Point I’m trying to make is businesses today are very much at par in being technologically savvy and in-tune with what their competition has to offer, and matching that. What that translates into for customers is a whole array of products that look pretty identical in their features and capabilities. So going back to my original question, how do you think she chose one type of coffee over the other? It was quite simply the brand she preferred.

So what constitutes the brand? I see it as the aura, the vibe, the sentiments attached and basically the essence of your product that emerges which forms to be the differentiator! In traditional marketing, it’s all about getting the 4 P’s in the perfect proportion – Product, Price, Place and Promotion. There is a lot of planning, strategy, research, science and advertising amongst other things that is involved in the making of a company’s brand image.

It’s dealt with strategically, scientifically and purposefully, in a kind of ‘causal relationship’ between the initiators within the company and their external audience. This all happens in a streamlined and structured fashion, feeding the external audience with the finished product in the form of the ‘agreed upon’ image, identity and messaging the company would like its audience to accept as the brand.

While this model still works in several cases, we have been witnessing a rising trend in how brands are being created and perceived lately. Like the advent of spring, social media has infused a new life into how a brand is born and defined today. People are no longer simply accepting this definition of a brand that is presented to them like a perfectly packaged shining trophy that they can only admire, but not touch. They are more interested in getting up close and personal with it even if it means getting your fingerprints all over it.

Brands are no longer produced in a sterile, climate controlled environment.  With the explosion of social media the sheer definition of – ‘what is a brand?’ has evolved and now grown organically.

The users are no longer looking for a picture perfect image because that seems sterile and made-up. For companies it’s about being more vulnerable not necessarily in a negative opportunistic kind of way but appearing more real, approachable and accessible to its audience. The digital age has shifted the paradigm from a funnel type communication, to a much more intertwined and overlapping model. One where each of the factors: be it the opinion of your competitors, support from your partners, the chatter from your user communities, the online product reviews, or the strategic press releases and marketing campaigns, all infuse with one another influencing the brand image today!

Today’s social media has given each of us a voice that collectively determines what morphs into a company’s brand image and identity. Brand has become this multi-faceted and multi-dimensional entity today that has the colors and flavors of numerous stakeholders.

The onus lies on the companies to not fight or defy this flow but to embrace it and cultivate it by truly building an empire targeted towards your customer centric needs and solutions. This is when you stop ‘talking over’ but start truly ‘engaging with’ your audience.  So do you believe you have that green thumb?

One unique trait of us as humans is our resilience and creativity in the face of adversity. Our ability to think creatively towards a solution is challenged the most during extraordinary times. This ability comes from our instinctual survival techniques right from our Stone Age that has taught us to not just to survive but thrive over the centuries.

Different factors such as the environment, economy and society have gone through several cycles of change raising with it our stakes to discover, improvise and reinvent ourselves with the times. Changing times have given rise to changing needs – giving birth to new opportunities for growth and development, on a personal level as well as a sociological level.

Today, we live in a technology-driven society that dictates how we interact, communicate and do business with each other. We have all become creatures of modern comfort in a gadget-friendly world allowing us to fulfill our different needs and aimed at making our lives easier. However, on a fundamental level our primary needs have always been centered on survival and sustenance.

That got me thinking about what skills are needed to thrive and sustain in today’s modern workforce? I reached out to a few of the thought leaders while at SAS to seek their advice and opinion. I was looking forward to hearing what they had to say coming from different backgrounds, sensibilities and with over 140 years of collective experience! What I learnt in return was both surprising and delightful. Sharing their collective revelations below:

Adele Sweetwood – Vice President, Americas Marketing - The one skill would be communication – all forms, verbal, written, presentation… With the right communication, you will enable all aspects of growth and leadership. If you were to ask me about the one ‘trait’, I would say, authenticity. People respond positively when you are genuine.

Diana Levey – Marketing Director, JMP - You need to be flexible. Whether you’re at home or in the office, things seldom go as planned. So being able to change on a dime without getting flustered or having your nose out of joint is about as important a trait or skill as I know of.

Jenn Mann – Vice President, Human Resources - Regardless of your industry, it is important to not only be competent in your area, but to have the right attitude. Talent is not enough! Attitudes have the power to lift up or tear down a team. The right attitude also could refer to a “positive attitude”. What I mean by the right attitude is:

• Willingness to admit mistakes
• Seeing strengths in others and nurturing those strengths
• Not taking yourself too seriously
• Living life with some humility
• Having a “can do” attitude

Paul Kent – Vice President, Platform Research and Development - Be useful! You have to combine your technical skills with your sensory ones. Identify an area this is being underserved and apply yourself to it. (Cheerfully is always a good modifier). Your peers and hopefully your boss too, will recognize you for this. The harder question is how does one learn/practice/polish their “useful bone”…that’s usually called work-experience!

Radhika Kulkarni – Vice President, Advanced Analytics - Communication is a very important skill in all careers. Listen to all the input and be open to all the feedback given to you. Learn to articulate your message in a language that is understood by your audience. This is especially important when you work in a cross-functional team with diverse skills where everyone contributes one piece of a larger picture.

Scott VanValkenburgh – Senior Director, Alliances - Empathy. It may sound a bit strange, but empathy towards your own life, its limits and possibilities and empathy towards others. This helps bring perspective, balance and understanding in both your personal and professional relationships. Today, the need and positive effect of human interaction and connection is at an all-time high, and unless you have empathy, one’s career and life will fall short of its full potential.

Suzanne Gordon – Chief Information Officer and Vice President of IT - If you are a ‘manager’ I would say, it’s building an atmosphere of trust where collaboration can happen easily and swiftly. You need to listen to the people that work for you, you need to encourage them to work out issues amongst themselves and not run to you with problems. You need to support and trust them and hire good people! If you are an ‘individual contributor’ I would say its persistence, not giving up if you have a good idea.

Suzanne sums it best for us by sharing this quote, “Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.” – William Feather

Did their advice resonate with you? Can you think of any other skill you believe is vital to thrive and sustain in today’s economy? Let’s hear it.

Photo by country_boy_shane

Somewhere along the way we get tricked into thinking we need to ‘add more’ when it comes to a marketing layout. We tend to squeeze in more data, wanting to optimize every square inch with dumping all the possible content there is, feeling the urge to explain or elaborate every little component about a piece. Sometimes backtracking is a good thing! We need to step back and remind ourselves why the old-fashioned ways of storytelling still hold true even today!

When it comes to designing any marketing piece – a flyer, a brochure, booklet or maybe even a blog post, look at it from the lens of a good storytelling template. I dug up and went old school trying to see what that meant –

Rule book-

1. Specify your goal upfront : What is the key purpose of this document? What is it meant to serve? Is it informational, awareness creation, to sell your product, or promoting an event? Keep that in focus and steer your overall content and layout keeping that goal in perspective.

2. Key takeaway: What is the ‘one thing’ you want your audience to do after they read this collateral? I say one thing vs. things, as you don’t want to confuse your audience by giving them more than one actionable item to follow-up on. So think hard and assess what is it that you want them ‘to do’, in order to get better results. Many a times, we feel compelled to add several action items in our call to action hoping for ‘more results’. End result, your target audience might slack, as it might seem like a lot of work their end. So keep it easy and really simple for them.

Imagine, how daunting it may seem to you if you came home from work to a long list of to-do list, you are most likely to procrastinate and try to get to it later. As for the type A personalities, they may get farther, probably getting to the first few vs. hitting all of it. So keep it short and easy for your audience and they are more likely to do it!

3. Give your audience and their intelligence some credit! : People are smart in filling out the smaller details and making sense of things for the most part. So don’t patronize them by inundating them with every little tiny detail and information. Respect people’s times, nobody really has the time to read every word and process it in their heads. Stick with the bigger pieces of information you want them to remember, and have the confidence that your intelligent audience will plug in the connecting pieces.

4. Gift wrap it well! : Everybody likes & enjoys a good presentation. So keep your layout pretty. So what does that mean? It could mean a bunch of things here’s a quick list of some of the obvious ones –

• Always include visuals - People register visuals better. Try to incorporate a relevant picture, graph, table, pie chart, anything will help the reader register the content  visually too. Nobody likes staring at a plain black and white document for too long (yawn!)

• Typography – Try breaking the monotony of the plain text using different font styles  and font sizes making it easier on the eye to read. Also try not going to verbose on them  using long paragraphs (again yawn!) try breaking it down into bite –sized paragraphs.

• Cohesive color scheme – We have used colors all along to describe our emotions and show how we feel. They’ve played a vital role in setting the mood and ambience of our surroundings. Same principles apply in marketing. Use appropriate colors to set the ‘right mood’ and ensure it is cohesive with your overall goal and purpose of your marketing effort.

• Don’t get greedy, leave some white behind – Resist the temptation to fill out every white space left and load it with data and information. Keep it pleasing to the eye. The more you fill it with data, the higher the likelihood that your audience may skim over it, or maybe even ignore it totally. So if you want them to read all your content, space it out, break the monotony and leave some blank space. It makes the layout look cleaner, less crowded and more attractive to read through.

5. Humanize your content : This one is the most important in my mind. We tend to get so caught up in the thick of things that we tend to stray far from the classic methods that have always worked! Tell a story, no matter what type of document you are working on. Give them something that they can hold onto and seems tangible. Try to weave in a story, making it relatable. It could be your own experience, what you heard, a customer success story anything that breaks the sterile exterior shell allowing people to latch onto something. If you are successful at creating an appeal you are that much more likely to get a response from them. If they ‘feel it’ they will ‘act on it’ whether it be picking up the phone, writing back, approving, accepting, buying it, whatever it is that you want them to do. You were able to stir a reaction in them.

Got more to add onto this rulebook? Feel free to chime in and share your knowledge!

Additional resources to refer -

Twelve Tips for Writing Better Marketing Brochures – by Julia Hyde
Tips for improving your marketing collateral – by Teresa Wright
Some Tips In Creating Consistent Marketing Collaterals – by Elmar Sandyck  

 
Photos by Pratham Books and Pierre Pouliquin

I was curious about signing up on Twitter wondering what to do with it next? It all started as fun and games when a friend of mine coaxed me to sign up on Twitter last year as a way to stay in touch and have live conversations. In less than a year since I signed up, I’ve started using Twitter as my primary source of information and knowledge. It’s become my daily go-to site for everything. I get my daily dose of live local and global news, get inspired reading posts from my blogging gurus, follow updates on newly posted jobs in my area, even trust the movie reviews I read helping me decide my Friday plans for that week!

Like Twitter, I’m curious to follow the evolution of social media and its potential impact on my life. I’m curious to see how it is transforming the way I perceive the world around me. How it is changing the ways I assimilate knowledge and gather news from dynamic sources. Primarily, I’m most curious to see the domino effect it is starting to have in my life and influencing how I communicate with my world.

Truth is, I have been actively engaging in social media since its inception without even realizing it! Look around, social media has permeated our everyday life influencing how we perceive and engage with the world around us. Right from the choices we make each morning starting with the brand of coffee you drink, the clothes you wear, the stocks you choose to invest in or the restaurant you go to and celebrate your special events are all influenced in some fashion through a more dynamic form of ‘word of mouth’ – the social media. I had to be a part of this revolutionary form of communication and pen my thoughts along this process.

So in getting back to the ‘why bother?’ part, I felt ‘now’ would be a good time to transfer my longtime illegible squiggles from my small red notebook and convert it into an actual blog. I therefore start this blog with a pure intention of getting back to writing using this medium as a bouncing board to share my thoughts, experiences, questions and hopefully a few eureka moments. As a social media enthusiast, I’m curious to see where this process takes me, and eager to document and share this with you as I surf through the bursting world of social media and its yet to be explored potentials. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I know I’ll enjoy writing about it. Would love to hear your side of ‘why bother?’ that got you into blogging.