FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Washington, DC – Stone’s Throw, Inc. is proud to announce its recent certification as an LGBT Business Enterprise (LGBTBE^®) through the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce (LGLCC) Supplier Diversity Initiative. The NGLCC is the business voice of the LGBT community and serves as the nation’s exclusive certifying body for LGBT-owned and operated businesses.

“We are so pleased to welcome Stone’s Throw to the ever-expanding network of NGLCC certified LGBT Business Enterprises and the hundreds of corporations and government agencies eager to put them to work”, said NGLCC Co-Founder and President Justin Nelson and Co-Founder and CEO Chance Mitchell. “According to NGLCC’s groundbreaking America’s LGBT Economy report, America’s estimated 1.4 million LGBT business owners, many of them NGLCC certified, add over $1.7 trillion to the GDP and create tens of thousands of new jobs. We are proud to count Stone’s Throw among those who prove every day that LGBT businesses are the future of the American econonmy.”

Stone’s Throw is now eligible to participate in the NGLCC’s corporate partners’ supplier diversity programs, can take advantage of the vast educational opportunities promoted by the NGLCC, and can work to foster business-to-business relationships with other LGBTEs.

Stone’s Throw Partner Janice Mondoker said “Certification as an LGBT Business Enterprise represents a big step in any business’s journey toward greater authenticity. We are proud to be aligned with others who also recognize this step as creating more opportunities to work toward equity with compassion and excellence.”

About Stone’s Throw, Inc.

Established in 1991, Stone’s Throw is a marketing communications boutique providing consultation, copywriting, and design services for complete programs and individual projects that range from advertisements, brand identities, websites and online content, and capabilities materials.

Whether creating a single promotional piece or an integrated marketing campaign, all marketing communications efforts benefit from planning.  Of course that planning might take place in a very compressed time period (“You need that by tomorrow?”), but experienced marketers consider brand, positioning, communications objectives and audiences (among other factors) before they ever put pencil to paper or cursor to blank screen.

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.

We’ve all seen extremely reputable, high-quality news outlets post headlines with typographical errors to their social media accounts. How can that happen? Where are the brand standards we’ve come to associate with that organization? Do users no longer care about errors and typos if they don’t actually obscure the intended meaning? What if they DO obscure the intended meaning? Do these sloppier posts erode the brand? Clearly, we have some questions.

In a conversation with several well-reputed colleagues recently, they revealed that they were thinking about hiring “younger” people to run their social media accounts with the assumption that younger users had the inside track to mastery of all things online. The organizations were actively looking for entry-level employees at entry-level salaries so executive team members could continue to focus on operations and business development without having to get involved with social media at all. The inappropriate age prejudice aside, there’s an uncomfortable dissociation between social media and brand communication revealed here. This attitude also undervalues the critical importance of social media to our communications (why entry-level?). Unfortunately, this mindset begins to answer some of our questions above, especially “How can this happen?”.

With a few adjustments to this hands-off and leave-it-to-the-newbies attitude toward social media posts, everyone can be satisfied and brand quality can be maintained, even enhanced.

If we consider post content separate and apart from the act of posting (think publishing), social media can get the careful attention and quality control it deserves. If we ensure that social media managers, especially entry-level hires with little business experience, fully understand the brand and speak it fluently, we can safely use social media to bolster our brands. When hiring inexperienced staff to run social media, go even further: institute a process that supports brand adherence and quality — a process that simultaneously supports social media managers and provides the scaffolding the brand needs to excel on the social media platforms that align best with its brand and its customers. Go ahead and plan posting activity; write posts; and, circulate the plan and the content for review and approval so your organization’s posts aren’t hitting your followers’ newsfeeds before you’ve seen them. Keep a strong connection between social media and your core business builders (business development, marketing communications, sales, human resources…). With a schedule of approved posts, our social media mavens can focus on doing what they do best: getting our brands in front of the most appropriate audiences to encourage greater engagement.

These questions may help you collect and organize the information necessary to write a compelling two-page service sheet that can be used to support sales conversations with prospective customers:

Matter for the front:

What is the brand or marketing name of this service or service package? Be consistent across all mentions. Make it easy for customers to identify it.

What is the primary (or overview) benefit to the customer?

What are the individual features to the service offerings? When describing each, lead with each feature’s benefit(s) to the customer. This is not a technical spec sheet. Talk briefly about why these features matter to the customer.

What are the challenges faced by the type of customer who would benefit from this service? Provide a few sentences about why this service package assists the customer in overcoming those challenges.

Provide something extra. Briefly describe an emotional benefit to the service package, a key insight unique to the customer’s industry, or a snippet from a customer testimonial.

Matter for the back:

Why is your company uniquely positioned to understand the challenges your customers face? Here is the place to review the benefits described on the front in a broader context or pull in your company’s history with this particular service or the customer’s industry.

Cross sell. List other services your company provides and the industries that benefit from them.

Provide an invitation to discuss how this service package may help the customer.

Be sure to include your branding identity/logo, company tagline, call to action, contact information, company descriptive, and trademark and copyright notices as appropriate.

Building the character of the creative –

When it comes to ensuring that we create on-target marketing materials, my partner and I have always employed what has been called the Q Strategy.  We build a company backgrounder, craft a communications strategy, and then judge all creative by that strategy before presenting it to the client. We gather most of the information needed for this process by questioning the client’s marketing manager or business development director, and other key personnel or decision makers.

Surprising to some, tone often trumps “features, advantages and benefits” when it comes to manifesting the client’s compelling story from lists of marketing objectives. Yes, preliminary conversations with clients often center around how a product or service increases the good stuff, decreases the bad stuff, and does it all more effectively and efficiently.  This is necessary and informative.  But clients really come to life, and the story begins to take shape, when we start to talk about tone, personality, and the single most important feeling they want their customers to take away from their new messaging.  In fact, it’s during this part of an input meeting when I often sketch concept ideas and write the first lines of rough copy in the margins of my notepad.

Several years ago, an article exploring this process was published in a few industry publications, including “Creative New Jersey” and the “Art Directors Club of NJ” newsletter.  It was written by Joe Napurano, a very well-regarded art director and co-owner of BallottaNapurano & Co., Inc. (established in 1978).  Joe happens to be my father, as well as a personal and professional inspiration.  Here is the original author’s edited excerpt:

Client relations and the process of creating an ad

During a client-agency creative session back in the 90s I listened intently as my client was describing the “type” of advertising he thought would work for his company.  Later, when I examined my notes, I found his list of descriptive words numbered over three dozen.  Many of them contradictory:  something awesome, something soft-sell, something clever, something technical, something humorous, etc.

What occurred to me is that there are many ways to create effective advertising, but very often it is the character of the ads that gets the client’s nod or the wastebasket.

Over the years, for fun, I’ve compiled such a list.  True, most of it can be chronicled in the Cliché Hall of Fame, but for what it’s worth – use it, add to it, be awesome at your next stalled, input session – or slick, or clever, or shocking, or informative, or solemn, or nostalgic, or tough, or humble:

•  Lighthearted

•  Dramatic

•  Conservative

•  Copy-ish

•  Short-copy

•  Long-copy

•  Lotsa White Space

•  Straightforward

•  Beautiful

•  Atmospheric

•  Technical

•  Institutional

•  Entertaining

•  How-to

•  Advertorial

•  Informative

•  Hard-working

•  Educational

•  Testimonial

•  Expensive-looking

•  Product-oriented

•  Brag and Boast

•  Pun-oriented

•  Visually Stunning

•  Deadly Serious

•  Self-effacing

•  Hyperbolic

•  Hokey

•  Image-building

•  The Business Week Ad

•  Corporate

•  Directory-like

•  Show-stopper

•  Comparative

•  Competitive

•  A Puzzle

•  A Toy Analogy

•  Belligerent

•  Little Guy vs. Big Guy

•  The Nice Guy

•  Shocker

•  Co-op

•  Authoritative

•  Cartoony

•  Comic-bookish

•  Futuristic

•  Old School

•  The Industry Standard

•  Nostalgic

•  Tough Talk

•  The Very Big Photo

•  All Copy

•  The Motherly Ad

•  Special Effects

•  Borrowed Interest

•  Very Big Type

•  All Headline

•  Punchline

•  Bottom Line

•  Return On Investment

•  Cliché

•  Capabilities

•  Double Meaning

•  Patriotic

•  State of the Art

•  The Negative Approach

•  Scare Tactic

•  “We Can Help You”

•  “We Exist For You”

•  Play on Words

•  A Series

•  The Reasons-Why List

•  Guarantee

•  Did You Know These Facts?

•  You Shouldn’t Have To Put Up With This!

•  Emotional

•  We’re Smart

•  Sports Analogy

•  No-Nonsense

•  Handcrafted Quality

•  Our Commitment

•  Slice of Life

•  Executive Biography

•  Artsy

•  Put-up or Shut-up

•  Excellence Unequaled

•  Let Us Show You Why We’re Good

•  We Are on the Job

•  Case History

•  Brand Identity

•  Sell the Sizzle

•  Tongue-in-cheek

•  Don’t Be Fooled

•  Call-outs

•  Coupon

•  Free Stuff

•  Introductory

•  Grainy B&W Photos

•  Journalistic

•  Old World Craftsmanship

•  In the factory photos

•  Everything You Wanted To Know

•  Celebrity Endorsement

•  Animal Analogy

•  Leader of the Industry

•  Industry Pioneer

•  We Invented It

•  We’re Small But Better

•  We’re Big But We Love You

•  Real People

All my best,

Deanne

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

That can be especially true for marketing, sales, and communications materials. One project that often slips to the bottom of the to-do pile during prime time is the hardworking case study.

Sales teams love case studies because they help prospective customers visualize the benefits of working together in a real-world example. Case studies serve as testimonials, services run-downs, and, if well-crafted, compelling advertisements that help elevate your reputation. They also provide plenty of opportunity for repurposing: launch them as blog posts; send them as emails; make them available as PDFs; print them and package them with leave-behinds and proposals; and, of course, serialize them across your social media accounts and newsfeeds. Case studies show off what your company does best.

If we’ve inspired you to create a couple new case studies for your team, here are a few tips to keep in mind:

Develop a template that reflects your brand and key objectives. Following your own style guidelines will help unify the look and feel of the case studies, fortifying your brand and core messaging.

Focus on the primary customer benefit of working with your company. Don’t shy away from the emotional impact of the project. Help readers understand why saving time was essential to your customers because with more time they could focus on improving service to their customers, for instance.

Decide which is most important: the customer industry or the bundle of services your team delivered. Direct the case study into that lane so you and your sales team can get the most use out of it. If you want to employ it with both audiences, write it two ways and create two different studies. Don’t try to accomplish both with one; you’ll muddy the intention.

Break the story into a few major categories.

Answer the questions:
• What was the problem, challenge, or assignment?
• Why were you brought onto the project?
• What was your unique approach to finding a solution?
• How did the customer benefit?
• How did the customer’s customer benefit?
• What details made a substantial difference?
• Why is this case study of interest to anyone else?

Ask every contributor the same questions. If you’re getting information from different resources from inside your company, provide each with the same short questionnaire. This way, you’ll find it easier to create similarity between content flow and depth of detail.

We can help.

If the timing isn’t right for you to start work on your case studies, we’ve got you covered. In short order, we can get you geared up with shiny new case studies that your team will want to use. Send us an email or give us a call.