The plan is never written in stone (pardon the pun); it lives and breathes, allowing for changes when new data comes in or new opportunities arise. Mapping it out ahead of time simply sets our primary direction, but it goes a long way toward reducing the intimidation factor.

For some clients, we have the privilege of planning full multidimensional campaigns that build over time on the successes of key components.  We often begin with the marketing activities that help create a presence for the company or product – perhaps brand identity (logo, tagline, positioning statement), key brand messaging and language, capabilities materials, website, print and online advertising, and press releases. The second phase may include activities that soften the market for business development or sales efforts – always leveraging relevant content development – email marketing, direct mail, seminars or community programs and social media.  Finally, we explore activities and materials that will be used to fulfill the inquiries generated by the new marketing efforts – maybe product- or market-specific sell sheets or product information, packaging, newsletters, blog posts and white papers.

For others, we’re tasked with creating one special element of their marketing or promotional material.  Even in that case, we ensure our work dovetails into the overall plan and the communications strategy. It often takes only a few moments to confirm that we’re on track, and that can make all the difference.

For a select number, Stone’s Throw provides virtual CMO support, functioning as the business’s marketing department.  As a Chief Marketing Officer would, we initiate and guide marketing plan recommendations and develop communications strategies that align with the company’s overall growth objectives.  As a marketing manager and department would, we also provide the creative services, design and copywriting, art direction, production and programming that bring the company’s marketing plan to life. From broad goal setting, to day-to-day marketing tasks, we work side-by-side with you to build forward momentum. It all starts with a plan, even if that means determining a few loose parameters now, and establishing more focused guidelines later.

Over the course of 30 years, we’ve had the privilege of working with many fine businesses and organizations.  Those most successful at engaging their target audiences —  and manifesting brand language that resonates with customers — have one important characteristic in common; they understand the power of planning.

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Perhaps I’m being a little too esoteric with this line, but that’s even part of the point. We are all inundated with information and data. News flows constantly. We can dip our toe in the news river or dive in head first just by looking at our phones or our watches. Wherever we get our stories, the newsfeed continuously scrolls from critical global events to celebrity fashion to laundry-folding hacks to cute puppy videos and back again. Some marketers’ ads look like they could be personal videos of a friend of a friend giving you earnest advice on vegetable storage bags, lash-lengthening gels, or gaming apps. As a marketer, how can you hope to be noticed in the midst of so very much? My thinking? Stay in your lane. Do you. Don’t meet the overwhelm. Know the problem you solve. Communicate it clearly, honestly. Know that your efforts represent something worthwhile for your optimal client…and tell that story. That’s enough. Be steady, authentic, and clear. In a world of overwhelm, being enough stands out.

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Whether traditional, national, or religious, holidays are a part of our shared experiences during the late autumn and early winter weeks. They also offer a built-in reason for business owners and marketers to reach out to clients and prospects. Is holiday marketing part of your business plan? Think about how a few holiday communications may meet your company’s marketing strategy.

Let’s get beyond the holiday card and email. (Although, let’s not forget them.) Will you count down to New Year’s Eve with a cool tip each day that you’ll post on social media?  Will your business sponsor a charity’s year-end festivities or a community playhouse’s December performances?

If you haven’t already, start planning. And, if you need a bit of help, give us a call. Happy holiday season!  Enjoy it all.

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Let’s turn back a few pages in time.

David Ogilvy, the British advertising innovator who came to wide acclaim in the mid-twentieth century, credited his success to deep and detailed research into the habits of consumers. He also created the concept of “branding”, linking the product and product name so tightly that it generated a loyalty to the brand. In his 1983 classic Ogilvy on Advertising, Ogilvy writes about storytelling: “Don’t write essays. Tell your reader what your product will do for him or her, and tell it with specifics. Write your copy in the form of a story, as in the advertisement which carried the headline, ‘The amazing story of a Zippo [lighter] that worked after being taken from the belly of a fish.’”¹

John Caples, another old-timey copywriting pioneer, developed advertising methods in the 1920s that suggested that using exact specifics (that means 52.7% rather than 50%) ensures your writing feels more authentic to your audience. In his groundbreaking book Tested Advertising Methods, Caples teaches how details help create a far more compelling and authentic story than vague statistics.² (Caples wrote the indelible ad headline, “They laughed when I sat down at the piano / but when I started to play!—” turning the universal fear of ridicule into effective storytelling that moved readers.)

Helen Lansdowne Resor, is not only credited as the first woman to design and implement national ad campaigns, she broke ground for women in the advertising industry (another story to tell there!), changing attitudes, minds, and business practices. Resor developed an editorial approach to her advertisements that read like a feature story, incorporating testimonials, emotional resonance, and carefully crafted descriptions of how the product benefitted the user. Resor’s 1911 copy for the Woodbury Soap Company is still quoted today: “A skin you love to touch. You, too, can have its charm…”³

These are just a few examples of copywriters who intentionally used the power of storytelling (and called it storytelling) to bring their readers closer…and all of them were writing nearly a century ago, once upon a time.

References:

1. Ogilvy D. Ogilvy on Advertising. New York: Vintage Books; 1983:81.
2. Caples J. Tested Advertising Methods (4th Revised Edition). New Jersey: Prentice Hall Trade; 1980.
3. Burn D. “Helen Lansdowne Resor, Ad Legend”. Adpulp Website. https://adpulp.com/helen-lansdowne-resor-ad-legend/ Published July 9, 2020. Accessed April 23, 2024.

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We start with content and the way that content is expressed. What voice is the website using? What is it saying to the visitor? What questions does it answer? What problem does it solve?

As we answer those questions, we can begin to see where the content of the website may need refreshing or revising. If we can’t answer the questions easily or clearly, or if the answers don’t align with the organization’s brand, intent, and audience, editing or rewriting may be necessary.

Basic content checklist

1.  Put site visitors first. Whether that means clients, partners, or donors, let them know what’s in it for them. What problem does the organization solve? What does the site ask of your visitors? If you’d like the website to be an effective business development tool rather than a backgrounder, focus your content on visitors’ issues.

2.  Differentiate quickly. Clearly identify your organization’s unique story early on. Don’t bury major points of differentiation too deep.

3.  Show what it’s like to work with you. Who are you and how do you partner with those who work with you? If your services involve providing detailed data, show some detail; if you’ve developed a product that eases suffering, give some signs of relief; if you’re all about communication, create a website that tells stories in your style.

4.  Meet standards. Ensure your site offers clean functionality, crisp content, a site index, a populated news and events section, working links, contact forms that respond…hit all the basics. Pro tip: Broken links turn visitors away.

5.  Ensure that the visuals match the story. Stock images that don’t illustrate your story, don’t belong on your website. Lovely generic office photos have their purpose, but not as the primary image on your homepage unless you’re selling interior design…and perhaps not even then. Pro tip: Strive for synergy between copy and visuals.

6.  Proofread. Everyone makes mistakes, but in business communications typos can kill confidence. Pro tip: If your goal is to work collegially to improve your organization’s online communication, you may not want to challenge anyone by pointing out typos and bad grammar in their website content, especially if they’ve written it. It’s tricky. It’s often easier to audit materials for strategic missteps rather than for typos. Getting the content on track strategically will give you the opportunity to smooth out any unintentional issues with tone, grammar, and typos that could otherwise undermine the message.

Following some basic communications guidelines should help you get more out of the process of refreshing your website’s content. For assistance auditing or refreshing your site, we’re just a stone’s throw away.

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Who are you, personally? How do others get to know you?

Whether we like it or not, studies continue to show that many people make some immediate assumptions about us based on our physical appearance and our sense of style (especially our shoes, apparently).* They understand even more when they hear us speak and listen to what we say. They compare what they see and hear to our actions – how do we behave toward our families? The community? We each shape our personal identities, knowingly or unknowingly, fairly or unfairly, through the choices we make and what we show the world around us.

Similarly, your company’s identity – how it’s perceived by customers, vendors and the community – is in great part defined by its look (branding), its language (communications) and its actions (behavior). It should embody your company’s mission and values. It should also have a memorable visual component and a clear voice.

When you see your company’s logo, read its tagline and core messaging, and review its print and online content, does it all reflect your company well? If it’s no longer in sync with where your company stands today (or where you’d like it to be tomorrow), perhaps it’s time to refresh or recreate your company identity.

Begin with a review.

Take your company’s temperature. Are all your key team members on the same page? A fairly quick way to find out is to ask your team to describe the company’s identity. Then, ask your clients about their perceptions of your company. You can accomplish both tasks with a short electronic or printed survey. Then tally up the results. Where do things gel? (Does everyone see your company as a trusted industry thought-leader?) Where do you find disconnects? (Does the executive team see the firm as a fresh and responsive problem-solver, while a few core clients see the company as an aging, albeit wise, traditionalist?)

Define your company vision.

How long has it been since you went through this process? Talk with your team about your company culture, your motivators and your goals for the future. What business are you in, and why? We find that asking these questions during a workshop-style meeting can yield very good results. Whether we help you facilitate the meeting or not, talking about what defines your business typically uncovers hidden obstacles and new thinking, and can clear the way for more than a new logo – it can clear the way for growth.

Develop a communications strategy.

What’s your business’s history? Who are your clients? What do you do for your clients that no other provider does? Building a strategy begins with asking the right questions and being brutally honest with your answers.

Keep your customers in mind.

No matter where the process of recreating your company identity takes you, ensure that everything you do focuses on your clients and partners. Test your results by asking: Will our ideal client understand our message and tone – immediately?

Case study: New Jersey law firm

Working with a well-regarded, ninety-year-old law firm, Stone’s Throw was able to help guide the process of rebranding, beginning with garnering communications strategy planning feedback from each member of the executive team. We then distilled the team’s contributions into a communications strategy summary that was used to build consensus and set guidelines for the creative. With the strategy approved by the executive team, we worked with a smaller marketing committee to set priorities and keep things moving. In so doing we worked closely with the law firm’s marketing director to create a new company identity, including logo, stationery system and collateral materials (firm overview brochure, practice area brochures and more). We helped foster understanding and enthusiasm among the entire staff by writing and designing communications that clearly explained the new company identity, how it would be implemented and why. Making the link between a new company logo (the company’s public face) and the company’s evolved culture and attitude toward its clients enabled the staff to rally behind the new identity.

* Studies cite height, weight, posture, grooming and clothing as some of the first filters people use to assess someone’s competence and trustworthiness (among other qualities).

© Stone’s Throw, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Set general goals for your social media activity.

• Increase website traffic.
• Grow an audience.
• Increase engagement.
• Build brand awareness.
• Generate leads.

Set goals specific to your organization.

• Increase contact us form submissions.
• Increase whitepaper downloads.
• Attract your target audience to a special event.
• Increase registrants for a seminar or conference.
• Garner more donations.
• Attract more qualified applicants.
• Earn new business.
• Grow email list.
• Leverage as a real-time channel for improving customer service.
• Increase video viewership.

For each goal, use the SMART framework – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely – or another goal-setting framework to help determine, record, and track expectations and achievement in a document or a preferred software program.

What does success look like?

For each goal, identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics (measurements) that will help show when that goal is reached.

General goal examples:

For a goal of growing social media audience, we would look to metrics that include:

• Follower count
• Impressions
• Post reach

For a goal of increasing website traffic, we would look to metrics that demonstrate conversion, like:

• Website analytics for social media referrals
•  Link clicks from social media post to website and/or blog

Look for correlations; ask questions.

In the two examples above, we would watch the numbers associated with each metric and their relationship to each post on social media.

• Do those numbers show more people have seen the post? Engaged positively or negatively with a particular post?
• Was that a positive performance based on our goals?
• Should we increase or decrease a certain type of post? At a certain time?

Watching the metrics assigned to these general goals tells us a lot. But increasing this kind of performance may not get customers, partners, or applicants close enough to the organization to begin the kind of conversation that leads to doing more of what your organization is built to do.

Specific goal example:

A goal of attracting more qualified applicants is an example of a social media goal designed to bring a segment of your audience closer to you, so close that you would be engaged in a transaction that supports your organization’s purpose. The metrics to measure the effectiveness of social media activity around this goal may include:

• Determining the criteria for qualified submissions
• Tracking the number of qualified applicants received daily and overlaying that with the timing of social media posts encouraging submission
• Tracking website analytics, click-throughs/referrals, post link clicks, and post-engagement metrics

We have to go outside the metrics provided by social media platforms or social media management software to understand the full story.

Beyond metrics: Listening for voice-of-consumer (VoC) data

• Social media metrics can help bolster decisions that have been made based on more traditional methods of collecting feedback from your audiences
  • surveys
  • feedback forms
  • roundtable discussions
  • interviews
  • process-related comments
  • content-related comments
• Be wary of relying solely on social media metrics to change course in business or communications strategy
  • does social media capture all of your optimal audience?
  • does your optimal audience use social media exclusively for its news and communications?
• Use social media to listen and learn beyond your own posts’ metrics
  • audit social media posts for topics relevant to your organization’s offering
  • audit your industry’s thought-leaders for their hot topics
• Despite its popularity, social media may not reach all of your market

What are you learning from your social media efforts?

Common social media terms simplified

New to social media?

Considering advertising on social media?

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A brand is a valuable asset and consistency improves brand recognition. In the past few months I’ve come across several companies and organizations that did not have style guidelines in place. There are multiple benefits to setting standards for how to display your brand look and feel. Deviations can confuse, contradict, or erode your brand, diluting the impact you’ve worked to achieve. Using style guidelines is a way to ensure that your brand image is presented with the quality you intend.

To start, catalog your logo, brand colors, typefaces, sizes, and preferred placement. Do you use an approved one-color version? Stacked or horizontal? One or two pages of general guidelines will help reinforce your brand mark and keep other team members on the same page.

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We may not find ready answers to these relevant questions by looking at the numbers provided by social media platforms and social media management tools:

• How can we look at social media metrics and understand how they translate into advancing our professional relationships or earning more business?

• Does engagement with a follower on Facebook convert to the submission of an application for employment, a consultancy project, or a contribution from a donor?

• What should we measure to give us a better idea of the success of our social media campaigns?

• How do we define social media success when it comes to our overall communications or marketing strategy?

Why measure?

Two words: budget and accountability. For some, social media can become a time eater. For some who pay to boost posts or advertise on social media, that time eater can also eat cash. There’s no “set it and forget it”.

We’re looking for correlations.

All social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.) provide basic analytics  for your organization’s social media pages’ performance, including measurements for post engagement, impressions, and click-throughs. Most provide those analytics through a dynamic administrator dashboard accessible by those who have been expressly authorized by the owner of that social media page.

Most subscription-based social media management tools, like Hootsuite, consolidate and overlay your social media activity across several platforms and individual social media profiles into one dashboard. Additionally, they suggest optimal future posting times based on computer-analyzed past performances of posts. By offering a consolidated picture of posts and post performance, management tools aim to foster efficiencies in scheduling and reporting. As social media features continue to evolve, social media management tools continue to expand their service offerings to remain useful.

For those of us not engaged in retail transactions, we must find the correlation between social media performance, other communications initiatives (advertising, direct mail, etc.) and our ultimate growth (transactional) goals (securing contracts, forming partnerships, increasing application submissions, etc.) to understand the effectiveness of our activity. To do that, we must also work outside social media management tools for the most meaningful analytics.

Common social media terms simplified 

New to social media?

Considering advertising on social media?

Copyright notice ©Stone’s Throw, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Post is the term used to describe a message (text and/or photo) published on social media by its users.

Newsfeed is the term used to describe the posts recently published by the people and pages a user follows (subscribes to). They can often be viewed by chronology (most recent) or engagement (most popular). A newsfeed often appears as the center column of posts on a social media page.

Social media metrics refers to using the data linked to an organization’s social media activity to gauge its impact. Metrics are simply points of measurement and they include data relevant to a social media profile and its posts: the number of followers (or subscribers) to the page, number of post likes, number of post comments, etc.

Engagement refers to how the public interacts with a social media page and its posts; it typically refers to shares, likes and comments. Reviewing and understanding engagement helps us determine how your content is perceived by your audiences. Users that view your posts may engage with your post, either by clicking on a small pictogram referred to as an emoji (for example, a heart or thumbs up), sharing your post to their own page, or commenting on your post or a post comment. Each social media platform offers different symbols for engagement, but they primarily function the same way.

Impressions is a term used for the number of people who have been shown the post in their social media newsfeeds, even if they did not engage with the post.

Click-through refers to the number of times users have clicked on a link in your post in order to navigate to another page on the Internet.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are the set of quantifiable metrics or measurements used to gauge effectiveness over time.

Why is there a kitty in this blog post image? Adopt a homeless pet

Copyright notice ©Stone’s Throw, Inc. All rights reserved.

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