Building a Powerful Brand
You believe in the power of brand development and marketing communications, and you're committed to making it thrive in your organization. How can you apply the lessons and insights from this program to transform your company’s brand and bring it to life?
In this session, we’ll cover the fundamentals of building an effective brand, while also addressing any gaps in your brand’s ability to create impactful communication programs. We’ll work through strategies to improve the way your brand communicates with your audience. Additionally, we’ll explore the steps necessary to unify the right marketing communications tools, ensuring a consistent and persuasive message that drives brand salience and supports your communications goals.
Key Takeaways:
- How to transform a product or service into a timeless, enduring brand
- Understanding your brand's core value/identity…in ‘One Word’
- The 10 challenges that hinder integrated marketing communications (IMC) success
- The 7-step "FOCUSED" model for delivering successful integrated marketing communications
The IMC Imperative
In this digital age, various media types have burst onto the scene to provide more cost-effective and targeted methods to engage with audiences. Efficient and effective delivery of consistent and powerful brand messages requires inter-organization and cross-platform alignment. This session will establish why integrated communications should not be considered an option, but an imperative.
Through thought-provoking discussion and case study examples, participants will gain an understanding of why IMC is still relevant and critical to future success.
Key Takeaways:
- How the changing media landscape is impacting marketing
- Strategic platforms and aligning the marketing mix
- Why no channel or department lives in a silo
- Business planning and organizational structure implications
- The importance and the necessity for having an integrated marketing communications plan
- Tying marketing strategy to business objectives vis-à-vis the marketing brief
Consumer Research and Insights
As business professionals seek to gather consumer insight and market intelligence within an aggressive digital environment, the critical challenge becomes how to balance traditional metrics with contemporary analytics and external forces.
Quantitative research [QT] asks the questions and qualitative research [QL] questions the answers. Good business decisions need both types of metrics and an increased focus on motivations of the consumer to determine not only the value of products, ideas, and services, but also which factors pull consumers toward – or push them away from – media, social media, products, ideas, and services.
Key Takeaways:
- Understand who the stakeholders are; what other “data” they are really looking for
- Critical decision-making should START with a great brief
- Research has a foundational structure
- Qualitative and quantitative research should go hand in hand (One asks questions, and one questions answers)
- Types of QT and QL research methods, and when to apply which
- Everything that counts cannot be measured
- Technology and new techniques are expanding into models to drive innovation and meaningful propositions
Media Strategy and Investment: Activating Content (Advertising) Distribution
How can you ensure you’re developing the optimal strategy for distributing your brand’s message? This module will provide you with the information necessary to develop SMART media strategies and tactics that drive the highest return on investment (ROI) so that you can feel confident that your media executions are based on a solid foundation.
We will begin by identifying macro and micro economic factors and their relevance to media planning and buying. Then we will explore the compelling marketing science approach to media communications strategies. We will cover the six strategic elements all media plans should include and define key terms used in establishing strategies and negotiating media investments.
Key Takeaways:
- How to develop media strategies, plans, and buys to support not only media goals, but also the overall marketing goals of the brand being advertised
- A marketing science approach ties business objectives to media strategies, such as who to target and whether to focus on penetration or loyalty
- Understand the most important media industry challenges that face marketing and media leaders
- Become more informed and confident in influencing your company’s decisions around committing to media spending
Digital Marketing
The fast-paced world of marketing changes on a continuous basis, and with such a high rate of innovation, it can be challenging to keep up with all of the latest tools, tactics, and technologies, as well as to separate the necessary from the "noise."
From storytelling to artificial intelligence (AI), customer journey mapping and beyond, we'll dissect the most important marketing trends and how to strategically apply them to your integrated marketing plans.
Key Takeaways:
- The differentiating factor of being consumer-centric
- Why storytelling is the rule, not the exception
- Cognitive approaches to getting to know your consumer
Influential & Immersive Forces
This module provides an overview of key digital methodologies and related tactics which foster relevant engagement on a person-to-person level. The effectiveness of some of these approaches may have been challenging to quantify in the past, but they have evolved into sophisticated, data-driven tools that yield both meaningful and measurable results.
Key Takeaways:
- Public Relations: How the evolution of this discipline has mirrored the advancements made in tech and leverages real-time, dynamic interactions in amplifying brand messaging
- Search Marketing: How technological advances have made this discipline more personal, intuitive, local and interactive as consumers seek out relevant brand solutions
- Influencer Marketing: The expansion of this discipline post-COVID, and its ability to foster authentic connections between consumers and brands, influencing purchase decisions and brand reputation
- Event Marketing: Maximizing brand interaction and engagement on a personal level through the interplay of in-person and virtual experiences
The Role of Social Media in Marketing and Branding
Marketing connects your company to people, while branding shapes how your company is perceived to strengthen that connection.
Since social media reflects society, its role in marketing and branding has never been more vital. This module takes an in-depth look at how social media drives modern marketing success.
Key Takeaways:
- Understanding social media’s potential in today’s marketing landscape
- Exploring how social media enhances branding, core marketing functions, social listening, research, customer service, and more
- Implementing a strategic framework to maximize the impact of social media
Global & Diversity Marketing
With the array of options through which to target and engage prospective consumers, marketers recognize that it’s no longer possible to speak to all prospects in the same way–a concept that is particularly critical in a multicultural, global marketplace; plus, heap on a heavy dose of a heightened sensitivity to Inclusion, Equity and Diversity.
How can you engage your diverse audiences in a relevant manner, both domestically and internationally? This module of the program will focus on the foundation to plan and execute smart marketing communications in a way that supports the often-cited phrase, “Think global, act local”, and it will provide guidelines and best practices to consider when putting a plan in place.
Key Takeaways:
- Understanding the foundations of Marketing, Global Marketing and Diversity Marketing/DEI, and how they are all connected
- Evaluating relevant market conditions/drivers/considerations
- Developing and executing optimal IMC Global and Diverse Integrated Marketing Plans
Alignment for Success
IMC requires ICP, that is, Integrated Marketing Communications requires Integrated Collaborative Partners. It is NOT only about integrating multiple marketing and media platforms into your marketing strategy. Importantly, it is also about integrating the various teams who are creating and sharing brand messages across this multitude of platforms and channels. Unifying and aligning the thinking and output of internal departments (such as promotions, sales, and customer service) as well as external partners (for example, agencies, media and martech companies) is critical to maximizing IMC results.
Marketers must drive collaborative planning and empower partners to deliver their best results through accountable and measurable behavior. This module will focus on collaboration within and across communications companies. We will explore case studies and ask you to consider what approach(es) is best for your current “work” situation. We will also discuss the various internal stakeholders and how best to consider their views to drive inclusive decisioning with the goal of maximizing agency performance to drive successful business results.
Key Takeaways:
- Understand the different methods of organizing, and ways of working with, external marketing and advertising resource teams
- Alignment of both internal and external priorities is critical to IMC success
- Manage expectations for all partners in the face of competing priorities, agendas, and cross-organizational politics
- Best practices for selecting and working with advertising agencies to drive positive engagement and collaborative behaviors
- Ways to ensure that partnerships remain healthy, productive, and strong
Final Thoughts on Branding
In this final module, we’ll circle back to the core components of branding, offering a fresh perspective after exploring the previous sections of the course.
This session is not only a chance to review key concepts, but also an opportunity to synthesize your learnings into actionable steps that you can implement within your organization.
Program Overview
For an overview of our Mini-MBA: Brand Development & Marketing Communications program plus program benefits and outcomes, please click here.