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Exploding Brand Value at the Local Level Part 4 of 7

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Coordinated Message Delivery

About This Series

When we first published the Distributed Marketing Leadership Series guidebook “Exploding Brand Value at the Local Level,” we had no expectation that it would quickly move to be one of the all-time most downloaded content pieces from the Saepio library and sustain that position for the next three years. But we probably shouldn’t have been surprised.

Exploding brand value at the local level is the objective of every distributed marketer. And it’s not an easy task.

In this DMLS Guidebook series, we both revisit and expand on the concepts laid out in the first guidebook and the subsequent industry-specific versions of this popular paper. In this revisit, we find that much has changed since our first publication date. However, we are frustrated by how much remains the same.

In particular, we are frustrated by the fact that while expansive, innovative distributed marketing platform solutions are now fully market-tested and proven, many corporate and local marketers are still struggling with basic relationships.

Thus, we have chosen to provide an expanded take on the Five (now Six) C’s of the win-win brand marketing strategy. There’s nothing inherently profound about these six C’s. Yet, they so often remain overlooked or minimized and a less-than-optimal brand value results. We trust this expanded view will provide valuable insights that will help you build the effectives of your distributed marketing efforts and truly explode brand value for your organization at the local level.

Part 1 (available here) explored how to explode your brand’s value a the local level with the 6 C’s of corporate + local marketing.

Part 2 (available here) explored the importance of common objectives between corporate and local marketers.

Part 3 (available here) explored the unique challenges faced by corporate marketing managers of distributed marketing networks and outlines why consistency matters.

Part 4 explores the need to have coordinated corporate and local marketing messages at key “moments of truth”.

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Introduction

Consumers don’t see brands as corporate or local. Instead, they view them personally, and in the way they consume them. As a result, they not only expect consistent brand messages, they want coordinated ones.

To provide this, corporate and local must have complimentary marketing campaign schedules. Corporate marketers can localize media buys with relative ease, particularly digital buys, and can “buy” an individual rather than a locale. This is powerful and effective and consumers respond. However, consumers also react when corporate and local messaging overlay one another or competes with one another. In such cases, corporate and local also waste precious media dollars.

When coordinated, however, the blended personalization or localization can have a highly positive outcome. Both corporate and local marketers have long sought to be in front of the consumer as close to the key “moments of truth” where purchase decisions are made and word-of-mouth support mobilized. Organize this well, and strong results will follow.

Coordinated messaging can’t happen without, well, coordination. While it is impractical for this to transpire in any manual way, it is both possible and probable that it will if the proper automation systems are implemented.

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Chapter One

Revisiting Local Moment of Truth (LMOT)For decades, the concept of consumer “moments of truth” was neatly wrapped in a package with a bow on top. The First Moment of Truth (FMOT) occurred when the consumer was standing at the point of decision and reviewing the purchase options before him or her. The Second Moment of Truth (SMOT) followed shortly thereafter when the consumer began to consume and experience the product and determine if it lived up to the expectations they had set for it.

Zero Moments of Truth, or ZMOTs as introduced by Google, occur before any product considerations are given. These happen when an individual utilizes a search engine to begin research on the types of products or solutions available to them to solve a problem and to read reviews of customers who have previously used the solution. Search results, customer reviews and online shopping options all now come into play in an online venue. As implied in the name, a Zero Moment of Truth typically occurs prior to the First Moment of Truth and in some cases precludes it.

The Local Moment of Truth is centered on where and when the consumer will take action (LMOT’s largely involve mobile marketing exchanges). With so many consumer decisions being impulse or time-limited decisions that are also location aware, the ability to deliver call-to-action messages hyper-locally and immediately deliver a product or service hyper-locally becomes critical. It’s at a Local Moment of Truth that the consumer determines if an immediate action will be taken and if that action will be fulfilled locally rather than online or at another location and time. It capitalizes on the consumer’s location at the time of decision and is indifferent to the existence of a ZMOT or FMOT. A marketer’s ultimate goal is that Local Moment of Truth stimulus equals favorable, immediate response that leads to a sale and a positive Second Moment of Truth.

In this context, coordination of message cadence between corporate and local marketing becomes critical. The messaging consumed online, whether from the brand or users of the brand, must be coordinated with the messages received in store and experienced through the branded product or service. In particular, corporate brand messaging that creates cate-gory demand and brand preference must be paid off in the correct time sequence by local brand messages that are call-to-action focused.

Further, as outlined in the previous paper in this series, messages from corporate marketers and messages from local marketers must appear as one to the consumer, particularly during

Connectivity and the “Always On” consumer have changed this sequence. In addition to these First and Second Moments of Truth, the corporate and local marketers now must collectively also address Zero Moments of Truth (ZMOT) and Local Moments of Truth (LMOT).

a Local Moment of Truth. While the duration of a Local Moment of Truth varies based on the type of product or service, there is a defined endpoint, and therefore a risk of a lost sale either from waning interest or a change in location.

To fully explode brand value at the local level, corporate and local marketers must both understand these moments of truth and have a coordinated plan of attack for interaction with the consumer throughout each of these moments of truth. While this objective is relatively easy to address in cases where the corporate and local marketers share a single brand identity, as explored in the next chapter, it can be very challenging when this is not the case.

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Chapter Two

Sharing Your Brand with Local MarketersAmong the biggest barriers to coordinated messages between corporate and local market-ers are the questions of who manages the consumer experience and who owns the brand preference.

If you manage a distributed marketing network where every product or service delivery channel is within a single brand identity, count yourself lucky and feel free to move forward to the next chapter. For everyone else, read on.

Clearly, these are challenging questions. In a co-branded environment, it is unfair to ask the local marketer to solely advocate your brand. It is equally unrealistic to expect that the local marketer will keep brand messaging coordinated and the sequence of communications with the consumer coordinated through these moments of truth. Thus, coordinated messaging and a single consumer experience for your brand will only happen when corporate market-ing assumes full responsibility for every engagement in every moment of truth.

This responsibility extends far beyond the traditional influences of providing localized marketing materials or MDF/co-op Funds. Traditional MDF and co-op programs can certainly help address these questions and guide actions (although, as outlined in Part Six of this series, spend of these funds is often heavily influenced by “competitors,” the sales

Co-branding with a local marketer is hard. Really hard. Keeping messages coordinated in these scenarios is harder still…especially throughout all the moments of truth. For example,

• Who’s in charge of ensuring excellent messaging at the Zero Moment of Truth? If it’s corporate marketing, how do you pass that message forward to the local brand?

• Who’s in charge of being visible and setting the message at the local moment of truth? And will a local marketer carry your brand message forward into his store or to product selection discussions during a services delivery (i.e. replacement of an air conditioner)?

• What coordinated messaging and visibility for your brand in a retail environment is fair to ask of the local marketer when a consumer is choosing between your brand and another (that First Moment of Truth)? Often, you aren’t the only one competing for this visibility.

• Who responds at the Second Moment of Truth if a customer shares the experience in a social venue? Who gets the credit and word-of-mouth marketing win?

• How do your actions differ if you have a stronger brand than the local brand? What if the opposite is the case? What if most local views of the local brand simply don’t usually connect your corporate brand to the local brand?

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networks focused on helping small businesses help them access your co-op dollars). Histor-ically, these programs have been heavily about generating local brand awareness in a local context for the purpose of creating consumer traffic for a First Moment of Truth.

With the arrival of Zero and Local Moments of Truth, however, has come a whole new hierarchy of importance and complexity for a coordinated sequence of communication. Consumers are simply making purchase decisions in a different manner than traditional co-branding marketing strategies and tactics have supported.

Everything the corporate marketer does must be structured around this premise. Corporate can only win when local wins and the local marketer’s odds of winning increase significantly when corporate also wins.

The following examples provide some practical application (and the Moments of Truth involved):

• A corporate brand marketing team may choose to fund a co-branded hyper-local search marketing campaign that drives consumers to a local store. In exchange for this support, the local marketer agrees to product placement and point of sale marketing messages that provide for coordinated messaging throughout the consumer experience. (LMOT and FMOT)

• A corporate brand marketing team implements a customer experience and individualized campaign management program that determines the messages, mediums and sequences of communication to a consumer (loyalty program member or otherwise) to mobilize a purchase decision and manage follow-up communications. In exchange, local agrees to incorporate this individualized consumer insight into its in-store customer engagement. (ZMOT, LMOT, FMOT & SMOT)

• A corporate brand marketing team funds short-tail pay per click search campaigns that feature the branded product in tandem with a local, co-branded call to action coupon. In exchange for this service, the local marketer provides placement of shelf-talkers that visually connect the call to action offer to the product offered. (ZMOT and FMOT)

• A corporate brand marketing team monitors social chatter and rewards positive corporate brand posts through co-branded “thank you” discount for additional purchases at the local retail or service outlet. (SMOT)

As a corporate marketer operating on behalf of the local marketer, you must message to the consumer in a coordinated sequence that enables you to win at these zero and local moments for both your brand and the local marketer’s brand, including the call to action that generates a response for the local marketer’s brand. Then, working with and being dependent on the local marketer, you must continue through to also win at the First Moment of Truth when the product decision is sealed through a purchase made.

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By driving the process and structuring it as co-branded and local call-to-action oriented, corporate marketing can help ensure that message delivery is coordinated. Unfortunately, none of these efforts will guarantee the local marketers’ acceptance, adoption, or interest in coordinating with the corporate marketing programs that are needed to explode brand value at the local level. This is especially the case if they don’t easily see how marketing efforts benefit them. To that end, the first target audience for the corporate marketer must be the local marketer network. While this topic is addressed in detail in the final part of this series, the following four key considerations are most relevant to attaining coordinated communications between corporate and local brands.

1. Know Your Role Objectively evaluate how to best partner with the local marketer to lift the value of both the corporate brand and the local brand. Understand that to carry a coordinated message sequence through the moments of truth to assure a consumer purchase, corporate market-ing must find creative ways to educate the front-line marketers at the store or in the service encounter. Point of sale and product literature can play an important role in providing this education.

2. Show Off the Local Brand “Win” Getting local marketers to coordinate messaging begins with them clearly seeing how their local brand wins. Strong graphics, shared brand emphasis, and call to actions restricted to their retail location or service will help them see and appreciate the investment corporate is making with them. A remarketing campaign focused on local marketers and front-line marketers can help.

3. Make it Profoundly Easy for Them to Co-Brand With You. A lot of brand marketers, local marketing sales organizations and media outlets will constantly be competing against a corporate brand marketer for the attention of the local marketer. These other entities could care less about whether messaging to the consumer is coordinated between you and the local marketer. Win through ease of use and innovative solutions. Make both DIY and DIFM co-branded marketing campaigns PROFOUNDLY easy for the local marketer to implement or opt into.

4. Be Very Visible and Make Them the Hero Everyone wants to be associated with a winner. If the corporate brand has a strong consumer awareness and preference, use that brand position to lift the local marketer’s brand value. If the corporate brand equity isn’t as strong, use creative applications that both enhance the corporate brand and reinforce the local brand’s leadership position.

In summary, when local marketers see that you have their local brand’s interest at heart, they reciprocate. Gaining this alignment is hard work, but is critical to attain if consumers are to experience coordinated messages between corporate and local marketing, which, in turn, is essential for brand value to explode at the local level.

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Chapter Three

Applying the Omni-Channel Concept to Blended MarketingAlways-on connectivity and changing consumer habits are rapidly driving the adoption of omni-channel marketing. To explode brand value at the local level, corporate and local marketers alike must address this challenging reality.

Omni-channel marketing by definition forces coordinated messaging. Omni-channel implies a single consumer experience and communication progression across time, medium, location and the purchase decision stage. The communication sequence is heavily informed by the consumer’s actions and media consumption habits.

Given these parameters, omni-channel simply can’t happen if two customer engagement/analytics platforms are involved, two marketing campaign management systems are in play, or two dynamic content creation platforms are utilized. The corporate and local marketer must work in tandem regardless of whether one or two brands are involved.

Further, while omni-channel is about simplicity for the consumer, it is steeped in complexity for the marketer. Multiple, and often disconnected, systems and processes must be inte-grated together to begin to offer omni-channel experiences. As a result, most omni-channel efforts today stop at the corporate marketing level. But that approach doesn’t work for a distributed marketing organization. The call-to-action communication has to be local and locally influenced. And, the non-digital, point-of-sale marketing content that continues the customer communication through the First Moment of Truth product selection must be included.

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For this blended pathway to omni-channel marketing for distributed marketing organizations to occur, a trinity of technology platforms must be in place:

• Customer Data/Big Data Analytics – A single record of the consumer’s interactions in tandem with predictive analytics derived from a broader data set.

• Real-Time Decision Engine/Campaign Management – The ability to engage with a consumer in real-time in order to call on predictive analytics insight and determine next step messaging.

• Dynamic, Multi-Channel Content Creation and Delivery – The ability to create and serve localized, individualized marketing content to the consumer and provide local-ized, coordinated point of sale content for the local marketer.

(See the Saepio Distributed Marketing Leadership Series guidebook “The New Technology Trinity for Real-Time Consumer Engagement” for an in-depth exploration.)

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This marketing communications infrastructure is only now beginning to emerge at the corporate marketer level and is clearly outside the capabilities of local marketers. However, the development of an omni-channel, customer engagement marketing platform at the corporate level does not and should not preclude the involvement of a local marketer.

Engaging Local Marketers in Omni-Channel Marketing Sequences While distributed omni-channel marketing is clearly an emerging field and far from definitive, several key distributed marketing principles can be applied as programs are designed, built and implemented.

First, there can only be one real-time decisioning/campaign management engine. However, the data sets used to determine the proper next-step communication with the consumer can be both corporate and local in nature. Developing an early understanding of what local data is available is an important step for the corporate manager of a distributed marketing organization.

Second, content can be localized as well as individualized. Existing distributed marketing management platform technology such as Saepio’s MarketPort solution already enables this. However, be careful not to confuse ad builder technology with distributed marketing platform technology. A successful solution will require advanced, multi-channel dynamic content creation and marketing fulfillment auto-mation technology.

Third, local marketers can and should participate in content creation. Corporate insight, no matter how advanced, can never overwrite the value of local knowl-edge and intuition. For example, an omni-channel distributed marketing platform won’t know about the local marketer’s presence at a local festival. Or know that the local high-school team has made the state championship. System design must be structured to take advantage of this local intuition.

Fourth, engage local marketers in offer management. Current local inventory, especially expiring inventory, is often an overlooked consideration when corporate offers are created. Build an omni-channel marketing system that gives the local marketer the ability to manually participate in what product is highlighted based on current inventory.

Fifth, use the local marketing relationship to continue the coordinated omni-channel experience to the point of sale. This may still primarily include digital marketing content creation such as digital shelf talker displays but may also include traditional point of sale/point of service materials. As an ex-ample, a service technician could hand a fully personalized product sheet or upsell offer to a homeowner upon arrival.

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As these five examples show, an omni-channel approach to marketing can work fully in tandem with a distributed marketing approach. Further, as consumers’ expectations to receive omni-channel communications grow, a blended corporate and local marketing effort will become increasingly important if brand value is to be exploded at the local level.

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Chapter Four

Four Steps for Message CoordinationWhile many tactics can be applied to creating coordinated messages between corporate and local marketers, most can be organized around the following four steps:

Step One: Revisit how consumers want to engage both the corporate and local brands.The manner in which consumers want to engage with both corporate and local brands is changing rapidly. The desire for an omni-channel, personalized and localized experience across all the moments of truth necessitates a new approach to coordinating marketing messages. The corporate marketing manager of a distributed marketing network should proactively revisit how consumers want to engage both corporate and local brands:

• Map out your consumer’s omni-channel journeys to determine which engagements should be corporate marketing’s and what elements are best served locally.

• Develop a phased roadmap from your program today to the end destination. Identify the key marketing process or infrastructure changes that will be needed at the corpo-rate level and identify the types of supportive actions you’ll want from local marketers.

• Look for natural transition steps that feel simple and logical to your distributed marketers. Step Two: Win the hearts of the local marketers by rethinking how/where you support them.Moving a call to action through to brand selection at point of sale or service (a traditional first moment of truth), will require a coordinated, blended sequence of messaging from local and front-line marketers. However, there’s no coordination of messaging for the corporate brand at this critical point of decision if there’s no interaction between the local or front-line marketer and the consumer. Such a critical moment can’t be left to chance. To create engagement with local and front-line marketers, the corporate marketer must:

• Win the hearts of the local and front-line marketers by making them the heroes. The local brand must be strongly blended with the corporate brand at the zero and local moments of truth. Local and front-line marketers seeing this blended branding is almost as important as the consumer seeing it as these individuals help influence the still critically important first moment of truth when and where purchase decisions are made.

• Provide graphically compelling content for point-of-sale or service display. Front line marketers are consumers too and want to be associated with cool stuff.

• Create brand awareness campaigns focused on local and front-line marketers. Digital display remarketing technology makes focused ad placement easy. Create a campaign designed to keep corporate brand awareness high with this critical audience. Keep ad content fresh, interesting and educational.

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Step Three: Redirect your MDF/co-op fund management to LMOT and FMOT.If MDF or co-op funds are available as part of the corporate marketing’s local marketing support, begin to shift the focus of these programs to the local and first moments of truth. These are the critical call to action and product/service selection points and the points where the local brand is most relevant.

• Structure programs to incent a strong, co-branded point of sale/service presence. Strong creative will be key to local participation as the local marketer’s first inclination will be to utilize funds to drive traffic, not product or service selection.

• Support local search campaigns but require messaging control through to a co-brand-ed landing page. This will help manage the influence of sales advisors from local media outlets, agencies or marketing sales organizations.

• Make assurance of compliance and reimbursement easy by providing a resource library of MDF/co-op eligible marketing resources.

Step Four: Provide systems that jointly manage marketing activities to ensure proper message cadence.Coordinating marketing messages between corporate and local marketing efforts becomes massively easier when a single distributed marketing management platform is involved. This goes well beyond simple ad building technology. Advanced platforms, for example, will control cadence of media placement such as when a corporate or local email is sent to keep consumers from receiving overlapping messages. Advanced platforms will also enable joint list management, again for coordination purposes, and allow for easy updating of both corporate and local content. When considering a distributed marketing platform, look for solutions that:

• Provide all of the local marketing resources in a single location. Coordinated messaging is much easier to attain if digital display, landing pages, email, point-of-sale printed ma-terials, store signage, print ads and all other ad content is created in one location.

• Automate the marketing fulfillment process. Media buying and marketing fulfillment is too complex for corporate marketers or agencies, let alone local marketers. Look for solutions that automate these processes, facilitate the coordination of messaging, and integrate with MDF/co-op if relevant.

• Automate local market versioning across all channels. An effective distributed market-ing management platform will provide dynamic content creation across all channels that makes participate easy for local marketers and message management easy for corporate marketers.

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Summary

Coordinated brand messaging – the cadence and sequence of messages – when combined with consistent brand messages can lead to powerful marketing results for corporate and local marketers alike.

Coordinated marketing, however, often isn’t easy, especially in cases where the corporate and local brands equally influence the consumer’s decision process. The addition of Zero Moments of Truth due to search and Local Moments of Truth due to mobility adds even more complexity for coordinated marketing messaging. The emerging consumers’ desire of an omni-channel brand experience further challenges the blending of corporate and local brands and the coordination of messages.

In response, corporate marketers must implement marketing systems that coordinate the consumers’ experience with the corporate brand messaging throughout a decision sequence but in a manner that also values the local brand and creates local call to action. Engaging local and front-line marketers in the process is critical, as they must carry forward a coordinated message at the point of sale, the traditional First Moment of Truth where purchase decisions are made.

Traditional corporate-to-local support programs often aren’t focused on these new realities. The savvy corporate marketer will start today to:

• Revisit how consumers want to engage with both the corporate and local brands

• Develop programs designed to win the hearts and support of local marketers

• Restructure MDF/co-op resources to help ensure coordinated messaging

• Implement platforms that support coordinated, blended marketing messaging to con-sumers from both corporate and local marketing

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About Saepio

Saepio makes it easy for corporate and local marketers to build and run effective and engaging all-channel marketing campaigns. Saepio’s powerful MarketPort marketing platform starts with easy …

• Easy to Build and Run Cross-Channel Campaigns because everything – email, landing pages, social, mobile, digital banner ads, signage, print ads, direct mail, and much more – are all managed in a single, integrated digital marketing platform.

• Easy to Maximize Brand Value at the Local Level because local and corporate marketers share a single platform but experience the same platform differently based on their roles. Brand control, speed to market, and content localization is all easily accomplished whether messages are for local, national or global audiences and corporate marketers can easily assign campaign tasks to local marketers.

• Easy to Engage Customers with personalized, relevant messages because corporate intelligence gleaned from CRM data, customer analytics, consumer actions and more can determine what content is served when, where and how.

• Easy to Automate Marketing Fulfillment because robust workflow enables every cross channel customer touch point to happen automatically whether launched by corporate marketing, initiated by a local marketer or triggered by a customer’s action.

This robust yet simplified approach to today’s complex marketing challenges is in use at hundreds of leading companies and organizations, including many of the world’s most powerful brands. It is transforming the way corporations focus and manage their marketing efforts in a world that introduces new channels, new competitors, new regulations and new opportunities at every turn.

Visit Saepio.com, email sales@saepio.com or call 877-468-7613 to learn more.

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