In order to be successful and survive these tough economic times, the key is to consider how the market is effecting your customers. You need to see how the market is changing your customers’ business and behavior and change your business model accordingly. Concentrate on what they want and need.

You will be surprised to find out that your customers don’t want all those bells and whistles that you are offering them. They don’t look for perfection in your product. They only want certain things in your product and once you deliver on those, your customers will be happy. If it is the quality of your product itself then give them that, if its price, service or the experience that comes with your product, focus on that. Companies need to focus on what they are best at.

By delivering to customers exactly what they want, you are able to manage and control your expenses. By not investing too much on what your customers really don’t need, you can invest those resources in areas that are necessary for your business such as your marketing and brand in order to get ahead. As we know, studies of brand equity have shown that consistency of investment in your brand is a sign of a healthy brand that survives the toughest economic times.

The internet is cluttered, noisy and FULL. As Seth Godin says “its not physically full but our attention is Full”. It has become extremely difficult to get noticed and stand out in the crowd. Especially in this day and age with the help of the world wide web, everyone has become an expert, serial entrepreneur, seasoned professional, author, writer, editor, blogger and authority in the field.

Therefore I say, image is everything. Image matters and your first impression is what makes it or breaks it.

Since your website is your face and your first impression to the world, regardless of what you do, whether you are a SaaS application, corporate website or an online store you need to hire a professional who can provide an out-of-the-box perspective looking from the outside in. This is the first step in order to be heard and get noticed.

If you have a SaaS application, you put months and months of work and sweat behind the scenes to develop the engine and make it work. From there, it is the responsibility of your sales and marketing team to entice the “Early Market”, first time users, “Technology Enthusiasts” and “Visionaries” to actually use the application. Since the only thing that your customer sees is the actual UI itself, your application (including all the technical inner-workings) is nothing but the UI. If your UI does not have the model, the flow or the template it needs you can definitely count on not seeing the future mainstream market.

In regards to corporations, their websites are the first place that their customers go. All corporate marketing efforts drive traffic to their website and the potential customers evaluate companies and their products based on their web site.

And finally, online stores are all about model and flow. As the rule of thumb goes, you only have a few seconds to get the right product in front of the customer. If they have to click too many times to get to what they want, they are gone.

Hire the right group(s) of agencies and individual(s) and let them take you there. Let them take you through the appropriate steps and you will see that working through the process (modeling, screens, flows, and templates) will make a difference and it will take your experience to the next level.

In the past 17 years I have met with countless companies both large and small. From boot strapped startups to large Fortune 500 conglomerates. My experience shows that whenever the CEO of a company becomes overly involved in day to day marketing affairs, especially in the agency selection process, we know that the process will not be smooth.

CEOs that get involved with day to day affairs of marketing tend to be habitual micromanagers in every aspect of the business including their employees. And we all know what that means. A lack of trust in your staff, the notion that you know it all and the belief that you are better than everyone else is a blatant sign of a CEO that is not taking care of his own responsibilities and somehow finds marketing more interesting.

The question comes up, what about companies that don’t have anyone to handle their marketing where the CEO has to also fill that position?
I would have to say that they better get their act together and gather up the finances any which way possible and hire that marketing person. The person does not have to be an employee or a contractor. It could even be a consultant. The key here is to let people do what they do best and not get involved in areas that are not within your realm of expertise.

In fact, once we follow these companies closely and monitor their progress, most of the time these types of companies do not progress to the next level (to no surprise of course). Now the question arises, why are CEOs incapable of handling marketing? Well, this is a separate subject for discussion and we can look into that in our future blogs.

OK, times are tough. The economy isn’t getting any better and companies need to continue and survive (obviously). Most companies, large and small, are leaning towards hiring consultants. Well, rightfully so. The job has to get done and what better way than hiring a professional that knows his/her stuff, especially without the full-time commitment and burden of offering benefits. I have decide to offer my brand and marketing communications consulting services to companies on hourly basis.

Why?
1- I have had my agency for over 17 years now and have gained great amount of insight into company’s brand and marketing communications, especially startups, and now can assist companies that can not afford the full time help.

2- This helps me to do what I love to do (consult and share my knowledge) outside of the framework and structure of operating a business.

3- I am given an opportunity to get to know more entrepreneurs and hear about their great ideas.

Here are the rules:
1- Read my bio/background on my Blog under “About“ and checkout my company at “Arami Design”. This should help you decide whether I am a good fit for the task.

2- Send me your request arman.arami@gmail.com and we will setup a meet and greet (preferably in the evening). I am off my daily grind and can spend a little time of my own doing what I love to do the most. This of course would be consulting with companies on their brand and marketing communications projects.

3- I am going to reserve the right to decide on the companies I like to work with and this is going to be offered based on a limited number of hours.

What Can I help you with?
1- Integrated marketing communication consultation and planning
2- Start-up marketing consultation
3- Brand review and evaluation
4- Website evaluation
5- Website design and development consultation
6- Interactive email marketing campaign consultation
7- UI evaluation
8- Tradeshow consultation

Services offered through third party exclusive vendors:
1- Design
2- SEO/SEM
3- Copy writing and Content development
4- Front-end and Back-end programming
5- Application development

How will this work?
Step 1- Send me an email to arman.arami@gmail.com with your request and some background info on what you are looking for.

Step 2- Initially, we’ll spend a bit of time over the phone and familiarize ourselves with each other in order discuss your needs. I will evaluate whether or not I can help you and from there, you can decide whether or not you would like to work with me. This, of course, would be a measure of common chemistry that we would both share.

Step 3- Finally, we’ll setup an “official” initial meeting and get started.

Look forward to hearing from you!

Cheers,
Arman

In todays market there are lots of startups with SaaS solutions, offering companies the ability to create and launch their marketing and PR programs online either for free or at a very minimal monthly charge.

With these services you can get your logo designed (http://www.99designs.com), create brochures, build branded, rich-media content and widgets (http://www.sproutbuilder.com), design and develop CMS based websites (http://www.squarespace.com) with analytic behind them (http://www.google.com/analytics), start and manage your PR campaign (http://www.prnewswire.com), build and monitor a search engine marketing program or simply run an online advertising and email campaign (http://www.constantcontact.com http://www.verticalresponse.com – http://www.myemma.com) and monitor the results.

These services just like any other online offering have their great features and usage as well as some bugs and problems. Given time the bugs will be fixed and glitches ironed out and soon we will all be able to create and manage our own marketing and PR campaigns online at a fraction of what it would cost to work with today’s traditional marketing and PR firms.

The question comes up, “If we can design, implement and manage all our marketing and PR campaigns online for these nominal fees then do we really need to invest in any outside branding, marketing or PR agencies? and if we don’t then where should we really invest our marketing dollars?

I like to use a metaphor in order to make sense of this situation and attempt to answer this question as language alone cannot do the job. I believe that all different marketing and PR programs in print and online such as company’s logos, brochures, websites, blogs, online ad campaigns, email campaigns and press releases are all ingredients to a concoction that needs to be diligently and carefully cooked and brought to perfection. This concoction is what is going to wow your audience. Its the combination of these ingredients that brings about that enticing aroma (your brand’s message) that lures the audience.

I believe that without an experienced chef, this concoction is not possible and having that individual that can bring all this together is what is necessary and a must. This individual I am speaking of is your marketing consultant. Someone that understands your market, can assist you with creation of your brand message and carrying that message repeatedly and consistantly through all your marketing programs and campaigns. I would invest my marketing dollars on a professional marketing consultant that can make your brand happen.

We often meet with clients and they start with an introduction to their firm. They spend about 5 minutes telling us about themselves and we hear comments such as:

“We are in stealth mode and can not tell you what we do.”
“We are getting acquired by a larger global firm which we can not reveal their name and the combined entity’s message and direction is probably going to change.”
“We are in the middle of discussions trying to figure out our new direction, messaging and offering.”

Etc. Etc…

They continue with “So we were wondering how can your design firm help us? and could you please show us some relevant work?”

Well, dear marketeers, your brand message is the foundation for all brand communications and essentially, the design/look and feel of the company’s image. It is very difficult, not to mention almost impossible for a marketing and design agency to be able to assist you without knowing your brand message first. We need to know:

1- Your offering (service/product)
2- Who you are offering it to (Your target audience)
3- How you differentiate yourself from the competition (Differentiation)

Without knowing your brand message we, as brand marketers are shooting in the dark and if any agency tells you that they can get started without this upfront information, sorry to say, they are pulling your leg.

Without any further ado, here are three fundamental steps in order for startups to prepare for the launch of their company:

1- Develop your brand message
2- Hire a design/brand communications firm to help you create the image and dress up your brand
3- Get a PR firm to start getting the message out to the public

As I meet with startups the first thing I hear them say is, “I’ve already hired a PR firm and am very excited to start working with them… and now (since I’m done with that) I am starting to evaluate branding firms”.

To me, this is really putting the cart before the horse. First and foremost, companies need to take care of their brand which, of course, requires a lot of internal work and making sure that the founders and employees are all on the same page before starting to think about getting their message across to the public.

The branding exercise starts with the development of a brand message which is the core of the brand itself and determines what the company is planning to offer. From there, the exercise will determine who its going to be offered to and if there are any competitors, how the company sets themselves apart from them.

Hiring a PR firm before really having a brand and a means of communicating that brand is like going to “Putting the cart before the horse”.

I understand that hiring a PR firm is a much easier and enticing process. From a startups point of view, once their name gets out there, the crowd will come and they start gathering leads. From there, those leads turn into dollars.

The truth of the matter is that once the crowd comes if you don’t have your message together, if your don’t have the right image or if the crowd can not find what they want, there goes your one chance to capture those leads.

As I am tweeting my life away. I feel that the only thing I am doing on Twitter is talking about myself. My interests. What I think and how I feel about issues and matters of interest. I started reading tweets from some of the people I follow just trying to figure out what they are tweeting about and before you know it half an hour later I realized that everyone else is doing the same. Talking about “ME”.

ME…ME…ME…

Took a break and checked out my personal email and here it was an email from Seth Godin. So timely. I love it he talks about the pillars of social media and why people choose to visit them:

- Who likes me?
- Is Everything Okay?
- How can I become more popular?
- What’s new?
- I’m bored, let’s make some noise.

I thought, “I love this guy. He is always on top of it”. I started evaluating Seth’s pillars of social media and I divide them into two categories.

First category would be the “ME” category and the second would be the “News” category.

I believe the pillars:
- Who likes me?
- How can I become more popular?
- I’m bored, let’s make some noise.
fall under the “ME” category which I also like to call “Tweeting your own horn” category.

The remaining pillars:
- Is everything okay?
- What’s new?
belong to the “News” catagory which I tend to believe could be the only two reasons why Twitter might be of some use, or at least for now until some one finds a real world useful application for it.

After 20 years of attending thousands of meetings and presentations, I have come to realize that people within a company are very much alike.

If, your first encounter is successful and pleasant, consequently you will have great future meetings. If, from the beginning, you encounter difficulties and face differences in opinions, business ethics and personalities you most likely will not be able to work with the company no matter who you work with.

I have presented to multitudes of potential clients as well as their colleagues. What I have come to realize is that regardless of their position within the company, the experience will most likely be very much the same. It seems like professionals with similar personalities and work ethics gravitate towards one another. If the initial contact is secretive about the project on hand, price sensitive, easy to communicate with, open to ideas, or simply kind in general usually future correspondence with other representatives within the same organization have the very same traits and personalities.

That’s why I believe that in the corporate world “Similars, not opposites, attract”.

Now, as a vendor this could work to your advantage. Since you know how to interact with your initial contact then you most likely can work with their colleagues and even make your relationship more fruitful. If you don’t know how to deal with your first contact, you can use this towards your benefit to prepare for a (hopefully) more successful second encounter, given the chance.