Strategic Communications

If your marketing is missing the mark, your firm might be in need of a marketing audit. This process helps to identify any inconsistencies in your messaging – both those internal to your organization and external to your customers and referral sources. After meeting with your management team and other key personnel, we will thoroughly review your current marketing materials and activities. We will also compare and contrast your efforts to your competitors and industry trends, and then deliver a report of our findings and prioritized recommendations for improving your marketing activities.

It’s impossible to know if you’ve achieved your goals unless you define them first. Developing firm-wide business goals and then building a marketing plan to support them are your most important first steps. We can provide assistance in defining marketing goals for your organization and then building an action-orientated marketing plan and budget to help you achieve them.

Knowing whom your competition is and how they differentiate themselves in the marketplace allows your firm to become more proactive and helps you stay ahead of the competition. Identifying and understanding your current and potential customers and what motives them allows you to address their needs before your competitors do. We can help you identify and learn about both your competition and your customers through the use of focus groups, press monitoring, customer satisfaction surveys, and strategic list purchases.

Branding is more than just your logo and stationery. Branding is the way you want your current and potential customers to perceive you, and that means developing a plan to create and continuously reinforce that image. Services in this area include development of logo and collateral materials, visual style guides, messaging and “elevator speeches,” new branding campaigns and customer service training.

Public Relations can encompass many things – press relations, crisis communications, thought leadership, product publicity, even government relations and lobbying. Service offerings in this area include: Working with the press to generate positive publicity about your firm or product through the use of press releases, press conferences and media tours Thought leadership – this means demonstrating your expertise in your field by submitting editorials and articles to general and trade publications or appearing as a speaker at a conference or seminar. We can help you to identify speaking or writing opportunities and prepare materials appropriate to meeting your goals.

Advertising is one of many tools in the marketer’s toolbox, but often the one people think of first as it is the most visible – and which can often be the most expensive. We can help you use this powerful tool in a cost-effective and meaningful way with careful planning and a well-thought out strategy. Development of ads for print, TV, radio or billboards as well as targeted media planning and placement are some of the services available.

Events can be powerful tools in gaining exposure for your firm and face-to-face access with clients. Tradeshows, charity events, open houses, even office holiday parties are opportunities to make a great impression. But coordinating these events can be complicated and time-consuming efforts. We can help with everything from choosing the right venue for a party, to creating a targeted mailing list and eye-catching invitations, to designing an effective traffic generator for your tradeshow exhibit. We can coordinate the entire event on your behalf or just help with one or two key elements.

Your website is an integral part of your firm’s identity and needs to reflect the brand and image you want to portray. Hard to navigate, out of date or unprofessional looking sites will drive customers away from your firm. We can help you evaluate the effectiveness of your current website, revamp an existing website or design one from scratch. We can also help you design and manage pay-per-click campaigns, search engine optimization or even help you produce regular blog features.