Onward and upward

October 19, 2011 – It’s never been my nature to dwell on the past, when the future – always a bright siren call – beckons.

But today was our last day in what we at IHM affectionately refer to as “the Red Barn.” When I entered this morning, despite being totally focused on the demands of the day, without warning I   felt an unexpected and visceral rush of sadness because the transition to our new office was really happening. Leaving the Red Barn is a little emotional. The barn has been good to us. Ten years good.

In that space and time, a lot happened. We grew from 3 people to seven. Our kids grew from toddlers to teens. We watched 9/11 unfold on the office TV.  We struggled with, and then embraced, the new media that threatened to pull the rug out from under our business. We worried about the economy yet emerged a little more successful each year. We entertained clients and friends and tried to be good community members. As we grew, it was like adding to a family. Each new person became part of us, and IHM became inconceivable without them.

My Dad, well into his 90’s and a remarkable man, once said after my mom passed away: “Never Retreat.” I have always admired his forward thinking, and choose the same attitude for my own life.  And so, despite the thin layer of melancholy about time passing and leaving the memories and experiences of the barn, my real focus is on our future.

I’ve thought a lot about what this move means to us and to our clients. It’s not just relocation for more space. We are on the verge of change. Whatever that threshold is (and I have no name for it) where a small business moves way beyond its beginnings to become something bigger, something better – that’s where we are now. And when we enter our new space, and locate our boxes and computers and set up at our new stations, we will have passed over that threshold.

So, with a full measure of optimism, we forge ahead.

Art Appreciation

I was lucky to be raised by parents that valued the arts. For many years I took this for granted. It wasn’t until true adulthood that I realized how much the arts influenced me, or the impact the arts have on the world in general.

This is on my mind because my sixteen-year old daughter recently attended the Center for Creative Youth (CCY) summer program.  For five weeks she lived on the Wesleyan University campus and was taught, coached and inspired by professional artists in a variety of art forms.  The program included a “parent’s day,” so my husband and I – habitually weary from our daily responsibilities – drove to Middletown on a hot Saturday morning with expectations only to see our daughter and endure the day. Our visit turned out to be an experience so beyond expectations, and it has left a lasting impression.

The day was structured so that parents could experience the program much as their children do on a daily basis. So we moved from classes to performances to galleries; from my daughter’s sweet singing, to slam poetry, African dance and drumming, photography, sculpture, theater, rock and roll and a steel band performance. I have not spent a day so rich with inspiration in a long time.

The inspiration went beyond a parent’s pride, or an adult’s pleasure in watching young adults at their best.

I realized that although I work with talented, creative people every day, I don’t spend enough of my personal time exploring or experiencing the arts. Adult life has gradually directed my attention elsewhere. It seems each year that goes by, and as the business grows, I do less reading, less crafting, less theater going, and in general, spend less unstructured time following threads of interest or ideas.

I think what I am revealing here is something many people experience: life takes work and oftentimes we forgo the optional. But what our CCY visit reminded me was that the arts, although often elective, are not optional. The arts are an essential ingredient to a full and productive life. One single day’s visit to CCY stimulated more ideas, more thought, and more excitement for me personally than ever happens in a normal day. I left there more “engaged” and full of possibilities.

On the minute scale of a single life, I will translate that optimism to my personal and business worlds. If my experience – and the experience of others – can translate into stronger advocacy for the arts, perhaps we can make a small dent in ensuring that the arts have similar effect for good on a grander scale.

Awareness and a Bread Box

I love all the ways life and marketing intersect. And when you’re obsessed with marketing like I tend to be, there is never a shortage of these examples.

Like my new breadbox. For years, due to lack of appropriate pantry space, we have kept our bread in an open wicker basket on the counter, next to the fruit bowl and the coffee maker. A high profile spot in our kitchen. The wicker basket was always full to the brim because everyone in the family preferred a different kind of bread.

And I love bread. I’ve always worked hard to keep from eating too much of it. That is until the new breadbox. The breadbox is made out of bamboo that looks like wood and has a nice little roll top under which we can squeeze at least three different loaves. And guess what? I haven’t eaten bread in two weeks! Out of sight, out of mind!

It occurred to me that this is a perfect metaphor for how brand awareness works. The open basket of bread was a reminder of the goodies within, tempting me to grab some toast for breakfast, make a sandwich for lunch, or munch on a Fiber One roll before dinner. Advertising, like the open bread basket, simply reminds people of the choices they have before them. When there is no advertising, people tend to forget those choices, and possibly turn to other brands, or in my case, other foods, without giving it a second thought.

When I was giving up bread in favor of cashews, bananas and cheese sticks, it didn’t occur to me that I was making new choices. They were just easier to grab while the bread was out of site behind the role top.  And here’s the thing: I actually feel better without all that bread. The closed roll top – or lack of advertising – gave me an opportunity to try something new – a new brand – or category – of foods. And because of this I may have changed my habits for good.

It amazed me how easy it was to forget a food and a habit of eating it, simply because it was out of site. I can only surmise that my loyalty to bread was weak and made weaker by its lack of visible presence in the kitchen.  The metaphor continues: a brand, until firmly implanted in people’s minds and daily habits, needs fairly regular exposure. The cluttered world we live in, like my cluttered kitchen, offers endless choices, and its only natural to consider the choices that are most often right in front of us.

If only this would work for the ice cream in the freezer!

More on branding

From the Pond to the Frying Pan

I’m at the Marketing Prof’s Digital Forum in Austin Texas. I came a day early for the extra workshop on Social Media Measurement with Jason Falls. Jason is a social media strategist and a leading thinker in the field. And if there’s any doubt that he’s knows what he’s talking about, just Google him. He literally dominates the first three pages (almost four) of Google’s organic searches.

Here are a few of my major take-aways from today’s session:

1.     FaceBook is the pond. Your website is the frying pan. In other words, engage on FaceBook, blogs and other social sites but give people a reason (like a newsletter, free download, whitepaper, a tip of the week, etc) to go to your “owned” real estate – your site. Why? A number of reasons, but the most compelling: a higher rate of conversion when you engage first in social space.

2.     Selling investment in social media to the management team is challenging, so it’s critical to be clear about the goals of your social media program. Jason really clarified for me what we can expect social media to do (and not do). Here’s his list of the top six things social media can achieve (when done well):

• Protect your reputation
• Facilitate customer support
• Invite innovation
• Build trust
• Market through conversion
• Gather business intelligence

3.     ROI is not a valid measurement for social media. ROI is a financial metric and requires a financial transaction (and there are no financial transactions in social media – yet). We have to educate our clients on what social media can do (see #2) and then we have to use good social media measurement tools to provide feedback. Hopefully, we can monetize the social media investment. After all, senior management is not going to care about likes and tweets; they basically care about three things: Did we make money? Did we save money? Do people like us?

Above all Jason stressed the importance of starting with a strategic plan. This sounds basic, but in the real world I find many clients want to just do something in the social space.  So they jump into FaceBook or twitter without goals, without a content calendar and sometimes even without the appropriate resources to maintain a regular presence.

Without purpose, and the monitoring and measurement tools to see what you’ve achieved against goal, social media can be – just noise.

Check out Jason at socialmediaexplorer.com

The Center of It All

Marketing is an industry that continuously intersects with day-to-day life.  After all it is a reflection of our lives – our habits, our desires, and our relationships.

And there’s no better example of that complex entanglement than in the word of mouth that circulates among friends and within communities.

Pick a product or a brand or an experience and people are talking about it. And the power of that chatter is something every company wishes they could harness to their benefit.

Last week I experienced the power of word of mouth first hand. I was getting my hair cut at Craig’s, an institution of sorts in our small town.  Craig’s shop is an oasis from my daily stress, and the haircut comes with a lot of warm and friendly conversation.

It just so happens that Craig had been a shareholder of the First National Bank of Litchfield, which was recently taken over by Union Savings Bank (headquartered in Danbury). Like so many other locals that had long affiliations with First National, Craig accepted the reality of the merger, but with some sadness.

Two weeks ago the conversion of computer systems – from the First National system to the Union Savings system – occurred. If you had a business account at First National it’s likely that features of your account changed as a result of the conversion. I can say first hand that those changes can be irritating and time-consuming to a business owner.

I was no sooner in the door at Craig’s when he stridently announced to me: “I’m switching to a bank where I count!” His reference was to Litchfield Bancorp, and the new positioning that we created for them last year: Every Customer Counts.  At first I thought that Craig was just flattering me by recognizing our work. But in fact, he proceeded to tell me how he no longer felt as though he “counted” at First National (now Union), and was ready to take all of his business to Litchfield Bancorp, where he was sure that he would count. “How was he sure?” I asked him. I hoped that his perceptions ran deeper than an advertising tag line. And in fact they did. Every Customer Counts was to him, simply an expression of what he already thought about Litchfield Bancorp, and what he had been hearing for years in conversations with his salon customers.

While we were chatting, another customer at the next station piped in, angrily disparaging the changes that were forced on her as a result of First National’s takeover.

It struck me then what a pivotal role Craig has in influencing each of these bank brands. He is one of many ‘centers of influence’ in a small town where word of mouth is the marketing trump card. The power of the conversation happening at Craig’s salon, replicated many times over among the salon regulars, can truly impact gains and losses for the local banks. In this round the winner is Litchfield Bancorp: their message resonated with the community (and was in fact based on research), creating precious positive buzz. If they are successful at the point of sale, Craig may become an enthusiastic evangelist for the Litchfield Bancorp brand.

Our work

Thank You Seth Godin

Inspiration is e  verywhere, and today I found mine in an interview with Seth Godin that was posted after his keynote at the recent MIXX Conference in New York.  ( Seth’s Interview )

The interview is mostly about the concept of building tribes – as opposed to brands – all of which is in itself inspiration. But at the end of the interview Godin is asked why he doesn’t Twitter. His answer was basically: he wouldn’t be good at it. It’s not ‘his thing.’

I love social networking and it has brought an unparalleled shift (or revolution – depending on your perspective) to how marketing is done. And of course, just because I do marketing for a living it doesn’t mean that I embrace all of the new media for my own use. I don’t. I do not twitter. And aside from particular applications for which I think Twitter is the greatest thing since sliced bread, I otherwise have an aversion to the whole concept of twittering.

I can now come out of the closet, thanks to Mr. Godin.

I don’t twitter because I wouldn’t be good at it, and it would distract me from the things I am good at. I am good at running a small agency; I am very good at working with clients, and bringing inspiration and organization to their marketing efforts; and I am especially good at getting things done. (The latter being perhaps the most critical, yet most underrated skill in business today.)

Staying good at what I do well is already a challenge in an industry that is going through tremendous change, and a lifestyle filled with distraction. I choose not to add to that distraction – my own or others’. Nothing I have to say in a twitter feed will save anyone’s life or change the course of world events. To ask people to “follow me” would be a conceit so totally outside of my persona.

This is not a Twitter-bashing. On the contrary, this is about making good choices. (Another of today’s underrated skills.) Adopting new media simply because it’s there is bad business. It was tempting at first, and natural, to try out every Internet and social media tool that came your way. But now it’s time to apply judgment, and to determine what is appropriate for your brand and genuine to whom you are.

I’m not going to deplete my focus to become, as Seth Godin says: “a wandering generality instead of a meaningful specific.”  I know what ‘my thing’ is and I’m going to spend my precious time on getting better at it.

Perspective

By Wendy Gladstein

Last week my daughter and I were meeting family near my hometown, about an hour away from where we live now. We arrived early, so I decided to use the extra time to take a tour of my old neighborhood, and show her the house that I grew up in.

It had been a long time, and the shock of seeing the very familiar, yet totally unfamiliar, was unsettling. The “expansive” front lawn of my memory was all of about 12 feet deep. The 3 ½ block walk that I trekked 4 times a day to and from school, and which seemed arduous at the time, was all but a stone’s throw. The roaring “Rooster River” at the corner, where we spent hours tossing rocks and exploring its banks, was all but gone, hidden under the overgrown shrubbery.

Everything was essentially the same, but yet, nothing was the same. I had to pull over to take in the scene. Decades away from my childhood, more experienced and more traveled, and living in 4 acre zoning, the yard and streetscapes of my youth seemed tiny and oppressive. Clearly, it was my old house, my old street, my old neighborhood – but seen very differently through a new set of eyes.

That visit, and my reaction to it, has stayed with me for days. It is a most salient lesson on perspective, and a reminder to me that one’s perspective, or mindset, is fundamental to our work at IHM.  As I was contemplating this, I happened on a great AP article about the mindset of today’s college students. Talk about differing perspectives.

Its late August and we’re in the midst of developing campaigns for early fall launch, putting the finishing touches on websites that will soon go to market, and creating a number of fresh identities for clients. In the midst of this, I am reminded to make sure we take the time to stop and ask those most important questions: Have we done enough research? Have we heard, and accounted for, the voice of the customer? Will the messaging resonating with the end user?

That trip back to my old neighborhood was like a Marketing 101 refresher course: a poignant reminder to refocus on the essential: the customer perspective.

Feeling Groovy

By Wendy Gladstein

OK I may be dating myself with the title of this entry, but it’s my longevity in this business that makes me appreciate certain things more than others.

We do win awards from time to time, and that’s always nice. But we don’t spend a lot of time seeking them out. (Frankly, we’re just too darn busy to bother.) But having our work featured in an article in this month’s American Bankers Association Bank Marketing magazine? Now that makes me very, very happy.

The article showcases a branding project we did for Litchfield Bancorp. And it does a decent job of explaining some of the in-depth work that went on before the campaign was ever launched. It was the strategic work that the author was most interested in, and that’s the kind of work that I’m so damn proud of.

In-House Marketing and Litchfield Bancorp hold July/August issue

So, I’m popping my suspenders and feeling pretty groovy. I’ve got the best team anyone could ask for, the most amiable and collaborative clients, and now, a feature article in a national industry pub! Let’s pop the bubbly!

(download the article in full- marketing_mag)

A Unique Business Model

I am often asked the question: what’s different about In-House Marketing?  It’s easy to compare us to an ad agency because we offer many of the same deliverables. But that’s where the comparison ends. We are a marketing agency with a unique business model that has proved sturdy for 18 years. Here are 10 points of difference about In-House Marketing and why I think that they should matter to our clients.

1. Our mission is to serve the client’s business needs with strategic marketing solutions, no matter where those solutions come from.

Why does that matter to clients?

We ‘re not focused on advertising, or any single medium, as a solution. (Or for that matter, as a source of income.) Our toolbox is endless.

2. We are a company of marketing managers. (In the parlance of ad agencies, we are a roomful of account people.)

Why does that matter to clients?

Our total focus is on servicing clients. Period.

3. We outsource creative and production.

Why does that matter to clients?

Two reasons: 1) Every client has different needs: we’re not locked into using the same team on every job, and 2) it helps us to stay lean.

4. Because we’re lean, we have low overhead.

Why does that matter to clients?

We can offer a very reasonable fee structure because we don’t carry a lot of operating expenses.

5. Our process is totally transparent.

Why does that matter to clients?

We don’t represent our subcontractor work as our own nor do we mark it up. Clients always know who’s doing what, and what they’re paying for.

6.We are relationship focused, not project focused.

Why does that matter to clients?

We get to know our clients well enough so that we can help them anticipate needs and be proactive, not just reactive. This helps them with their internal constituencies. And since our compensation is not tied to specific media, we don’t try and sell them anything that is not in their best interests.

7. We can work with the client’s own internal resources.

Why does that matter to clients?

We recognize the talent and contribution that comes from the client and supplement the skill sets they already have. It’s more efficient, and more integrative.

8. We are small.

Why does that matter to clients?

There are no management layers to contend with, so we can be very nimble. And we have a unique “all hands on deck” mentality that emerges to get those high intensity jobs done, on time.

9. We are good planners.

Why does that matter to clients?

We have “zero tolerance” for surprises in costs or outcomes, because we don’t think clients should be surprised. Good planning eliminates the surprises that can break a budget or a relationship.

10. We are committed to continuous learning.

Why does that matter to clients?

Because it would be a disservice to clients if it were any other way. Social media may be today’s hot button. Tomorrow, mobile. After that, who knows? Best practices are being created every day.

Why am I so confident about this business model? Not only has it sustained us for close to two decades, we are now in a growth spurt. Our ‘lean and focused’ approach is right for the times. And if I can someday achieve my “big idea,” I think ours is a model that is eminently expandable.

Embracing change

May 4, 2010

I just finished watching Nightly News with Brian Williams, and like every other American, my heart is breaking for the people in Louisiana, who’s lives and livelihoods are at risk because of the oil spill. I can’t even think about the impact to the wildlife. But the thought that kept occurring to me while listening to the news was: would this oil spill have happened if – as a country – we had embraced alternative energy, say 20 or 30 years ago?

I don’t really know the answer to this hypothetical question, but I have found the tedious and ponderously slow acceptance of, and investment in, energy alternatives to be a symptom of a sentiment that can be seen on both small and large scales: resistance to change and fear of the unknown.

Change is hard. Thinking outside of the box is hard. Stepping out of a comfort zone is hard. Thirty years ago it would have taken great visionaries with immense political power to convince industry, and Americans in general, that someday very soon, we’d be safer and more secure if we developed cleaner and safer sources of energy. Finally we are moving in the right direction. Hopefully it is not too late.

What does this all have to do with marketing? In our world – perhaps a microcosm of the world at large – change is critical to survival. Embracing change, investing in change and harnessing change. In this decade, change is one of the things we count on most.

As a small business owner, it’s my job – in addition to being chief cook and bottle washer – to also wear the “visionary” hat. Daily I have to think outside the box and move out of my comfort zone, because if I don’t, I am completely convinced that my business would be at risk. I accept and seek out change because I know it’s what will keep us viable long into the future.

They say that small business powers this country. I believe it. And I’m inspired by some of our own clients who, in their own ways, bring vision and fresh thinking to their work, and a willingness to embrace new ideas.