The Credibility Branding Blog

How DeWALT Turned Customers into Influencers

Dan Stiff of Leadership Performance Development offers us a terrific example of creating customer influencers, which always creates long term and very loyal ambassadors. Another very important point Dan brings out is the quality of the products. DeWALT could not have pulled this off if the products were not top notch. In the Credibility Pyramid (see graphic), this is number two (after a strong and credible management team). If the product does not deliver a clear return on investment AKA value, then engaging the customer as an ambassador just won’t work. Then coming up with marketing programs that illustrate the value is the next logical step (that a surprising number of companies miss). DeWalt hit a home run on this one. Thanks Dan for the important case study of credibility branding in action.

A Credibility Branding Case Study:

By Dan Stiff

How do you build credibility for your brand? How do you gain loyalty from customers? At industrial tool manufacturer DeWALT, a division of Black & Decker, we did it by turning customers into brand ambassadors.

DeWALT had a special challenge: to make the difficult transition from being a little-known business-to-business brand to becoming a household name in the consumer industry. During the launch of DeWALT, our team created an end-user marketing approach that coincided with the introduction of the product line. I was district sales manager for the western U.S. on the original team, and later became director in charge of the sales and product training program.

Ours was the first marketing campaign in the industry to bring the product to the users where they worked, lived, and played. This “24/7” approach turned ordinary customers into enthusiastic, loyal brand ambassadors whose endorsement of DeWALT tools spread brand credibility throughout the country.

Let me give you some specifics from our campaign.

We went where our customers worked. We did blitzes in local settings, going right to job sites during lunch hour where contractors and construction workers were building homes, businesses, and industrial projects, and demonstrated our power tools and accessories on site. We made these demonstrations dramatic and memorable.

We went where they lived. We took our demos to local lumberyards on a weekday with the three F’s in mind: food, fun, and free stuff. We served pulled pork sandwiches, ran drill-off contests, and gave away hats with DeWALT’s logo. These events were so popular that users clamored to be there. The winner of each drill-off contest, where we see who can drill the most 1 1/4-inch drywall screws into a piece of drywall in 10 seconds, would receive the coveted goldenrod DeWALT tee-shirt that had our logo in bold black letters—Guaranteed Tough—with the inscription “DeWALT Industrial Power Tools.” The tee-shirt winners gained bragging rights, and DeWALT gained walking billboards.

We went where they played. In another groundbreaking strategy, our team extended the brand beyond the workplace. We took our demos to NASCAR races, to professional rodeos, and to the speedboat races where our customers were enjoying their leisure time. At these sponsored events, we built relationships with users, demonstrated our tools, and of course, gave away lots of free stuff.

We made our brand story come to life. At Home Depots, Lowes, lumberyards, and construction suppliers across the country, we set up engaging demonstrations of DeWALT’s attributes. For example, we would take our tool housing (the “outer skin” that houses all of the moving parts) and put it in a gunny sack along with the housings from all of our competitors’ tools. After describing the extra quality that we put into our glass-filled nylon-reinforced housings compared with the plastic housings our competition used, we would pick up a sledgehammer and whale the tar out of the gunny sack, sometimes letting customers participate. When the contents of the gunny sack were emptied onto the floor, customers saw a slightly dented but never broken DeWALT housing next to piles of multicolored plastic shards. Our customers had a noticeable emotional reaction to this demonstration.

We showed our contractors appreciation. At DeWALT, we had a contractor appreciation program that worked like this: Buy five tools and we’ll give you the sixth for free. This program was wildly successful, and created tremendous lifetime brand loyalty.

Our universal branding strategy at DeWALT, which aimed to take DeWALT out of the 8-to-5 brand and move it into customers’ everyday lives, paid off in a big way. Our customers felt an emotional connection to DeWALT and became brand ambassadors, spreading the word to friends and coworkers, and reaching more buyers than an ordinary marketing campaign could hope to access.

The end result? Black & Decker’s market launch of DeWALT was one of the biggest turnarounds recorded in marketplace history. It is now a Harvard Business School case field study on how to use a strong brand and end-user strategy to take back a market.

***

Dan Stiff is president of Leadership Performance Development, Inc. (www.lpdinc.com), a training and consulting company specializing in sales, leadership, and organizational development, and the author of Sell the Brand First: How to Sell Your Brand and Create Lasting Customer Loyalty (McGraw-Hill).

Focusing on Core Competency and Customer Service Wins Every Time

This is another contributed article, this time from Stanly Joseph, Chairman & CEO, Business Advantage. While it is a case study in outsourcing what it really speaks to is customer service and focusing on core competencies. It is also shows that it is never too late to turn things around when there is a downslide. If we can seriously examine ourselves and our business at various times in the corporate lifecycle then a turnaround and a mea culpa is not only possible but will lead to great lessons learned and even better customer loyalty. Thanks Stan for the great wisdom and letting us peak over your shoulder while your share this unique story.

"The Decision to Outsource" - Lessons I Learned about Walking My Talk

By Stanley Joseph

I suppose I am what many say I am……..a man of many words, strong opinions, and a few good ideas. But what drives me is one thought, a dream ……..The American Dream.

Sure, initially it was about my family and me. And like most, I had to go out and earn what I have. But over time, the objective became clearer and my focus more intense. Now, this business, Business Advantage, is about helping the little guy, the entrepreneur; the small business owner; the risk taker. If you know your facts, you know that the small businesses of America are where dreams are realized and most new jobs are created….every day.

When we first launched the company, the thought was that we would provide small, private firms in the southeast region of the country professional services that they needed to be successful, at a reasonable price. But not until our business “hit the wall” from growth, did I realized that we were much more than that - we were the “business advantage” that most entrepreneurs like me never had.

You see, I believe that there are a lot of guys (and ladies too) out there just like me, with intensity, motivation and a good idea or two. But they never get their idea for their “dream” off the ground because they don’t know how to maneuver through the compliance and regulatory red tape of a business start-up. If they try to get the help they need piecemeal, the legal and accounting fees, the healthcare benefits and insurance costs, the specialized staffing and administrative help, and the like simply overwhelm them, even before they complete the business plan. One alternative, raising money, is extremely time consuming, and often leads to lose of control and, worse, lose of dream. So, their idea never gets its wings. Many entrepreneurs just give up.

Our primary objective was to provide all the professional services that the entrepreneur needed to successfully launch and maintain his or her business, and do it cost effectively. We would profit from our abilities to help the little guy (the small business entrepreneur) and reverse what I call the “law of large numbers”.  Before the introduction of the Business Advantage Program, the small business owner had no platform to compete with the BIG BUSINESSES of corporate America...until now. We close the gap (in services and costs) between the value our clients are receiving compared to that of the BIG GUYS (Corporate America). 

That’s the background.

Here’s the lessons learned.

Initially, we executed our business plan to perfection. We had a great board that was providing us plenty of introductions to business entrepreneurs that embraced our value proposition. Through us, the small business owner could have access to financial and human resources systems and professional staffing, health care benefits, retirement account management, disability insurance, worker’s compensation protection, and a host of other legal, technical and accounting services from one services provider. The key for the small business owner is affordability. Our services are priced to keep our client’s cost structure low, so they can in turn compete in their markets and hire quality employees like the BIG GUYS.   

As we embarked on our journey and continued to be successful convincing small business owners to outsource their compliance, regulatory and administrative headaches to us, we lost focus on our own core business, and our value to the client. While, our revenues were growing rapidly, so were our administrative backlogs and customer service issues. Our technologies were inadequate at best, functionally weak and non-integrated in truth. Our business processes were broken. Our staff were overworked and untrained. Soon, we began to lose customers faster than we were winning them.

Sure, for a while we blamed all our problems on our vendors. But not until we stepped back and examined the reasons for our failures, and more specifically examined our broken business model, did it hit us. We weren’t “Walking the Talk”. We had grown so successful, so fast that we had outpaced our delivery model. The business infrastructure that had served us well early on could not now keep pace with our growth.

So we did what we encourage our prospective clients to do. We looked at all our options, and included outsourcing as a serious alternative. Though the tendency is always to keep most functions in-house for better operational and cost control, when you take an unbiased and objective evaluation of your core business value to your customer, you will often find functions that are better performed outside. Better for you AND better for your customer. That’s how companies like FedEx grew to where they are today. They can simply do the job better, cheaper, and faster than you can do it in-house.

So it was with us. We initially thought that professional services could not be outsourced. But when we evaluated more closely, we determined that our software systems infrastructure, our computer systems hosting, our administrative business processes, and select professional services, like billing and payroll tax filings, were best done through a partner.

But by the time we figured this all out, a lot of the damage was done. We had lost 25% of our client base when we finally made the decision – we would focus on our core business, our core capabilities, and outsource the balance. And we would re-brand the company to leave behind the mistakes of the past. First I drafted a letter to all clients and employees, explaining the situation and the changes coming. Then I personally went and met with all our customers, just like in the airline commercial. Over the next three months we transformed the company. We renamed the company Business Advantage, and re-branded. We reworked our entire business infrastructure, with a significant contribution coming from our outsourcing partner. As an example, we replaced six unique information systems with one integrated one. HRO services outsourced alone will save Business Advantage 30% to 40% from the operating budget, based on company projections of in-house costs to deliver similar services. More importantly, those clients that stayed with us now enjoy some major technology and services improvements, such as employee self-service capabilities.

Today, we do what we do best, and outsource the rest. We utilize one partner for HR-BPO and FAO technology and services. We stay focused on client care, more strategic services, and marketing our professional services to the next small business entrepreneur.

And now we do what I intended we would do all along, help other little guys realize their dreams.

About Business Advantage, Inc.:  Business Advantage, Inc. is a total HR outsourcing solutions firm. The company delivers technology and services solutions to small business entrepreneurs who prefer to focus their attention on their business, and not administrative tasks. Business Advantage can be located on the World Wide Web at www.busadv.com.

About the author: Stanley Joseph leads the company as Chairman and CEO. Mr. Joseph brings a wealth of experience in building companies from conception to realization.

Most recently, Mr. Joseph was President and CEO of Private Pathways, Inc, a leader in the virtual ISP market place.  In his role, Mr. Joseph led a company wide effort to build a company from a napkin, to a multi-million dollar operation in just less than two years, at which point the company was sold.

Prior to Private Pathways, he was the Chief Marketing Officer for GlobalAxxess.com, an Internet outsourcing company that provided payroll information and process solutions through a collaborative commerce engine. In the CMO role, Mr. Joseph managed all strategic marketing and sales functions.  Stan joined GlobalAxxess.com when it acquired his company GlobalPaycheques.com, where Stan served as CEO.  Stan also played a key role in closing the $7 million needed for the Series A round of investment for GlobalAxxess.com.

Mr. Joseph's success also has foundations in his lengthy tenure as founder and CEO of Cowan and Joseph, a full-service advertising and marketing agency specializing exclusively in healthcare marketing. In this role, Mr. Joseph led three major clients from concept to IPO, worked in conjunction with the Clinton Taskforce on Healthcare Reform, and authored over 150 articles in major healthcare and marketing periodicals. 

Mr. Joseph holds a BA from the University of Wisconsin and is a graduate of the Wharton School of Business Executive Management Program. He still remains a member of the Board of Consultancy of the American Medical Association.

Marketing and Credibility Strategies – Using What You’ve Got, Inventing What You Haven’t

This is another excellent example of credibility branding in action. KnowledgeStorm has leveraged a great tactic to increase the credibility factor, namely a survey. But they didn’t just put a survey together they partnered with high profile publications, engaged credible resources to field the study, and used alternative mediums to get the results out. Smart, interesting and a good example of using the points of credibility and credibility driven strategies to increase awareness and revenues. Congratulations KnowledgeStorm.

KnowledgeStorm Emerging Media Series Campaign

Overview

Atlanta-based KnowledgeStorm is the Internet’s top-ranked search resource for technology solutions and information. KnowledgeStorm’s customers are B2B technology vendors located throughout the globe. Since 2000, KnowledgeStorm has offered programs that help customers reach potential technology buyers online and convert them into Web leads, including content distribution throughout the KnowledgeStorm Network, a network of 230 business and technology-related Websites, custom e-newsletters, site advertising and more. 

Challenges

KnowledgeStorm needed to build a platform of credibility to increase brand awareness as a thought leader in the online marketing, content distribution and lead generation space. The company also wanted to validate demand for two proposed new blog and podcast service offerings. KnowledgeStorm did not have a large budget to work with and wanted to find a way to raise its visibility and generate revenue opportunities quickly.

The Emerging Media Series campaign was developed to tie in objective research and a multi-faceted marketing effort to promote the KnowledgeStorm brand and its positioning as a thought leadership in the online marketing, content distribution and lead generation space. 

Solution

In order to position itself for market credibility, KnowledgeStorm engaged with an expert resource to validate the study data. KnowledgeStorm partnered with well known media service firm Universal McCann to help develop the questions and field the three studies on emerging media types and how B2B business and technology decision makers utilized these mediums as part of their purchasing decision process.

The roadmap for promoting the study results included multiple marketing tactics, such as a media relations effort, KnowledgeStorm’s monthly customer e-newsletter, online advertising, podcasts and coverage in Executive Vice President, Jeff Ramminger’s blog “Marketers Anonymous”.

Between the three studies, KnowledgeStorm and Universal McCann fielded surveys to over one million B2B business and technology professionals. The first study on podcasts was released in July 2006. The second study on blogs and RSS feeds was released in August 2006. The final study on online video, social networks and Wikis was released in November 2006.

KnowledgeStorm leveraged its relationship with BtoB magazine, the top magazine reaching B2B marketers, to secure the initial exclusive coverage of the studies.

KnowledgeStorm produced a podcast of each study and included the information in sales presentations and outbound marketing campaigns to drive leads back to KnowledgeStorm. All studies and podcasts were made available for free on the KnowledgeStorm site.

Results

KnowledgeStorm’s public relations efforts generated nearly 100 online and print placements, including two front-page articles in BtoB magazine and a speaking engagement.

The campaign succeeded in getting the company visibility in the media and delivered interest from both existing and prospective customers. Based on KnowledgeStorm’s current statistics around average sales cycles, percentage of leads to appointments and percentage of appointments to sales, the company expects to generate nearly $700,000 in sales from a $20,000 total campaign spend.

The surveys gave KnowledgeStorm the validation it needed to launch its new blog and podcast services. KnowledgeStorm launched podcast content listings in July 2006. Since then, customers have posted 40 podcasts on KnowledgeStorm. In October 2006, KnowledgeStorm launched FindTech Blogs, which included 22 blogs, representing 11 B2B technology blog categories. The content for both of these offerings is expected to continue to grow.

Influencers Really do Enhance your Brand

The following is a case study in a) thinking out of the box and b) leveraging credibility to guaranteed success. This illustrates in spades the benefits of having influencers on board to enhance the perception of the brand. Congratulations Steve. Steve Kayser is with Cincom PR

Being Thrown Out Was a Good Start

One of Cincom's product-line divisions was spending about $60,000 per year to produce a quarterly print newsletter. But any proof that it was anything but printed, recycled wood was non-existent. However, there were abundant reasons to believe it was never being seen nor used. The evidence? Huge stacks of the routinely thrown-out newsletter in the supply closet.

The Product Marketing Manager at the time, Steve Kayser, had been hearing about e-mail newsletters in the business marketing press, so he got a quick pricing quote from an e-mail vendor and popped his head into his treasurer's office to get permission to move ahead.

Uh-Oh, Now What?

Kayser explains, "He liked the concept so much, that he said, 'Great; do it for the whole company.'" Suddenly Kayser, who'd been planning a short newsletter to interest the clients of a single product line, had to come up with a newsletter that would please the entire array of Cincom client executives – over 5,000 corporate clients in 93 countries, representing just about every industry you can imagine, from aerospace to utilities.

How do you create a single newsletter that will please top executives and corporate managers with a zillion different interests?

Quick! Get on the Way to Average

A couple thoughts occurred. What does every company have in common? Every company has customer issues, business-process issues, and content issues. Why not come up with a newsletter or e-zine that covers those common issues, throw in a featured story and a few spotlights, and be well on the way to, well … average.

Something else was needed to make it educational, engaging, and, more importantly, credible. How do you do that?

Well, perhaps ask some world-class business experts and published authors to participate. And to make it unique, why not use the power of interactivity to allow readers to ask the experts questions, and make sure they get answers?

Kayser found it fairly easy to line up experts to participate. The pitch was simple – no one would have to work very hard, and they'd get a lot of glory.

Win-Win-Win

"Experts wanted to know how many questions they'd have to answer. I said, 'Your answers can be 200, 500, or 750 words and link back to something you published or to your website. I'll only publish two questions a month. How bad can that workload be, shared between all of the experts? You're not going to get blown away with writing work, and in every issue, you’ll get exposure to our subscribers. It’s a win for the experts. It’s a win for our readers. And it’s a win for Cincom  - building credibility and awareness with each issue. Win–win-win.

So, the newsletter was named “Expert Access.” Each issue prominently features an “Ask the Experts” section near the top with a reader's question answered, and a big, fat submit button that readers click on to submit more questions. Plus, there are links to a whole panel of additional experts along the newsletter's left navigation column.  This gives all contributing experts exposure in every issue, whether or not they answered a question or contributed.

Some of the experts and contributors have included:

·        Al Ries, author of “The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR”

·        Dr. David Abshire, Center for the Presidency, author of “Saving the Reagan Presidency”

·        Dave Stein, best-selling business author of “How Winners Sell” and CEO and founder of ES Research Group, The Sales Training Authority

·        Tom Nies, who according to former President Ronald Reagan, is "the epitome of the entrepreneurial spirit of American business"

·        Bo Burlingham, author of “Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big”

·        Sam Horn, author of ”POP! How to Stand Out in any Crowd”

·        Stephanie Palmer, author of “Good in a Room”

·        Nettie Hartsock, author of “Start the Press!”

·        Marc Seifer, author of ”Wizard; the Life and Times of Nikola Tesla”

·        Elliot McGucken, author, poet, artistic entrepreneur, and founder of the “Jolly Roger,” a web portal hailed as the “Flagship of the Renaissance”

·        Dr. Paul Pearsall, international best-selling author of "The Beethoven Factor"

·        Jeff Thull, author of "Mastering the Complex Sale" and CEO of Prime Resource 

·        JoAnna Brandi, customer loyalty expert and customer retention maven

·        Ken Sutherland, creative impresario and the music behind the film "Savannah Smiles"

A Funny Thing Happened …

Along the way.  As the expert contributors increased – the quality of Cincom’s internal expert’s writing also grew and kept pace. The credibility of the publication blossomed. Readers benefited and responded. Cincom Expert Access grew tremendously. From 2005 at 55,000 subscribers to December 2006 at over 135,000 subscribers.

   

How to Build a Creditable Platform That Will Attract All Key Contacts (Customers, Partners, and Influencers)

Use a little humor; help readers do their jobs better; become aware of new ideas, products, and services; and occasionally, have a B2B laugh.

Kayser started a series of articles called “Shoot the Donkey” that uses a little irreverent humor to poke fun at the complexities of business today. 

How Are We Doing?

Ask. Do surveys. Ask for suggestions and comments all the time.

For example, in a recent, six-month survey, Expert Access readers were asked to rate story selection, usefulness to their daily jobs, content categories, graphic look, responsiveness, professionalism, and overall impression.

The survey received responses from all over the world including: China, the UK, Latvia, Brazil, Belgium, Scotland, India, the Philippines, France, Italy, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Zambia, the Middle East, Finland, Colombia, Eastern Europe, Germany, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the United States.

·        93% of readers rated Expert Access as “excellent” or “good.”

·        7% rated the newsletter as “average.”

·        There was an “opt-out” rate of less than 4/10 of 1%. (A true measure of a newsletter’s popularity is how many recipients opt out.)

·        Over 500 readers respond to a call-to-action or visit Cincom's website to learn more about its products and services with each issue.

Results

Since its launch, the Expert Access subscriber list has grown to more than 135,000 readers and is distributed in 49 countries. This is despite the fact that approximately 3% to 5% of e-mail addresses go bad each month due to job changers and other names that need to be removed.

In 2006, Cincom’s Expert Access was named one of the best B2B e-mail newsletters by Marketingsherpa.  The newsletter has also received a stack of happy reader testimonials that would make other newsletter marketers intensely jealous. For example, one reader stated, "The subjects are not common stuff, and the content is just excellent. The value? Priceless." Another reader says, "I like the stories with motivational content, the interactive nature, the humorous writing style of the editor, and the varied selection of content from diverse sources. Ask the Expert is a great idea! I intend on using that more often."

Link to a sample of Cincom’s Expert Access: http://www.internetviz-newsletters.com/cincom

A Business Case for Credibility Branding

Several communications executives have contributed articles about credibility branding practices applied, these will be published weekly for as long as I receive contributions (I will accept more so send them my way!). The following is from Dusty Rhodes Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for PlatformOne, a leading HR outsourcing services provider.

The focus of his article is “customer as influencer;” this is a key marketing strategy; to treat your customers as potential word-of-mouth marketers. Thanks Dusty for the unique insights.

Article by: By Dusty Rhodes, PlatformOne

Still today, marketing just might be the most misunderstood profession around. When you try once again to explain what you do to your family or friends over dinner, you get pleasant yet blank expressions. You learn to live with that. But then you deal with a lot of the same misunderstanding on the job too. Comes with the territory, you surmise.

So, to put a stake in the ground, let’s first define marketing. According to the late Professor Theodore Levitt, legendary Marketing Scholar and former Harvard Business Review Editor, marketing is "All the exhilarating big things and all the troublesome little things that must be done in every nook and cranny of the entire corporate organization in order to achieve the purpose of attracting and holding a customer."

That pretty much sums it up. Our challenge at PlatformOne was just that – attracting and holding our initial customers, while competing against a few of the most financially strong, customer rich and market dominant companies of the 20th century. And we were a startup, three short years ago.

Today, according to independent industry analyst Nelson Hall, PlatformOne is one of the top providers of HRO technology and services to the mid-market, companies with from 500 to 15,000 employees. We deliver HR outsourcing administrative services, such as payroll processing and benefits administration, through HR professionals who utilize the best technology available in the market. Our staff consists of HR professionals whom have all made the shift from working for companies in industry to working for PlatformOne, an HR outsourcing services provider.

Three years ago we had one client, a management team in transition and a half-baked marketing strategy for an emerging market space called HR-BPO (business process outsourcing). The distinguishing difference between HR-BPO and the more traditional piecemeal outsourcing services like payroll processing provided by the national firms is that with HR-BPO the provider takes full responsibility for the success of the process.

The good news then was there was no dominating company that had identified and targeted the HR-BPO market like we had, yet. The bad news was that we knew of at least two powerful, nationally recognized companies in similar yet different HR outsourcing businesses that would be capable of duplicating our approach and making our market their own, virtually overnight. To make matters worse, there were 30 or so nationally recognized firms who were competing for HR outsourcing clients among the Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies, and their marketing efforts were muddying the waters and slowing decisions in our mid-market space. To make matters doubly worse, dozens of HR outsourcers who traditionally serviced the low-end market (companies with 50 employees and fewer) were announcing intensions or ill-conceived solutions for HR-BPO into our market as well.

Simply put, our number one challenge was marketing. We needed to figure out the “what” and the “how” of marketing, and we needed to execute fast. We knew the “who” (the mid-market space and some other specific trade secrets we won’t mention here) and we knew the “when” (yesterday). The “why” is always obvious in business (gain market share and the resulting profits).

With numerous players in and around our target market, the “what” became pretty obvious fairly quick too. We had to specifically differentiate PlatformOne and our solution from all the rest. We remembered one of Levitt’s key marketing themes - “Differentiation is the essence of everything; everything can be and is differentiable.”

Thankfully we really did have some key differentiators. Unlike those other two national firms that were both potentially major competitors then (and are today), PlatformOne utilized a fully integrated HR information system as a technology platform upon which we delivered all our administrative services. All our HR professionals were well trained on the inner workings of our HR system, and they utilized the technology platform to deliver better, more personalized service to our clients. We assigned dedicated implementation and services teams to each client, resulting in better service. Those dedicated teams also answered calls from their assigned client’s employees through “branded”, client specific 800 numbers routed directly to them in PlatformOne service centers, resulting again in better service. While the national providers charged “extra” for each additional service, such as a new report, PlatformOne services were all included in one competitive fee.   

So, the “what” was the strength of our differentiation (superior technology, personalized service, and the best value in the marketplace). That was the relatively easy part of the marketing strategy to determine.

The “how” of the marketing strategy was the real challenge. How was a startup with no marketing budget going to get its differentiating message to a massive, emerging market (with over 50 other marketing messages competing for the same mindshare), and do so quickly and effectively and impact positively our near-term sales results? 

Not all marketing strategies, onto themselves, are equally effective. The most effective marketing strategy has to fit hand-and-glove with the specific marketing challenge. Just throwing money at marketing campaigns and advertising our differentiators wasn’t smart. It was also counter to our management’s philosophy of “spend after you earn” and wasn’t within our current financial capabilities anyway. This was a bigger challenge than we could execute on our own. We needed help.

If we couldn’t do this ourselves, whom could we turn to for assistance? Then it hit us.

The “how” was to establish a TRUST factor in the marketplace, which some call The Credibility Factor.

We had to embark on the "credibility branding" of PlatformOne.

Simply put, Credibility Branding is a proven communication technique and marketing process that best convinces the key decision makers in your target market to objectively consider the value of your products and services. But unlike most marketing campaigns these days, the convincing of the businessperson / decision makers is not done by a super salesperson, a catchy advertising slogan, a technically slick website or a self-proclaimed image of superiority through a power point presentation.  Credibility Branding gains favor with key decision makers not through what you say about yourself, but what others say about you, your company and your business value to them. In our case at PlatformOne, the “others” are those third parties that we strive to develop as key influencers on our behalf. First are the publications, analysts, and other experts that cover our market space. Second, are our partners – companies with whom we co-market that can influence the same decision makers we seek to win over, because they have favor and pre-existing relationships with those decision makers. Third, and most importantly, are our customers.

Today, we exploit "credibility branding” techniques in virtually 100% of our company’s efforts. These third party influencers are the basis for all we do to promote our company and its products and services. We use every technique available to us, from our industry’s associations, media, pundits, consultants, publications, and the like to customer testimonials, case studies, white papers, strategic partnerships, and word-of-mouth campaigns. In the end, what your customers and other relevant influencers say about you and your services is the single most important factor in any sales success.

PlatformOne promotes this philosophy in all that we do. We demand near perfect performance from our implementations and services teams. We believe strongly in customer testimonials published through relevant yet independent media periodicals. Everyday we seek out freelance writers who are working on assignments in our market space. We coordinate customer and freelance writer interviews so our customers are telling their own stories about the success of HR outsourcing (and gaining them press for their businesses as they do). We gain credibility by helping third party writers complete assignments (and then quote us and our customers) on the important articles around HR outsourcing. Then we re-publish the coverage we get on our own website, on the home page. Also we publish our own press releases, not about our successes, but about our clients’ successes, in the form of "successful launches" and "benefits achieved testimonials".

Sure, we want each prospect of our services to come see our operations and meet our HR services team professionals. But, more than that, we want them to talk one-on-one to our customers. We gain a prospect’s trust when they hear directly from a client how PlatformOne helped a national retailer launch their new HR department following business-restructuring decisions relating to the 911 terrorist attacks. Or how PlatformOne systems, procedures and staffing support helped a professional services firm save their business from losing their customers in a mass exodus. Or how PlatformOne helped another services firm move nearly 40,000 employee records from 4 disparate HR systems to one integrated HR technology platform from which they could run their business more efficiently and profitably. These are the testimonials that bring the "credibility branding" campaign all together.

And, as a result, PlatformOne has grown our business, in a relatively new market since 2002 or so, to one of the top HR-BPO providers in the mid-market space. Thanks to credibility earned with our customers and credibility gained from our customers.

About PlatformOne: PlatformOne is a leading HR outsourcing services provider to the mid-market, specializing in integrated technology and administrative services for the HR functions, including payroll, benefits and numerous other human resources functions. For more information, visit www.platformone.com.

About the author: Dusty Rhodes is the Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for PlatformOne. He joined PlatformOne in 2003 to launch the market strategies and partnership development initiatives of the company’s HR-BPO practice.

Mr. Rhodes has over 25 years of experience creating the strategies and managing the execution of various revenue generation functions for technology companies. He is often credited with identifying market trends at early stages. His career includes roles at consulting services and application software industry leaders such as Accenture, MSA, and Manhattan Associates. He holds a Bachelor of Sciences degree in Computer Science and a Masters degree in Accounting from the University of Georgia.

Business To Business Viral Marketing – It Can Work

Social media is about conversations, and you don't have to go to MySpace and the like to have those conversations. Cisco proves this, and by being authentic and initiating conversations with bloggers they become thought leaders and influencers engaging other industry influencers. All of it adds up to more user generated content and messaging that comes from the audiences and customers themselves (not an ad guy). Smart credibility branding!

Here is an amazing article from ZDNet and guest blogger Chas Edwards of Federated Media that talk about Cisco’s viral campaign…

Conversational marketing, viral success & your product

Every marketer these days wants the kids at My Space befriending their corporate mascots, producing fun-yet-favorable YouTube videos that feature their products and writing blog posts on that fresh, revitalized feeling that comes from using their brand of soap.

But here’s the catch.  Most of us – the My Space kids included – don’t want to talk about most companies’ products.  We want to talk about ourselves!  So what’s an aspiring “conversational marketer” to do? Read the rest of it…

GM and Credibility Branding

This is a great example of credibility branding in action for a huge company. This is also a cautionary tale. With social media the fake programs are discovered faster than you can say hip hop. Here is the article: 

A star-studded celebrity car and fashion show earlier this month garnered reams of media attention and landed General Motor's models in national publications such as US Weekly. The automaker has infiltrated YouTube and put pop star Gwen Stefani in an SUV. It let rapper Jay-Z create a paint color and got a bunch of college students to live for a week inside a compact car.

It's all part of a campaign dreamed up by the marketing minds at GM to create an aura of cool around the vehicle lineup they're working to reinvent. "Everybody wants to be youthful and feel good and live vicariously through these celebrities," says Dino Bernacchi, GM manager of branding and entertainment.

GM knows that its products must back the buzz, and it is doing its best to mount a turnaround with an aggressive new vehicle line that focuses on more dramatic designs, improved performance and quality interiors. Read the whole story here