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Making sense of it all
When
it comes to marketing, common sense is required - in spades.
It's also at the heart of Writing Machine's marketing message
methodology.
This approach is one that asks companies a series of simple
questions. Do you really know what your company stands
for? Would your colleagues say the same? Could you, if required,
pass this information on to a new employee or even a customer?
Most
organisations have a general idea of what they are
trying to say and to who. Typically, it is presented as
a company 'ethos' and spread through an organisation by word
of mouth. Very seldom are such messages rigorously refined,
clarified and documented.
Writing Machine's message methodology is based
on the belief that a company can - and should - define the
high level marketing
messages that characterise a company in its market places.
Once
properly defined and agreed with those at the very top of
the company, this information can be disseminated
throughout the entire organisation. The result is that
every single member of the business - and any future recruits
-
have a document which tells them exactly what their company
stands for. Subsequently that knowledge will truly empower
them both within the organisation and without.
It is these benefits that enterprise knowledge
management specialist Hyperwave is already reaping. Having
grown from its strong academic origins at the Technical
University of Graz to become an international player in
the heady world of knowledge management, Hyperwave had an
outstanding product to offer the market. However, the company's
rapid growth had left it without coherent marketing messages,
something it asked Writing Machine to help it rectify.
Following some initial research into the company, Writing
Machine's messaging consultants conducted a series of discussions
with the company's founders and senior executives. Based
on these, Writing Machine developed Phase I - a set of powerful,
high-level marketing messages that add coherence and strength
to its marketing strategy.
Terry Jordan, vice
president of marketing at Hyperwave, says that Writing
Machine's input is already
having a significant
effect on the corporate positioning of the organisation. "Like
many technical organisations, Hyperwave has excelled in the
development of the product. But in order to thrive in the
new global economy, quality software is just not good enough.
You also need to have a highly distinctive, highly powerful,
and extremely refined marketing position to sell in this
crowded market. That is precisely the kind of messaging that
Writing Machine has helped us achieve."
The second wave
With this set of valuable marketing messages in place that
could be used to underpin all of Hyperwave's corporate literature,
the project needed to be taken to another level.
Phase II, the chance to put this good work into practice,
was the next step. Writing Machine created a comprehensive
view of the organisation that the company's employees could
recognise and reflect in all future marketing collateral.
In Hyperwave's case, the information uncovered ranged from
the specifications of the company's products and technologies,
to its history and, critically, to its competitors.
Access to such information benefits any organisation in
that it provides a solid and consistent foundation for any
future marketing initiatives. What's more, Writing Machine
has used this information to create documents that can be
used to empower salespeople, or to introduce new employees
or business partners to the ins and outs of the company.
Paul Ayling, MD Writing
Machine explains the value of Phase II saying that "a
great idea is worthless without a methodical approach to
the implementation
process. What is
so exciting about this project is that it has brought Hyperwave's
Phase I Marketing Messages alive, and disseminated them across
the entire organisation. By covering every aspect of corporate
identity, from company history to competitive positioning,
Phase II has turned Hyperwave's top level messages into practical
tools that can be applied to any marketing project."
According to Jordan, "Phase II of Writing
Machine's Marketing Messages Guidelines has given us an
extensive repository of finely wordsmithed corporate information.
What we have now is, in effect, the foundations for the
rest of our marketing collateral. All the messaging (and
most of the raw copy) that Hyperwave will need has already
been created. New marketing projects can therefore be implemented
very rapidly, cost effectively and with great consistency
anywhere in the world."
And that's something that makes a lot of sense indeed.
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