The Strategy of Strategy

The day after Halloween, I opened my computer to find something staring me in the face: November 1, 2017. That was on my desktop as I started my day, and I said to myself, “I can’t believe it’s NOVEMBER, and soon it will be 2018!” As usual, that was followed by, “Where did the year go?!?”

I think the lesson here is that time goes on, and time goes by quickly. Regarding the marketing of a business, whether services or products or both, you have three choices:

Don’t let the end of 2018 come with you asking yourself, “What did we do to proactively market our company this year?” Now is the time to take the time to work through some standard questions and begin to develop your strategy for 2018 marketing:

We suggest you work through this “reflection and review” as a starting point to nail down a true strategic approach for 2018. If you need help, ask for it! Working with a team like CIM Marketing Partners can put you on a more solid path to growth and prosperity, while at the same time freeing YOU up to focus on what YOU do best (like operationalizing your company’s products and services, providing superior client services, etc.). Early Happy 2018!

In Times of Crisis, Strategy is Key

Bright lights. Bold risks. Big news.

That has been Las Vegas’ claim to fame for more than 100 years. Millions of visitors flock to the desert oasis each year to try their luck at winning the immense jackpots, dangled like a carrot in front of hungry animals. Mixed with the first-class entertainment, five-star dining and top-tier events, Las Vegas has long been the topic of conversation. But what happens when the topic turns dark? How does the messaging change when the topic turns from joy and merriment to dismay and despair?

It has been one month since the mass shooting that stunned Las Vegas, the country, and the world. From the moment we began to understand the scale of the events that transpired on Sunday, October 1, our messaging changed from our usual promotional messaging to crisis communication.

Crisis communication is defined as a sub-specialty of the public relations profession that is designed to protect and defend an individual, company, or organization facing a public challenge to its reputation. While, thankfully, none of CIM’s clients were directly involved in the shooting, we were all affected by it. As a full service marketing and PR firm, in all we do, we seek to minimize negative impact on our clients by controlling messaging coming out of and about the company. Any messaging we distributed to the public in the days and weeks following the tragedy had to be presented in a sympathetic manner, not triggering or opportunistic in any way. We have to make sure the client is always viewed in as positive a light as possible, while still holding true to the mission of the business while treating the situation with the respect and reverence it deserves.

We’ve seen examples of amazing crisis communications and some missteps in the wake of the shooting. With too much promotion of the business, the company looks uncaring and insensitive. Too much emphasis on the event can cause public perception to view the company as opportunistic. Getting crisis communication right is a science, and it’s not one that comes easily.

Crisis communication has been a staple in marketing communications since the beginning of time. Companies are creating crisis communications plans to ensure they have the direction needed to navigate these critical waters. How a company deals with a crisis could determine the future success of that business. Take, for consideration, the recent sexual harassment and assault allegations against numerous Hollywood heavyweights, like Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and more. Each of the accused has their own crisis at hand, and is doing what they can to minimize the lasting impact on their client. However, there are larger companies behind these public figures and they have their own crises to contain.

In the case of Harvey Weinstein, he was promptly removed from his position at The Weinstein Company and the company released a statement condemning his actions – an appropriate response considering the gravity and vile behavior of which he has been accused. On the other hand, Spacey chose what has been called “the worst time to come out” in his statement apologizing for his alleged misconduct. He has since been skewered on social media for his response and filming of his hit television show, House of Cards, has been suspended indefinitely.

Messaging and timing are key, and it can be tough to recover when you get one – or both – wrong.

Crisis communications isn’t an area to be taken lightly or with the guidance of an amateur.Best-case scenario is to have a solid crisis creation plan before anything happens, so when the time comes, you know what to say and when to say it. With 21 years in the communications business, CIM can show you the way.

CIM Marketing Partners Celebrates 21 Years

 

CIM Marketing Partners Celebrates 21 Years with a New Look, New Website and Location in Summerlin!

Las Vegas, NV – CIM Marketing Partners is celebrating 21 years of business with the official opening of its office located at 10801 W. Charleston Blvd, just adjacent to Downtown Summerlin. The move was effective Aug. 7, 2017.

The unique 3,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art office space features open design workstations, private offices, a digital conference room and modern collaborative spaces with distinctive architecture and progressive design elements. The office space is located in the LEED certified City National Bank Building.

During the first week of celebration, CIM employees took an “Ocean’s Eleven” style group photo in front of its brightly colored entrance to showcase the firm’s new look, modern feel and team spirit. “The new space features a smartly configured floor plan designed to promote worker productivity in a collaborative environment, which also revitalizes the firm’s culture, image and digital technology future focus,” said Darcy Neighbors, CIM Marketing Partners' Founder/CEO.

Since its founding in 1996, CIM Marketing Partners has grown significantly and employs a team of 12 with proven experience and capabilities in brand strategy, digital marketing, creative design, pubic relations and social media management.

CIM Marketing Partners offers a full range of brand management services on a local and national level for more than 35 clients including prominent law firms, professional services companies and health care providers. The firm is recognized for its innovative, results-based Strategic Marketing Summit® and comprehensive business development initiatives. Based in Las Vegas, Nevada, CIM serves organizations of all sizes in a variety of industries and professions and is well regarded for its focus on law firm marketing.

Notably, the firm has collected between $200,000 and $350,000 in philanthropic donations each year for the last 17 years through its nonprofit organization, DJ’s for PJ’s, a Southern Nevada cause designed to provide new pajamas and caring comfort to children in crisis. To date, the nonprofit has collected and donated more than 92,000 pairs of new pajamas to area programs that serve at risk children and youth.

What's Old is New Again

Since early October, we’ve been actively building our clients’ 2015 strategic marketing plans. It’s quite a process, but one that is useful in so many ways. In this prior blog post, see some of the benefits of having an overall strategy and plan in place for the entire upcoming year.

 

When our team dives in to look at the dozens, if not hundreds, of potential marketing/public relations investments for each client, we look at the anticipated ROI, whether in truly measurable dollars or in a more general way, such as, “Would brand awareness be heightened amongst a particular target audience?” We can look at more passive advertising modes (having a listing in a directory) or more active modes (pay per click ads or remarketing digital ads that reach people specifically looking for what our clients provide or sell).

 

One tool in our toolkit that has actually come back in favor is direct mail. At one point, a rule of thumb was that a successful direct mail campaign would yield a 2-3% response rate. Then, over several decades, people were bombarded with so much mail that a mailing might be considered successful by having only a .5% response rate. With printing and postage costs always on the rise, and the response rate and payback less and less, our expenditures for that marketing line item decreased over time.

 

We have noticed, though, that in the past few years, direct mailings have been extremely successful for certain clients. Recipients of those mailings perhaps are enjoying tangible mail as opposed to the hundreds of e-mails that likely hit their e-mail in-box daily. We literally hear from our clients that business generated from a specific direct mailing has more than paid for itself, and served as a client touchpoint in the process.

 

There are different kinds of direct mailings, such as offering a special product or service, announcing a company change or providing general information (a newsletter). No, direct mail isn’t a right-fit tactic for every business, but you just may want to consider what it might do for yours.

 

If you need help with strategizing an integrated, strategic marketing and public relations plan for your business, reach out to an agency you trust.

Holiday Gifts and Cards? The Time to Act is Now!

You’re probably already feeling swooped up in the rush of planning for all that the last two months of the year will bring. Well, let’s add one or two more things to your Things to Do List, and take them off just as quickly. We’ll use the Who, What, When, Where and Why process.

Who: Think about who deserves to hear from you this time of year. It’s probably a combination of clients/customers and vendors, those with whom you’ve done business and with whom you share a mutual appreciation.

What: Will you send holiday cards? Will you send holiday gifts? Both? Perhaps you’ll break your list of recipients into multiple lists. For cards, you may send the same card to all. You might also consider sending a professionally produced digital or e-card via e-mail, allowing the recipient to click and watch/listen to your holiday greeting. For gifts, you may divide your recipients into several manageable categories—maybe it’s an A, B and C list, with the most personalized gifts going to the A’s, a less customized gift to the B’s and a simple, but nice gift to the C’s. Some companies only send cards that include a message that the company has made a donation to XYZ organization in the name of all its clients/vendors; that’s an option, too.

When: The logical timing is in November or December, but we’ve found that beating the rush by sending cards/gifts in mid-November has a distinct benefit. With that timing, your recipients won’t already be inundated with other cards/gifts, so yours will stand out and be appreciated. Plus, they’ll likely be there, as opposed to already being out for two weeks had your gift been delivered later in December.

Where: This one’s pretty obvious—deliver cards/gifts to the client or customer’s office. Do, though, consider more lead-time for out-of-town deliveries.

Why: To express your genuine concern and thanks for the relationships you have. To make sure they know you value working with them. To stay top of mind. And…to stand out and be relevant, as more and more companies do away with any sort of holiday greetings.

Now what? Talk with your marketing agency to help you brainstorm card/gift options, as well as help orchestrate the process. If you have this discussion in the next week or so, and start compiling your recipient list for cards/gifts, you’ll be able to pull off a nice client touch point that will yield goodwill and potential additional business in 2015 and beyond.

The 2015 Planning Window of Opportunity is Upon You

Summer’s gone. School has started. Cooler temps are on the way. Thanksgiving is around the corner. December will be all filled up with holiday activities. That makes now the perfect time to prepare for and lock in an effective 2015 strategic marketing plan and budget.

What’s in it for you? By planning now, you’ll…

Investing in planning now will allow you to more fully enjoy the remainder of this year and help ensure a more profitable, more focused and less stressful 2015. After reading the next few sentences, switch screens on your computer to see your calendar. Block off several hours with others involved in your marketing decision-making process and plan for a review of your business and the competitive landscape. If you need help getting your ducks in a row, call CIM Marketing Partners to schedule a Strategic Marketing Summit®. Together, you can create your 2015 strategic marketing plan with right-fit strategies and tactics. In early 2015 and throughout the year, you’ll be glad you did, especially as you experience marketing efforts working behind the scenes of your everyday work efforts to improve profitability and ultimately build the value of your company.

 

 

Don’t Let Analysis Paralysis Take Over Your Marketing

Do we need some PR? Someone asked me why she couldn’t find us on Facebook. I feel like we’re being left behind in social media. Should we do that sponsorship? Maybe we should do something. Maybe we need a plan. It’s time to move the dial on our business plan…wait, we haven’t updated “the plan” since 2009. The New Year may be a good time to start. Let’s set a meeting to talk about our marketing.

We hear it routinely when meeting with clients and prospective clients. Everyone seems to know they could benefit from marketing and PR efforts, but often they’re not sure what to do, how to do it, how much they need to invest to make it worthwhile, who should be involved and what, exactly, the plan should be.

What we’ve done for years is proven to work, year after year, for clients who stay the course and invest in marketing in the good times and bad. Here are some STOP IT NOW steps to take:

Once you have a solid plan and it’s put in motion, it’s amazing how much easier it is to then tackle new potential marketing activities as they come along. You’ll be doing marketing and enjoying the measurable results. You’ll be building the value of your company. You’ll be much more active in determining the future of your company instead of just letting things happen to your company. And…you will have shed that analysis paralysis that has frozen you for who knows how long.

The Tale of Two Marketing Committees

Committees. Depending on your experience with one, you may think they’re great, or maybe a total waste of time. In a nutshell, some get results, some don’t. Here’s the tale of two types of committees. Both are real examples spanning years.

Marketing Committee #1: Twelve years ago, we met with a sizeable law firm’s marketing committee to assess their situation and make recommendations to position and grow their firm. There were 12 committee members present. During that meeting, one of the members told us, “We’ve been meeting once a month for 10 years and we’ve never done anything.” And he meant it literally. We followed up by doing our research, presenting our findings and making clear recommendations for a path to move forward. We returned to their office twice more to “sell” our recommendations and start our typical partnership. It went nowhere, as the committee was never able to reach a full “yes” vote of 12 (yes, ALL had to agree before anything was done from a marketing standpoint).

Where are they now? The firm has fewer attorneys than it did 12 years ago, and I think I’ve seen the firm name mentioned in business publications twice during that time. There’s virtually no sign of a presence: No stories, no articles, no new hire announcements, no community involvement PR, etc. It’s pretty safe to say they’re not actively marketing their firm or their legal talent.

Marketing Committee #2: Several years ago, we met with a law firm that had been “holding steady” for years, a small, but solid group of attorneys with a solid book of business. They had always wanted “to do marketing,” but hadn’t known what to do. Their committee of two was open to being educated as to what marketing and public relations can and cannot do, they had a budget and they were ready to go. We aligned their firm business goals and expectations with a myriad of marketing/PR action steps, and within a year had made huge progress: A professional firm logo/brand, a full series of sales tools, including brochures and e-brochures, a new website that served as a business development tool, a new office in another state, speaking engagements that generated significant new business, business-to-business outreach with prospective clients, cross-selling newsletters, and on and on. They had always had the legal talent, now they have a brand presence to enlarge their number of clients, matters and profitability. They invested, and continued to invest, and are now reaping the rewards.

If you are part of a marketing committee, ask yourself a few questions. Does it have a clear mission? Does it have the power to implement? Does it seek advice and guidance from marketing and public relations professionals? Does it have a budget? Does your group actually do anything?

Anyone Can Do Marketing

 

Say, what?

“Anyone can do marketing.” Yes, it’s true. Anyone can do marketing. The problem is, being able to “do it” doesn’t equate to being able to do it well.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve met with a prospective client and had an exchange like this:

“Historically, what have you done from a marketing/public relations perspective?”

“Well, we’ve tried a little of X, and last year we did Y.”

“So, last year, for example…what did you do and how much was your marketing budget?”

“Well, we really don’t have a marketing budget, per se. But a radio sales rep presented us with an unbelievable radio package, so we did that…and we sponsored a table at the XYZ symposium.” Etc.

“So, all totaled up, you say you spent about $90,000 on various marketing initiatives last year, but you feel like you made no business growth progress?”

“Yeah, I can’t believe we spent that much, but I guess we did.”

That’s what happens without proper strategic planning, specifically for marketing a business or organization. There are so many “opportunities,” ways to spend or invest your marketing dollars. Whether you have a set budget or make it up along the way as “opportunities” appear before you, it sure makes sense to run those options against your specific business goals for the year to see if a given expenditure makes sense from an anticipated results angle.

You may like to tinker with cars, maybe even add a quart of oil when the Low Oil light goes on, but you leave the Check Engine light to the trained mechanic. You may think a “standard contract” from the Internet might be adequate for a business transaction, but then you thank your lucky stars when you have your attorney review it and ultimately save you from potential disaster.

It’s the same with marketing. You may be intrigued by some of the more exciting elements of marketing, but here’s a recommendation: Play a role, but don’t overdo it. It’s not only appropriate but encouraged, for clients to be involved with their marketing, particularly at a helicopter level. Give input, understand what initiatives are planned or underway, and see how it all supports the business goals. Be involved, but trust professionals with decades of education, training, and experience to do what they do best, while you do what you do best.

Don’t be the one who reflects back on the past year, realizing you had no strategy, no plan, and no results...yet you sure did “do” marketing.