This exercise helps us – and it can help you – determine what the real goal is and develop the right tools for the job.

1. Why are we doing this project?
   If the answer is “because it’s what we’ve always done,” pay close attention to question five.
2. Who is our target audience?
   Make sure you’re talking to the right people in a language they understand.
3. In order of importance, what are the top three to five things we want them to know?
   Most people can only recall between three and five points. It’s tempting to try to cram everything into one piece, but the more you do, the less people will remember.
4. What do we want them to think, feel, do?
   This question will help you craft your message, the tone, and your call to action.
5. How will this project accomplish that goal? Is there a better way?
   Sometimes, 10 personal phone calls are more effective than a mass direct mailing. Be open to other possibilities.
6. What challenges do we have to overcome?
   Maybe there is a commonly held public misperception that needs clarification. Or maybe you have a tiny budget and need to be extra creative in getting your message out.
7. What tasks are necessary to complete this project and what are the deadlines?
   Breaking out a detailed schedule for every step of your projects will keep you on track from idea to execution.
8. Do we have the resources necessary to complete this project? (time, money, personnel, etc.)
   This is critical to determine at the start of a project, so that you can shift resources and schedules as needed.

If you take a few minutes to run through these questions your projects will be more likely to succeed. And, as always, if there are any projects Mindpower can help you with, feel free to get in touch!

Grab the reporter
When you’re writing, let go of your marketer’s mindset, and put yourself in a reporter’s shoes. Reporters don’t care about your marketing goals. They’re looking for stories their readers will find interesting.

Timing is important. Your story must be recent news if the event has already happened, or not too far away if it’s a future event you’re promoting.

Headlines
Think about how succinctly newspaper headlines are worded, and craft yours to grab a reporter in as few words as possible.

• Put your most important and exciting information first.
• Include your organization’s name in the headline.
• Be bold, but don’t go all “used car salesman” (our apologies to Crazy Eddie). If your story sounds “too good to be true,” you’ll undermine its credibility.

Subheads
This is your opportunity to explain a little more of the important details of your story without watering down the impact of your headline.

Lead paragraph
In the first paragraph include the who, what, when, where, how, and why of your story. Reporters get tons of press releases. If they don’t get why yours matters in the first paragraph, it’s likely your release will wind up in the trash.

The body
Here’s where you can include whatever support you need to back up what claims you’ve made in the lead paragraph.

• Avoid using “I” or “we” unless it’s in a quote.
• Use powerful quotes from people who are involved in the story or from an expert on the subject to make your story more interesting and credible.
• You’ll have more success getting your stories published, if a busy journalist doesn’t have to spend a lot of time editing your release. Write your releases to match their editorial style.

The boiler plate
Conclude with a sentence or two about your organization. This language will be the same in every press release you send.

• Keep your press releases short. Two pages are okay, but one is better.
• At the end, center three pound symbols, so the reporter will know that’s all there is of the story.

###
After the pound symbols include information on how the reporter can contact you for more information or schedule an interview with someone involved in the story.

Emailing your press release
Use your short, attention grabbing headline as your email subject line. That should help your press release stand out in your reporter’s inbox.

• Craft your message to each media outlet and send it to the reporter who covers that type of information.
• After sending the press release, a follow-up call can help keep you and your organization fresh in your reporter’s mind.

A client recently told me they wanted 500,000 “Fans” on Facebook by the end of the year. When I asked them why, they just looked at me blankly. When I pushed, they just hemmed and hawed—ending up mumbling something like, “it is a good round number.”

When I further pushed to ask what they wanted to do with all those fans, and if they were prepared to spend the significant budget to manage a community of that size—”You’re going to have to have lots of conversations with them, you realize.”

They recoiled with alarm—“I thought social media was free!”

While most social media platforms are free to use, establishing a successful social media community takes thoughtful management and daily monitoring. It’s more than a one-time investment or an afterthought to a marketing campaign; instead it should be seen as a living and breathing long-term communication channel.

Unlike traditional forms of media, which tend to send one-way messages, social media enables a two-way dialogue, creating a dynamic brand-to-consumer conversational platform. This invitation to converse creates countless opportunities for brands to listen and gain valuable insight from their customers, that is, if you are prepared to effectively manage the community. In order to provide value and serve as an effective marketing tool, brands must understand and embrace the real-time, authentic and conversational nature of social media and be prepared to invest adequate time and budget.

Of course it’s important to have fans, and the more the merrier, right? This is not always the case—especially when the goal is to build a real community. The question should not be how many people “Like” you on Facebook, but rather how many really like your brand and choose to express it via their social networks. It’s important to keep in mind that it’s often quality over quantity and in social media it’s no exception. Sure, you can pay your way to build a large fan base, but are you simply paying for numbers rather than meaningful connections?

Most likely if you are advertising fancy promotions through multiple media outlets; you will attract a plethora of “gamers” as opposed to true brand loyalists. Although you will accomplish a wide reach and increased numbers in the short-term, this is far less valuable than a smaller but long-term community that was earned through organic word of mouth, highly targeted promotions and incentives, and careful, specific, social ads. Remember, social media is about connecting and engaging with loyal consumers, it’s not meant to be a traditional billboard on a social platform.

If you’re looking to build a truly engaged dynamic community, instead of buying fans through heavy advertising, fancy, overly broad, promotions and reach blocks, a better strategy is to be patient and slowly and carefully grow a targeted and influential fan base. Maintaining small and relevant promotional incentives (e.g. product giveaways or coupons) and valuable content/conversations, you will provide real value to your community of fans. By offering more relevant promotions that appeal to your specific consumer-base and promoting them through word of mouth and highly targeted social ads, you’ll be able to successfully, over time, attract long-term valuable fans and witness far less post-promotion fan attrition.

Your most valuable fans are the ones who, given the slightest encouragement (maybe a product coupon or even just social recognition), will shout from the rooftop (or more likely their personal Twitter, Facebook, Blog, etc.) about your brand to their established networks of followers. These passionate fans will help to organically spread the word about your brand through their own personal networks, which is the beauty, and true power, of social media.

With careful community management, brands have the ability to foster and enhance organic word of mouth about their products and services through these channels. What good does it do to get a whole slew of fair-weathered fans who are only there for the freebies and will abandon you as soon as they spot a better promotion that comes along. The focus and attention should be shifted to those highly engaged and influential consumers who, with careful nurturing can be changed from brand enthusiasts into brand advocates.

It’s important to listen to what your fans are saying and encourage their engagement. Fans generally “Like” your page because they already enjoy your products/services; don’t try to hard sell to them or push your marketing objectives. Social media should reflect a natural flow of brand/consumer conversation. Instead of pushing branded messages, offer engaging and valuable content that they will want to share with their personal networks. Always monitor for trends or opportunities to address their feedback, complaints and compliments; it’s important to show that you are listening and value what they have to say.

In order to get people excited to talk about your brand you must have a presence and a voice in the space; it’s essential to make these communications two-way. Brands must interact beyond posting updates and static content; fans want to be acknowledged and recognized by the brand and have a genuine exchange of dialogue. Take a look at the percentage of fans actively engaged on your page. If you’re not satisfied, simply take a look at who “Likes” your page and to determine if you are attracting the right audience. By increasing the proportion of engagement posts (conversation starters) you’ll likely witness an increase in interactions among your engaged fans. The more interactions you can encourage leads to higher impressions, which in turn, spreads social currency about your brand.

Brands already in the social space and those who are thinking about it need to look at social media as an independent channel. It’s far more than a traditional marketing platform and if you are only looking at the number of fans, chances are you’re not realizing the real potential of social media communications. Once the value and opportunity are realized, brands will begin to shift their thinking from pure numbers of fans to the more important quality of fans and engagement with their social communities.

Slow and steady should be the mantra of social media. Perhaps if we were to look at traditional advertising—based on the 30-second spot, and immediate gratification, as an attempt to get you out on a date that night, social media should be looked at more as the less dazzling, consistent over time, commitment to a long term relationship and family—perhaps less exciting in the short term, but infinitely more satisfying, and valuable, in the long term.

At Mindpower, branding is our business. And having been in this business for 15-plus years, we know how important staying true to your brand really is.

Your brand is your identity – it’s how the outside world perceives you. Every logo, color, font, image, and word you associate with your brand helps define it. (So every logo, color, font, image, and word must be chosen carefully.)

Take Google.
Before you google Google (tongue twister much?), try picturing the logo in your head. Playful, primary colors. A simple (but distinct) typeface. Occasional whimsical imagery for the seasons, holidays, etc. Piece of cake, right?

That’s no accident. Google undoubtedly spent countless hours defining who they are, or better yet, who they wanted to be. In the end, they most certainly came up with a clearly defined graphic standards guide. And now, nearly every man and woman in the world knows them. Does Google stray from their graphic standards? No. And neither should you.

Saatchi & Saatchi has developed a list of 20 tips for designing effective guidelines. We’ve outlined our favorites here:

1. First, understand: Who will be using the guidelines? What will they gain from them? Where and how will they be accessed?
2. Pick up one big idea that permeates the brand. Explain how following the brand guidelines will help communicate this idea to your brand’s key audiences.
3. Live the brand; design the guidelines in the look and feel of the new brand design.
4. Have a clear introduction upfront to explain why the guidelines have been produced and how adhering to them will strengthen your brand.
5. Guide, don’t tell. Engage the user. Tone of voice is key, so keep it short and simple. (And fun!)
6. Have a clear typographic hierarchy (i.e. Headings, Introduction copy, Body copy).
7. Make rules flexible enough for designers to be creative, but rigid enough to keep the brand easily recognizable. Occasionally situations will call for rules to be bent, but never broken. Continuity is key, especially if you need the brand to breathe and extend across multiple media.
8. Show clear examples of how the brand should look across a full range of different media.
9. If your brand has been mishandled in the past, consider including a “Don’t Do” section, showcasing common errors.
10. Basic contents should include: Company Values or Spirit, The Big Idea, Toolkit, Copywriting and Tone of Voice, Colors, Typography, Photography, Graphic Devices, Layout and Grids, Applications, Overview with examples, etc.

Remember: Following your graphic standards is of the utmost importance. Strong branding tells your brand story and communicates what your company/brand stands for. So spend some time coming up with your guidelines (and making them easily accessible to your employees), and stick to them. The strength of your brand depends on it.

Ask yourself the following questions

• Is photography the best visual solution?
• Are there other options?
• What current photography exists?
• What are the four to seven most amazing “must-know” facts or tidbits surrounding this client/project?
• How can we demonstrate them through photography?
• Who are the people (photography subjects) who lend themselves to the strongest stories and facts?
• What non-human subjects (places, objects, concepts) lend themselves to visual representation?
• What is the overall thrust of the brand/campaign?
• How will the style of photography capture or complement it?

Important things to keep in mind:

• Color(s)
• Style (depth of field, lenses, effects, etc.)
• Location(s)
• Props
• Improvs
• Neutral space
• Pairing’s with typography/graphic elements
• Lighting: Natural light is typically best, even in indoor settings. In general, mornings and afternoons are best for outdoor shots. High noon is bright, unflattering light.

Make your initial shot list
Rate every proposed shot on a scale of one to ten (1 = low, 10 = great) according to the following criteria:

• Storytelling
• Credibility
• Brand support
• Brain rattling
• Cliché
• Whenever a photo is less than an eight, rethink it.

Finalize the schedule
Give yourself plenty of time. Make certain that all participants and locations are scheduled and ready before the shoot date. This means, scouting locations beforehand (Do locations need to be reserved? Are they presentable?), informing participants of dress codes, shoot times, and anything else that may affect them day-of.

Contact and remind participants
Don’t assume that everyone will remember the shoot. Email them. Call them. Send out friendly reminders. In other words, make certain they show up on time.

Make sure props are handy
Depending on the type of shoot, props may make the difference between a believable photo and a boring one. For instance, if you’re on a shoot for a university, make sure all the stuff students use during the day is available (computers, books, college logo wear, t-shirts, sweatshirts, sports equipment, etc.). Thinking through the details beforehand will help you utilize your time on set (or on location) wisely.

Speak up
As a client, you know your project/campaign better than anyone. So don’t be afraid to talk to the photographer. Are there “must-see” locations? Do you have a different vision for a shot you’d like to capture? If you don’t talk now, you’ll be left with images you’re not 100 percent satisfied with.

Creativity grows out of collaboration – so share your ideas.

While we don’t generally spend an entire day contemplating a single comma, the importance of proofreading cannot be understated. Here are a few of our tried-and-true tips for successful proofing.

• Cultivate a sense of doubt. Ask yourself, “What can go wrong?”
• Find a quiet (or as-quiet-as-possible) place to proof and gather your tools: dictionary, style guide, highlighter, chewing gum, coffee – whatever you need to get into your proofing zone.
• Don’t rely on spell-check (or grammar-check). Spell-check won’t catch that you’ve used “there” instead of “their.”
• Fresh eyes see much more; have someone else read your work. At the MP HQ, someone other than the project writer always proofs first.
• Print it out – it’s easier to spot an error when you’re hunched over a piece of paper than when you’re squinting at your monitor.
• Read what’s on the page – not what you think is there. Try reading backwards or out loud to make sure you haven’t missed any words.
• Proof for different things separately. Read once for spelling mistakes, once for punctuation errors, then again for grammatical issues.
  • Look for extra spaces, broken copy, orphans, and widows.
  • Check subject/verb agreement.
  • Verify names, addresses, titles, phone numbers, and the like.
• Read for content – What is the purpose of the piece? Is it easy to comprehend? How does it flow? Is the tone appropriate for the project/client?
• Proof revisions against the previous version.

Then celebrate a proofing job well done! On those rare occasions when a writer here “catches” something that our pro proofer didn’t, we certainly savor the moment, with a writer-ly version of a touchdown dance in the end zone.

One of the most important decisions a CMO makes is agency selection.

These days, client-agency relationships fray faster than ever. They last, on average, only three years. This harmful churn reflects growing pressure on CMOs to deliver short-term results in a tough environment. Marketing is scrutinized around the clock, and CMOs face a vastly more complex, multiplatform ecosystem. Even the communications model was turned on its head as the consumer seized control of it. This upheaval makes agency selection more difficult than ever. More than half of agency reviews backfire within a few years.

Over the last 27 years I was involved in more than 250 reviews. My conclusion? Successful agency selection requires an adaptation on marketers’ part. In their day jobs, marketers are called upon to deal overwhelmingly with the quantitative dimensions of their brands, such as staying within budget, measuring ROI, pricing and managing expenses. However, considerations when selecting a new agency are mostly intuitive. They require in-depth knowledge of agencies, their culture, the players and capabilities. Here is what matters most when selecting a new agency:

1. Don’t hire an agency.
Hire a culture. The core values of an agency will foretell the kind of relationship you are likely to have. Favor agencies that are collaborative, innovative and proactive. Avoid agencies that tolerate fiefdoms. And their office often will reflect their culture. It will tell you a lot about them. The mark of a good agency is often in the cheerfulness and energy in its corridors. So hang around a bit.

2. Talent rules.
The most critical decision in any review is getting a measure of the agency talent. Agencies that are brave, culturally diverse and committed to self-expression create better, more forward-thinking teams. Find out what kind of people they hire. Are they ambitious? Inspired? Make sure that the talent is technologically literate. Ask to see the agency’s turnover rate. Spend time with HR and find out how the agency hires, promotes and rewards its talent.

3. Set expectations.
For your team to collaborate, agree on your needs and expectations before you start. Agree as to what kind of agency you want. Decide whether you need a firm that excels in image advertising, or perhaps you prefer a hard-sell, results-oriented retail agency. Decide if you prefer a multi-office global network or a creative hot shop. Make sure that your objectives are strategic and fit your culture.

4. Decide who are the deciders.
Everybody on your team will want to participate in the agency selection. Taking part in a search for a new agency is exciting and fun. However, giving equal weight to all opinions ignores the fact that different managers have different levels of experience, and sometimes, different expectations. Fewer people, and more senior people, make for a better selection committee.

5. Avoid a cast of thousands.
Considering 50, 30 or even 15 agencies is not commonsensical. If you have done your homework, your initial “long” list should be relatively short and focused. If you are not sure which agencies to invite, rely on your industry association or a search consultant for advice.

6. Don’t use the RFP to collect data.
Instead, collect knowledge. Use the RFP to find out why agencies are interested in your business. Find out if they are truly passionate or simply mercenary and opportunistic. Ask about their success and failures. What an agency learned from its failure is more revealing about its character and how it handles adversity. Use the RFP to ask them where would they want to be in five years and which path will take them there.

7. Don’t restrict your search.
Location doesn’t matter much. With email, FedEx and mobile phones, you can keep in touch 24/7 from anywhere. And limiting a search to agencies with only category expertise is ill advised. Agencies with disproportionate category expertise might indeed be appropriate, but some might sometimes succumb to groupthink. So don’t prejudge. Sometimes if you want fresh thinking, look for an outsider perspective.

8. Don’t choose by brand name alone.
Agency brands are important. They provide a sense of the agency’s history and its values. However, the agency brand will not be as important to you day to day as the immediate agency core team, the people that will be dedicated to your business. In the long run, these people’s dedication and passion for your business will determine how successful it will be. Choose your agency team well and choose it carefully. Make sure that you get to meet and spend a lot of time with them before you commit.

9. Don’t choose by price alone.
Price matters, of course, especially in today’s challenging environment. But squeezing the agency’s bottom-line unreasonably might be counterproductive. It could result in downgrading the quality of talent on your business and dilute the service. Instead, pay the agency fairly and increase savings by improving operational efficiencies. You are hiring an agency for the quality of its output, so avoid letting cost be the tail that wags the dog.

10. Have the right perspective.
Don’t just hire an agency based on its history. Hire its future, its vision. Look at what it thinks about the most important consumer trends. Find out how well it gets technology, how deep and central to its culture that is, and whether it understands how to use social media.

Relationships fail when client expectations are not met and dissatisfaction is ignored. However, it’s rarely beneficial or healthy for a marketer to abandon a deteriorating relationship with an agency without trying to first repair it. A relationship audit can sort out hiccups without the necessary expense and time demands of replacing current resources. Restoring effective and vibrant communications with the incumbent, sometimes by involving third-party mediation, is always the preferred approach to client-agency relationships.

BrandSimple: How the Best Brands Keep It Simple and Succeed
Allen P. Adamson and Sir Martin Sorrell

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
Chip Heath and Dan Heath

The Brand Gap: How to Bridge the Distance Between Business Strategy and Design
Marty Neumier

Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-Performance Brands
Marty Neumier

The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding
Al Ries and Laura Ries

Brand Babble: Sense and Nonsense About Branding
Don E. Shultz and Heidi Shultz

Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition
Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin

Happy Reading!

It’s never too early to start building buy-in.
When Mindpower begins a project, our first step is Discovery. That’s when we spend a few days onsite speaking with everyone who has anything to do with you. These visits provide us with valuable information we need to develop solutions that are authentic to your organization. They’re equally important for making your internal constituents feel that they’ve had a voice in the process.

Knowing that change is threatening to many people, there are a number of ways you can begin paving the way to consensus before Mindpower arrives.

• Be open with your internal audiences about the fact that you’re in the planning stages of a new branding or marketing program.
• Tell them why you think it is necessary and what you hope to accomplish.
• Invite them to participate in focus groups. Make sure they know that their input is important.
• When they do participate, follow up with a thank you.

Share the wealth.
When your new branding or marketing materials are ready to present, make a point of sharing them with your internal constituents before you make them public.

Your internal launch can be simple or elaborate.

Some of our clients have held campus-wide events with speeches, free t-shirts, and activities that support the brand or marketing experience. Others have been more understated.

• Recap how important their input was to the process and thank them again.
• Make sure they know how they can continue to make the new solutions a success, especially in the case of branding.
  For example: if your brand promise is excellent service, then you need them to think in terms of how they will deliver excellent service in every aspect of their daily activities. (If we’ve done a good job uncovering your authentic brand, then that shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for most of your community.)
• Give them whatever tools they need to be good ambassadors.
  • Do they need follow up sessions with your marketing department to help them follow the new plan?
  • Do they need talking points, so they can clearly articulate the message?
  • Do they need graphic elements, such as logos, so they can produce consistent materials?

Every organization will be different. The point is to include your community in marketing efforts so they will know what’s going, feel like they’re a part of it, and know how they can help make it a success. Be open to what your community needs and creative with the solutions.

The main product of our business is our “mindpower” — creative solutions to the issues and opportunities facing our clients and prospects. And, good ideas — creativity — can be tough to define, or agree upon.

One person’s passion is often another’s poison. So, it’s no wonder that potential clients often ask us to take a project on speculation. That is: To “test” our creative product in much the same way they may try out other types of products before purchasing.

Unfortunately, we must turn down such projects. This article may explain why NOT doing spec work actually makes us a better, more stable and reliable partner for whom to do business.

It lets us keep our prices low
We make money mostly by selling our time. Unlike businesses that sell products, we can’t take time back and resell it. Thus, the less time we actually sell, the more we have to charge. So we attempt to hold our prices down by keeping busy.

We also have substantial fixed overhead costs — rent, utilities, computers, peripherals, software, etc. So the higher the percentage of our time that is productive (billable), the more we can spread those costs, and the less each individual client gets charged for them.

In addition, the only way we can recover our overhead costs is through what we charge our clients. If we accept speculative projects, the overhead for these non-billable hours would have to be added to the factor we charge our regular, long-term, appreciate, paying clients. We don’t think this would be fair.

We want to give you only our best
We are very proud of our track record of helping many different clients with many different challenges. In doing so, we have come to understand the crucial components in producing outstanding creative work.

First, outstanding creative work requires good, complete input from our clients. It takes time and effort that’s tough for them to justify unless they are committed to awarding an assignment. Yet without it, we can’t show how good we really are. Or our best effort may well be misdirected; a great shot that hits the wrong target.

Equally important, great creativity requires enthusiasm. We need to be excited enough to pour all our energy into a project. Frankly, that’s impossible without knowing whether we will be chosen to go all the way, or even get paid.

And, finally, developing creativity is very labor intensive.
Although we wish it were otherwise, good work seldom comes in a flash of inspiration. Rather, it usually requires research and thinking time, then the working through of many different ideas and approaches. This makes it difficult or impossible to do good work in a compressed time frame.

Speculative projects, whether done by us or some other firm, usually require cutting every creative corner. That’s hardly in your best interests, or ours.

We’re a small firm, in business to stay
We hope our small size is what attracts many to our firm. Because we are small, you get to deal directly with those actually doing your work; there are no “middle-men” to muck things up. It also means we’re more flexible, and able to turn things around faster. We can offer better, more personal service, too. And, because our overhead is lower than that of the “big boys,” so are our fees.

Another reason for our success is that we are good business people
We know that a small business like ours (probably yours, too) has to watch costs carefully and can’t afford to give much away. If we weren’t careful — if we did give away our time — it is likely we wouldn’t be here next time you called, which means you’d have start all over again bringing someone else up to speed learning your business. We doubt you’d want that, and we know we wouldn’t. We believe we should both be looking to build a long-term, mutually- productive and cost-efficient business relationship.

Truth is, small organizations like ours can seldom afford to accept speculative projects. If you find one that will, be skeptical. They may be desperate.

As for larger organizations and agencies, yes they can afford to do speculative projects, and often do. But that’s the very point. If they do have the volume and staff that makes it a small risk for them, they’re probably too big to give you the personal service and outstanding creativity you’re searching for.

We hope you’ll give us the opportunity sometime soon to prove just how good we really are. In the meantime look at our portfolio. The work we have done for many other clients with many other challenges speaks volumes about our abilities.

Unless you’re willing to offer what you offer for free, don’t ask me to.