communications - Artful Thinkers

June 28, 2017June 28, 2017

Clarity is Key to Communicating Purpose

Purpose is defined by ambitions, actions, plans and principles. In business, our purpose is revealed through communications, both intentional and unintentional. What we say is who we are, in perception and reality. The words we choose to share in describing ourselves, our businesses and our outlook, illustrates our purpose.

Simplicity empowers the communicator. Simplicity frees the recipient from interpretation due to a lack of clarity. Complexity in content and message strangles good communications. Complexity will often leave your audience lost in intent and making assumptions in purpose and desired outcomes. Simple and clear direction produces higher quality results.

Clear and concise messaging is the key to convincing others to take action. It is no secret, business leaders are often frustrated by the lack of understanding when they “feel” they provide explicit direction or orders. The frustration comes from the failure of communications, which is often caused by lack of clarity. The associated business risks and costs of failed communications can be astronomical depending on the purpose and use. Bad communications can negatively impact revenues, growth, relationships and confidence.

Clarity improves connection and engagement because it increases trust and transparency. Clarity exposes purpose by unveiling expectations. Clarity tells people exactly what you want.

“Clarity is power.” Anthony Robbins

Testing your message reduces misinterpretation and failure in communications. Here is a quick way to test your clarity. Share one sentence with no less than 10 words and no more than 15, with a person or group. After delivery, ask that they repeat it back to you verbatim. What were the results? Are you surprised by the fact some won’t recall “exactly” what you said? Now really test your clarity, ask them to tell you what you wanted based on that sentence. Did they properly interpret your expectations and purpose?

Communication success if often defined by how close we reach an audience. Sampling tests will identify if there is clarity or your audience has a “gist” of what you are trying to say. A clarity test is a also way to show understand how people will imply their own assumptions, listen selectively and interpret the message. This presents a clear and present danger for the person delivering the message, which is why critical communications need good testing protocols.

Know your audience and set your own expectations as the communicator. Humans are not skilled in being great listeners. We also have very active brains, myriads of distractions and sadly our attention spans are less than goldfish. Yes, that is actually proven through science. Microsoft reported in a 2015 study that people now generally lose concentration after eight seconds, while goldfish can focus for nine seconds. Your message has to cut through a lot of noise to be heard, no matter the content format. Clarity makes a difference.

Definition of Clarity: Clearness or lucidity as to perception or understanding; freedom from in distinctness or ambiguity.

Seven Tips for Creating CLARITY in Communications

Concise messaging improves connection; be brief and succinct
Laser-focus on anticipated actions and intentions
Ask specifically what you want without ambiguity
Results orientation informs your audience on how you will measure success
Identify how you will measure the impact of your communications
Target your message to your audience
Yes responses confirm agreement in understanding and expectations

Another valuable bit of advice from a practiced marketer, avoid the noise. Using hyperbole and jargon complicates the message. Ideas will be lost in translation. Simplicity improves clarity. Concise communications boost understanding and retention.

Definition of Assumption: a thing that is accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof.

Never assume. “They didn’t get it.” “That’s not what I meant.” “You don’t understand what I’m trying to tell you.” Have you ever felt this type of frustration after delivering what you thought to be very clear communications? Communication is tricky. It’s an art. The biggest mistake made in business today is assuming others will clearly know what you are asking and what you want.

For critical communications, it is important to follow through with post analysis. The results may require sharpening the messaging or providing clarifications to ensure the message is clearly understood.

Who is to blame? When there is no clarity, the communicator often blames the audience for not understanding. When in fact, it was really just bad communications that produced unintended consequences. There was simply a lack of clarity. The owner of the message owns the results.

Let’s be clear, clarity of intended expectations will sharpen a message and improve delivery. Clarity reduces frustration resulting from perceptions and judgement. No matter the content type, whether corporate communications driven from the CEO or marketing campaigns to draw in new prospects, say what you want with clarity and purpose. You’ll be happier with the results.

Jamie Glass, CMO + President, Artful Thinkers, a sales and marketing consulting company.

April 6, 2017May 10, 2017

Empowered Voices Define a Brand Experience

Empowered customer and employee voices are in control of your brand’s future. This empowered voice is no longer an interesting phenomenon exposed through nascent channels that allow for reactive PR pros to utilize carefully constructed “just-in-case” responses based on dusty old crisis communication plans.

Customers and employees have an incredibly high-level of power to influence marketability and brand value today through their shared experiences.

Are your prepared to react? There are multiple examples this year of how global brands get easily swept up through social engagement in reaction to reported experiences and affiliations.

One tweet, one blog, one video, one ad, one review and the next thing you know the company stock is tanking, advertisers are fleeing, millions of people are boycotting the company, and news chyrons are highlighting the customer experience as breaking news. What used to be analogs in communication and public relations textbooks, are now daily case studies in crisis management. Brands are not in control.

Ready. Aim. Fire.

Today, major organizations must think like the military – ready to respond within a second’s notice. Brands must actively listen and monitor all communication channels, and provide global surveillance around-the-clock. They must also be fully prepared to act in real-time to a variety of scenarios across multiple mediums, whether it be from a customer complaint or association to another “brand” in crisis.

The voice of the customer is at its highest value today due to the nature of how information is shared through media channels.

A customer’s experience has incredible power and in an instance can dramatically impact a company’s value, negatively and positively. Brands need to be prepared with every scoped out “what if” scenario and shared with all those that will go on active duty when “it” hits!

Whether capitalizing on a positive experience like Kohl’s branding of the Chewbacca Mask Lady, or reacting to the global negative perception of Silicon Valley employment practices resulting from Uber’s former employee detailed experience of discrimination that was shared on a blog, companies today are forced into action through other’s experiences. Customers and employees know they have unique powers today that require global brands to stand up and take immediate action. And they are using this power to their advantage.

The customer experience voice has unyielding power and is putting ill-prepared companies on their heels and at risk.

Failure to react has great consequences. Time is not on the side of the brand. Marketers must be fully prepared and crisis management action plans need to be reviewed and updated on a regular basis to ensure there is a timely response to all types of customer experiences. There are no excuses and no forgiveness will be given by those in power – customers and employees.

There are consequences to failed responses. Beyond the enormous financial exposure to revenue and profits, it also can impact a company culture, ability to recruit top talent and long-term market sustainability in a very competitive marketplace. It is all at risk with every shared experience.

No organization today can take for granted the power of the customer voice.

The ability to take advantage of good publicity provides a little more flexibility to capture the upside. Leadership will turn to those in charge of communication for the failure to respond and act appropriately to anything negative, so put your plan in place today.

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. – Benjamin Franklin

Time is the enemy in a crisis, no matter the scale. Today’s cycles can often be at tornado wind speeds that grow in exponential exposure within minutes. It is inherent in our constant feeds of news and information. There is nothing that can stop it, so it is imperative that an “emergency response team” be in place to act swiftly in response. This is where a crisis communications strategy has it’s greatest value.

Don’t underestimate the value to the company of a well-defined crisis communications plan.

The idea of putting together a plan may seem fairly simple; however, they are often very complex and require time and resources to properly construct. The investment will pale in comparison to the expenses related to a viral “bad” customer experience. Utilizing a good communications team or experts at a PR agency can help in this process for planning and execution. This should be an annual exercise for upkeep.

To understand how deep and broad this plan needs to be, start by outlining all the stakeholders that need to informed in a crisis communication plan: customers, sales, HR, IT, employees, media, suppliers and partners, as well as potential regulatory, community and elected officials. Now you can see why planning pays off!

Breaking news

Essential Elements of Crisis Communications Planning

RESPONSE TEAM: Define the members, roles and responsibilities of the Communications Response Team (CRT).

CONTACTS: Identify all audiences that will be updated by the response team, internal and external.

LIST SOURCES: Classify all lists and sources for contacts, including: customers, media, investors, leadership, employees, partners, suppliers, regulators and others.

TIMELINE: Create a sample timeline for Communications Response Team to update in an activated response.

SCENARIOS: Build a series of responses to scenarios with constructed timelines and messages that can be used for preparedness training of Communications Response Team members and spokespeople.

MESSAGING: Create key messaging guidelines for Communications Response Teams based on audiences, scenarios and channels including holding statements to express that further responses are coming from the organization.

SYSTEMS: Establish listening posts, processes, technologies, people and alerts used for notifications to CRT with defined activities based on “level” of action required for response.

PREPARE: Set a location to host all resources that can be activated by all members of the Communications Response Team, including scripts, contact information, timelines and lists. Communicate with all necessary constituents on how and when to engage with the CRT. Set up notification systems. Train the team members based on roles and responsibilities.

REVIEW: Set up periodic reviews of the plan to update channel information, lists and messaging. Post-crisis, review the activities and effectiveness of the response to ensure continuous improvements are made from learning and experiences.

It is important to define the action and activities based on the type of customer experience and how the experience in shared with others. As an example, an irate email to customer service may not need to be part of the company’s communication alert system. It also should not be ignored as a potential source for an escalation.

Today, a customer can take an email that does not get a timely response to outside media sources like social or television triggering a crisis and need for immediate response. It is the power of the customer experience their empowered voice.

Definition of a Crisis: A situation that has reached a critical phase (Merriam-Webster)

For an organization, a crisis can be defined as any action that adversely influences the reputation, integrity or value of the brand. Knowing that customers and employees have the power to create a crisis based on their shared experience, is a warning to all marketers.

Prepare now. Failure to do is inexcusable in today’s world of constant communications. Your customers will tell you so, if you are aren’t listening!

Jamie Glass, CMO + President at Artful Thinkers, a sales and marketing consulting company.

June 10, 2015June 13, 2017

Impacting Your Global Communications Strategy

Every organization that reaches across their borders through words to educate, explain, engage or encourage others to consume their content requires a well-defined global communications strategy.

What are the important considerations for defining an effective multilingual communications strategy?

1. Return on Content (ROC). First and foremost to every global communications strategy is how does it align to corporate business goals? Alignment to outcomes related to market reach, revenue and event profit margins should drive the top line global communication planning to effectively demonstrate meaningful ROI. We call this impact. Global communications is more than a marketing approach; it is a roadmap to achieving success in your organization.

2. Defining Your Target Audience. One content type does not fit all. Along with demographic definitions and assigned attributes, there are requirements to understand socio-graphic and behavioral traits. These can amount to hundreds and imagine defining these across multiple geographies. It requires time, market experience and research to match target to content. Culturally, there are differences in approach, positioning and key market messages that without proper definition can offend or create irreparable harm to your brand or organization.

3. Logistics and Statistics. Global communication strategy requires an understanding of how information is consumed by your target audience, where and through which medium. Mediums for delivery are not universal. We can all cite the growing number of mobile devices; however, there are places in the world where certain types of content are not effective for a mobile consumer. There may also be times where content will be primarily delivered via mobile, impacting a buying experience if the content is not easily consumed and understood. Common Sense Advisory* research indicated, “…billions of people don’t read English at all or well enough to make buying decisions, so they’re increasing information in other languages to reach many more prospects.” Data matters and the experience can impact your overall ROI simply by not following through the entire customer communication experience.

4. Language Trends. In the language services business, we encourage people every day to translate their content into every language. There may be exceptions. Certain languages may find a specific content media acceptable in the source language. This requires analysis, testing and research; however, what has highest value should always be considered when evaluating opportunities, budgets, timing and impact of language requirements. Equally important is the need to understand demand on a global scale of languages that have the greatest opportunity. What are the trends in emerging market?

5. Rate and Regularity. Understanding frequency and timing of your communications can also help dictate tactics for global reach. Language tools and automation can assist in getting translation done faster and more cost-effectively when the driver is close to real-time frequency. As an example, building machine translation programs, terminology technology and content source analysis can assist in meeting growing demands for fast translation user-generated content (UGC). Every communication type will have a demand requirement that can be matched to your supply for “global” reach. Public relations may have an immediate need; whereas, software updates may have a planned communications strategy over several months.

6. Your Brand. There are times when brand overrides all decisions related to speed and time-to-market. For example, transcreation of content may be less frequent and require a much higher devotion to ensuring there is absolute brand-alignment and adherence to your global brand standards.

Global communications strategy requires a customer-focused and data-driven methodology to maximize reach and impact with your audience, both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C). Welocalize language services help global brands evaluate, plan and execute their strategic communication initiatives to produce the best ROC results.

What has the biggest impact on your global communications strategy?

*Report: Can’t Read, Won’t Buy by Common Sense Advisory

Jamie Glass

First published on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140507160656-149124-impacting-your-global-communications-strategy

September 30, 2012

Ready to Engage Your New Customer?

The buzz in marketing circles today is engagement. How do you effectively hook potential customers into a committed relationship? The investment a business makes in the engagement process should be directly tied to revenues. If you expertly and skillfully engage, sales will increase.

Competent engagement helps a business target, influence, nurture and convert prospects to customers. The more expeditious a business is in engaging with prospects, the bigger impact to the bottom-line. How are you engaging your potential new customers?

The easiest way to initiate engagement is to view customer and wedding engagements as the same. The difference between the two are in the details of tactics. How you move from targeting into proposal are nearly identical in overall strategy.

Engagement begins by determining how to get someone to respond to your offer. First, identify the target based on the qualifications of a “good match”. Who is a suitable candidate for engagement? What are the qualities you are seeking, both in demographics and social behaviors? Then you need to determine what makes you attractive to others. Packaging and presentation of your “stand out” qualities are critical in the initial step of the engagement process. Know where to direct your message and selling to the most qualified targets.

Second, you start the courting process, where all long-term valuable relationships begin. This step is more difficult to measure and needs careful preparation. You can spend a tremendous amount of resources influencing others and never get to the proposal. Laws of attraction and suitability apply. Who you target, what you say and why they are a good candidate must already be known to successfully influence the “right” prospect.

Using engagement tactics like research, focus groups, asking for referrals can speed progress directly influencing better qualified prospects when cultivating relationships. Put out a few “asks”. Look for agreement. Identify the buying signals. Know what makes this prospect want to engage further in the relationship. Define what is in it for them. It might take some sampling and analysis to reach a successful outcome.

Third, define acceptable terms of the relationship. Nurture your relationship to fully understand the “how and why” you need to partner. Build upon the strengths of your bond through mutual consent. Constant communication, validation and envisioning the success of your relationship solidifies the “why”. This is the beginning of a potentially long-term committed relationship, one that must be mutually beneficial. Are you both in agreement? Create timelines and set expectations to help control spending, time and resources while nurturing your relationship.

Fourth, make the BIG proposal. It is time to go all in and ask for the close. Whether it be a hand in marriage or to partner in business, the only way to get to a “yes” is to make the proposal. If you have taken time to go through an engagement process, building consensus along the way, you will have eliminated most of the risk in making the proposal. Converting a prospect to a buyer requires you to “pop” the question. It is time to seal the deal.

The opportunity to engage is there, are you ready to start the process? Only if you are able to commit to an engagement, will you be ready to “tie the knot” with a new customer.

[W]hen you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. ~Nora Ephron, When Harry Met Sally

By Jamie Glass, CMO & President of Artful Thinkers and Managing Director of Sales & Marketing Practice at CKS Advisors.

June 25, 2012

Market to Your Strengths

Recently at an entrepreneur camp for high school students, I worked with several teams in preparing a 3 minute pitch to sell their inventions and innovations to a panel of professionals. My focus was to help these young entrepreneurs identify their business and product strengths so they could convincingly sell us on their idea in a very short amount of time — much like the real world.

I shared my experience in managing sales teams and evaluating investor presentations about what works and what does not work in pitching. I let them know that even the most seasoned professionals can mistakenly focus on the “hot” features without direct alignment to what makes you stand out against your competition.

My lesson, you must compete for mind share before you get market share. Whether selling your idea, your services, your business or just you, always use your valuable marketing resources to promote what makes you better than the rest — your strengths!

Have you identified your market strengths? Recently? And once you found your strengths, have you effectively managed and built them up in your marketing?

The easiest tool to define your strengths is the simple risk assessment that every marketing plan must include — SWOT Analysis. No matter the size of your business, you must know your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

If you have already completed a SWOT analysis on your company, product or service, dust it off and review it today. Is it still accurate? Hopefully you have evolved! Your strengths are not set in stone. They are dynamic based on competition, economics, innovation, market growth or decline and shifting attitudes toward your business and products from consumers and employees.

If you have not completed a SWOT Analysis, take out a piece of paper now. Draw four boxes and label them: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. In each box, list out what you currently say, believe or understand as your strengths and your weaknesses, the opportunities you see where you can grow and threats in your business to achieving your goals.

This initial SWOT Analysis is meant to be quick; however, a thorough strategic marketing plan will take more time and resources for a complete evaluation. You will ultimately want an assessment that has multiple inputs including employees, executives, vendors, partners and current, potential and lost customers.

A SWOT analysis is useful to make sure you are current with messaging on how you are perceived and understood in the market place. It is a business planning tool that should be evaluated quarterly to make sure market opportunities are seized and threats are assessed and mitigated.

The next step is to audit your current marketing programs and communications to see how effective you are in defining your strengths. Are you placing all your strengths on the first page, first paragraph, above the fold and in your elevator pitch? Review your marketing tactics to see how well you represent your strengths. Start your assessment with:

1. Branding – Do you clearly communicate and represent your strengths in the essence of your brand and your identity?

2. Communications – Do you detail your strengths in all your marketing communications, including sales presentations, collateral and on your web site?

3. Sales – Can your sales representatives and customer-facing employees recite your top five strengths? Where are they detailed in your standard sales presentation?

4. Public and Analyst Relations – Does your boiler “About Us” include your marketing strengths? Are you able to weave your strengths into every new release?

5. Social Media – How often do you remind your fans and followers about your strengths? Are they listed in your social profiles? How many weekly posts include mention of your strengths?

In order to create demand and achieve anticipated growth, you need to market to your strengths. Make sure you are consistent, clear and current in your messaging and get the word out why you are better than all the rest.

June 17, 2012

What is Your Marketing Meme?

Viral Marketing — Will Your Meme Go Viral?

A meme (pronounced meem) is a packet of social information. Marketing memes are word associations, beyond a tag line or slogan, that take complex concepts or ideas and make them simple and easy to communicate.

A meme is defined in Wikipedia as “a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena.”

Effective memes are potent messaging serums, dripped out over time that enter into our brains and stick. Think of your marketing meme as your viral message. Who you represent, what you do and what you offer, tightly packaged into one memorable soundbite.

Memes are easy to replicate. Good memes always communicate value and benefit. It is the message you want propagated all over the world about you and your business.

I first learned about crafting memes from a Fortune 500 marketing expert who spent his time coaching several solopreneurs on how to market their own businesses. To some, it may seem odd that an experienced marketing executive would spend weeks learning how to market themselves. Admittedly, I was resistant at first. After all, I have been responsible for marketing multiple million dollar business for years.

Attitude and all, I threw myself into doing something I was avoiding — marketing me! It is hard to market yourself, let alone dedicate the time required to build your own marketing communications plan. Truthfully, I needed the discipline and focus to develop my own meme. In the end, besides a business card, it was the best marketing investment I made in starting my own business.

An effective marketing meme is a single powerful statement that communicates the benefits of your products and services. Here are some simple steps to help you craft an effective marketing meme:

1. In one sentence, write down what you do for your customers.

2. Next sentence describe the value you provide to your customers.

3. Outline the problems you solve in the last sentence.

4. Now start cutting! Combine the three sentences into one very simple, benefit-oriented sentence. Answer who, what and why it matters in a single sentence.

5. Test your meme with the following questions: Can you repeat that sentence over and over again? It is easy to remember? Will your meme invite people to want to know more?

Memes are clear value propositions that roll off the tip of your tongue at every introduction. An effective meme is not a slogan or headline. It is not an elevator pitch. You rarely get 30 to 60 seconds to cite a rehearsed sales pitch. It needs to be tight, concise and memorable.

Memes create lasting impressions. They are the words people will carry with them and tell others about you and your business. Marketers often suggest that it takes seven times before a message really sticks. It’s called the Rule of Seven. Will your meme be repeated by every person you tell seven times or more? If so, then you have truly created an effective, viral marketing meme!

Invest time in creating your meme and start sharing it with world. Repeat it often, in presentations, in meetings, on the web. Make sure your meme is a simple message that leaves us wanting more.

Special Note: This post is dedicated to my friend and marketing mentor John Coyne. He patiently worked with me to create my Artful Thinkers meme. His influence and teachings are still making an impact. He will always have a lasting impression. RIP my friend.