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It’s a well known yet seldom followed saying – “Practice what you preach.”  But when we considered the prospect of rebranding HRB, we knew we had to follow ourselves the same advice we preach to our clients … that the most objective and ultimately most valuable branding efforts are done with the direction of an experienced outside advisor. You can’t read the label from inside the bottle, right?

After over 15 years with the same “label,” a logo we affectionately call “Herb” because its three letters also resemble a face, it felt like the time was right to go through our own rebranding effort. When Herb was first designed and put to work as the face of HRB, our company and the business of advertising was considerably different. Traditional media – TV, radio, print – was still king. The Internet was in its marketing infancy. The iPad, iPhone and Droid were only the distant dreams of Silicone Valley tech heads. Twitter and Facebook? Mark Zuckerberg was still playing video games in grade school.

It’s a vastly changed world now. Digitally-based, incredibly fast moving, with websites considered as the first point of brand contact instead of merely an afterthought … and handheld devices putting the power of brand engagement in the hands of millions of consumers.

To acknowledge those big changes in our industry, we decided to make a small but important change for ourselves. So we engaged the services of FUEL, a talented group of strategically-minded designers, to rethink and redesign our logo and visual brand. We vowed to be good clients and provide them with all the input they requested (which was a lengthy process), then ultimately, trust their thinking and their visual concept for our brand. Frankly, it was nice to be on the client side for once.

What you see here, the new logo, colors and look is a result of that collaboration. For us, it’s an important reminder of the new thinking we need to consider and then deliver every day. To our clients, it’s a reminder that brands aren’t static entities that can rest on their laurels. To Herb, it means a well-deserved retirement.

Wherever he is today, traveling the world or spending his pension at a casino in Branson, Herb can be confident our new logo stands for the same product we truly care about delivering … growing our clients’ brands to grow their business.

Customers don’t buy on price alone.

Ever selected a product that is more expensive compared to a similar one sitting right next to it? Ever wonder why you do that?

It’s because you have got an emotional connection with the brand. It takes unique insights about your customers to build those kinds of brands. And, talented people who know how to utilize those insights.

Because the purpose of a brand is to differentiate a company and its offerings, we use a proven proprietary process called the HRB BrandPlan™ to build strong brands. The process includes research, brand building, repositioning, management and communication. It also features workshops and seminars to educate your staff on how to “live” your brand.

Who’s thinking about your brand?

Photo Credit: Jacob Bøtter.

Isn’t it wonderful how all of your prospects and clients rolled out of their beds this morning, rubbed the sleep from their eyes and immediately thought to themselves, “Gosh, I sure hope I’ll see an advertising message from fill-in-your-brand-name-here.” Wow, that makes your job so much easier, knowing every one of them is totally psyched to hear from you.

Okay, so that didn’t happen, nor will it ever. But surprisingly, some companies really do act like that implausible event occurs in their marketplace every morning. They believe that whatever message they put out, in whatever medium, no matter how trite, complex, boring or forgettable it might be, viewers and readers will be attracted to their brand like geeks to a Star Trek convention. Bless their pointy ears, but no way. Sorry, Spock.

What does attract viewers and readers are messages from brands they know and respect. Brands that provide them with an expectation of being rewarded … with valuable information, by being entertained or by something that will make their job or life better.

It starts by using words and images they haven’t read or seen hundreds of times before. By not force feeding them more details than they can possibly consume. By engaging them in unique and uncomplicated ways that say “we respect your time, your intelligence and what you care about.”

Your brand is not what you say it is.

Remember, your brand is not what you say it is, it’s what your customers and the marketplace says it is based on their experiences and connections to your company. Ultimately, it’s about differentiation – how your brand stands out in a crowded marketplace. You must claim a unique position in the market. What is your point of difference?

Via mindmapinspiration.com

There is a word that has been coming up frequently in recent conversations here … that word is “focus.”

It’s a simple word, and one that has become my personal mantra. Dictionary.com defines focus as: a central point, as of attraction, attention, or activity. As the world of marketing has become more fragmented and communication venues continue to explode, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the sheer volume of options.

Learning how to focus on your central points of attraction, attention and activity, is crucial to your success.

Points of attraction: I like to think of these as your core competencies. What does your company do well? What is it that your customers count on you for? These core competencies are what drives customer loyalty. Determine what makes you irreplaceable to your customers and then deliver it! Living up to and constantly working to improve what your brand promises is critical.

Not sure what your customers want from you? There’s an easy fix … ask them! A simple satisfaction study can provide the insights your company needs to redefine and reemphasize your core competencies.

Points of attention: I recently had a prospect show me a newspaper ad he’d created. It was a small, 1/8 page ad, containing no less than eleven separate messages. Eleven! My brain couldn’t even begin to decipher what he was trying to communicate or what his value proposition was to the reader. Filling an ad with such multiple messaging is like telling your audience “I have no idea what’s really important to you so I’ll throw everything in.” It has a poor chance of being read and is an equally poor use of money.

Points of activity: Now that you know who you are, what you do and what you offer that’s relevant to your customers, what’s next? Developing a clearly defined strategic marketing communications plan. Then remaining focused on executing it. Because guess what? Markets will continue to fragment and the number of communication venues will only increase.

So staying focused and “on point” will be both more difficult … and more essential.

I was reminded recently of an anagram (transposing the letters of one word to produce another word) which, to me, seems to have real significance in this business of advertising and client relationships. The word is “SILENT.” Rearrange the letters and you get the word “LISTEN.” That seems like more than a coincidence.

Personally, I’ve never learned anything by talking … except maybe how to talk more. Its in the silence of really listening to our clients that we learn the real issues they’re dealing with.

Maybe their brand is taking a nose dive in the market but the real issue isn’t the need for more or better advertising. Maybe its problem with product distribution, not being able to meet customer demand can have a huge negative effect on a brand. Or perhaps there are issues with the sales force being overwhelmed or not sufficiently trained. They are the ambassadors of the brand out in the field, if they’re not generating trust and value, they won’t generate many sales either.

Discovering those important issues starts by asking the right questions. And then by listening. It’s a lost art these days but only then can the real problem solving begin.

By the way, the letters “ERIC CLAPTON” also spell “NARCOLEPTIC.”  Maybe that explains his song “Sleeping in the Ground.”

It’s a movie line I’ve remembered since I first heard it. Very early in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” the first of the Indiana Jones trilogy. Professor Jones tells his inquisitive class of college students, “Archaeology is the search for fact… not truth. If it’s truth you’re interested in, philosophy class is right down the hall.” I’ve always thought it also to be a simple but great descriptor of the business of advertising and public relations.

We are in the business of discovering and delivering “truth.” The truth about a brand … the truth about an organization, a product or service … and the truth about the benefits they provide their customer. Finding that truth, a truth that really matters to the market, is the hard part.

In the final part of that same quote from Indiana Jones he states, “Seventy percent of all archaeology is done in the library. Research. Reading.” That’s where good advertising and public relations begins also. With research and reading. Learning about the market, the prevailing attitudes, new technologies, about the competition’s brand image and products, understanding distribution issues, etc. It’s only through that kind of curious “archeology” can the proper “truth” about a brand be developed.

The next time you’ve finished posting those pictures of your crazy office party and logged off your Facebook account, do a quick web search on “truth theories.” You’ll find that truth has been a favorite topic of philosophers for centuries, spawning The Correspondence Theory, The Semantic Theory, The Deflationary Theory, The Coherence Theory, and The Pragmatic Theory. Trying to read and completely understand any of them will give us agency types throbbing headaches.

For us, the simple words of the French novelist Flaubert may be more fitting, “There is no truth. There is only perception.”

When faced with a branding or advertising problem, do your archeology. Take the time and effort to unearth the facts. Then you’ll be prepared to discover the “truth” and ultimately, affect perception.

That’s my truth.

Whether you’re a social media novice or expert, it’s important to remember that the Internet never sleeps. While we may need eight hours of rest before returning to work in pursuit of our blog, Internet marketing and public relations goals, there are millions of Internet users who continue to post content when we hit the hay.

With recent changes in search engines and today’s short attention spans, people are now expected to post and promote new content regularly. While automation tools are helping companies and brands share information around the clock, many employees still feel worn out at the end of the day. It’s a lot of work to consistently post and track content on top of our everyday responsibilities, yet it’s more crucial than ever that we monitor what people are saying about us.

Throughout my internship at HRB, I’ve worked on accounts that have needed immediate attention because someone wasn’t listening. A news release wasn’t posted on time, a complaint from a dissatisfied customer slipped past a Community Manager or a competitor beat a client to the punch. I’ve learned these problems can be prevented if we take the time to monitor the Internet and our social media accounts.

Here are 10 reasons why you should proactively and consistently monitor the brands of your company or client:

1) The Point of Need — Information and research is always changing. People are always talking about the latest news and they expect to be kept in the know. It’s important to satisfy these needs and you can do this by following RSS feeds and writing blogs about client events and industry changes. We’ve done this and we’ve heard good reviews from clients and interns who turn to our site for updates and information and can easily find what they’re looking for. (Just be sure to set up blog categories so your website visitors can easily find what they’re looking for!)

2) The Influencer — In today’s business markets the competition is more fierce than ever. Consumers are overwhelmed by the variety of choices they’re given and they’re willing and ready to remain loyalty with one brand, service or product.

Establishing and actively maintaining a presence on Facebook® and Twitter® may seem trivial, but it’s absolutely necessary because your competitors are all doing it. After a prospective client “Googles®” your company, they will immediately turn to social networking websites to see if you’ve built a presence there to listen and engage with others. If you want to be viewed as an influencer, it only makes sense that you engage in networks or outlets that are influential. And right now, that’s Facebook and Twitter.

3) The Crowd — Bloggers, fans and Internet marketing gurus can all be influencers if they have a strong following. Target them when planning your social media campaign or invite them to guest blog for your company or your client’s company. Be sure to respond to their comments promptly. Check out my Friday blog posts—in particular, this post mentioning my Top PR Reads—to see which crowds I follow online.

4) The Competitor — It’s wise to follow, acknowledge and learn from your competitors. They can be huge motivators when it comes to learning about the needs of your mutual target audience.

The goal in using social media isn’t to blab about your own brand, but to create social capital, or a representation of your brand’s “social currency” via online and offline conversations, reciprocity and relationships. We use metrics to determine who’s influential, who we should be following and how we can be unique in our own campaigns.

5) The Crisis — Reading social media updates around the clock helps HRB anticipate, manage and be transparent about PR crises experienced by our own clients and others in our industry. Bottom line: Ignoring crises shows that your agency is disconnected from your audience and may be incapable of dealing with problems head-on.

6) The Campaign Impact — Be sure to measure your ROI and determine if your campaigns are working. Many social media platforms have built-in analytics tools, so educate your team members and your clients about how they work and what they can show you about your clients’ growth and sales progress.

Also, if you’re getting a lot of comments, responses or “Likes” on your blogs or social media pages, this is a great opportunity to showcase your brand’s expertise. Respond quickly and engage with your audience. After all, you can never really be sure who your audience is, and a prospective client may be listening!

7) The Question/Inquiry — As stated above, make sure that your client or your client’s account manager(s) respond quickly and completely to questions and inquiries. These may be posted directly in your news feeds or profile pages, or as direct messages via e-mail or a “Contact Us” form. This can be easy if you designate one person, such as a Public Relations Director or company spokesperson, to respond to such issues.

For the last six months, I’ve been responsible for responding to all questions, comments and concerns about HRB that are posted daily on the company’s social media sites. Sometimes it’s hard to respond to everyone in a timely manner, but it’s been really interesting to see which posts generate the most traffic to our website and which “fans” end up becoming clients.
The Problem — Problems are easier to solve when you know: a) that they exist and b) why they’re occurring. Do a little research if you’re getting negative comments or your followers aren’t responding to your social media engagement tactics.

9) The Compliments — Everyone loves to be complimented. Link to your competitors’ social media pages, blog articles and websites on your company’s own social networks to show you’re not full of yourself. Your company may think you’re a leader in your industry, but so do all of your competitors. Show them a little SEO love. Create Twitter lists, as I’ve done for HRB, to follow, acknowledge and compliment them by re-tweeting their tweets.

10) The Complaints — As I’ve stated in previous blogs, listening is the new marketing. Create e-mail alerts that can be sent to you each time someone posts a comment on your social media pages, and if it’s a complaint, quell that individual’s anger by opening up an honest dialogue. Focus on the positives, not the negatives, and take the conversation offline if it requires further attention or a response from a manager. If you truly listen to outside complaints, you have a unique opportunity to learn and change, showing that your company or client is attentive and understanding.

These are just the ways I proactively manage brands. What tactics do you use on behalf of your company or clients?

Yesterday during a meeting with HRB’s CEO, I learned a great deal about why some agencies are failing without the help of the economy. According to Jim, the main reason is because they don’t market their brand using the “funnel technique.” This is a tactic we have been using for our marketing, search engine optimization (SEO) and advertising projects and telling our clients about to help them grow their business and improve their services.

The funnel technique involves three simple steps:

1) Determining a brand‘s mission and goals (putting ideas into the funnel)

2) Choosing the best strategic approach for marketing and promoting the brand (weeding out research and ideas so only the best ideas begin to flow through the funnel)

3) Actively engaging/re-engaging with customers and key prospects on behalf of the brand’s mission and goals (creating brand loyalty via a smooth transition between initial offers, additional services and added values).

At HRB, we are very careful to select only the best ideas to put into the funnel. We inspire team members to seek out new advertising venues, read new publications and avoid recycled content. We don’t use the economy as an excuse for failure, but rather as a challenge and opportunity to own an industry and trump competitors by pushing our creative juices to the limit. And it’s because of this attitude that our client retention numbers and our clients’ customer retention numbers are high—everyone’s hungry for fresh insight to throw into the funnel and the funneling process itself .

Throughout my internship I have used the funnel technique everyday. Whether I’m strategizing new ways to keep HRB’s audience and customers engaged in our blog, social media marketing platforms, website or growing portfolio, my job is to help promote the HRB brand and let people know that our ideas are revolutionary.

I think it’s so easy for me to promote this marketing technique because I believe in it. Recently I’ve been asked to spearhead the organizational and branding process for HRB’s seminar series, and I’ve had to strategize everything from advertising outlets to the presentation schedule and speaking topics to which customers and prospects we are going to target. I will need to think about the individual pieces that go into planning a seminar as well as how the pieces all fit together and continue to flow through HRB’s brand funnel.

Connect with HRB:

Like my colleagues, I am motivated and excited to start the research for this project. So far I have compiled everyone’s ideas into a six-page strategic plan. My next steps will include:

1) Creating checklists for the steps we’ll be taking to plan and execute each 2011 seminar

2) Creating a master editorial calendar

3) Creating contact and media lists

4) Writing and posting weekly polls on our blog, Facebook® page, Twitter® stream, various advertising outlets and Web services.

The goal here is to research industry trends as well as the behaviors and thoughts of our audience, clients and prospective seminar registrants to determine what events/speaking topics they would like to attend, how HRB can improve about its seminar series and process, and how to continue engaging with the community. Simply being organized and having good research and ideas isn’t enough, though. Everything needs to tie together and flow smoothly through the funnel.

To quote Seth Godin in his recent blog, “Understanding the Funnel,” “Embracing the funnel changes the way you treat people. And treating different people differently is what consumers demand.” That’s what we hope to do and inspire our clients to do by offering our expertise in these seminars. Care to join us?

FeedBurner before and after the update (just look at those statistics!)

The concept of subscribing to Web content first started to take off with the widespread adoption of the RSS Feed in 2005 and 2006. These feeds were capable of containing text, images, audio, videos, assorted files and information describing each entry (even GPS coordinates).

This new found technology lead to people wanting to accomplish many different things. As a result, website designers had to adhere to numerous different types of logic and naming schemes just to get their content available to those that wanted it. Unsurprisingly, everyone rejoiced when FeedBurner opened to the public to alleviate these headaches and more.

FeedBurner made it possible for websites to provide a single feed that’s programmed and maintained in the way that they prefer that’s then automatically published out to the world in a way that universally available and fully accessible. This single service was great in it’s own right, but people wanted more and wanted to know more about how people are accessing their content.

FeedBurner proceeded to add features that allowed users to easily save, share, and subscribe to their favorite sites. For the publishers, they added analytics and instantaneous distribution of their content. The high level of activity and large user-base caught Google’s attention, and they ended up acquiring FeedBurner for $100 million. This was exciting news at the time, but Google seemed to have put them on the back burner. That is, until this latest update.

So what did they change?

They're serious when they claim that it's real-time data.

In traditional Google fashion, they focused on improving speed, granularity of information, and providing real-time data. Here’s a quote from their announcement:

“You can for the first time get stats on how much traffic your feed items are receiving from Twitter, as well as feed reading platforms like Google Reader in one place. Again, all within seconds of posting your content. Ping? Pong! Yep. That fast.”

I must admit, the novelty of seeing the graph update continuously right in front of my face with the latest information hasn’t worn off yet. The visual aesthetic has also been revamped to fit in with Google’s other services. You can opt-in to access the beta by clicking on the “Try out the NEW (beta) version!” at the top of the FeedBurner page, but it isn’t all good for early adopters.

This is still a beta, and unlike many of Google’s services that are in beta for years at a time, this one actually seems to deserve the title. A link to access to original design replaces the link that you click to try out the beta, and this is a key feature due to the fact that many essential features are not present in the new beta. You will have to switch back-and-forth to access any kind of feed and/or service management. This beta only addresses the analytics portion of FeedBurner. With that in mind, it’s probably worth checking out to see where they’re taking the service.

Throughout the last few weeks I’ve been busy working on a variety of projects for HRB’s portfolio. Not only do I get to work for a diverse pool of clients in a variety of industries but my work is billable.

How many interns get to have real work on day one of their internship?

I’m not only encouraged to be creative at HRB, but I’m expected to think outside the box on any project I complete. It’s becoming quite clear to me that PR is really about the ingenious ways that you build relationships with the public.

Start small, think big. It’s a marathon, not a race.

I recently finished my second media report for a client that incorporated clippings from three different press releases we sent out the last two months. The first time I created this report for the client it nearly took me three days to create a template, compile and organize the clippings, determine the advertising and PR values and bind the reports. This is partly because HRB lost many of its marketing materials in the Flood of 2008 and I had to create my own templates and system for collecting this information.

These hurdles were a blessing in disguise, though. They taught me be to be organized and efficient. The second time around, I had my system down pat and was able to quickly compile the clippings and organize the information in a spreadsheet.

I’ve also been doing a lot of copywriting. I wrote a few articles for a client’s quarterly newsletter and was really able to strengthen my research, interview and writing skills. For another client I was given the responsibility of writing a consumer article—from start to finish. This was definitely a challenge for me as I’ve never written any copy that was specifically geared toward the consumer audience. My supervisor gave me some guidance and I learned that these types of articles can’t be too “cute” or too “sales-driven.” I finally finished the rough draft, but it took weeks of research, interviewing, reading, editing and re-editing. We hope to have the article submitted to the publication next week.

On the strategic branding side, I was asked to submit ideas for a communication audit and a social media marketing campaign. These tasks really helped me consider branding from a company perspective. Posting updates and creating contests from the perspective of a $2 million brand is far different from posting funny messages on my friends’ Facebook® walls. When you think strategically for a company brand, I’ve learned it’s not just about who you are, but why you matter and how you’re different. Audiences aren’t going to engage your brand or product if you can’t offer them anything in return. At the very least, a new communication plan should incorporate some serious research on competitors, why audiences might be ignoring their brand and how the company can modify their product offering to address consumer needs. Otherwise the message will continue to be as screwed up as Hogan’s goat!

HRB launched two websites recently and I was responsible for cross-checking the development site with the clients’ needs and requirements. I usually read through old service reports before I jump into this kind of task. It helps me match where the client started when they hired us with where they wanted to go. My job was to make sure we fulfilled their needs and that there were not any copy or layout errors. In order to stay organized and focused, I created Word documents noting what was missing or incorrectly laid out.

I think my internship has also taught me to be proactive. When I’m waiting on a project I don’t just sit around and surf the Web. I keep myself busy. Sometimes this means catching up on blogs I subscribe to in my Google Reader®. Other times I spend my lunch hour reading case studies and trade articles to educate myself about different industries. I experiment with the Google Keyword tool, research our competitors’ media kits, review archived company files to learn about the HRB brand, or reach out to local businesses and PR pros about industry and networking events.

Next week I’m looking forward to working on a new account for a college based in Illinois. I’m also excited to start working on another client’s new positioning line. I previously created a brand archetypes report for this company when they told us they needed to determine their strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats. We helped them identify their brand advocate and unique relevant values and now we’re going to focus on expanding their client base. Stay tuned!