Smart Messaging – Branding is Key to Organizational Sustainability

By Montrie Rucker AdamsFebruary 3, 2015 Blog, Sustainability branding, business transformation, change management, more visible, smart messaging, stakeholders, technology

Branding is not just for the Coke’s and Disney’s of the world. Branding is for everyone.

It’s more than a logo and tagline. Branding is a strategy. When thinking about a strategic branding campaign for your business, begin with your audience. To whom are you speaking?

With a creative focus, we make businesses more visible by serving as change-agents and speaking directly to their audiences, thus modifying their behavior. We specialize in performance-driven communication solutions that support sustainable business practices. This is our unique value proposition at Visibility Marketing Inc.

It is important that we convey to clients and prospective clients that all of our service delivery will be aligned with their key performance indicators. It is not enough to say that your organization is diverse and inclusive. Diversity and inclusion must be linked to increased market share or measurable improvements in customer satisfaction. The cost savings realized as part of a campus-wide energy efficiency initiative at a major university can also help to minimize tuition hikes. Operational efficiencies, environmental stewardship, and social responsibility are inextricably linked.

However, many organizations miss the opportunity to leverage strategic messaging in ways that will build the brand. The $600 million dollar technology deployment and the $3 billion capital improvements plan represents unique opportunities to enhance the brand.

Some helpful considerations when considering your branding strategy include the following:

Business Transformation: All organizations now sit at the intersection of business and technology. Successful change management must include communication planning strategies that include mobile applications and social media as part of the branding mix.
Future State Business Processes: Integrated planning across functional areas requires the development of new processes that support the future state of the business as part of the business transformation initiative. This effort is imperative for customizing messages to small stakeholder segments.
Smart Messaging: Although messages to each stakeholder is to be aligned with the broader vision, each message must represent a unique and measurable value proposition to each stakeholder.

Any organization has to understand that the brand must align with the guiding principles of each stakeholder group. Smart messaging and branding are fundamental to organizational sustainability.

CBC Magazine Article: IPG Connects Self-employed PR Pros

By Montrie Rucker AdamsDecember 2, 2014 News advertising, be more visible, branding, communications, marketing, public relations

This article first appeared in CBC Magazine
By Lauren Sable Freiman | Photo by Jim Baron

Being self-employed certainly has many advantages. But camaraderie and the opportunity to bounce ideas around the office typically aren’t among those advantages. That’s where the Independent Practitioners Group steps in to fill a very real void.

A support group for self-employed public relations and marketing professionals, IPG started as a subgroup of the local chapter of the Public Relations Society of America in 1990. In 2001 the group broke off to become an independent networking group, focused on addressing the unique needs of those who work independently.

“There is a certain amount of isolation you deal with when you are self-employed, and this is one avenue to get out and mix and mingle with peers,” Jim Tabaczynski, IPGs co-chair and president of JPT Group, says.

Almost 80 percent of the group’s 15-20 paid members are female and have been working in the industry for an average of eight years. Most members work from home but not all. Montrie Rucker Adams, IPG’s co-chair and treasurer, houses her business, Visibility Marketing Inc. in an office outside of her home.

“There is a great camaraderie among members. There are a lot of emails going back and forth where people ask who knows about this or who can help me with that,” she says.

IPG hosts monthly lunch meetings from September through May at restaurants around the city. The format varies between professional development and open roundtables, and the content is driven by member wants and needs. A roundtable discussion where members shared their favorite apps was a big hit among members, Tabaczynski says.

As the public relations and marketing industry is dynamic and ever changing, members are especially interested in programs on things like pay-per-click advertising and mobile apps, which provide them with new ways of reaching people.

“We always ask our members what they want,” Tabaczynski says. “The best way to find new programs is to listen to your members.”

According to Rucker Adams, IPG has hosted conferences in the past, including one on social media. As a small networking group, IPG is also open to partnering with other networking organizations to co-sponsor programs. One such program was a meet and greet with tech writers from Crain’s Cleveland Business and The Plain Dealer, which IPG co-hosted with the Northeast Ohio Software Association.

“Our members always enjoy meeting with the media. It is a program that seems to resonate the most with people,” Tabaczynski says. “What we usually tell the media is that we want to learn how to work with you better and we want you to be able to work with us better. We ask what types of stories they are looking for, what they aren’t looking for, and what they consider to be their geographic footprint.”

Though some members have similar businesses and are competitors, Rucker Adams says that, nonetheless, IPG members serve as a strong support system to other members.

“We are very big on passing information, and there are many opportunities to gain clients as well,” she says. “There is always an opportunity to get a new perspective. The more varied voices you have, the more opportunity you have to learn.”

For more information: IPGCleveland.org

An Airline Hides its Logo: How not to Manage a Brand in Crisis

By Montrie Rucker AdamsOctober 31, 2013 Blog branding, British Airways, communications, crisis communications plan, crisis management, logo, Thai Airways

In September, when a Thai Airways plane skidded off the runway in San Francisco, the airline responded by covering their logo on the damaged plane, standard practice in the industry. On first glance, this practice seems like the right thing to do, distancing the brand from the accident and allaying flyers’ fears. Continue reading An Airline Hides its Logo: How not to Manage a Brand in Crisis

How Whole Foods Built Awareness on Pinterest

By Montrie Rucker AdamsOctober 22, 2013 Blog branding, marketing, media, pinterest, sharing, social media, whole foods

Pinterest is growing rapidly, with more monthly usage than Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ combined. Time spent on the site averages 77 minutes, compared to Facebook’s 10 minutes.

Whole Foods (WF) didn’t just pin randomly to create their robust community of followers. They had a system:

Growing the community. WF devised a video series for its boards on such topics as urban farming which did not focus on their brand: the aim was to tie the brand to specific food cultures. The urban farming board was entitled: “How does your garden grow?”
Keeping their board topics broad to pull in more people: vegetarians, gardeners, “shop locally” proponents, etc. They built on their broad base by creating boards that were Whole Foods Market-related, like products or recipes using the brand’s products.
Fewer boards with more content vs. numerous boards with fewer pins: They used keywords to find the most popular topics.
Using images to drive traffic to the website: Photos of dishes were repinned often and the recipe ingredients linked to the WF website.
Story telling: WF raises funds for the Whole Planet Foundation, which helps farmers in developing countries through microcredit transactions. Defining this organization was helped by using maps, showing people who benefited from the program and pictures of their food products.
Infographics: Were popular repins, so they expanded their content by adding text to their photos.
Collaboration: Pinterest is for people to share based on what they love. As accounts followed each other, they added to each one’s boards. WF partnered with them to produce events.

Think about how your company or organization can take advantage of this growing social media tool. Remember the old saying: A picture is worth a thousand words.

Brand Journalism: Companies Doing It Right – Part Seven

By Montrie Rucker AdamsSeptember 27, 2013 Blog brand journalism, branding, ragan

Though the term Brand Journalism is new, there are companies that have been practicing it for many years.

In the last of the Brand Journalism seven-part series, Mark Ragan and Jim Ylisela continue their discussion. They share three innovative companies that are doing brand journalism right.

Nuts About Southwest is Southwest Airline’s website where 30 employees discuss everything positive about their employer. Sophos, an IT company, has a website called Naked Security in which computer hacking is discussed. The financial company HSBC has two sites that provide useful content.

The motive for these extra websites? Whenever you need any of the services or products we provide, hopefully you will call us.

Click here to learn more about the final series – 3 Companies Doing Brand Journalism Well:

Brand Journalism: Driving Traffic to Your Site – Part Six

By Montrie Rucker AdamsSeptember 20, 2013 Blog brand journalism, branding, ragan

In the sixth installment of this seven-part series, Mark Ragan and Jim Ylisela continue their conversation on Brand Journalism. This time, the topic turns to answering the question, “If you build it, will they come?

Now. How can they if they don’t know about it?

You have the sell it. Their suggestions: Use daily news feeds, social media and your employees. Employees are often over looked, but they can be the best people to loudly toot your horn.

Don’t forget the traditional means of selling your goods and services – direct mailings, advertising and publications.

Click here to hear more:

Brand Journalism: Displaying the Site – Part Five

By Montrie Rucker AdamsSeptember 18, 2013 Blog brand journalism, branding, ragan

A big question that’s often asked: Should we create a separate site? The advantage of having a separate site is to make ensuring its individuality. On this site, you will offer news feature stories, blogs and videos – not the usual company information that’s typically on the “mother” site.

Mark Ragan and Jim Yliisela from Ragan Communications have so far offered four previous videos on Brand Journalism. They advise to make the site easy to find (no one wants to hunt), offer different content from the “mother” site and make social media the pipeline.

Want to know more? Click the link to continue on your path to Brand Journalism.

Brand Journalism: Do You Have the Skills? Part Four

By Montrie Rucker AdamsSeptember 6, 2013 Blog brand journalism, branding, ragan

To move your company toward brand journalism, you have to be a reporter and a good writer. If you are not, find someone in your company who is, or hire a company like Visibility Marketing Inc., to do the work for you.

Remember, you must change the way you gather information. Cranking out press releases does not work. You have to tell a good story and get great quotes.

For more on the required skills to convert your communications department, click here to hear Mark Ragan and Jim Ylisela speak more on the topic.

Brand Journalism: What’s Next? Part Three

By Montrie Rucker AdamsAugust 30, 2013 Blog brand journalism, branding, ragan

I once worked at one of Ohio’s largest newspapers. Though I was on the advertising side (at our paper, the advertising and journalism departments did not mix), I still understood the journalists and how they thought.

When moving your company toward brand journalism, you have to build a newsroom mentality among your employees. You have to write differently and perform differently in order to create a news website.

Mark Ragan and Jim Ylisela talk about how traditional media has changed. However, brand journalism is really going back to the “old school” newspaper model.

Click here to hear more.

Brand Journalism: Convince Them! Part Two

By Montrie Rucker AdamsAugust 23, 2013 Blog brand journalism, branding, communications, ragan

A few blogs ago, we introduced you to the concept of Brand Journalism, which is creating a news site around your brand.

Luckily Mark Ragan of Ragan Communications and Jim Ylisela Managing Partner of Ragan Consulting, have taken the time to create informative videos around this new way to communicate to your audiences. As mentioned in Part One, brand journalism is important because its news that you create. No more sending out press releases. Now you are the press.

Now that you have decided to make the case for Brand Journalism, how are you going to convince those that make the final decision?

First create the business case for it and figure out how you will answer the question: Why do we need it?

Click here to find out more about how Ragan Communications and Ragan Consulting helped a health company embrace brand journalism.

Brand Journalism – A New Way Companies Provide Useful Information

By Montrie Rucker AdamsJuly 15, 2013 Blog, Sustainability branding, journalism, sustainability 1 Comment

The world of journalism is changing. For example, The Plain Dealer, Ohio’s largest newspaper, is moving from home delivery seven days per week to three. Those looking for news can still purchase the paper on non-delivery days, and they can also get their information online and on smart phones and tablets.

The journalism change also hits marketing communications and public relations professionals. There is now the opportunity to provide Brand Journalism, where we give more industry information, not just information about the company…blending the best of both worlds.

Look for Visibility Marketing Inc. to provide more information on sustainability. We want you to know and understand the industry, where it’s going and how you can participate. It’s all good. All of us are able to make our world better.

In the meantime, watch this short video from Ragan Communications that we hope will give you a better explanation about Brand Journalism.

In the coming weeks, we’ll provide “Brand Journalism” that will keep you informed about how we can all save money, save time and save our planet.

http://youtu.be/kpBdCpILNeI

Business Going Stale? It May Be Time to Re-focus, Re-think and Re-brand

By Montrie Rucker AdamsJuly 5, 2013 Blog branding, facebook, linkedin, marketing, rebranding, twitter

If you’ve been in business for a while and sales and service requests have dropped, it may be time to re-focus, re-think and possibly re-brand.

A friend found that her original business slowed tremendously. She started thinking about re-branding – starting with a new name. Her immediate concern was if people would know her by the new name. What if current clients couldn’t identify with her? After careful consideration, she decided to start a different company – with a new name – but providing the same services and adding on a few new ones.

After a few months of sharing this new identify on the Internet, specifically Twitter, LinkedIn groups and other group forums, she began receiving random inquiries. As time went by, her business has picked up even more.

Sometimes, you have to leave your comfort zone in order to focus. Sometimes, in order to be successful, you have to seek out other relationships besides friends and family members. One mutual friend, I’ll call her Dana, was able to experience a rise in new business – merely by changing her identify, re-branding and marketing herself to a different audience. Below are six tips she shares about the process:

Get out a piece of paper and write (yes, I said write) down your current business name on one side, draw a line vertically down the paper and put your new business name on the other side.
Under the current business – write down your products and services and other offerings. Then duplicate that under the new business. If there are any aspects of the current business that won’t be included in the new one, don’t write it. Under the new business, if there are new services/products you want to offer – include them.
Under the new business – write down Twitter and Pinterest. (Dana didn’t include Facebook or LinkedIn, but you may want to consider those as well).
Also under new business – write down several domain names. Keep them short and sweet so prospects can find you. It also makes your email address shorter and easier to remember.
Now, register for a new Federal Tax ID number and register with the state in which you do business. You can also revisit the SBA for opportunities you may have missed the first time.
Lastly, purchase your new domain name and hosting. Find a reputable web developer to design your new site.

If you’re in a business slump, it may be time to do what Dana did…look beyond your comfort zone – your hometown, friends, family and former clients. The World Wide Web is open 24/7. If your business is one that can take advantage of something new (and most are), then think about re-focusing, re-thinking and re-branding. You may be surprised at your results.