5 Ways to Fight Back during the Downturn

We don’t have to tell you that there’s concern about the economy right now—both in Scheibel Halaska’s hometown and across the country.

But maybe we do have to tell you this: Strategic communications are important to the future of your business in both good times and bad.

So if the economy is on a downtown, the vast array of marketing channels makes it easier than ever before to maximize the value of your marketing spending. The current economic uncertainty may be the impetus you need to think and execute creatively.

Without further ado, here are five marketing communications tips for 2008:

1. Blend tactics. Don’t be afraid to make marketing investments. But like any smart investor, you should diversify your portfolio—in this case with print and online ads, email marketing, pr, targeted direct mail and more.

2. Try more ROI-measurable programs, such as email campaigns. You can keep a closer eye on the value you’re getting from your hard-to-come-by marketing dollars.

3. Pursue a key customer strategy. Focus on your best, most profitable accounts—because when the economy is slow, the strength of your relationships will determine your success. In addition, profile your most successful customers and use that to build your prospect database.

4. Emphasize PR. If there isn’t enough room to do as much advertising as you’d like, public relations is a way to get your message out more efficiently. Plus, you can turn every media win into a winning streak by sharing the coverage in other vehicles, such as your website, email marketing and more.

5. Plant seeds for ‘09 and beyond. Potential clients may balk at spending at the moment, but start the conversation now with targeted direct marketing to build leads for the future. Use marketing rather than feet on the street to more cost efficiently stay in front of your targets.

Getting Noticed with Niche Focus

During difficult times for many North American manufacturers, some companies are still thriving. How? By having the courage to focus aggressively on a niche, and by exploiting and emphasizing that niche expertise in every way possible.

Our client Donnelly Custom Manufacturing LLC, a finalist for the Plastics News Processor of the Year Award, is a great example.

Donnelly specializes in short-run injection molding, which involves lower volumes of more complex parts. The company’s customer-intimacy business model—fewer, more involved relationships—dovetails with the advanced engineering and sweat-the-details service that short run often requires.

But it’s not enough to have a competitive advantage; you have to exploit that edge by constantly reminding audiences about it. That’s another thing the Alexandria, Minn.-based Donnelly does well, through public relations efforts, an online newsletter and, to a lesser extent, going after an award like Processor of the Year.

Donnelly seizes every opportunity to reinforce its position: that it’s the standard-bearer for How Short-Run Is Done. We’re proud to be part of that effort, and we think Donnelly’s unity of purpose can and should serve as an example for manufacturers across the country.

Good luck, Donnelly, as you strive for the top Processor of the Year prize, to be announced March 11.

Why You Need to ‘Talk It Out’ in Market Research -- Surveys Alone Don’t Tell the Full Story

We don’t know Torsten Ringberg personally, but we like his style.

Ringberg, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, talked in Sunday’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about the importance of putting research subjects “on the couch.”

In other words, qualitative over quantitative, he says. Longer interviews with fewer people can yield better information than a slew of surveys can. Why? In the longer format, people get a chance to really consider how they feel about a topic. Broader themes emerge—including ideas that a multiple-choice survey alone would have ignored.

Ringberg’s focus is on the consumer realm. But we believe these ideas apply just as well—if not better—to b2b. That’s why we’ve made extensive qualitative interview research the starting point in our branding and positioning methodology, which we call TrueCenterTM.

These initial, probing interviews reveal a lot more about how our clients’ audiences actually feel. Then the higher-volume, multiple-choice questionnaires try to find how widespread those ideas are.

Online surveys are increasingly popular, and they’re a key element of effective, accurate research. But there’s no substitute for the insights you get from sitting down and talking to people, one on one. We’re just glad to hear leading marketing thinkers acknowledging that.

How Can We Bring Clarity to a Cluttered Media Picture?

There’s a lot of professional soul-searching going on among media types these days, and people in the public relations realm are joining in.

Whom to pitch to? Where to plug?

A decade or so ago, all you had to do was pick out your strategic targets from a list of trade pubs, major newspapers and TV stations. You nurtured relationships with a few VIPs, and spread your message to large swaths of target audiences through outlets those people generally trusted for credible information.

The game isn’t so simple anymore, mostly due to the Internet—blogs, social networking sites, etc. Today, the media landscape is dramatically more fragmented and commoditized. Meanwhile, the public’s trust in traditional, mainstream media appears to be waning.

This is not to say that traditional media are out of the picture. It’s just that the picture is a lot larger and more cluttered than before. Now, people can go just about anywhere to get their news, and they do. And we can go just about anywhere to share that news, and we must.

But how do we sift through all those blogs and websites and online communities to find the ones that are relevant to our clients’ objectives and credible to the people they need to reach?

The task may be considerably more convoluted, but it’s still all about the same due diligence we’ve always given to each client’s needs. Start with strategy, and keep working from there—because the days of measuring success in column inches in a newspaper, or sound bites in a newscast, are long gone.

The NFL Goes Global

This past Sunday (October 28), the NFL played its first regular season game outside of North America in London, England at Wembley Stadium. The game sold out in just a few hours to fill the 90,000 seats, and in the span of only three days, they had a half million ticket requests. Props go out to the NFL for this wildly successful move and one that’s sure to build a stronger global brand. And they did it the right way, by actually going global to do so.

Many of our clients are moving toward, or have already embraced, globalization. But it takes more than declaring yourself a global company or having a smattering of international customers. It takes the level of effort shown by the NFL in actually going global, immersing your company or brand in other cultures and letting global customers learn about you and embrace you on their own turf.

What Does It Really Mean to Be ‘Family Friendly’?

As a career mom, I always ask one thing when I interview for a new position: “Do you consider yourself a family-friendly company, and if so, why?”

I nearly always hear the same response: “Yes, we do. We have an excellent family medical package.” Or, “Of course. Many of our employees have children.”

However, once I’m in company, family friendliness is M.I.A.

Companies must understand that, more than ever, their recruits are looking for a family-friendly employer. And these days, that definition means much more than a good benefits package, as a recent Wall Street Journal column points out. Professionals are demanding the flexibility to balance work and family life. As competition increases for talented job candidates, family-friendly options are no longer a choice but a necessity for your business to succeed.

Scheibel Halaska, which was recently named a Family-Friendly Employer by Metroparent Magazine, has understood this reality from the firm’s inception. Mary Scheibel, the firm’s principal, started the company because she needed balance between work and her family.

Over a decade later, one reason SH has achieved success is because of its commitment to employees and their families. Just as a family works as a team, so do the employees at Scheibel Halaska. The firm’s team approach allows employees to achieve that balance between work and family.

Promoting your company as a family-friendly employer can help you recruit top talent. But you can’t just say you’re family-friendly; any employer can do that. As SH understands, you have to practice family friendliness consistently, and you have to do it as a team.

Building a Name in Blogging—without Your Own Blog

Having a web presence is critical. And lately, more and more companies are even taking the time to create their own corporate blogs. But starting and maintaining a successful blog is a substantial undertaking requiring a lot of time and commitment. A blog must feature engaging posts on compelling topics—consistently.

If your organization doesn’t have the resources to do justice to your own blog, there’s another way to build an online presence: contributing to other blogs. In Milwaukee, we have BizBlog, a blog updated daily as part of the The Small Business Times. Check out how John Scheibel, our CEO, is increasing Scheibel Halaska’s presence on the web.