Cut to the Core

Mindful Marketing Practices Are on the Rise

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do You Craft Meaningful Communications for Your Stakeholders?

Companies, once the vital backbone of our communities, provided opportunity, stability and security and were regarded as good citizens that would act in the interest of the communities they served.  However, no one can deny that customers no longer automatically confer to companies the trust they used to command. Much has been written about the breakdown in this trust, once such a very valuable goodwill asset. Regardless of the arguments of theorists, one way or the other, about how to fix the problem, the final analysis is the same. At the very least, customers must consider communications from your company credible in order for those communications to stir them to action. Therefore, restoring confidence in corporations requires a new approach. 

 

Is your company communication style outdated?

Long gone, in fact, are the ‘old school’ days of company communications. You can no longer market to customers solely on the basis of their status as consumers of your product and service. You can no longer generate public press exclusively for company shareholders. And you can no longer focus policy and performance communications toward employees only.  Especially long gone are the days where effective messaging included communications that were extensions of the old corporate paradigm. That paradigm used selected messages, such as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), conceived by the public relations department for the sole purpose of creating a positive “halo” around the company. The problem was that such messages did not always represent the fundamental core values at the organization, nor did they always represent true changes in company policy or purpose.

 

How do you need to communicate instead?

Remember that the availability of today’s technology can open all the “back doors” at your company. Such access can allow stakeholders to document and to share all kinds of information about your company over vast media channels. Therefore, it is only a matter of time before the core values of any organization are made transparent to the marketplace.

Mindful Marketing takes care of such concerns! As a first step, Mindful Marketing has you take stock of the core values that are the true cultural DNA of your organization. You will then use those values to craft your communications so that they document your core, i.e., the values that really count to you and to your company, the values that will connect your company to your clients and your customers in a very substantial and valuable way.

A Mindful Marketing Model of communications will sustain your brand over time. It will also build the trust level that is so necessary to ease transactions between your stakeholders and the communities in which your brand has impact and relevance.

 

Key Point – Once they are identified and established, a company’s core values facilitate the crafting of consistent communications across sectors, industries, markets and audiences that are authentic and credible stakeholders in that company.  Company communications about your core values help bridge any of the gaps between the various roles (i.e. employee, customer, investor) that stakeholders may have in relation to your organization.

 

Craft Your Company Vision as the Destination of Choice for Your Clients

How do you manage your clients’ experiences so that your clients are placed “on track” to the best possible result? How do you align your processes to ensure satisfaction during their “journey” (as they investigate or use your service or product) and as they arrive at their “destination” (become a consumer of your brand)?

Why not let your company vision serve as the “train track” that leads the client through the stages of consumption and purchase of your brand? To successfully write a vision statement that helps accomplish a “smooth ride” and ensures “arrival” to the perfect experience for your clients, make sure to include what you and your brand:

* Produce – so that they can assess its potential value in their business outcome.

* Promise – so that they have a way to set expectations for their experience.

* Deliver – so that they have a means to make a purchasing choice.

In order to create as close to 100% satisfaction at every point of contact your client has with your brand, a vision statement should answer the following questions: “In a perfect business environment, how do I want my service and/or product to perform?  What kind of experience do I want to create for my client?

What makes a compelling vision statement?

A successful vision is structured in such a way that the vision causes you and your clients to think, to feel and to act. Remember, in selling situations, people usually think through their values first, are then influenced by feelings or beliefs, and finally make a decision to purchase. If your vision statement, then, helps to justify your clients’ values, makes them feel good about the connection between those values and your service or product, they will be compelled to make that purchase.

Read my discussion on your vision’s close strategic association with your mission: “Use Your Company’s Values as a Measuring Stick for Its Performance.“

Send an e-mail message to maria@koreaccess.com today for an opportunity to receive a 20-minute free MARKETING BREAKTHROUGH consultation, with me!

Barter Your Way to a Better Bottom Line

One of the results of the current credit crunch is that bartering, the direct exchange of goods and services among and between providers and producers, is on the rise. To get in on the transactions, you can join the company of many others in “Big Business” and barter via online communities, through corporate barter companies and through one-on-one negotiations. This can be especially beneficial when you have product that does not move or becomes out-dated. Instead of scrapping the inventory, using distribution channels to sell it at deep discounts or writing it down to sell to liquidators, you can barter your inventory for trade credits or product exchanges—at either wholesale prices or book value.

If you have a company that offers services, you can also take advantage of the barter boom. To do so, just join a trade exchange to begin participation in multi-lateral or one-on-one exchanges.

Barter exchanges and clubs got started in the 1970’s and have grown in number to over 500 professional associations. That means you should have an exchange near your place of business. One of the key benefits of such exchanges is that their accounting methods are very simple. When you perform a service, you earn trade dollars that are equivalent to cash dollars. You can then simply redeem your dollars among any of the participating exchange members.

Bartering is a time-proven method to acquire what you need without the exchange of currency. Additionally, the barter system allows you to develop strong business relationships and to enhance the value of your community.

The Last Blog Post

Today, I offer you, as my very last blog post on Cut to the Core, a question. I ask the question with the hope that it serves as one more seed you can plant to help you focus your attention and your efforts in ways that will have a meaningful impact on your colleagues and clients and their marketing success. Just as Randy Pausch, Carnegie Mellon professor and father of three, wrote The Last Lecture because he wished to inspire the best from his students and to impart his beliefs to his children, I too wish to inspire my fellow business colleagues.

 

My one question: “In which instance have you used your skills to their best advantage in order to have a radical impact on a client’s outcome?” When you answer, I challenge you to acknowledge the outcome as being worthy of you as a professional. After all, whatever your answer, whether the impact of the outcome was big or small, whether you assisted one client or many, your professional talents and skills materially changed the future of your client for good. I would further suggest that you consider the outcome a meaningful encapsulation of the reasons you have chosen and practiced your craft!

 

As marketers, we aim to create major changes in a company’s success through our marketing efforts. Sometimes the client’s or customer’s wish is small—the desire to enjoy a better “widget”—and sometimes it is an important dream—being introduced to the right treatment for a serious illness. If we, as marketers, help a brand to flourish, we not only help make the business owners’ dreams come true, by propelling their enterprise toward success, we also help to satisfy the desires and needs of their customers.

 

I have actually had this post written for several years, thanks to my editor, Linda Wasserman of Pelican Press. She forwarded The Last Lecture to me in an e-mail and shortly afterwards gifted me with the book. “Enabling the Dreams of Others,” a section in both the lecture and the book, has touched me professionally ever since.

 

Acknowledgement for  “The Last Blog Post”

Thanks to MECLABS Primary Research for suggesting the powerful idea of publishing a “last” blog post. I look forward to searching all the #LastBlog tweets of my fellow marketers. I will also enjoy the sharing and community building that this joint effort will create.

Plan. Prepare. Practice.

Plan. Prepare. Practice. Do you faithfully take these three steps to produce great client presentations? As a professional, you work with dedication to establish your value and to earn an invitation to meet with your client. Using that same dedication to prepare for your face-to-face presentation is critical to your success. Make sure you deliver on your promise of superior service and provide the value that your client expects. Improve your presentations to increase the close ratios of your sales.

Companies Must Focus on Sales Pipeline Closing Ratios

A face-to-face client meeting is the opportune time to determine what value you can add to a client’s organization and to determine if they are a best-fit for your company.  By quantifying the potential you offer each other at the beginning, and by continuously reviewing the status of each lead throughout your sales pipeline, the relationships you develop with your prospects can be managed effectively toward the outcome they desire: a predictable increase in sales. Therefore, if you make the investment to qualify prospects (which includes referring an unqualified lead to another professional) and to manage performance—you, too, will reduce the unpredictability of your monthly cash flow.