Jason Kumpf

Should You Consolidate Brands?

Corporations often grow their market share through acquisitions and mergers. These collaborations most frequently occur with related companies offering similar goods and services. However, there are also times when an executive committee determines that acquiring a new company with unrelated business practices is within the strategic guidelines for productive growth. Regardless of how a new business is acquired, there are further and more pressing decisions to be made.

Consolidating Brands

Brand recognition is the staple among virtually every successful corporation. Marketing professionals utilize a healthy budget to create and promote brand recognition. Brand placement in various media sites help increase that recognition. Logos, colors, and even script fonts are all recognizable features that consumers readily relate to a specific brand. Further, these specific characteristics which are subconsciously linked to the brand are also associated with every product within that brand umbrella. Consolidating multiple products within a brand or multiple brands within a corporation can affect how consumers view or understand these brands.

Benefits of Brand Consolidation

There are certain benefits to brand consolidation. Specialization is one of the main considerations that a corporation will utilize to determine their course of strategic action. Companies who specialize in a particular area build a brand reputation based on their expertise. They literally become known in the industry for a particular product or service. Bringing that positive reputation to another brand through consolidation could help elevate an unknown or otherwise struggling brand by virtue of association. In many cases, brand consolidation can revive companies who were on the verge of being out of touch with the consumer pulse.

Drawbacks to Brand Consolidation

The flip side of brand recognition and specialization is that companies take a risk when it comes to brand consolidation. Partnering with other brands or companies requires at least some portion of unpredictable exposure to the new parent company. Taking ownership of total accounts is necessary during brand consolidation projects. The consolidating company must absorb the previous consumer interactions, whether positive or negative, when they choose to proceed with consolidation. There is also a risk of potentially alienating an existing customer base during brand consolidation. This happens when people are uncomfortable with change or are unfamiliar with the new brands or products. Many consumers and investors are tentative to embrace newly consolidated brands.

The choice to consolidate is never an easy one, but it can be a successful venture when properly executed.

Originally published at NCUNews.com.

Leading Businesses Through Change

Organizational change is an important and essential part of an organization’s lifetime. Unfortunately, only 26% of all organizational transformations succeed. The alarming rate of failure in organizational change should thus prompt you to master how to lead your business through change. Here are some tips for setting you off in the right direction.

Creating the vision

The first thing to do before instituting any organizational change is to have a comprehensive overview of the vision behind the change. The vision should comprise, among other things, what the change intends to achieve in the long run, as well as the other metrics of organizational change. The vision should be tested periodically to ensure that any potential flops are avoided.

Networking and communicating

Before starting the organizational change process, it is important to bring everyone on board by communicating the vision to the concerned individuals. Every successful leader should endeavor to explain the benefits and necessity of instituting the prospected changes. Such communication should be a two-way structure in order to elicit and consider feedback from other parties.

Be gradual and cautious

Organizational change is not something that you may want to institute instantly. Organizations that deal with multiple stakeholders, including customers, should take as much time as possible to prepare for the change, as well as ensure that a gradual process is maintained. The idea, in this regard, is to ensure that any adverse effects of the change are carefully considered and mitigated before they get out of hand.

Take interest in the metrics

Every organizational change should be framed in such a way that the necessity or outcome thereof is accessible. Before and during the organizational change process, it is important to consider investing in making a constant analysis of relevant metrics. One of the areas to focus on in the metric assessment process is whether the change is achieving its objective or not. The metric analysis process should enable you to come up with the necessary adjustments in cases where discrepancies and unwanted effects are noticed.

Make the change a culture

The last important step to take in the bid to seal any changes made within the organization is to ensure that the changes are instituted within the organization’s culture. Making the changes part of the organization’s day-to-day practice ensures that the company can maintain the legacy beyond the existing generation of workers.

Originally published at NCUNews.com.

Creating Eye-Catching Videos for Your Brand

Jason Kumpf | Video Content

Digital marketing is by far the most promising kind of corporate marketing that can guarantee good returns on investment. When investing in digital marketing, video-based marketing is one of the suitable options that a business can explore. To be successful in video marketing, businesses must think of ways to create eye-catching videos that are optimized for creating a brand identity for your business. Here are some tips to guarantee successful video marketing.

Focus on an objective

The first step should have you focused on creating an objective that you wish to achieve with a particular video. The objective is the ultimate goal that will inspire the kind of information you will display in your video. Some of the suitable objectives may include creating brand awareness, introducing a product in the market, making or boosting sales, or even getting some vital information out to customers.

Focus on your audience

All videos should be optimized for a particular kind of audience. Before putting anything in your video, you should ask yourself whether the audience will be able to relate well with the information. To resonate well with your audience, you should try to create a video that catches their interest and identifies well with them. For instance, a video can focus on a specific demographic group, such as the young college students, people in their 40’s, or retired persons. The audience can also be classified in the form of gender.

Create a brand identity

To be successful in video marketing, you should think of creating a series of videos that customers can easily associate with. Creating a brand identity with videos has to do with numerous video production elements, among which include using a branded voice and brand colors. A branded voice helps customers to associate a particular voice tone with your products. Brand colors, on the other hand, also achieve a similar effect that leads to attracting more customers.

Take note of the message

The message you intend to put across to achieve a particular objective should never be overlooked. The message, in this regard, is contained in the textual message as well as the audio and visual aspects of a video. The text should be brief and with sufficient exposure time to allow viewers to read along in the video. The sound should also be as clear and audible as possible while the visuals should be of the highest quality possible.

Video content is, by far, the most popular form of online content. So, in today’s day and age, it’s absolutely essential to create videos that tell the story of your brand and connect to your target audience.

Originally posted on NCUNews.com.

High Dollar Sales: The Benefit of B2B Marketing

When providing services as a business to another business, marketing strategies only differ in scale from the approach used for business to consumer advertising. However, that scale is one requiring greater precision in delivery and client support. Fortunately, today’s landscape, replete with internet and intranet technologies, allows many support businesses the advantage to standardize their offerings without compromising the specific needs of each client. Because the reach is toward business executives and purchasing agents, the pitch needs to consider three areas that will guide the marketing perspective and experience. Think about the generally shared habits of entrepreneurs, what the target market engages in regionally, and particular preferences of specific, local clients.

A Visual Reference

To set a visual for discourse on this topic of business to business (B2B) marketing, I’m reminded of the brilliant strategy employed by Erma Bombeck to secure a position as a columnist for a nationally syndicated publication. She’d lost her husband unexpectedly and was left with several children to raise alone after his passing. Upon hearing of the editor’s favorite lunch location, she made it a point to visit there regularly, especially when she would likely encounter him. Permitting that restaurant’s regular patrons and workers to get to know her on a non-demanding basis prior to approaching him directly with her quest for a prominent post at his paper was key to her success. Filling the canvas with glimpses of her persona outside of her projected role helped him, and those close to him as indicated by his sharing time with them over lunch, to have the capability to more readily wrap his head around the idea of her joining their team as a columnist for his publication.

The B2B Marketing Approach

Similarly, every successful B2B marketing campaign will, first, ensure that its potential clients will have sufficient exposure to their offerings as related to their own office and shop management, or product and service delivery. Secondly, the campaign will aim to encounter relevant decision makers when they’re more likely in a relaxed state versus engaged in some company crisis. Lastly, all persons involved in the sales aspect will mindfully use their time, energy, and presence to access certain business executives face to face (think 60 second elevator spiel preparation).

Marrying the Approach to Campaign Specs

We can surmise certain givens regarding the behaviors of desired business executives, i.e. those who will experience growing success enabling them to pay their bills and require more business. They’re the early bird (as related to their industry). They constantly review the landscape of the economy and laws that may influence their industry, etc. They reason well and welcome relevant discourse and contemplation that may enhance their business success. They employ the perspective of their colleagues and co-leaders when making impactful decisions. They work out regularly. They eat well and consciously. They travel, etc. You get the idea. Make it a point to present snippets of what your business provides in places where these winners will see and remember the prospect. Use vignettes that succinct and clearly share the advantageous impact your technology brings.

Along those same lines, take the time to analyze the regional interests of potential clients. Is it the golf course, anymore? How about a cooking or barbecue class? Are the relevant business executives and purchasing agents leaning toward craft beers or local wines? Is the cigar lounge in play or the vaping room? Has a common source of additional, personal household income developed? What are some of the needs of their family members at this stage in their home life? Are they cruising about or flying, private jet or business commercial with V.P. lounge membership? Many of these places may already have or be amenable to the presence of l.e.d. advertising, the cost of which can be shared with like rank business offerings that aren’t direct competitors.

Accordingly, brainstorm and research the access points of your target market. Maximize word of mouth for your offerings by closely engaging local, potential clients. Utilize social media that caters to congruent or specific market interests and ensure advertising appears there, as well. Take advantage of the key difference between marketing to reach consumers versus businesses. Fellow business executives actively seek out opportunities to improve business management and productivity concerns. They do not mind ‘being sold,’ as long as marketing strategies address areas of significant potential for growth or savings. They will appreciate the marketing efforts. Recognize that potential business clients scrutinize whether they will want to deal with you as a dynamic team member, albeit indirect, on a long-term basis.

Originally posted on NCUNews.com.