Entering the Marketing Communications Job Market? Ten Tasks to Tackle Today

Last month, I participated in a panel discussion of fellow UW-Oshkosh journalism alumni to provide students with advice on entering the “real world.” And while their questions were particularly helpful for soon-to-be grads, much of the advice also was beneficial for entry-level professionals.

Here are the top 10 pieces of advice from our panel:

1. Keep building your skills. Gain experience in writing, design, web, social media, etc. Today, employers are really looking for a jack (or jill)-of-all-trades.
2. Keep your résumé to one page. Take the short and sweet approach. Whether you’re fresh out of college or looking for your second adventure, be objective – only include experience that really demonstrates what you can do on the job.
3. Illustrate your abilities in cover letters. Match your expertise to a company’s specific needs. If they’re looking for someone with web design experience, describe a successful project and add metrics of success.
4. Create a portfolio and make it available online. While hard copies are nice, an online portfolio showcases your work in a format that’s easy to revisit, which is especially important with a limited amount of time during interviews.
5. Secure internship experience. Whether you’re still in school or recently graduated, an internship can provide valuable work experience that allows you to expand your capabilities – or get your foot in the door at a specific company.
6. Network. A lot. Stay in touch with fellow students, alumni and professors to remain in consideration for job openings. Attend professional development events or alumni networking opportunities, and use social media to maintain connections.
7. Express your self-confidence. Hiring managers want to know that you won’t be afraid to offer ideas or contribute to team projects. Be bold and outgoing, and show your passion for the job.
8. Maintain professionalism. Even though you may think you know what’s acceptable in a company’s culture, err on the side of caution and present yourself professionally. You’ll earn respect as you get to know the company’s personality better.
9. Take initiative. Ask questions. If your supervisor gives you a challenging project, don’t be afraid to ask questions and take ownership. Be proactive and anticipate clients’ or supervisors’ needs.
10. Drive your own growth. Don’t be afraid to ask for more responsibility. Ultimately, you’re the one in charge of your career, and if you don’t speak up, you may not get to where you want to go. In addition, don't be afraid to move on if you feel you can no longer grow professionally.

Want more? Check out this PR Daily article for additional insights: 5 tips for landing your first PR job after college. I’d also encourage readers to follow the #HAPPO and #PRStudChat conversations on Twitter, which offer regular advice, tips and suggestions for students and entry-level professionals.

If you’re in a hiring position, do you have other suggestions for young professionals, and if you’re a young pro, are there other questions you’d like us to address?

Timing Has Never Been Better for an Ethics Refresher

Hey, we’re all ethical people here.

But these are confounding times—and not just politically and economically speaking. Marketing communications professionals of all stripes are confronting an array of rapid technological and cultural changes.

Even the most upstanding among us can get caught up in confusion and lose sight of what’s right.

So sometimes it helps to be able to refer back to the basics. That’s why we here at Scheibel Halaska have signed on to the Principles and Practices for Advertising Ethics recently set forth by the Institute for Advertising Ethics, a group administered by the American Advertising Federation (AAF).

The principles comprise eight rules to live by, centered on a few simple ideas:

• Honesty
• Transparency
• Fairness

Good reminders to keep us all grounded in these fascinating, challenging days. Go ahead: Read the full IAE principles document.

The Lesson behind AP's 'Email' Change

Sayonara, superfluous hyphens and spaces. The Associated Press has finally acknowledged prevailing use of “email” and “cellphone” as compound nouns.

Silly and insignificant as this development may seem to some people, last week’s AP style changes hold a good lesson for any marketing communications professional.

It’s about more than punctuation dictates. It’s about communicating clearly to your audiences. And that starts with using the same words, in the same way they do. As terminology and technology evolve, you have to keep up to stay in the conversation.

A little caution is necessary, however: Jumping on every latest buzzword bandwagon also risks alienating and confusing audiences (or just seeming desperate).

As much as I might mock the AP for being unhip, there’s something to be said for their measured approach of waiting a while to see what sticks. And so it's “email,” at last—until email itself no longer exists, I suppose.

310 B2B Firms Told Us about Their Marketing Efforts. Want to Listen in?

Then join Scheibel Halaska at the upcoming Plastics News Executive Forum—March 6-9 in Las Vegas—where I’ll be presenting recent research that uncovered some valuable insights about B2B marketing in this new era.

For this project, we listened to a diverse array of companies across the plastics industry:

• Size: 47.1% had fewer than 50 employees, 13.7% had 51-100, 10.1% had 101-200 and 29.1% had over 200 employees.
• Geographic reach: 17% were regional, 37.6% national and 45.4% global.
• Classification: 22.5 % of companies classified themselves as equipment manufacturers, 33.7% as material manufacturers and 43.8% as processors.

Not in plastics—or even in manufacturing? There’s still a lot of valuable, surprising lessons in what these companies had to say. Plus, the Forum is a great event loaded with knowledge sharing and networking opportunities.

So get all the details and register for the Forum here.

Or, if you can’t make it, look for more to come about the research on this blog, including a chance to see the full report for yourself …

Many Businesses Are Revving Up for 2011. How about Yours?

What a difference a year makes. Small businesses are heading into 2011 with refreshing energy.

That’s what I heard repeatedly yesterday from fellow Milwaukee-area business leaders during an MMAC Council of Small Business Executives session on the state of small business at year’s end.

One after another, executives said they have a much better outlook than they did entering 2010.

Better yet, they’re building on that positivity by pursuing growth. Planned initiatives include:

• Acquiring new talent.
• Making capital investments and expanding facilities.
• Exploring mergers and acquisitions.
• Emphasizing marketing—especially through technologies such as websites, mobile apps, etc.—to set themselves apart from their competition.

As the chair-elect of COSBE, I’m honored to have the opportunity to be part of the leadership of this vibrant organization at such an exciting time.

Meanwhile, here’s hoping your business shares the optimistic mindset. With continuing good numbers from manufacturing and other areas, we have many reasons to look forward and take action to accelerate success.

3 Steps to Telling Your Story

It’s not enough, we often say, to have a competitive edge. You’ve got to exploit your advantage at every opportunity.

In other words, tell your story, as this BizTimes column puts it. And there’s no more powerful or cost-effective way to do that than through strategic public and media relations.

Columnist Cary Silverstein consulted our own Mary Scheibel for some advice on promoting a competitive advantage through the media. It boils down to three basic steps:

1. Identify the story you want to tell and the audiences you need to reach, based on your business goals and your value proposition.
2. Clearly, consistently share relevant case studies, news, knowledge, etc. with media read by your target audiences. Don’t forget emerging online channels, of course.
3. Whenever you get a win, give your customers and prospects every opportunity to see it. Email a link, put it in a status update, buy reprints for sales calls and so on.

If you hadn’t noticed, we’re practicing a little of #3 with this blog post.

OK, your turn. No time like the present. Go tweet your latest success or something.

Who Cares If Domino’s Pizza Is Any Good?

I wouldn’t normally put “Domino’s Pizza” and “bold” in the same sentence.

But now there’s this ad campaign hyping the pizza chain’s supposedly bold new taste.

Haven’t tried the overhauled pie yet, so I can’t comment on that. But the ads? Most certainly bold and unorthodox.

Instead of focusing on the company’s reformulated pizza, the spots surprise by dwelling on blunt customer criticisms of the previous product—“cardboard” crust, “ketchup” sauce, etc.

By breaking the unwritten “don’t admit you stink” rule, the campaign is getting a lot of attention. It may or may not surprise you that creator of this saucy campaign is Crispin, Porter & Bogusky, an agency famous/infamous for jarring and at times annoying advertising.

So, certainly, the spots have some stopping power. And they’ve got some integrated online goodness, too. Pizza Turnaround does a nice job reinforcing the company’s earnestness toward improving their product by posting tweats about the new pizza—and not filtering out the critics. It’s all very effective and memorable.

But wait a second here. Quick: What do you think of when you think Domino’s?

If you’re like me, you think “quick delivery.” That, after all, has long been the strength of the brand. And Domino’s seemed to be doing pretty well with that reputation, regardless of what people thought about the taste.

So why mess with a good brand? That shift in focus, not the admission of past failures, may be the real risk of an otherwise impressive campaign.

Lucky 7? Microsoft Marketing Better with New Windows

Jaded techies around the world are grudgingly admitting that, whaddya know, Windows 7 is actually pretty good. 

It’s not at all clear whether the launch can help Microsoft fully recover from the expensive failures of Vista. But the strong initial buzz suggests they’re doing a lot more things right this time around.

 Things like:

n      Much closer collaboration with PC makers in developing the new product

n      Going for a more evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, advancement

n      Emphasizing Windows 7’s user-inspired improvements

 

The customer focus is also carried through in a push for “launch parties” at users’ houses (which was noticed in the marketplace at least enough to spur its own parody video). And there’s a nice, cohesive theme going throughout, around the number 7. Read a fairly glowing overview of all the moves over at Business Week.

Looks like the MS team has determined that, if they’re going to get a cynical, stingy public to buy in this time around, they’d better involve those customers from the start, give them a product they’re looking for and tell them about it every way they can.

The result is that, for once, Microsoft seems to be setting a good marketing example.

The French, and Other Snags in Your Global Marketing Efforts

Oh, those French. So proud, so self-serious. They can’t let a fun and fitting new term like cloud computing just be.

They have to come up with their own, uniquely French name for it. The Wall Street Journal takes a quizzical look at this process as it’s carried out by France's General Commission of Terminology and Neology.

The article is worth a read as a caution for all current and aspiring global marketers out there about the many pitfalls of communicating in overseas markets.

The French may be more forceful in their defiance of “outsider” words. But they’re hardly the only ones. Truth is, every culture is quick to dismiss anything that doesn’t sound native. They won’t look too kindly on your brand if you don’t blend in.

Google translator won’t cut it. A decent translation service won’t necessarily, either. After all, you have to do more than just speak the language; you have to work to become part of the culture, to understand and respond to what customers care about and the way they think in each market.

Chances are you can’t accomplish it with your own resources alone (unless you’re, say, Coca-Cola). More likely, you’ll get through to your audiences overseas by leveraging strategic partnerships with firms in those markets. They become the keepers of your brand in far-flung places. Who knows, you might even work with them by using cloud computing.

On Elevating Yourself from the Low-Price Fray

Good column over at btobonline: Can low price be beat in today’s b-to-b markets?

It’s been a key question for years, but the current marketplace has made the low-price issue even more urgent.

What to do? We like columnist Kay Plantes’ suggestion that B2B companies refocus on their business model strategy.

That’s exactly what some of the midmarket manufacturers we work with have done. Price is a huge issue in this segment, and the recession has certainly made it difficult to avoid getting sucked into self-destructive pricing wars.

But our clients have been fighting back. They’ve taken a close look at what they do that customers value the most, and they’re actively adjusting their business models accordingly, by zeroing in on a niche or approaching customers with more robust offers.

So you can start there. The key then is to follow through on the new business model by linking it directly to marketing strategy and execution you need to achieve your goals. Don’t drop the ball. You’ve got to take that strategic focus, articulate it clearly and run with it, making it the backbone of all communications and interactions you have with current and prospective customers.

The result should be less emphasis on products and prices, and greater emphasis on the unique value your organization provides to customers through your refined business model strategy.

This is what’s meant by “strategic marketing communications.” It’s based on your goals, it’s well grounded and it really gets you somewhere—out of the low-price game.

Branding is back, baby!

For many B2B companies, the whole idea of brand building has taken a back seat in today’s economy. Everybody’s cautious with their investments, limiting their spending to price promotions and the like.

It’s understandable, but it’s also ill-advised. Why? Because in a shrinking market, you have to aggressively protect and grow your share. And you can’t do that by focusing on your products and services alone. Doing so only plays into the trap of commoditization.

We think it’s time to give brand building a little love again. Good thing we have this powerful tool nowadays that can help you build your brand directly and cost-effectively with customers. Maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s called social media.

Check out this decent primer in The New York Times on managing your reputation online (or, in other words, building brand equity).

Opportunities abound to connect with customers, solve their problems, anticipate new ones and cultivate trust every step of the way—exactly the vibe customers are seeking in these uncertain times. Social media is an excellent path to reinforce your brand and build the confidence your customers need to have for you to win their business. Yes, branding is back, baby! It’s online, it’s every day, and it’s here to stay.

There’s Room to Grow in the Global Economy

Wisconsin manufacturers may be lagging the world’s best companies in doing the things they need to do to thrive in the 21st century.

But therein lies opportunity.

Take, for example, expanding overseas operations. That’s one area for improvement cited in the “Next Generation Manufacturing Study,” an extensive new survey released by the Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership.

The study shows, as highlighted by The Business Journal of Milwaukee, that many Wiscoinsin companies simply aren’t yet doing much international business. Just 7 percent of the 500-plus firms in the survey reported non-U.S. sales growth of 51 percent or higher. Nearly two-thirds of (63 percent) said that they have no sales or distribution facilities beyond the United States.

So there’s plenty of room to grow globally for Wisconsin manufacturers. “Global engagement” is one of the six key tenets of so-called Next Generation Manufacturing, a set of forward-looking strategies to drive growth and profitability in the 21st century (per the WMEP).

Of course, international business is rife with challenges. Whether from an operations or a marketing communications perspective, success overseas takes a strong commitment to consistency, balanced with flexibility for local customization. You’ve got to make the effort to understand and respond to what customers really want in each market.

That’s a tall task to undertake on a limited budget, but a few good strategic alliances can help. For example, our agency helps ensure consistent, relevant messaging around the world for global clients through IPREX, one of the world’s largest networks of independent public relations agencies. Read more about our relationship with IPREX.

In the meantime, read the full WMEP report for many more fascinating insights on Wisconsin manufacturing. An executive summary and the full report are available for download at WMEP’s website.

Renaming and Redesign Was No Small Decision

We’ve seen an interesting change recently in our local business media market: the former Small Business Times changed its name to BizTimes Milwaukee and redesigned both its weekly print edition and its website.

On the surface, the move seems an obvious choice. Small Business Times has been about a lot more than “small” business for many years; the old name was pigeonholing the paper’s appeal in a way that no longer applied. Meanwhile, its website url, www.biztimes.com, already reflected the wider net for business news that the operation was casting.

So bringing it all in line under the name BizTimes—for consistency across the mission, actions and communications of the company—made perfect sense.

But that’s not to say the overhaul was an easy thing to do. Brand and name changes take a lot of time, money and guts. The move also put BizTimes into more obvious, direct competition with a much larger counterpart, The Business Journal of Milwaukee.

As times change, smart companies know they must continue to evolve, as must their marketing communications efforts. It’s impressive that the BizTimes team had the vision and will to undergo this transition and celebrate it as a positive step forward for the future.

Don’t wait around for your own bailout

After a long slog of an election cycle, we at last have a new president-elect of the United States. The campaign is behind us, but one huge factor in the outcome will be with us for some time: the current gloomy economic climate.

Late last week, as Barack Obama met with economic advisors to consider the crisis, we got more bad news—this time about rising unemployment and the failing American auto industry.

So, not good, obviously. And it makes sense for Obama’s team to start tackling these issues right away. However, something we’ve said before on this blog bears repeating right now: Don’t leave your company’s future to actions or assistance from Washington.

Rather, survival and success depend on your company’s will, vision and ability to compete. There’s never been a more critical time to carefully examine what you do that customers value and how you can most efficiently provide it. Then, of course, do everything you can to convince people to buy your products and services. In other words, focus not only your operations, but also sales and marketing efforts.

Regardless of what the new national leadership does, it’s your leadership that will determine the future of your company.

Expanding Your Reach through Strategic Alliances

Is it better to have actual facilities in far-flung places, or just friends there?

For many companies, there’s no debate. Owning bricks and mortar in foreign lands just isn’t feasible. That’s probably never been truer than in this tenuous economy and tight credit market. Nevertheless, for more and more businesses, having a global presence is still essential.

The good news is that there’s a way to expand your reach without taking huge risks in terms of capital and credit: through well-crafted strategic alliances. That’s what many of our international clients have done. And it’s what we’re doing, too.

Last week, I attended the annual conference (in Boston, Mass.) of IPREX, one of the world’s largest networks of independent public relations agencies. IPREX puts us in a valuable partnership with reliable, accountable PR teams on the ground all over the world. So we have immediate access to cultural knowledge and communications expertise—whenever and wherever our international clients are doing business.

We not only support each other’s communications programs. We stretch our thinking, we provide each other access to both geographic and market-specific competencies, and we share best practices with a diverse group of professionals. It’s a far cry from the “not invented here” mentality or partisan politics that too often put individual success and the greater good at odds.

So perhaps it’s time to think differently about your competitors. Beneath the surface, you might just find a strategic ally and a company whose market and niche expertise may actually complement yours.

In an increasingly sophisticated, volatile and interconnected global marketplace, you might say that’s the best of one world.

Walking the Talk of Brand Evolution

We talked a couple of weeks ago about the importance of evolving your brand. But if it ain’t broke, why fix it?

Well, it’s like home maintenance. Better to reinforce the roof before it caves in. Or think of it like a romance: You’ve got to keep it fresh.

Never get too comfortable with your brand, because the marketplace in which your brand lives is always changing—and besides, there’s always room for improvement. We aren’t just saying that. Right now, we’re launching a new Scheibel Halaska website, with an updated, refocused brand message.

We took some time to look deeper into what our clients care about and what we do that accelerates their success. That gave rise to a new tagline and a complete redesign of InsideSH.com.

The new site was a long time coming … but it won’t be long before you see more changes. That’s because we’re determined to keep our public face lively and up to date, just as we’re working every day to keep our services relevant and valuable to our clients. After all, it’s what we tell our clients (and blog readers) to do all the time.

How Will the Harley Brand Rumble on?

Right now in our hometown of Milwaukee, Harley-Davidson is throwing itself a multiday party for its 105th anniversary. Hog lovers from around the world are rumbling into town for a full weekend of, well, let’s just say “fun.”

Good for Harley to put on a show for its loyal customers, even in a slow economy when sales are down. However, those declining numbers are no doubt a concern to Harley’s leadership—as are the numbers regarding its aging customer demographics.

As we look around, it’s easy to see that Harley’s base is dominated by older generations. And that has us wondering aloud about how this iconic brand can re-energize itself in the 21st century. How do you update a brand without forsaking its storied tradition? Here’s a look at some of the ways Harley is trying to strike that balance.

This historic company is far from being history. But while Harley searches for the path forward, let it be a reminder to you—no matter what game you’re in—that the marketplace is always changing. And brands that aren’t advancing with it can quickly find themselves left behind. Now more than ever, brands must continue evolving to survive.

Li Ning Marketing Coup: Classic Brains over Brawn

Via the Olympics, here’s a great case study into how a company with a much smaller marketing budget can upstage a rival.

Li Ning, a former Olympic medalist who owns the sportswear company that bears his name, did so to Adidas in the opening ceremonies last week in Beijing. Maybe you saw it: Li was the guy who “ran” around the top edge of the stadium and lit the torch.

Some are calling it the ultimate ambush marketing. Adidas paid the big money to be the sole sportswear sponsor, and then Li snuck in and grabbed the spotlight basically for free.

The prospect of taking on competitors the world over can seem pretty overwhelming for smaller to midsize companies. You have to work hard to be more creative. More consistent. More cost-effective. More with less.

But the Li story just goes to show that, even if you don’t have the marketing muscle of the competition, brains can beat brawn on the world stage.

Sustainability Efforts Must Come before Marketing Hype

The current issue of Advertising Age has an interesting feature about the rise of sustainability officers and their relationship to marketing.

“So goes the evolving dance between sustainability and marketing, as chief sustainability officers become as prevalent as chief marketing officers in Fortune 500 companies. Although more marketers are striving to act and look green, their sustainability officers seldom come up from the marketing side.”

And why don’t they come from the marketing side? Because the more successful eco-friendly efforts start from the grass roots. They fully integrate the spirit of sustainability into the rest of a business.

To illustrate this point, the AdAge piece goes on to highlight the sustainability initiatives of Wal-Mart, Procter & Gamble and other big players. These companies don’t have massive “sustainability departments,” just leaders in charge of making things greener across their companies.

If your organization isn’t big enough to justify hiring a sustainability officer, a commitment to sustainability can still be carried through. But either way, green should not be a figment of marketing imagination.

That’s especially true for companies taking environmentally focused products to market (like several of our clients). As we pointed out back around Earth Day, the marketplace of green claims is getting pretty noisy. Audiences are starting to tune it all out. So if you’re selling green, you have to walk that talk.

Besides, there may be an even better reason for going greener throughout your company. Potential business benefits such as increased energy efficiency will likely have a far more positive impact on the Earth and your bottom line than any green marketing claim ever will.

Ramp up Your Customer Retention Efforts

Is customer service dead? You’d better hope not.

Customer service is, of course, the key to satisfied customers. Scratch that—not just satisfied, but loyal customers.

Even in bullish economic times, customer retention costs a lot less than customer acquisition. And in the current iffy economy, retention is even more important.

But many B2B marketers remain more focused on attracting new customers, according to a new report.

The Chief Marketing Officer Council’s study, highlighted in BtoB Magazine, found that only one-third of global marketers have strategies in place to win back dormant or lost customers, and only half have strategies to further profit from key account relationships.

That’s too bad, because a host of new media and technologies offer us all kinds of fresh opportunities to understand, inform and interact with customers. For example, Scheibel Halaska works with several clients on email newsletters aimed at keeping customers in the loop.

Current customers, after all, are your most crucial target audience. Sure, you’ve got to be out there selling. But it’s a whole lot easier to sell to the folks who are already sold on your company.