Four UPDATED Marketing Resolutions for 2021

In January 2016, I wrote a blog titled “Four Marketing Resolutions for 2016.” I cited research identifying that “people who write down their specific resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t make specific resolutions.”[1] So I made my marketing resolutions public:
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May 26, 2020

Navigating the Next Normal in Higher Education

By David Brond and Kathleen Doyle

The world as we knew it has changed. This is also true across the entire landscape of higher education.

May 1 was National College Decision Day, the traditional deadline for high school seniors to pick their college or university. In 2020 unfortunately, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, this important decision has become more difficult than ever for students and parents. The pandemic is also having—and going to have—a profound impact on the future of institutions of higher learning across the country.Read full post...

Facing the Ultimate Marketing Challenge: Bringing a New Brand to Market…Yours!

Inevitably at some point during your healthcare marketing career you will be faced with bringing a new brand to market. As you do, it is critical to stay focused on the strategic and business objectives of your organization, while also protecting the equity of your brand. The following scenarios describe bringing a new brand to a market, assuming you currently have standing or brand value. The goal in both cases is to leverage the equity of all the brands to enhance your brand, differentiate you from competitors and better serve your customers.

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Building and Maintaining Great Agency Relationships

Over the past four-plus decades, AB&C has worked with some of the most premier healthcare systems across this country—large and small—and we greatly value those relationships. But great agency-client relationships just don’t happen; they take true commitment by both parties to be successful. And over the years, we have learned what makes a great working relationship and want to share that knowledge with you, because agencies, while a source of expense, are also an investment, and have a key impact on your organization and your ability to meet patient and provider needs, delivery quality care and build your brand.

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How to Socialize Your Brand

If you followed a systematic approach to build a new brand (or refreshed an existing one), you started with discovery research. You then developed a brand mantra to inform how your brand would be articulated to internal audiences and the outside world. Finally, you created or refined the outward expressions, such as the name, mark and colors.

All of this hard work was done in preparation to share your brand with stakeholders and customers. This is when the rubber hits the road. It’s important to invest as much time, and as many resources, into properly socializing and managing your brand as it is to develop, create and refine it.

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The Writing Workshop: Basics of Punctuation

In professional communications of any kind, proper punctuation is essential. But this is especially true for marketing communications, where the copy helps define a brand. Grammar and punctuation mistakes can result in a loss of credibility—for both the agency and its clients. Here are a few tips for avoiding common mistakes.

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The Essence of a Brand Mantra

As branding experts, we have developed our own vocabulary for what we do and how we help organizations define and present themselves to consumers. We use terminology like “brand architecture,” “platform,” “positioning,” “promise,” “proof point,” “personality,” “identity” and “tag line” to describe how we create, communicate and control the attributes of a brand. An important but often overlooked step in the process of building or revitalizing a brand is the development of a brand mantra.

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How to Use Customer Testimonials to Improve Your B2B Marketing

Nobody has to tell you that the B2B sales cycle differs greatly from that of a B2C. For one, a B2B sale typically involves a much larger expense. It’s also a highly vetted decision, and not often an impulsive one. Specifiers, designers, engineers and choosy purchasing agents rarely rush to buy your product or service immediately after seeing an ad, direct mail or email.

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Secrets of Successful Networking

As a managing director at AB&C, I often attend events on behalf of my firm, where I walk into a room and strike up a conversation with complete strangers, or give the opening remarks to a crowd of unfamiliar faces. Today, I get excited about these opportunities to promote our agency. But once upon a time, networking was an uncomfortable experience for me, characterized by nervous glances around the room, a sweaty brow and awkward silences.

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Achieving Success Along the Customer Journey

Ever since there’s been the practice of marketing communications, there’s been a concept inseparable from it: the customer journey. If you understood your target audience and could communicate effectively at each stage of their purchasing journey, you’d do OK in the marcom profession.

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How to Create an Inbound Marketing Strategy

If you’ve found that your outbound marketing efforts are becoming less effective over time, then read on.

You may have noticed that your email blasts to purchased lists of unqualified prospects, cold-calls and direct mailers are no longer generating the quantity and quality of leads needed to fill the top of your sales funnel—leaving your sales team twiddling their thumbs.

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Marketing’s Role in Connecting Organizations with Customers

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.” This directive was identified by management consultant, educator and author Peter F. Drucker, whose writings contributed to the practical foundation of the modern business corporation.

Today, marketing plays an ever-increasing role in creating and growing businesses and brands by connecting organizations with current and potential purchasers along every step of the customer-experience journey. The role of marketers is to identify and research audiences, and then expertly reach and inform them about brands, products and services to facilitate the growth of business in today’s highly competitive environment. Marketers who embrace and combine the new tools of digital and social media with traditional and guerilla marketing will have greater success at connecting customers with their business.

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