“You’re in Good Hands,” and after reading this article, you won’t “Just Do It” and will “Think Different” when it comes to rolling out your marketing strategy. Hopefully, you will think that this article is “The Real Thing” and it will leave you thinking “You Can Have it Your Way” and now “Impossible is Nothing.” If you can you get through the poor grammar and sentence structure in the first few sentences, you will probably recognize these slogans and quickly name the companies they are associated with.
There a plethora of articles, blogs, and books about creative marketing techniques and how you can increase sales and build brand awareness through search engine optimization (SEO) or social media. The authors will dazzle you with great ideas and plans that can help your organization get to the next level. You will see the brilliance of each plan as you are presented graphs showing how inexpensive it is in relation to your skyrocketing sales. In fact, while reading these articles, I found myself ready to embark upon a whole new strategy that involved multimedia marketing, SEO, and pay-per-click advertising without credence to my company brand.
It is easy to get lost in the myriad of available information and caught up in the excitement of an extensive and expensive marketing campaign in an effort to capitalize on the social media revolution. I firmly believe that you should budget for various marketing mediums and spend time and energy working to create a master marketing plan that includes social media as it can be successful if approached with great forethought. To be truly successful, you must have an organizational culture that can successfully execute “The Plan.” The ability of the company or individual to execute on marketing plans will not guarantee success; however, I am quite certain that the greatest plans and ideas will meet your expectations without diligent and consistent execution of your plan.
The slogan is also an important and inseparable part of your brand. Before creating your slogan you need to ask the most basic question: What do you have to offer to consumers, other than them buying your product or service and making you rich? Most people would agree that the following organizations have successfully integrated their slogan as an inseparable part of their brand.
►Lexus: Relentless Pursuit of Perfection
►McDonald’s: “I’m Lovin’ It”
►Apple: “Think Different”
►Coke: “The Real Thing”
►BMW: “The Ultimate Driving Machine”
►Nike: “Just Do It”
►Allstate: “You’re in Good Hands”
►Adidas: “Impossible is Nothing”
The most expensive aspect of marketing is acquiring new customers and maintaining visibility. This means gaining awareness and providing relevancy to affect a sale or conversion. The difficulty in maintaining awareness is exasperated when you offer a product or service like mortgages because they are not needed on a regular basis. So before you embark headfirst into an expensive marketing plan, it is imperative that you create a brand that matches your culture and you have a team that is dedicated to executing that plan. Remember it is easier to create a brand or message that matches the company then vice versa. Our slogan is “Big Enough to Matter, Small Enough to Care” was only the first and easiest step. The real work is executing a vision that matches the message so both marketing and branding is relevant. Many organizations create catchy phrases and elaborate mission statements only to fail because it not relevant to their organization.
Consistency
Do not advertise that you are the low-cost provider for a couple of months and then change your message to being the service leader as it confuses people and may not match your vision. Also, avoid the mistake of trying to change the branding when you cross demographic lines. You can maintain the same brand and message while advertising to first-time homebuyers and super jumbo borrowers in different media outlets, as long as the value proposition is relevant to the audience. Consistency will build awareness and help you gain long term success if you can execute and bring your slogan to life.
Patience
Think about the slogans you know. In most cases, the companies associated with them have been building their brand for decades. This does not mean new companies cannot build brand awareness quickly, but it is highly unlikely as it takes time and patience.
The excitement created by flashy marketing campaigns that can be created by leveraging today’s technology, combined with the infinite possibility presented through the Web, are quickly tempered when I think about the proverb: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Remember, no matter how brilliant the plan is, it is doomed to fail if you cannot execute the plan. One common thread amongst all truly great organizations is the ability to consistently execute, while maintaining a message that is relevant. Of course, some companies get a few lucky breaks while carrying out their plans, and as Benjamin Franklin once said, “Diligence is the mother of good luck.”
Joy Beam-Burns has enjoyed a successful 20-year career in mortgage banking as a sales leader. Currently, she is a regional sales manager at CBC National Bank in Alpharetta, Ga. She may be reached by phone at (877) 700-4427 or e-mail
[email protected].
