Month: August 2020

Customer experience (CX) is the product of an interaction between an organization and a customer over the duration of their relationship. This interaction is made up of three parts: the customer journey, the brand touchpoints the customer interacts with, and the environments the customer experiences during their experience. A good customer experience means that the individual’s experience during all points of contact matches the individual’s expectations. Gartner asserts the importance of managing the customer’s experience.

Customer experience implies customer involvement at different levels – such as rational, emotional, sensorial, physical, and spiritual. Customers respond diversely to direct and indirect contact with a company. Direct contact usually occurs when the purchase or use is initiated by the customer. Indirect contact often involves advertising, news reports, unplanned encounters with sales representatives, word-of-mouth recommendations or criticisms.

Customer experience encompasses every aspect of a company’s offering the quality of customer care, but also advertising, packaging, product and service features, ease of use, and reliability. Creating direct relationships in the place where customers buy, use and receive services by a business intended for customers such as instore or face to face contact with the customer which could be seen through interacting with the customer through the retail staff. We then have indirect relationships which can take the form of unexpected interactions through a company’s product representative, certain services or brands and positive recommendations or it could even take the form of “criticism, advertising, news, reports” and many more along that line.

Customer experience is created by the contribution of not only the customers’ values but also by the contribution of the company providing the experience.

All of the events experienced by customers before and after a purchase are part of the customer experience. What a customer experiences is personal and may involve sensory, emotional, rational and physical aspects to create a memorable experiencer. In the retail industry, both company and customers play a big role in creating a customer experience.

In short, customer service is just one part of the whole customer experience.

As we mentioned, customer experience is a customer’s overall perception of your company, based on their interactions with it. Comparatively, customer service refers to specific touchpoints within the experience where a customer requests and receives assistance or help for example, calling an operator to request a refund or interacting via email with a service provider.

In other words: CX is larger than customer service. It includes every touchpoint a customer ever has with your company, whether it’s the moment they first hear about you in a blog post they found on Google, all the way through to the time they call your customer service team to complain about your product (and hopefully get a prompt response).

What is a good customer experience?

In short, good customer experience can be achieved if you:

• Make listening to customers a top priority across the business
• Use customer feedback to develop an in-depth understanding of your customers
• Implement a system to help you collect feedback, analyze it, and act on it regularly
• Reduce friction and solve your customers’ specific problems and unique challenges

Importance of Customer Experience

A remarkable customer experience is critical to the sustained growth of any business. A positive customer experience promotes loyalty, helps you retain customers, and encourages brand advocacy.

Today, customers have the power, not the sellers.

Customers have a plethora of options to choose from at their fingertips plus the resources necessary to educate themselves and make purchases on the own.

This is why it’s so important to provide a remarkable experience and make them want to continue doing business with you customers are your best resource for growing your brand awareness in a positive way.

So, how can you measure your customer experience to determine what you’re doing well and where there’s room for improvement?

Measure Customer Experience

1. Analyze customer satisfaction survey results.

Using customer satisfaction surveys (which you can easily create in HubSpot) on a regular basis and after meaningful moments throughout the customer journey provides insight into your customers’ experience with your brand and product or service.

A great way to measure customer experience is Net Promoter Score®, or NPS. This measures how likely your customers are to promote you to their friends, family, and colleagues based on their experiences with your company.

When measuring NPS, consider data in aggregate across teams. Since multiple teams impact your overall customer experience, you’ll need a clear picture of performance and that comes from multiple data points. For example, what is the NPS for in-product usage? What is the NPS for customer service teams across communication channels (phone, email, chat, etc.)? What is the NPS for sales? What is the NPS for attending a marketing webinar?

Analyzing NPS from multiple touch points across the customer journey will tell you what you need to improve and where you’re providing an excellent experience already, while showing customers you’re listening to them and care about what they have to say.

With your NPS score, dive into your team-by-team performance to ensure you’re performing well across the board. Also, you may choose to follow up on customer feedback whether it’s positive or negative to connect with customers, deepen your relationship with them, and improve your retention and loyalty.

2. Identify rate and reasons for customer churn.

Churn happens: it’s part of doing business. But it’s important that you learn from churn when it happens so you can prevent it from happening again.

Make sure you’re doing a regular analysis of your churned customers so you can determine whether your churn rate is increasing or decreasing, reasons for churn, and actions your team may take in the future to prevent a similar situation.

3. Ask customers for product or feature requests.

Create a forum for your customers to request new products or features to make your offerings more useful and helpful for the problems they’re trying to solve.

Whether that forum is shared via email survey, social media, or a community page, give customers the opportunity to proactively offer suggestions. This doesn’t mean you must implement all of the suggestions you receive but if there are recurring trends popping up, they might be worth investing time in to.

4. Analyze customer support ticket trends.

You should also analyze the customer support tickets your support reps are working to resolve every day. If there are recurring issues among tickets, review possible reasons for those hiccups and how you can provide solutions across the board this will allow you to decrease total number or tickets reps receive while providing a streamlined and enjoyable experience for customers.

In a highly competitive market, service-based businesses need to capitalize on any opportunity to set themselves apart from their (often very similar) competitors. While implementation, system details, and service management are all important, perhaps the best way to distinguish your business is to foster strong customer relationships based on the quality of your service.

Running a successful service company should be synonymous with delivering excelling service. If not, then why consider running a service business at all? Yet, if all companies which perform services effectively compete on providing the service, then the key differentiator lies in the service management model and the ability to execute it. Designing the service delivery system should focus on what creates value to the core organisations and how to engage frontline employees to deliver the ultimate customer experience.

Key Elements of a Service Delivery

1. Service Culture

Service Culture is built on elements of leadership principles, norms, work habits and vision, mission and values. Culture is the set of overriding principles according to which management controls, maintains and develops the social process that manifests itself as delivery of service and gives value to customers. Once a superior service delivery system and a realistic service concept have been established, there is no other component so fundamental to the long-term success of a service organization as its culture.

2. Employee Engagement

Employee Engagement includes employee attitude activities, purpose driven leadership and HR processes. Even the best designed processes and systems will only be effective if carried out by people with higher engagement. Engagement is the moderator between the design and the execution of the service excellence model.

3. Service Quality

Service Quality includes strategies, processes and performance management systems. The strategy and process design is fundamental to the design of the overall service management model. Helping the client fulfil their mission and supporting them in the pursuit of their organizational purpose, must be the foundation of any service provider partnership.

4. Customer Experience

Customer Experience includes elements of customer intelligence, account management and continuous improvements. Perception is king and constantly evaluating how how both customer and end-user perceive service delivery is important for continuous collaboration. Successful service delivery works on the basis that the customer is a part of the creation and delivery of the service and then designs processes built on that philosophy – this is called co-creation.

Five ways to improve service delivery in your organization

1. Error on the side of communication

When it comes to customers, there’s no such thing as over-communication your clients feel more comfortable when they know what’s going on. That being said, the amount of communication is not so imperative as the timeliness, its context, and its ability to clearly identify the value addition to the client. In a world of constant connectivity, your ability to cut through the flood of subpar information with quality and timely answers can go a long way.

2. Define everything

Service definition is vital to service management. You need to make sure that you and your customer are on the same page regarding what to expect (or not expect) from your service offerings. This includes what your services do and don’t encompass, eligibility, potential limitations, costs, how to get assistance when needed, and more.

This level of definition shouldn’t stop with the customer the best service organizations also clearly delineate any internal efforts needed to provide and support their service.

3. Automate when possible

As services like IT and HR become increasingly digitized, it’s important to capitalize on your ability to automate formerly headache-inducing processes. For example, once you’ve carefully defined onboarding and offboarding, these types of consistent, easily-broken-down processes can be automated into a new customer welcome (or, in the case of offboarding, an exit after the completion of a service).

In general, service delivery automation is high return and low risk, and more and more service organizations are finding ways to cut costs and provide a simpler customer experience by reducing human involvement.

4. Track employee availability

Like any business, your company has a finite amount of resources and you want to use these wisely. To understand your current resource needs (and to anticipate future resource needs), service organizations need to be able to track employee schedules and capacities. With this visibility into your resource utilization, you can schedule in accordance with current projects and sales forecasts, and ensure that no resource is over- or underutilized.

5. Foster strong culture

After establishing a feasible service concept, there is no other factor so instrumental to the success of a service organization as its culture. Employees should be aligned when it comes to a specific set of overarching principles and, while methodology is crucial to service delivery, this should feel more like a philosophy.

Don’t take it for granted that your culture is strictly internal it shows up in your service delivery, your methodology, and your relationships and interactions with customers. And customers know this, it’s one of the reasons why people ask for RFPs. The better you understand your value prop and what your company’s about, the more that translates to your customers. More often than not, your customers will know if you and your employees aren’t on the same page.

A Financial Advisor is a finance professional who provides consulting and advice about an individual’s or entity’s finances. Financial advisors can help individuals and companies reach their financial goals sooner by providing their clients with strategies and ways to create more wealth, reduce costs, or eliminate debts.

A financial advisor provides financial advice or guidance to customers for compensation. Financial advisors, or advisers, can provide many different services, such as investment management, tax planning, and estate planning. Increasingly, financial advisors are providing a range of services from portfolio management to insurance products as a one-stop-shop.

Financial advisor is a generic term with no precise industry definition, and many different types of financial professionals fall into this general category. Stockbrokers, insurance agents, tax preparers, investment managers, and financial planners are all members of this group. Estate planners and bankers may also fall under this umbrella.

Still, some make an important distinction in that a financial advisor actually provide guidance and advice. Therefore, a financial advisor can be distinguished from an execution stock broker that simply places trades for clients or a tax accountant who simply prepares tax returns without much input.

Financial Advisor Role

A financial advisor can help individuals or companies meet their financial objectives, as follows.

Individuals

In the case of an individual, a financial advisor can provide insight into how they can save more and build their wealth. This is often done by constructing a portfolio of investments that are well suited to the client’s risk attitude. Some clients are more willing to take on risk if the prospect of a potential greater reward is more compelling to them than the prospect of potentially losing money.

Conversely, there are also clients who are more risk-averse, and that would like a lower-risk portfolio, even if it means potentially lower returns.

Determining an individual’s risk attitude may be difficult since an individual’s risk attitude can depend on a great number of factors. Thus, a financial advisor may ask about things like the individual’s age, income, marital status, indebtedness, or savings in order to gather a solid understanding of their client.

Companies

In the case of companies, financial advisors can help provide a second, neutral perspective on corporate development projects. For instance, if a company is considering expanding its operations by building a new factory, financial advisors can help assess the profitability of the project independently.

Once the advisor’s assessment is concluded, they can present their findings to the company’s management with the goal that their analysis will provide the company’s leadership with a valuable second opinion.

A Financial Advisor’s Many Roles

A financial advisor is your planning partner. Let’s say you want to retire in 20 years or send your child to a private university in 10 years. To accomplish your goals, you may need a skilled professional with the right licenses to help make these plans a reality, and that’s where a financial advisor comes in.

Together, you and your advisor will cover many topics, including the amount of money you should save, the types of accounts you need, the kinds of insurance you should have (including long-term care, term life, and disability) and estate and tax planning.

The financial advisor is also an educator. Part of the advisor’s task is to help you understand what is involved in meeting your future goals. The education process may include detailed help with financial topics. At the beginning of your relationship, those topics could be budgeting and saving. As you advance in your knowledge, the advisor will assist you in understanding complex investment, insurance, and tax matters.

Step one in the financial advisory process is understanding your financial health. You can’t properly plan for the future without knowing where you stand today. Typically, you will be asked to complete a detailed written questionnaire. Your answers help the advisor understand your situation and make certain you don’t overlook any important information.

• A financial advisor is often responsible for more than just executing trades in the market on behalf of their clients.
• Advisors use their knowledge and expertise to construct personalized financial plans that aim to achieve the financial goals of clients.
• These plans include not only investments but also savings, budget, insurance, and tax strategies.
• Advisors further check in with their clients on a regular basis to re-evaluate their current situation and future goals and plan accordingly.

Securities and investments created to provide buyers and sellers with short term or long term financial gains are known as financial products. These allow liquidity to circulate in an economy and risk to be spread. Many of the financial products are in the form of contracts that you can negotiate on financial markets. The contracts stipulate cash movement at present and in future, depending on conditions stated.

Financial products can help us grow the amount of money we have to meet various financial goals, such as retirement, children’s education, marriage and so on.

Before you invest in any financial product, you should learn about any potential risks, limitations, costs as well as other characteristics of the products.

Types of Financial Products

The number of financial products and services in India has increased multifold. It requires a lot of patience and skill to pick up the best suited option from this huge list of financial products available with us. Here are some of them:

Mutual Funds

A mutual fund is a professionally managed type of collective investment scheme that pools money from many investors and invests it in stocks, bonds, short-term money market instruments, and/or other securities. By investing in Mutual Funds, one can have benefit of diversification. Since they are managed by professionals, one need not track the markets regularly. It is regulated by SEBI, so the investor interests are also protected. It also offers flexibility of choosing the products from various categories like Equity, Gold, Debt and Money Markets. Most schemes being open ended, they also offer liquidity. One can invest in Mutual Funds either in Lump-sum (at one go) or through Systematic Manner (SIP).

NPS

National Pension System (NPS) is a voluntary, defined contribution retirement savings scheme designed to enable the subscribers to make optimum decisions regarding their future through systematic savings during their working life. NPS seeks to inculcate the habit of saving for retirement amongst the citizens.

Corporate Fixed Deposits

There are various companies which offer Fixed Deposits and the rates on offer are generally higher than the rates offered by Banks. These instruments can be considered based on their rating, interest rates and the cash flows. The corporate fixed deposits are available for various tenures with Interest being paid Monthly, Quarterly, Half Yearly, Annually or at Maturity. Investors looking at regular cash flows and interested in fixed rate of interest can invest in these deposits.

Capital Gain Bonds

Capital gain bonds are another type of bonds available, where any person can avail exemption in respect of long-term capital gains (arising from the sale of long term capital asset other than equity shares and securities) if the capital gain is invested in Capital Gain bonds u/s 54EC. The exemption will be the amount of capital gain or the amount of investment made, whichever is less. Interest rate offered on these bonds is around 6% per annum.

How financer Manage Your Financial Products?

The paradigm shift from pure selling to knowledge-based selling drives the business today. With wide portfolio of financial product offerings, They occupy all segments in the retail financial services industry. A highly qualified and dedicated team of professionals, drawn from the best of academic and professional backgrounds, are committed to maintaining high levels of client service delivery. This has propelled them to become one of the top distribution houses for equity and debt issues.

To further tap the immense growth potential in the capital markets, they enhanced the scope of our retail arm, now providing advisory services to the mass affluent. Here, they understand customer needs and lifestyle in the context of current earnings and provide adequate advisory services that will facilitate wealth creation in the long run. Both market-savvy and the less knowledgeable investors find this service quite satisfactory. The edge that they have over others competitors is the sheer depth of our portfolio of offerings and our professional expertise. The investment product planning for each customer is done with an unbiased attitude so that the service is truly customized.

Most organizations don’t realize they need an emergency communication plan until it’s too late. They end up in a stressful or dangerous situation, don’t have a set procedure, and realize they should have had a plan of action laid out beforehand. Don’t find yourself in this situation.

Early preparation and planning ahead can alleviate the stress of an emergency, protect your staff and visitors, and create a safer, more secure facility. So, use these tips to plan your emergency communication plan today.

A typical emergency communications plan is part of an overall emergency action plan. It should be detailed and carefully designed and include information on how both internal and external crisis communications will be handled.

Internal emergency management alerts can be sent using email, overhead building paging systems, voice messages or text messages to mobile devices. This type of communication would include instructions to evacuate the building and relocate at assembly points, updates on the status of the situation and notification of when it’s safe to return.

External emergency communications that should be part of a business continuity plan include how to notify family members of an injury or death, discuss the disaster with the media and provide status information to key clients and stakeholders. The emergency coordinator must ensure that each message is prepared with the audience e.g., employees, media, families, government regulators in mind. Broad general announcements may be acceptable in the initial aftermath of an incident, but they must be tailored to the specific audiences in subsequent releases.

Eight things your emergency communications plan must do

Emergency situations and disasters can range from fires, floods and severe weather to kidnappings, bomb threats and vandalism. An emergency communications plan must be able to do the following eight things:

• Launch quickly.
• Brief senior management on the situation.
• Identify and brief the company spokesperson on the situation.
• Prepare and issue company statements to the media and other organizations.
• Organize and facilitate broadcast media coverage.
• Communicate situation information and procedural instructions to employees and other stakeholders.
• Communicate with employee families and the local community.
• Continually adapt to changing events associated with the emergency.

Decide What Type of Emergencies You Need To Plan For

As you make your plan, consider all of the emergencies that can happen in the workplace, and decide which situations could be a threat to your organization.

Workplace emergencies are things that cause damage to the property or a person, are a threat to the property or a person, or shut down the operation of your organization. Most workplace emergencies are classified as one of the following:-

• Power outages when your team is unable to work, visitors are left in the dark, machines are unable to operate, production cannot continue, etc.
• Resource failure when tools, machines, and other items that are essential to the operation of your organization break down or stop.
• Staff medical emergency when a staff member or team member is injured or experiences a medical situation.
• Burglaries when vital office information, products, or tools are stolen.
• Foreseen weather emergencies when you have been warned about an impending weather event such as a hurricane or snow storm.
• Immediate weather emergencies when you are presented with an immediate weather threat such as a severe storm or tornado.
• Immediate danger at the location when your facility is under an actively dangerous situation such as a fire, intruder, chemical spill, workplace violence, etc.

Once you identify each potential problem that could arise at your location, create a plan for each situation.

Create a Plan of Action

Each situation will require a different plan of action. As you go through your planning, consider if you need the following sections in your emergency communication plan.

• Evacuation plans that say how you will exit, where you will meet after, and how you will check to make sure everyone is accounted for.
• Safe space plans that tell people where to go in the event of an immediate danger at your location.
• Chain of command plans that explain who is in charge.
• Family notification plans that include emergency contact information and explain how to contact employee families.
• Continued operation plans that explain how to keep operating if certain systems, machines, or equipment fail.
• Severe weather preparation plans that tell employees what to do and what to shut down in the event of an impending weather emergency.
• Severe weather guidelines that outline when the weather is bad enough to shut-down the office or location.

Each office or location will have unique situations and plans to consider, so talk to experts to make sure you consider each scenario and planning need.

Decide How Will You Communicate With Your Team

Communication is key during an emergency. So as you go through each scenario, detail how you will communicate with your team before, during, and after an emergency.

Remember that certain emergencies, such as a power outage, may restrict the use of some of the communication methods. Set a backup plan, and use one or more of the following methods.

• Phone contact trees that assign callers to notify other staff members until the whole team is contacted.
• Text message alerts that communicate with your team through mobile devices.
• Alarms that are placed throughout your location.
• On-site screens that act as an internal communications tool and share messages about the emergency as the situation is unfolding.
• Overhead alerts that air over a loudspeaker and tell people in your facility what to do as the situation is happening.
• Digital wayfinding maps that tell people where to go to find safety.

The ability for you to share details and information during a stressful situation is vital to a plan running smoothly. Focus on creating a clear and reliable emergency communication plan that helps people prepare and follow the process as a situation is unfolding.

Document Your Plan

As you define each situation and outline its plan of action, clearly and thoroughly document the processes. Communication in the workplace relies heavily on the documentation of processes and policies. Put of this information in writing so you can review it, share it with team members, reference it in the event an emergency, and refer to if after an emergency to see if protocol was properly followed.

Consult an Expert

Once you develop the emergency communication plan for your organization, you should review the plan with a professional.

As mentioned above, you may think you thought of everything, but it’s likely that you could miss small details that matter. Working with a professional risk management expert will help you identify the holes in your processes and ensure you have the safest plan for your business and team.

Review Your Plan

Once you have reviewed your plan with an expert and finalized all of the details, share it with your organization. Spend extra time reviewing it with senior-level management who need to memorize the protocol, and conduct organizational training sessions to explain the procedures to your entire team.

Don’t run through the material once and then shelf the plan forever. Schedule regular reviews of the your emergency communication plan to ensure that that the information is always fresh in everyone’s mind. Also, add emergency planning to the training of all new employees.

Test Your Plan

Practice makes perfect, so test your emergency communication plan with your upper-level management and/or your whole team. Running through the plan will reinforce its importance, identify any errors in your planning, and help your team learn the processes step-by-step.

Keeping your team safe, your location running, and your organization protected are important responsibilities. Don’t wait to set plans to keep up with that responsibility. Start planning your emergency communication plan today so you can have a safer tomorrow.

Sponsoring something (or someone) is the act of supporting an event, activity, person, or organization financially or through the provision of products or services. The individual or group that provides the support, similar to a benefactor, is known as sponsor.

Sponsorship is a cash and/or in-kind fee paid to a property (typically in sports, arts, entertainment or causes) in return for access to the exploitable commercial potential associated with that property.

While the sponsoree (property being sponsored) may be nonprofit, unlike philanthropy, sponsorship is done with the expectation of a commercial return.

While sponsorship can deliver increased awareness, brand building and propensity to purchase, it is different from advertising. Unlike advertising, sponsorship can not communicate specific product attributes. Nor can it stand alone, as sponsorship requires support elements.

Advertising that seeks to establish a deeper association and integration between an advertiser and a publisher, often involving coordinated beyond-the-banner placements.

Examples of sponsorships vary widely, as the whole point is to establish a more unique advertising opportunity than afforded by typical rotating advertisements. They may include several fixed ad placements, advertorials, co-branded content sections, or anything the advertiser and publisher can agree on.

Sponsorships attempt to deliver more than a “drive by” impression. Whereas much online activity is geared towards direct marketing, sponsorships add the element of brand marketing. Metrics such as CTR may be balanced with brand association, as sponsors seek to tap into the publisher’s goodwill and establish credibility in their target market.

All sponsorship should be based on contractual obligations between the sponsor and the sponsored party. Sponsors and sponsored parties should set out clear terms and conditions with all other partners involved, to define their expectations regarding all aspects of the sponsorship deal. Sponsorship should be recognisable as such.

The terms and conduct of sponsorship should be based upon the principle of good faith between all parties to the sponsorship. There should be clarity regarding the specific rights being sold and confirmation that these are available for sponsorship from the rights holder. Sponsored parties should have the absolute right to decide on the value of the sponsorship rights that they are offering and the appropriateness of the sponsor with whom they contract.

Sponsorship Markets

IEG projects spending on sponsorship globally to grow 4.5 percent in 2018 to $65.8 billion, including $24.2 billion in North America alone (a 4.5% increase from $24.1 billion in 2017). Europe is the largest source of sponsorship spending, with €26.44 million (US$29 million) in just the EU member states in 2014, followed by North America, the Asia Pacific region. Growth in Central and South America during 2010 did not materialize to the extent projected 3.8 percent versus a forecast of 5.7 percent despite the FIFA World Cup and Olympic Games in Brazil in 2014 and 2016, respectively. With the 2010 World Cup concluded, sponsorship activity should begin to heat up, thus the region is projected to be the fastest-growing source of sponsorship dollars outside North America, with a forecast growth rate of 5.6 percent for 2011.

Relaxed television industry legislation surrounding product placement has led to a small but increasing rise in TV programming sponsorship in the UK. However, commercial sponsorship of British sports teams and players is a multibillion-pound industry. For example, Adidas became the sponsor and supplier of Manchester United’s kit for ten seasons, in a 2014 sponsorship deal with a guaranteed minimum value of £750 million (more than US$1.1 billion).

As it has in most years over the past two-plus decades, sponsorship’s growth rate will be ahead of the pace experienced by advertising and sales promotion, according to IEG.

Marketing communications strategy is the strategy used by a company or individual to reach their target market through various types of communication. It includes your message (what is to be said), the medium (where it is to be said), and the target (to whom your message is reaching).

You might be wondering: what’s a marketing communications strategy that always works, even without a budget?

Easy: build relationships with journalists to get press coverage, guest posts, and backlinks.

Marketing communications or Public Relations is the ‘Promotion’ bit of the “4P’s of marketing” you might have learned during your university days (product, place, price, promotion).

Since “marketing communications strategy” is a mouthful, most people just shorten it to “Public Relations” which essentially uses online channels and software to identify relevant journalists, pitch them suitable stories and earn free media coverage.

Usually, PR strategy means building top of mind awareness amongst your ideal customers about the product or offer.

How you go about this will depend a lot on your experience, industry, and budget. If your marketing plan has a budget of a million dollars to spare, you can reach out to your target market with a promotional mix that includes TV or Facebook ads.

However, if you’re like most entrepreneurs, you want to promote your business without breaking the bank.

And there is no better way do that than by managing your own PR campaign internally without retaining the services of a media relations company or a full-service marketing company.

Wait, do you mean “free as in ‘free lunch”?

Exactly! If you apply the methods in this post to your own marketing communications strategy, you’ll learn how to build lasting relationships with journalists and influencers, get free press, and acquire more customers through a sustainable organic approach.

Anyone from your team can easily play the role of a marketing communications manager. You don’t even need to hire a dedicated marketing communications specialist!

Marketing Communications Strategy

Marketing communications strategy defines the entire range of activities you will do to market your products. This includes everything from paid marketing to media relations (PR).

Any integrated marketing communications strategy (IMC) should have three guiding principles:

• Brand alignment: Whatever marketing channel you choose should have the same brand perception as yours. For example, if you sell luxury watches, build relationships with journalists from TIME magazine, not those writing in your local newspaper (unless you live in the Hamptons!).
• Customer alignment: Follow the oldest rule in marketing – ‘be where your customers already are’. Pick channels where your consumers are already active. If you’re targeting younger millennials, advertise on social media platforms like Instagram, not Facebook, and certainly not day-time TV!
• Budget alignment: Choose a marketing channel that fits your budget (obviously). If you don’t have a budget, getting a print ad in WSJ will be out of your reach. But perhaps you can get a free press mention on WSJ’s website by reaching out to the journalists.

Any large company’s marketing plan will have several campaigns on multiple channels simultaneously. The combination of all these channels – PPC, social media, advertising on TV, print, radio, etc. – is called the “marketing mix” of your marketing communications strategy.

Smaller businesses, however, usually stick to one or two marketing channels to reach their target customers. Else you risk diluting your budget and focus.

Steps in Creating an Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy

Keeping the above principles in mind, you should create an annual or bi-annual Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy (IMC). Here are the key steps to follow.

1. Understand Your Target Audience

Before you can create a strategic communications plan, you need to understand your target audience.

Any marketing communications plan has to be formulated for a specific group of target customers. Your IMC has to define the needs and characteristics of this target audience.

The simplest way to do this is to study your existing customers through surveys, interviews and so on. Ask:

What needs do most of your customers have in common?

Why are they buying your products or services?

These consumer insights are crucial for creating highly targeted marketing messages that your persona can truly relate to.

Your integrated marketing communications plan should always follow an outside-in approach, i.e. be centered around extensive customer analysis. You should invest time to stay in touch with shifting customer needs even if you are doing business-to-business marketing and you think you already know your customers very well. Avoid using an inside-out approach which does not invest sufficient resources in researching and analyzing customers. A marketing communication mix based on insufficient research is bound to be flawed.

2. Define your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Your USP is the foundation of your integrated marketing communications plan. The USP should be reflected in every message your brand sends out across all communication channels, whether it’s for PR, sales or content marketing.

A clear USP will ensure that your brands messaging is clear, consistent and recognizable. It will also help you in crafting compelling media pitches.

Doing a SWOT analysis of your company from the viewpoint of your target audience will help you frame your USP. Ask:

Why will a consumer choose you over a competitor company?

Where do you fall short of your competition?

Survey your existing customers about their purchase intention. Understand the rationale behind the decision-making process of your typical consumer.

3. Determine your Marketing Communications Mix

Marketing communications mix is the combination of channels you use to reach out to potential customers.

Your marketing mix could include:

• Online advertising on AdWords, Facebook, etc.,
• Offline advertising on print media, billboards or TV,
• Direct marketing,
• Personal selling,
• Events,
• Sponsorships,
• Content marketing,
• An annual sales promotion.

Large corporations would have dedicated teams within their marketing/sales division to take care of each of these activities. However a startup or small business would have to choose only two or three of these marketing strategies as part of their communication process.

As I mentioned before however, the most budget-friendly channel that drives the maximum results is DIY PR – that is Do It Yourself Public Relations.

4. Define Branding Elements

Branding is a vital part of your IMC. It broadly includes two things.

At the most basic level branding is about having a consistent look and feel across all your online and offline marketing materials such as your:

• Website,
• Apps,
• Social platforms,
• Sales collateral,
• Direct marketing campaigns,
• Advertising campaigns,
• Business cards and so on.

However, at a deeper level, branding is about the core identity of your company. It’s about what you stand for, and what you want people to recognize you as. For example, Apple’s branding is all about cutting edge but extremely user-friendly technology. This identity should be a part of every marketing communication your organization sends out whether it’s for PR outreach, a new advertising plan for a sales promotion or a personal selling campaign.

5. Define Success Metrics

Once you have decided on your promotional mix for your integrated marketing communications plan, you also need to plan the right set of success metrics for all communication channels.

For instance, your success in Public Relations can be measured by a range of outcomes from brand awareness to sales. Here are a few metrics:

• The number of mentions on different outlets and blogs,
• Number of website visits or signups from each article,
• Number of backlinks acquired,
• Website visits from social media shares,
• The number of leads or sales that can be attributed to Public Relations (This is easier to track in services businesses such as a graphic design or software services company.)

You will have to define metrics for each component of your communication mix.

These metrics will determine whether you are fulfilling the key objectives of your communications plans. So make sure you pick metrics that actually drive value to your business, irrespective of what communication platforms you are measuring.

For example, just because you are measuring social media, don’t use vanity metrics such as likes or retweets. Instead, go for website visits, leads acquired, etc. that indicate a higher degree of engagement by your target audiences and potential consumers.

6. Execution

Once your plan for you marketing communication process is ready, you execute these marketing strategies, measure your success and modify your approach as necessary.

For communications professionals developing a portfolio, less may be more. A targeted analog portfolio that includes eight varied samples in combination with a more expansive digital portfolio will help you stand out from the crowd in this highly competitive field.

In general, a good communications portfolio should demonstrate skills in leadership, writing, strategic thinking and client services. With each sample, include a paragraph or two that explains the organization, its challenge and how you solved that problem. Be specific about your role in the project. For example, were you a specialist on the team or the leader, or did you do all of it yourself?

Analog Portfolio

A good portfolio is curated, like a museum that pulls from its archives for themed exhibits, according to the Creative Group. Only the most relevant and best examples are chosen for each opportunity. In your analog portfolio, experts suggest including three writing pieces that demonstrate the breadth and depth of your experience, with at least two being specifically relevant to the position you are applying for. Five more samples might include examples of media placements achieved, at least one item that demonstrates social media savvy, a PR plan and research samples. Include evidence of active membership in a professional society and any awards or certifications.

Digital Profile

A digital profile represents a broader selection of your work, well-organized and updated regularly. A digital profile will be viewed by a variety of industries and clients, but that doesn’t mean you should include everything you’ve ever done. Always post a full biography, resume, list of clients (with their permission) and list of professional certifications, awards and organizations. Also include outstanding samples or links that demonstrate the range of your skills such as varied writing samples and case studies of problems solved or media coverage achieved.

Showcasing Your Talents

Appearance and organization count in both analog and digital portfolios. Each sample must be carefully labeled with the name of the client or a description of the client if anonymous the problem or challenge to be solved, the result achieved and your role in the project.

For digital portfolios, experts suggest the following:

• It’s acceptable to use free websites, such as Weebly or WordPress.
• Test the navigation for usability. This isn’t the time to use too many bells and whistles. Headings such as Resume, Professional Association, Case Studies and Samples are clear and easy to understand.
• Optimize your portfolio so that potential clients and employers can find you easily.
• Personalize your site to make it memorable, but avoid “fun” fonts or color themes that are more appropriate for a personal site.
• Offer long or animated projects that take too time to download on a DVD.

Analog portfolios are best kept in a high-quality three-ring binder to allow you to easily customize for each opportunity. Specific suggestions for showcasing various types of communication samples include:

• Newspaper and magazine articles: Original samples are best. Mount samples on a plain black background and use clear plastic protective page coverings.
• Brochures/ads/press releases, newsletters: Include originals.
• Social media: Include screen grabs and analytics.
• Digital, graphic design, production or editing samples, including broadcast or online video: Include a CD and screen grabs.
• Long or animated projects: Put on DVDs that have been virus checked.
• Communication plans or projects: Include the original with sensitive information taken out. Clearly document results if the plan was implemented.
• Media relations: Include case study, list of press coverage and samples, and demographics of readers/viewers.

A portfolio should show off your accomplishments to potential clients or employers. That’s the goal of any portfolio, whether you create it online or in hard copy. Portfolios were traditionally used by artists and designers, but in the modern business world they’re popular with professionals, from project managers to software coders.

Portfolio Contents

There are no absolute rules on what should go in a portfolio, but some common suggestions include:

• Your CV.
• Samples of your work.
• A list of skills and accomplishments beyond those listed on the CV.
• Any certifications you’ve earned.
• Letters of recommendation.
• News articles about yourself or projects on which you worked.

Work Samples

If you’re working in a visual field, your samples can include copies of your fashion, decorating or art work. A reporter, writer or editor can include published stories.

If you work as a project manager or IT professional, finding portfolio compatible samples is tougher, but doable. If your work involved bringing a product to market, photos of the product, with an explanation of your role, can help. A letter from your boss about how you brought in the project under time and under budget would be a great inclusion.

Picking and Choosing

You want your portfolio to make you look as good as possible. Rather than throwing all your work in at random, be selective. Everything you include should be something you’re proud of, but the opening pages in particular should focus on your best accomplishments. The last page should also feature a strong piece of work. In between the beginning and the end, choose selections that showcase the scope of your talents and accomplishments.

Web or Print

An online portfolio allows you to showcase a greater range of items for instance, film clips or links to websites you’ve designed and to present your items with multimedia, animation and other eye-catching visuals. It’s also much easier to update and add to a web portfolio, switching out one item with another that’s more impressive, or changing your contact information. Clients searching for people in your field can find your web portfolio without any effort on your part.

Hard-copy portfolios aren’t obsolete, though. They’re usable even somewhere without Internet access. It’s easier to talk to a client about your work if you’re showing him a portfolio instead of having him stare at a computer. If there’s sensitive work you don’t want to post online for everyone to see, you can use it in a hard copy.

The best solution is to have both types of portfolio. Then you can use whichever one seems best in a given situation.

Marketing message, by its very definition, means how an organization communicates to its target audience to talk about itself and what it does. That would be the marketing message definition.

A message strategy should comprise of a positioning statement and some points that support it.

What is a positioning statement? Well, think of it as your core offer. It addresses your target market’s most pressing problem and how your product, service, or technology can solve it.

Messaging turns a positioning statement into a series of key messages that marketers can use to prepare material for marketing communication. Think press releases, ad slogans, social media posts, scripts, advertising copy, etc.

Effective business marketing messages also make sure that everyone in an organization can communicate in a “language” that their target audience speaks.

A practical and well thought out strategy makes it easier to deliver the key message in all your communication channels consistently.

The ideal marketing message should do the following:

• Explain your core offering to the people in a manner that’s easily digestible and memorable
• It should resonate with your audience and make them feel like that their concerns matter
• Give them a clear idea about what problem you solve, how you are different, what you stand for, etc.
• Establish trust in your product or service, so that they don’t hesitate to buy and also refer to others

What

Message development begins with research about the needs of your organization. To do this, you’ll have to revisit the company objectives and positioning to reaffirm the outcomes that your messaging will help achieve.

It would also be wise to review some of the existing brand messaging examples to get a clear picture of the organization’s values, identity, and voice.

Who and Why

Once you have precise knowledge of the organization and their values, it’s time to focus on the “Who,” which is your target audience. Some messaging documents would need different sets of key messages to cater to different sets of audience.

For example, when a company has to report weak quarterly earnings, the leaders will develop different sets of key messages to deliver to the investors, employees, and their customers.

They will all convey the same message (more or less), but the important takeaways will be much different for an investor from that of an employee or customer. It depends on what they need to hear and know, moving forward.

When developing a marketing message, you should strive to avoid making it sound like everybody else’s. For that, you’ll need to conduct a thorough messaging analysis to identify the key messages and concepts other organizations are using.

6 EFFECTIVE MESSAGING STRATEGIES THAT BIG BRANDS USE

If you’re planning to run an advertising campaign to put your marketing strategy into practice now would be the best time to think about the messaging. We have got for you six tips to boost message strategy in advertising.

1. Ads using emotions

“People buy with their emotions and justify it using logic.” You probably have heard that quote before, and it’s true that the most efficient way to get people to buy something is by appealing to their emotions.

You can use this fact to your advantage by preparing a message strategy that capitalizes on your audience’s emotion to sell. You can create an ad that makes people develop an emotional connection to your brand or product.

2. Ad using your USP

USP or Unique Selling Proposition is supposed to highlight something about your brand or product that others cannot/do not offer. To create the messaging for this type of ad, you must figure out what sets you apart and if that resonates with the audience.

Apifonica, for example, offers companies an all in one platform where they can build superb customer communication service with SMS, voice, and social messaging.

Every product or offering “should” have a USP, how you get across to people depends on your marketing message.

3. Ads using Brand image

Not every sale has to come from the advertising you’re offering. In fact, the best way to secure customers and keep them with you for a long time is by creating a psychological connection with your brand.

4. Ads using Positioning

Using positioning in your message is the best way to compare yourself to your competitor. We talked a lot about positioning before; what we didn’t mention is that it needs to be believable and unique, above all things.

Otherwise, the message will go largely ignored by your target market. Here’s some advice to keep in mind when writing your positioning statement:

• It should be short – ideally fewer than 12 words, not counting your product or brand name
• It should be written in a simple language, devoid of jargons
• Should be adaptable to different types of mediaShould consist of one significant benefit
• The major benefit should be supported by three or four additional claims
• Should be unique, usable, imported, and most importantly, believable!

5. The generic ad

The generic ad is…well, one of the most obvious and commonly used. It focuses on selling a particular category rather than a specific brand or product. The goal here is to educate and give the audience something to think about; not hard sell.

6. Preemptive advertising

Pre-emptive marketing is something anyone could use and get great results from. Yet almost no one does! This form of promotion is so simple; it’s almost scary. What you have to do? Just explain to your customers and prospects the processes upon which your business relies.

That’s it! It doesn’t matter if you’re the only person doing it; as long as you get the word out first, you win.

If you’re in retail, tell your customers all about the meticulous planning that goes into picking out the product line for your store. Tell them how your employees are some of the finest and how much they are dedicated to guaranteeing your satisfaction.

If you have a creative or manufacturing business, explain to your customers the complete process that you follow step-by-step to ensure they are getting the absolute best. Talk about the raw materials used and why.

Tell them about the strict quality checks and brainstorming that precedes production. None of this has to be “unique;” they just have to be real and told before your audience hears it from somewhere else.