Inside every great organization, event, or cultural activity—is a finely tuned marketing strategy.

A finely tuned marketing strategy is one that resonates with selling the right goods/services, to the right people, at the right price.  While this concept sounds straight forward enough, the practice of it requires research, focus and an iron clad plan.  An effective plan requires strategy decisions regarding differentiation, competitiveness, pricing model, defined market segments, target audience, and a roadmap of how the plan will be rolled out. This roadmap outlines all the branding, positioning, advertising, and public relations activities necessary to fill the pipeline and capture market share.

Embella’s founders have first-hand experience with product commercialization having launched software, advertising and publishing companies over the past twenty years, and using arts and culture to foster economic growth. While some basic assumptions hold true for all great strategies—one thing is for certain—plans need to be flexible, tailored to the company, event, city, venue and to current market conditions. 

Embella offers experience, flexibility, and innovative thinking supported by research.  We don’t recommend strategic ideas for the sake of being clever or winning awards. If they don’t have the potential to drive revenue, we’re not interested.

Our strategies are designed to intentionally create measureable economic opportunities for our clients.  We utilize a broad array of in-house services to achieve successful outcomes including marketing, advertising, public relations, strategic planning, Web site design, photography, search engine optimization, blog development and maintenance.

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”

Marcel Proust

Isn’t it time for a new perspective?  Isn’t it time to look at your strategy for growth through “new eyes?” For more information about Embella, or to schedule a free consultation, contact Deborah Kaufman at 866-505-3400.

Some points you may not have thought about when it comes to advertising:

1. What do you have to say that matters to your customer? I’m your prospective customer. I know you want my business, but why should I care? What’s in it for me? Most ads are written under the assumption that the reader, listener or viewer has a basic level of interest and is paying close attention to the ad. But customers tend to ignore all ads that do not speak directly to them. Your first task is not media selection; it’s message selection.

2. Can you say it persuasively? Most ads are ineffective because the writer was trying to say too much, include too much and be too much. Fearful of leaving someone out, these writers write vague, all-encompassing ads that speak specifically to no one. “We Fix Cars” is a terrible headline for an ad.

3. Are you speaking to a felt need? Let’s say the “We Fix Cars” auto mechanic has a great deal of affection for older BMW 2002s. He knows that 2002 owners love their cars like few drivers on the road and that the only weakness of the 2002 is its evil Solex carburetor. Every 2002 owner knows this, too. So he writes the headline, “BMW 2002 Owners: Aren’t You Tired of Fooling With That Solex by Now?” In the body of the ad, he talks about the fabulous new Weber two-barrel carburetor now available for BMW 2002s, raves about how it dramatically increases performance and reliability, explains that he keeps these new Weber carburetors in stock at his shop, then names the price at which he will install and adjust that carburetor for you. He closes the ad by saying, “You’ll rocket out of here in a completely different BMW than the one you drove in.” If a list of BMW owners in your area is available for a direct-mail card (such as the list from the local BMW club), then a direct-mail card or flier would be the way to go. But if no such list is available, the newspaper might be a second choice. In either case, you’d want to include a large picture of a BMW 2002 to serve as a recall cue and help gain the attention of your target customer.

4. How long is your time horizon? Some ads build traffic, some build relationships and others build your reputation. If you don’t have the financial resources to launch a true branding campaign focused on building relationships and reputation among potential customers, you’re going to have to settle for traffic-building ads until you can afford to begin developing your brand. To what degree do you have financial staying power?

5. What is the urgency of your message? If you need an ad to produce immediate results, your offer must have a time limit. This technique will simultaneously work for and against you. On one hand, customers tend to delay what can be delayed, so limited-time offers generate traffic more quickly since the threat of “losing the opportunity” is real. On the other hand, customers have no memory of messages that have expired; short-term messages are erased from our brains immediately. Therefore, it’s extremely difficult to create long-term awareness with a series of limited-time-offer, short-term ads.

6. What is the impact quotient of your ad? How good your ad must be depends on the quality of your competitors’ ads. A .22-caliber pistol is a weapon against an opponent with a peashooter. But aim that pathetic pistol at an opponent holding a machine gun, and you can kiss your silly butt goodbye. How powerful is the message of the opposition? If your competitor carries a machine gun, don’t go where he goes. In other words, don’t use the media he uses.

7. How long is the purchase cycle? How long it will take your advertising to pay off is tied to the purchase cycle of your product. Ads for restaurants work more quickly than ads for sewing machines, because a larger percentage of people are looking for a good meal today than are looking for a machine that will let them make their own clothes. Likewise, an ad for a product we buy twice per year will produce results faster than an ad for a product we buy only once a year. Remember, a customer first has to be exposed to your ad often enough to remember it, then you have to wait for that customer to need what you sell. How soon will he or she likely need it?

8. And finally, not hiring a professional ad writer is often far more expensive than hiring one.

Standing out amid a massive chorus of competitors is a challenge for any company in today’s business climate. Want evidence? Look at any magazine, TV show or surf the Internet. The number of offers and sales pitches one receives on a daily basis is simply staggering and increasingly ineffective. It’s no wonder, then, why businesses and communities are seeking new and more effective ways of increasing the influence of their brand strategy in the marketplace. A strong brand strategy can increase the awareness of a company or community and its offerings in such a way that establishes strong feelings and reactions and a favorable view towards what you are trying to achieve. To create this sort of “brand awareness” in your market takes skillful brand strategy know-how.

Successfully out-branding your competitors is a continuous battle for the hearts and minds of your customers. The proposition your brand strategy makes must be very compelling, attractive and unique among competitive offerings. The proposition must also be consistently reinforced throughout all phases of an organization, from senior executives to customer service, research and development, business development and even your business partners.

What entails a comprehensive and effective “Brand Strategy process?” That’s a much longer answer than what we have space for here, plus it varies from industry to industry.

Brand Strategy is nothing new. Yet, the expectations consumers have for a product or service they buy is stronger than it’s ever been. This is why companies interested in long-term success must create the most promising, targeted brand experience possible.

Whether you know it or not, you already have a brand, and your customers are having a “brand experience” when they interact with you, whether it be with your products and services or the people in your company. In order to craft this “brand experience” in a calculated way that is beneficial for your company, you must have a strong understanding about what exactly a brand is.

If you’ve got some thoughts or questions about branding, feel free to ask a question, or leave a comment.

A public relations specialist is an image shaper. Their job is to generate positive publicity for their client and enhance their reputation. The client can be a company, an individual or a government. In the government PR people are called press secretaries. They keep the public informed about the activity of government agencies, explain policy, and manage political campaigns. Public relations people working for a company may handle consumer relations, or the relationship between parts of the company such as the managers and employees, or different branch offices.

The successful PR person must be a good communicator-in print, in person and on the phone. They cultivate and maintain contacts with journalists, set up speaking engagements, write executive speeches and annual reports, respond to inquiries and speak directly to the press on behalf of their client. They must keep lines of communication open between the many groups affected by a company’s product and policies: consumers, shareholders, employees, and the managing body. Public relations people also write press releases and may be involved in producing sales or marketing material. A PR person must keep abreast of current events and be well versed in pop culture to understand what stories will get the publics’ attention. It takes a combination of analysis and creative problem solving to get your client in the public eye. The content of the work is constantly changing and unforeseen challenges arise every day.

Web 2.0 at its most basic is using services on the Web. Some examples: Gmail for email, Flickr for photo-management, RSS for news delivery, eBay for shopping, Amazon for buying books. That’s why the Web is being called a platform - because all of these services are being built and used on the Web. Why Web 2.0 only now though - hasn’t Amazon been around since 1995? Yes, but it’s taken until 2005 for broadband and web technology to catch up and reach a ‘tipping point’ - the Web is fast becoming the platform of choice for developers, business, media, public services, and so on.

So what do I get out of this “Web 2.0″, you ask? The advantages of using the Web as a platform is that the services become more social and collaborative - and geographic boundaries are blown away. A lot of the content is actually created by users. For example all of the reviews and ratings entered into Netflix by its users help make it easier to find and filter the thousands of DVDs that are available on its website. Another advantage of using the Web as a platform is that services can be built using data and code from other services - for example Housing Maps is a “mash-up” of Google Maps and real estate listings from craigslist. So Web 2.0 provides services that people can contribute to as well as mix and match.

Bottom line is content - Web 2.0 allows you to give a much richer and wider content experience to those who are interested in who you are and what you do.