as books, magazines, and newspapers, it has evolved over the years to include courses in online and digital publishing.

Imagine a website about a degree in publishing that doesn’t practice what it preaches.

Enter, The Page Group. Our firm was asked to develop a new micro site for the GW Publishing program that:

• opened up and added white space to the design,
• was built in a CMS,
• added timely, dynamic content through blog rolls, RSS feeds, and more,
• was better optimized for search engines,
• gave the program’s targeted audience a reason to return to the site frequently.

The result?

The Publishing program now has a brand new, more current web presence rather than just a micro site. The home page is a one-stop-shopping experience for the latest industry news, student blogs, job openings in the industry, and more. The “brochure” information still remains but is no longer the main thrust of the site. The program now presents itself and its brand as an up-to-the-minute authority in the publishing world, which is not only where it belongs, but also the message it wants to convey to its audience. What’s more, by using a CMS, the program director and staff can make many of their own site updates on a daily basis, which saves them even more money.

Take a look at your own site. Are you presenting your organization in the appropriate light? Or are you still just pushing your brochure online on your circa 1998 site?

Look. I of all people understand the necessity, the power, of a branded look—of creating recognition at-a-glance on everything published by an organization, be it a printed piece, website, or html email.  This is our stock and trade after all.  We’ve developed many branding systems over the years; so sometimes we’re the culprit that other designers resent!   So let’s be clear: a distinctive visual treatment must call to mind the program and its value.  And that’s worth the special blue color and type font to achieve.

But let’s look at the dark side (it’s what makes blogging interesting!):

When we’re hired by an organization with an existing brand to publicize the launch a new program (usually through matching brochures, ads, html emails, etc.),  the challenge is:

How can we make this marketing initiative distinctive enough to stand out from the other branded materials?  How can we communicate the special features unique to this new program without compromising the pull-power of their umbrella brand?

Well, when the graphic standards are too narrow, it may not be possible.

So, when we’re the ones developing a branded look and message for our clients, we make sure to allow enough flexibility for development of distinctive graphic treatments for special promotional categories.  However, that distinctive design must clearly exist within the larger organizational brand (logo use, color, and logotype, tag line, placement, etc.).

Currently, we’re designing a new website for GW Near You (a group of grad-level professional degree offerings at GWU suburban locations) to update their current site.

Now we’ve worked with GW since 1996; in fact, we developed the original branding for this very group.  Currently, the central GW graphics division (nothing to do with us directly) is implementing campus-wide graphic standards.  (That’s fine, particularly because I happen to like what they’ve come up with!) However, in this case, the GW Near You branding that has set  these programs apart from others for the past 12 years is in danger of going away. Just evaporating.  This means they may lose that broad recognition that’s been building all this time.  Such recognition is  known as brand equity—something you don’t squander lightly.

The challenge we face: As we morph from the old Near You brand to the official GW university-wide brand, how can we retain the significant recognition of established brand of Near You programs?

Remember that as hired consultants, designers can only recommend, cajole, coax, advise in a cool, laid back manner.  But if we fail to convince, we often watch

as

market share

declines.

Or we can always hope we’re wrong!

—Sarna Marcus, Pres & Creative Dir, The Page Group

My understanding of blogs since their advent was that they were individual reflections, like morning pages. Then I began to read political blogs—my favorite being Hendrik Hertzberg of the New Yorker—who brings a keen historical analysis to his postings making them quite convincing.

Eventually, I began searching for blogs to help me assess the viability of Web 2.0 practices which I had originally dismissed as smoke and mirrors. The blogs I found were very helpful, in part because they were first-person accounts of actual experiences and lessons learned in this arena, teaching the reader about the potential power of integrating social networking sites, emails, search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), and other online marketing tools made possible by new technologies.

Eventually I discovered that blogs are all three: a teaching tool, a platform for reflection, and a chance to sell readers on a particular point of view. On the last point—convincing,—I would want to avoid Washington politics (unlike Hendrik Hertzberg), whereas I’d feel free to express my opinion about the uselessness of certain online platforms or other internet marketing strategies.

This posting is an example of how a blog can both reflect thoughts and be a teaching tool at the same time. Thanks for reading!

—by Sarna Marcus, President & Creative Director of The Page Group, Inc.

In the April issue of The New Yorker, Surowiecki wrote on the power of advertising during a recession, appropriately titled “Hanging Tough.” His main point: Recessions create more opportunity, not less. He says (I’m paraphrasing):

When everyone is advertising it’s hard to separate yourself from the pack; when ads are scarcer, the returns on investment seem to rise.

Of course! Your competitors are less visible. The stage is emptier, so you get more visibility for the same dollar. Plus, you’ll be stronger in the future. Read this (again, my paraphrasing):

A study of advertising during the 1981-82 recession found that sales at firms that increased advertising…grew precipitously in the next three years, compared with only slight increases at firms that had slashed their budgets.*

And this:

During the 1990-91 recession twice as many companies leaped from the bottom of their industries to the top as did so in the years before and after.

Are you convinced yet? Try on the fear factor:

Companies have to worry about two kinds of failure:“sinking the boat” (wrecking the company by making a bad bet) or “missing the boat” (letting a great opportunity pass).

A warning: Not marketing in a recession may mean the difference between success and failure. If you minimize your visibility by pulling back on ads, promotional online spots, media articles to name just a few, you’ll likely wind up being among those who simply “miss the boat.”

—by Sarna Marcus, President & Creative Director, The Page Group

Studies and sources are cited in Surowiecki’s article

James Surowiecki’s Blog, The Balance Sheet