“…the management of the marketingprocess can itself be a powerful differentiating device.”
--Theodore Leavit, Harvard Business School

Need to
reduce the
cost of
sales?

The MARCOM engine
is a systems approach to driving revenue by developing a market strategy in tandem with sales and marketing communications.

Other Solutions:
Need to reexamine strategies?
Need sales/marketing collaboration?
Need mentoring, troubleshooting?
Need to cut cost of sales?
Need relationship selling?
Lead flow problems?
Having an identity crisis?
Differentiation messaging weak?

PLANNING MODULES

AUDIT:
Marketing Audit studies the
product position relative to TALC,
a value proposition, whole
product analysis, distribution,
pricing, and competition.
Communications Audit
process starts with an
external audit to determine
if the company is speaking
to the market with one
voice and concludes with
an internal audit to avoid
breaks in a shared vision.

STRATEGY:
A Market Development Strategy
checklist is designed first, which is
followed by development of the
Communications Support Plan.

CREATIVE:
A creative repository is
developed, incorporating
Core Intelligence from the
Audit/Strategy modules and
Theme/Image standards,
which have evolved from
application of creative skills

EXECUTION MODULES

ARSENAL:
Construction of the Marcom
arsenal involves drawing from
the Theme/Image standards
residing in the creative repository
to build an integrated marketing
communications tool kit.

DEPLOYMENT:
With the complexity of media
choices available today media
strategy plays an important role.
And equally important as media
selection is the fine art of media
sequencing, particularly in the
launch of a new product or
branding initiative.

MEASUREMENT:
According to a study released in
October, 2004 by Patrick
Marketing Group BtoB
companies are demanding more
accountability from their
marketing programs. “Marketing
needs to drive sales results
measurably and predictably.”

Solutions

The MARCOM Engine^TM

What is a MARCOM ENGINE?

It evolved from experience gained as a sales/marketing communications consultant to the software industry over the past 30 years and blends the disciplines of Business Process Reengineering (BPR) and Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) as well as concepts from Paul Wiefel’s Chasm Companion (inspired by Geoff Moore).

It drives revenue enhancement by fine tuning the value proposition into the most compelling reason to buy, and by reducing the waste and inefficiency of the typical random task approach to marketing.

It consists of the six modules (shown below):
three for Planning (audit/strategy/creative),
and three for Execution (arsenal/deployment/measurement).

Why use a MARCOM ENGINE?

A. Presents a set of assumptions around which the Strategy Statement is built.
• Defines the target customer, compelling reason to buy.
• Defines “whole product”, partners and allies, distribution, pricing, competition.
B. Gets you to market faster because:
• Random task approach to marketing communications is eliminated.
• Cross-functional teams accelerate understanding and tactics.
• Parallel development of strategy is faster than sequential, speeding launches.
C. Cuts cost of sales, improves Marcom ROI:
• Compressed response times speed leads.
• Message retention is greatly improved.
• Message penetration is also greatly improved

Insights to the Planning modules
AUDIT
A Marcom Audit, sometimes incorporating elements of formal market research, will provide insights into what’s really going on in your market and your company. We can perform a Marcom Audit for you, or coach you through the process for doing it yourself. The Marcom Audit, both external & internal, are defined as follows:

THE MARKETING AUDIT, based on the teachings of Geoffrey Moore, include a study of your target customer, the value proposition from which evolves the compelling reason to buy, whole product analysis, partners and allies, distribution, pricing, competition, and systems positioning.

THE COMMUNICATIONS AUDIT comes in two flavors:
The External Marcom Audit is a review of your marketing communications, every single facet of it, from top to bottom! The Audit searches for inconsistencies in message and appearance. It searches for a lack of focus and continuity between what's promised and what's delivered. Most of all, it seeks to determine if the company is speaking with one voice; and whether the perception by the market matches the perception of management. And following this analysis, it offers suggestions for repairing weak links in the total communications chain.

The Internal Marcom Audit’s is to identify obstacles to the communications process among employees and vendors. Misunderstandings and communication breaks, which cloud the perception of a shared vision, need to be corrected. It’s important that a simple, focused understanding of the product's promise to its users be clearly understood by every employee, as well as a clear picture of the perception the company wants to possess in the marketplace.

Insufficient customer feedback on products and services?
The world of market research has changed dramatically over the past few years and the months-long mailing efforts and expensive focus groups are a thing of the past. There are many online resources for instant surveys and focus groups. One of the leading ones is www.greenfield.com but you may need us to coordinate the project . However, for information you may want to visit their site. There are many others as well.

STRATEGY

We can build a Communications Support Plans (CSP) for you, based on the IBM model, or we can show you how to do it for yourself. Why build a CSP?
Ted Leavitt, author of The Marketing Imagination, and Harvard Business School Professor suggests "... the management of the marketing process can itself be a powerful differentiating device".

The Objective: to set the stage for development of a creative platform from which the many tools of our marcom arsenal will evolve and be deployed. The Strategy: with the Marcom Audit in hand a strategy team reviews the broad business-plan-based strategies of senior management against the weaknesses of the current sales/marcom environment. Using this audit data and the business plan strategy team members develop detailed plans in the building of a comprehensive Communications Support Plan.

ON BRANDING: We analyze your present branding efforts and offer suggestions for improvements. To paraphrase IDG’s PowerBranding Seminar material of a few years ago we offer the following thoughts on branding.

I. What Is branding? Few things endure. Today’s breakthrough product is quickly eclipsed by the next innovation or lost in a sea of clones. That’s why companies that succeed over time build relationships with customers that transcend products. This is branding.

For a simpler definition:
• Companies make products but customers buy brands.
• A brand is the tangible product plus intangible values, associations and expectations attached to the product by the customer.
• Intangibles are shaped by customer experiences, messages (both controlled and uncontrolled), perceptions, beliefs, technical knowledge, features, attributes, and price.

II. Brand Image vs. Brand Identity. There's a simple way to sum up and understand the essence of the two terms… image is how the marketplace perceives you; identity is who you really are. Companies should focus on building brand identity as the driving brand strategy component. How do strong brands gain market power? Two key drivers to building brand strength are creating a distinct brand identity and developing a unique brand personality. Unfortunately, semantics often get in the way of understanding how these two factors can influence brand power.

CREATIVE

The Creativity module, third and last module of the Marcom Engine planning process consists of two key components: core intelligence & theme/image standards. This is the mixing bowl where the ingredients provided by the audit and strategy modules become core intelligence, and are blended with raw creative power to produce THE BIG IDEA (lightning bolt) which is the source of all communications energy and the basis for our theme/image standards.

We develop “big ideas” for your communications execution and share with you the creative process. Marcom planning and producing are great, but without the “big idea” you’re only halfway there. Technology marketing is a special challenge to the creative effort because of the diversity of benefits and the complex audience matrix involved. To succeed we look for stopping power but not at the sacrifice of relevancy to both product and corporate branding issues. To quote David Ogilvy, famed founder and creative head of Ogilvy & Mather advertising, “You can do your homework from now until doomsday, but you will never win fame and fortune unless you also invent big ideas.”

Why does the Marcom Engine preach integrated marketing communications?
Because repetition of emotion evoking messages is the only known way to assure penetration of the belief clusters that serve as cognitive dissonance filters. Because message retention is dependent on the use of a variety of input vehicles. And because pictures are far superior to words when it comes to altering the brain chemistry required of both penetration and retention. ...so if you're contemplating a boring visual, or an all copy message you're in trouble.

Insights to the Execution modules

ARSENAL
For those facing too many media options, you may need access to a media strategist. To quote Kate Maddox of BtoB magazine, “In today’s complex marketing environment, which requires innovative strategies to help break through the clutter and realize a return on limited marketing dollars, media strategists have increasingly valuable jobs”. Media planners are in high demand partly because of the challenge of working with smaller marketing budgets and because of the need to integrate messages across a range of media ranging from the traditional to online. Media planning is incredibly more complex today than it was a few short years ago. Keith is familiar with all of them and can guide you in developing an effective—and affordable—media strategy.

Specific sales and nontraditional marketing disciplines that we will explore will include the Internet, search engines, weblogs, virals, influentials, newsletters, the 90-day blitz, experientials, enhanced direct marketing and email as well as follow-up metrics such as the CMO Council’s Marketing Performance Measurements.

DEPLOYMENT
To quote Kate Maddox of BtoB magazine, “In today’s complex marketing environment, which requires innovative strategies to help break through the clutter and realize a return on limited marketing dollars, media strategists have increasingly valuable jobs”. Media planners are in high demand partly because of the challenge of working with smaller marketing budgets and because of the need to integrate messages across a range of media ranging from the traditional to online.

One of our offerings is the 90-Day Blitz we pioneered many years ago which works well as a quick fix for identity crises and also for inadequate lead flow. What’s the 90-Day Blitz? What is it? It’s a multimedia, lead generation activity based on response compression techniques. It is a fully integrated 3 month program that combines traditional media (print, mail, telemarketing, etc.) with electronic media (webinars, search engines, weblogs, email, micro-websites, etc.) to create a sense of event, which in turn produces a substantial flow of leads in a very short time with minimal commitment of financial resources.

MEASURES AND METRICS

Marketing Performance Measurement (MPM) is a strategic imperative and the number one focus of the CMO Council (www.cmocouncil.org) this year. A dedicated task force with the support of the MPM Advisory Committee is developing a standardized MPM model for the technology industry based on best practices, proven methodologies, qualitative and quantitative research, and consultant analysis.

The following paragraph represents the opening statement from the Marketing Measures and Metrics Report compiled by the CMO Council and presented June 29, 2004. This 16 page report is available free for asking. The full 227 page Marketing Performance Management guide is available for $2495.

A survey of the nation's leading technology Chief Marketing Officers reveals that the measurement of marketing performance and marketing's return on investment is a high priority. Few companies - less than 20% - to date have developed meaningful, comprehensive measures and metrics for their marketing organizations. Over 80% of the companies surveyed expressed dissatisfaction with their ability to benchmark their marketing programs' business impact and value. Yet those companies who have established a formal comprehensive measurement program achieve superior financial returns and have higher CEO confidence in the marketing function.

If you choose to explore this process we will work with you, the CMO Council, and the software companies providing the products required for implementation.