When you think of public relations (PR), scandalous politicians or the Kardashians may come to mind. But you don’t have to be a super famous celebrity or salacious politician to take advantage of public relations.

Contrary to belief, public relations isn’t a tool to bring attention-starved celebrities more publicity. It can be used to grow your business and attract new customers.

Today, we will go over the basics of public relations and reasons why you need to include it in your marketing strategy.

What is Public Relations?

Public Relations is one of those things that’s often misconstrued. While some have an idea of what it is, many still get it confused with traditional paid advertising.

Here’s the official definition according to The Public Relations Society of America:

“Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.”

In layman’s terms, public relations is a way you build your reputation and obtain publicity through unpaid means.

The job of your publicist is to tell a compelling story about your brand. When your business gets negative attention, your publicist helps mitigate the damage.

The main takeaway here is that PR controls how the public views your business.

Now that you know a little bit about public relations. Here are a few reasons why it’s essential for business growth:

Public Relations Builds Brand Credibility

Trust plays a huge role in the success of a business. Without it, you may be missing out on a valuable customer.

To help break the ice between you and your ideal customer, you would hire a PR firm.

A publicist would work to increase your credibility by helping you obtain a good reputation. This would happen through influencer connections, press releases, blog posts, and guest speaking engagements.

Public Relations Boosts Profits

Why else would businesses spend thousands on PR? An effective public relations strategy brings you more money. How? With a positive reputation, you’re more likely to attract leads that will turn into paying customers.

PR firms make this possible by creating a narrative that your target consumer will connect with.

Public Relations Improves Your Online Presence

We’re living in a digital world, and businesses can’t thrive without a substantial online presence. In fact, 76% of consumers purchased a product after seeing a brand’s post on social media. Social media is an ultra-powerful tool.

The role of a publicist is to help you establish what you want to communicate via online media.

A PR firm will also step in and minimize any negative publicity. This would be in the form of crafting responses to poor online opinions — bye, #cancelculture.

Wrap Up

Public relations is essentially a strategy that manages public opinion. It works to advance your marketing efforts and communicate your brand’s values.

If you’re considering hiring a PR agency, look no further than MACLYN. Our group of PR rockstars will make strategizing your marketing plan simple.

Ready to get started? Contact us. We serve clients in the Des Moines, Naperville, and Chicago area.

Question: Discovery is….

A. The cable channel you actually want your kids to watch.
B. Found in a temple deep in the Himalayas.
C. A process in which we research what is distinct about your business—the differentiators that separate you from your competition.

Answer: Yes.

For marketers, discovery is the process of gathering information that is critical to building your brand message & marketing strategy and achieving your objectives.

At MACLYN, Discovery is where we begin with all clients. The goal is to immerse ourselves in our client’s businesses and industries so we can make strategic decisions about their brand and marketing strategy.

Through a combination of qualitative, quantitative and fundamental & applied research, we learn about existing perceptions, consumer insights, what the competition is doing, and more.

Qualitative Research

Discovery starts with qualitative research. This is conducted through interviews with key stakeholders, including a company’s leadership team, marketing and sales staff, clients, etc.

In these interviews, we discuss your business goals, opportunities and challenges, insights into clients and consumers, existing sales and marketing activity, industry trends, and more.

Often, what we hear in these interviews, provides the inspiration for your brand.

Example: Iowa’s Rising Star
Our client, the City of Altoona, is located on the east side of Des Moines. They hired us in 2015 when all the growth and development was moving west. Altoona wanted to capture some of that growth, and needed help telling their story. During Discovery, we interviewed elected officials, the business community, developers, etc. And everyone kept saying things like, “Altoona is just about to happen” or “Altoona is going to be the next big thing.” We branded an economic development initiative called, AltoonaNow, and changed their story—because Altoona is happening, NOW.

Fundamental & Applied Research

Fundamental & applied research is done to gain a deeper understanding of your industry, target markets and consumer insights, and your competitors. Some of the key areas we focus on include:

• Industry research – the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of an industry.
• Target market/consumer research – understanding the consumer and their attitudes, needs, motivations, and behaviors.
• Competitive research – the brand position, marketing and sales efforts, communications, and more for top competitors.

What we learn through fundamental & applied research informs not only the marketing strategy, and how we reach our target audience, but also how to engage them with compelling content, messaging, and visuals.

Example: Studying generations provides key insights into how to communicate with different consumers.
Generation X (1965-1980) came to age in an era of two-income families, rising divorce rates, a faltering economy, and a technological revolution. This made them independent, resourceful, ambitious, and more willing to change. It also made them cynical, less loyal and shrewd. This means that when you communicate with Generation X, you need to use subtle persuasion—educate them into buying. They respond well to brands that are straightforward, credible and provide a personalized brand experience.

Quantitative Research

When applicable, quantitative research is done by surveying target markets and/or clients. The goal is to gain insight and understanding into existing perceptions, demographics and lifestyle of the target market, new or potential target markets, opportunities to further engage consumers, and the best mediums for communicating to audiences.

Example: Surveying your target market can lead to surprising discoveries.
When we were doing Discovery for a luxury spa, we surveyed consumers in their market that regularly visit spas. We learned that a difficult booking process is one of the top reasons for their market to change spas. With this information, creating a seamless booking experience became a top priority.

Good Discovery leads to overall success

Ultimately, good Discovery leads to a better understanding of your market position, your consumers, and the opportunities that exist to achieve your overall goals.

If you’re interested in learning more, contact us. We’ll setup a Discovery call.

It is often said that marketing is one of the most important functions a business can engage in. But why? It might seem more logical to some that more, well, businesslike functions would be far more important than marketing – accounting, sales and manufacturing, for example. And of course, all those things are important – but if there was no marketing happening, would there be a need to manufacture, sell or do accounting?

Marketing is vital to not only raising awareness of a business, but to interacting with customers, getting feedback on their needs, creating demand for products, demonstrating benefits over the competition, and much more. Without marketing, there wouldn’t be much need for many other functions.

Let’s take a closer look at what marketing does and why it is so vital to business.

Marketing builds relationships

One of the goals of a marketing strategy should be to create meaningful, ongoing communication with customers that develops a relationship in which they grow to trust your business and develop a sense of loyalty to your company. Marketing does this by engaging customers through several paths – in-person communications is one way, but another increasingly common way is through digital marketing. Just as many personal and family relationships are online these days, so are brand relationships. A marketing strategy that engages customers, encourages them to participate and interact on social media pages, and creates a sense of belonging will drive customer loyalty, even in the face of competition from other brands.

Marketing educates

Creating brand awareness is one thing, but if a customer knows a brand name but not what that brand does, it’s a little like a parrot that can talk, but doesn’t know the meaning behind the words. Advertising gets a brand name out there in the public consciousness; marketing informs the public what’s behind that brand. It lets customers – both existing and potential – know what a product or service is used for, why it’s valuable, and how it can make a difference in their lives. A good integrated marketing campaign combines brand awareness with brand education, communicating a brand’s value proposition in a compelling manner.

Marketing drives revenue

Businesses, of course, aren’t creating marketing campaigns strictly for educational or relationship-building purposes. The ultimate goal of most activities is to drive more business and more revenues. But you can’t just throw a product out into the marketplace and expect it to make money. That’s why you spend time on an integrated marketing strategy and money on a marketing agency to help you create and execute it – it’s an investment. Business is complicated, and especially with the advent of the internet, social media, and the omnichannel marketing opportunities those platforms present, a good marketing strategy that involves the customer throughout the buying journey is essential. Today’s customer journey offers so many touchpoints and so many ways to use marketing to improve that journey – from drawing the customer in to staying in touch with them throughout the buying process, to following up and keeping them primed to make future purchases, marketing is absolutely necessary to drive sales.

Marketing keeps business in business

Marketing should be a proactive endeavor. Sure, some businesses may take the reactive approach, interacting with customers when they haven’t made a purchase in a while or when they unsubscribe to a mailing list – but those businesses are going to find themselves in trouble sooner or later. It takes less money and effort to keep an existing customer than to acquire a new one, and ongoing marketing efforts are the way to do that. Automated marketing solutions make it simple to reach out to existing customers through email periodically, and marketing campaigns via social media that use fresh, fun content to engage with followers will go a long way toward making sure a brand or company stays top of mind.

As we said at the start of this article, marketing is one of the most important functions a business can engage in, and if your company doesn’t have some effective marketing strategies in place, it’s a good time to start.

MACLYN is a full-service marketing agency working with companies in Des Moines, Naperville, Chicago and surrounding areas to meet their marketing goals. We’ll act as your personal marketing partner, getting to know your business, brand and style to help determine the right marketing mix for the markets you serve. When it comes to marketing, there are a lot of options out there – let us work with you to personalize your approach and help you achieve your goals.

The brand you build to represent your company should be the same as the brand you put on the product itself. It embodies everything you stand for. It’s a testament to being tested. Your history, your legacy, how you make your mark.

For Richards-Wilcox, it all started with two letters forged into steel: RW.

Those two letters set their path to today. They’ve always been a promise to our customers, and to themselves. The company turned to us to help them renew that promise. So we helped them reforge their company with a rebrand.

And all the work is for naught without a strong launch. It’s the inertia that carries a brand forward.

We’ve talked about it before, but it’s important that you think about your brand launch as an internal launch, and an external launch. Like a rocket ship, a launch is really a series of launches: your internal launch gets you off the ground, and your secondary booster rockets get you to the stars.

Initiating the Internal Launch

If you debut your brand to the world before your own people, it will backfire. Not only may they be confused on how to promote it or uninspired by your new presence: they might even be resentful and hurt that they weren’t consulted. Ms. Lauryn Hill said it best: “how you gonna win if you ain’t right within?” You’ve got to get your own house in order before you can take the world, so the internal launch is truly crucial. It’s also to your own benefit to get your client involved from the jump: the RW internal launch literally couldn’t have happened without the employees, because through their interviews and insights, we discovered the gems that gave us the brand. Before we talk how we launched, here’s how the three brands formed in the first place:

The Spark of Creation

If you see hardware in a barn, zoo or stable, the odds are RW Hardware put it there. They didn’t follow trends: they created them. When you’re making a new brand, it’s all about finding the essence of who the company is. So when we thought of RW Hardware, a few words came to mind. Craft. Quality. Innovation. But it all slid into place when we heard the story of a piece of hardware installed in a Rockefeller family barn in 1927. 92 years later, it still works like the day it was made.

So our bold new brand was forged with 140 years of experience and excellence. Its look was inspired by the company’s history: from the pages of turn-of-the-century catalogs, to the enduring quality their customers depend on, RW Hardware’s new voice captures their enduring drive for timeless craftsmanship. From conversations with clients that have been with them for generations and employees that have been with them for decades, we crafted a presence that sums up centuries.

We really drilled down to the nuts and bolts of who they are, and celebrated what they continue to do like no one else for nearly a century and a half – stand the test of time against rain, wind, humidity and humanity. RW doesn’t just endure: they hold strong.

When we thought about Aurora Storage, we realized that there’s a story behind everything they store. A Ming Dynasty scroll documents the life of a pirate queen in a far-flung time. It was later smuggled out of China during a revolution, and wound up in the care of a museum. Or a revolutionary vaccine was tirelessly developed for years, by dedicated scientists. Now, it needs to be hermetically sealed and kept safe so it can save lives. For each of the markets Aurora serves, there are stories to tell. For librarians, curators, and the people that keep us safe, they preserve the precious, contain what can’t be contained, and invent ideas to protect ideas.

There’s a story behind every storage solution. So we built our brand around the stories of their customers, because Aurora Storage is the solution to every story.

Clearly we’ve did a lot of brand evolution. And it got us thinking about evolution in general. It’s not just for animals, Charles Darwin. Industry is really a survival of the fittest. And conveyor systems helped evolve the industrial age. Richards-Wilcox Conveyor became the backbone that helped automate this country.

If your conveyor goes down, your business goes down. You need something reliable and adaptive to survive in this modern industrial jungle. That’s when we realized that a conveyor-chain is like the spine of a great beast. A beast built better. Built smarter. Built stronger. Richards-Wilcox Conveyor makes conveyor systems built for the future, designed for adaptation, and engineered for evolution.

It’s a wild world out there. And with their adaptive, innovative systems, Richards-Wilcox Conveyor is engineered for evolution.

Party With Your People

We gathered the whole company together for an internal launch party.

We have to look back on where we’ve been, to look forward to where we’re going. So we explained and explored the new looks, new feels, new presences, that are true to the core of who they are.

CEO Bob McMurtry gave a speech: “We’re rebranding to tell the world who we are.
We’re rebranding to tell the world who we’ve always been.
We’re rebranding to look back on the last 140 years.
We’re rebranding to see how we dream what’s possible for the next 140.
We’re rebranding to remember what we bring to clients.
We’re rebranding to remember how we make our mark on the world.
We’re rebranding because we’ve always led the way.
We’re rebranding because it’s time for us to lead the way yet again.

We’re committed to a better future. But we’re also committed to building a better now.

We’re investing in what really made this company in the first place. It’s more than the steel. It’s you. It’s all of you.

Your drive.
Your sweat.
Your hustle.
Your integrity.
Your ingenuity.

You hold strong.
You are the solution to every story.
You are engineered for evolution.

And our investment in the company is our investment in you. Without you, RW is just four walls and a roof.

So I want to renew and reaffirm our pride in our company. When you see one of our social media posts, like it. Share it. You never know whose eyes it will reach. When you’re at your next party, talk about your company: there’s no telling who’ll be there. You are our ambassadors. You are our advocates. Remember where you work. Remember who you are.

We’ve got something to help you with that.

I want you to reach under your chairs and open those coolers. Go on, I know you’ve been wondering the whole time. We’ve got you some gear to help you champion the brands.

As you open the door to your home, remember that you hold strong. As you warm up or cool down with a beverage, know that there’s a solution to every story. And as you carry the cold ones to evolve your next event, remember you’re engineered for evolution.

You hold strong. You are the solution to every story. You are engineered to evolve.”

See? He acknowledged and thanked his people, while also getting the ball rolling with merchandise and collateral to get everyone on the same page (just sayin’, you might wanna do the same) It paid off, too: before, most employees didn’t even follow their own company’s social media. Now that each entity has a fresh brand to be excited about, employees interact with social and share the love to their own followers and prospects.

Executing the External Launch

Just like our internal launch was carefully crafted with custom apparel, ironwrought keychains, and other elevated collateral, the external launch was meticulously planned with a timed and calibrated content calendar. The videos and brands were teased and dropped, and all profile pictures, about sections, and personal LinkedIn accounts were changed over to the new brand assets.

When you’re launching a new brand, you can’t stop until everyone is speaking your language. One of the ways we taught our audiences that language is through case studies, the stories of our brands, which show off our capabilities, why we do what we do across a wide swing of industries. From sliding door hardware on a Buffet family amphitheater, to the legendary storage archives of McDonald’s, to an elite manufacturer of airline parts that helps the world take flight, our content generation stressed how vital RW was to the world’s infrastructure.

Tricks of the Tradeshow

And the brand made a big roar in the wild at trade shows.

At the big AZA zoo conference, we designed a thrilling demonstration of the signature RW Hardware crowding gate. A rhino charged directly at the viewer to pulse-pounding sound effects and beating drums: then, the RW crowding gate closed over the screen in time to contain the rampaging rhino. This video loop made the multitudes flock to RW’s booth.

Aurora Storage achieved an intimate look through the interactive stories of individuals discovering their pasts. And Richards-Wilcox Conveyor comes to life with its own machine-part menagerie: mechanical monkeys swinging on the overhead systems, lions on the line, gorillas made of gears grabbing attention all over the tradeshow floor.

There’s a lot to think about when creating brands and ideas this big. But remember this: if you want to fly, you’ve got to launch first.

When you hear the term “influencer marketing,” you probably think of a Kardashian. Which Kardashian is up to you – it doesn’t really matter, and you may not even be sure. All you know is that the Kardashians have something to do with influencer marketing.

So, what exactly is influencer marketing? Even if the Kardashians didn’t immediately come to mind, that’s OK – we’re still going to use them as one of the top examples of what an influencer is. Their names are well known, although if you had to pin down the reason why, you might not be sure. That’s because they were among the first in a new category of people who were, for the most part, famous for being famous – people who became known as influencers. They developed huge social media followings and a lot of cachet among those followers, and if they talk about a product they like, those followers will become interested in that product. So if a brand pays one of them to promote their product to their followers – not in a TV spokesperson kind of way, but in the way you might casually talk to your friends on social media – those followers are very likely to go buy it. And that, in a nutshell, is influencer marketing.

Let’s go beyond the nutshell version and apply an actual definition. Influencer marketing is “a form of social media marketing involving endorsements and product placement from influencers, people and organizations who have a purported expert level of knowledge or social influence in their field” according to a Wikipedia entry.

So, in that definition lies the good news about influencer marketing – it doesn’t have to involve a Kardashian, and is accessible to smaller organizations without Fortune 500 budgets. In fact, there are different types of influencer marketing – earned and paid, and they are just what they sound like. Earned influencer marketing is unpaid – it typically involves a brand sending a product to someone with the right kind of social media following (more on that in a bit) and having that person post their experiences with the product. This can be a good angle for smaller companies without big advertising and marketing budgets, or that are trying to supplement their ad spend with other avenues. Unpaid influencer marketing also has the benefit of seeming more authentic – if the user isn’t being paid to promote the product, their opinion must be more legitimate. However, this can be less dependable since the influencer may not be under any obligations for post frequency or quality.

Paid influencer marketing, of course, involves paying the influencer for posting specific types of content. This has the benefit of being more within the company’s control – usually the comments and images will be pre-planned and approved by the company and its marketing agency. However, it does have the downside of viewers feeling the influencer is being paid to say something – which, of course, they are.

Is there a right way or a wrong way to do influencer marketing? Either tactic can be effective, taking into account the pros and cons above. The real determining factor in an influencer marketing campaign is whether the influencer and their sphere of influence is the right fit for the company and brand they are representing. It is obviously a trickier area of marketing than, for example, email marketing or direct social media posts, and needs experienced oversight to ensure it’s done well and doesn’t backfire.

A good marketing agency with a lot of experience in brand influencer marketing can be an invaluable asset in designing an influencer marketing strategy. The agency you choose to work with should handle every aspect of influencer marketing, starting with vetting and contracting the influencers. Remember earlier when we mentioned the “right” kind of social media following? It’s important that the influencer has a following that will be interested in the product they’re endorsing. Having an influencer with a following that skews heavily young and female, for example, likely isn’t a good candidate for a product targeted toward 30-something males. It’s more complicated than that though – what type of products has the influencer endorsed in the past? How were the posts received?

A marketing agency will do all the legwork; ensuring the influencer is a good match and managing post approval. And perhaps most importantly, the agency will follow up with analytics – determining which posts got the best tractions, what the conversion rate was and whether the audience responded in a positive manner.

MACLYN, a full-service marketing firm serving the Des Moines, Naperville and Chicago area has years of experience working with influencers, and a staff that knows all the tricks and secrets to getting the most out of an influencer marketing campaign. As a relatively new area of marketing, we know most firms want a partner to help guide them through an exciting, if tricky, area of marketing. Give us a call and learn how to get started today.

Much has been said about the economic devastation of the pandemic: the jobs lost, the businesses closed, the industries overturned. Less attention has been given to another victim of the crisis: the nonprofit sector and the millions of people who depend on it.

In a recent study, nearly all nonprofit and not-for-profit organizations (96.5%) reported negative impacts due to COVID-19. The majority reported a drop in contributions, while others cited disruptions to operations, staffing issues, disrupted supply chains and travel restrictions (which can prevent donors, employees and volunteers from reaching the organization and, in turn, prevent the organization from reaching recipients of its services). All of these challenges hit nonprofits overnight, at a time when many were already operating at a razor-thin margin.

These organizations are walking a tightrope in a hurricane.

To make matters worse, COVID-19 has generated further demand for the services provided by nonprofits, as millions of Americans lose their jobs and face food insecurity and high medical bills. Meanwhile, operating costs have risen, and many organizations fear they could lose public funding, as the government looks to cut costs in the shadow of mounting budget deficits.

It’s a grim picture. And while it’s easy to look at the statistics and see that COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on the nonprofit sector, it’s difficult for those of us who don’t directly depend on these organizations to comprehend what the numbers mean at a human level.

What they mean is this: When a person loses access to a service that they would otherwise receive from a nonprofit, their life and livelihood are on the line. What do you tell your child, who has a developmental disability, when funding for their special education program is cut? What happens to a person who is addicted to drugs, when they can’t get the help they need to recover? What do you do when you show up to a food bank and the shelves are bare?

Clearly, we can’t afford to lose our nonprofits.

So, how can these organizations reach the other side?

At MACLYN, we have worked closely with a number of nonprofits and not-for-profits. We understand that many of you were facing economic challenges long before COVID-19 – it’s estimated that about half of all nonprofits operate with three months’ cash on hand or less – and we know that the pandemic has turned an already-difficult situation into a treacherous balancing act. We want to help.

To that end, we put our heads together and selected several best practices that we think will be essential to nonprofits for the foreseeable future. Obviously, there’s no magic here. No single solution will solve the challenges you face. But, as you read through these guidelines, we hope they will spark some creative thinking and help you strengthen your marketing strategy. Take a look:

#1 – Create a network of organizations.

Abbey Bobzin, Media Relations Account Executive at MACLYN, worked at three nonprofits before joining our agency. When it comes to fundraising for nonprofits, she says that there’s strength in numbers.

“Every nonprofit I’ve worked for has always been about leveraging existing partnerships to create something new,” she says. “Using those relationships is a mutually beneficial way to keep costs down while creating a story that the community can get behind.

“While at Milwaukee theatre company Cooperative Performance, we collaborated with Alverno College artists and creators to connect with immigrants, creating a new play about DACA and DREAMers that had timely relevance in the media.”

Another good example: Earlier this year, Gigi’s Playhouse (a nonprofit organization that supports and advocates on behalf of individuals with Down syndrome) teamed up with Lock Laces (a company that produces no-tie shoelaces) to showcase the many different kinds of warriors in the world. The unlikely partnership between the for-profit business and nonprofit organization was a win-win, driving donations for Gigi’s and sales for Lock Laces. Check out the campaign here.

#2 – Focus on major holidays, like #GivingTuesday.

The Tuesday after Thanksgiving (Dec. 1, 2020) is a global fundraising holiday that’s become wildly popular over the last few years. Last year alone, #GivingTuesday generated $511 million in the United States and nearly $2 billion globally. All in one day! The organizations that were most successful on #GivingTuesday began promoting the event weeks or months ahead of time and made a splash by giving it their own original spin.

Clearly, #GivingTuesday is an opportunity to drive revenue, at a moment when altruism is top-of-mind for millions of people. It’s also a great time to build long-term relationships. We recommend encouraging donors to register for a recurring giving program, rather than a one-time donation, to turn those sparks of altruism into long-term sources of revenue.

Also, be sure to give donors a way to spread the word on social media, such as branded Facebook profile frames and Instagram story stickers/gifs. (Resources: How to Create a FB Profile Frame and How to Create Custom GIFs/Stickers on Instagram)

As we mentioned in Tip #1, consider partnering with another organization to create an event or stunt that generates interest from potential donors and the media. Do something exciting and unexpected to distinguish your organization from all the others.

#3 – Change the meaning of a traditional holiday.

In 2015, REI made a bold move with their #OptOutside Black Friday campaign. Unlike other retailers, who celebrated the day after Thanksgiving with sales and extended hours, REI closed their doors, gave their employees the day off, and encouraged customers to join them in skipping the most consumerist day of the year.

It totally broke convention, but the campaign went viral and, somewhat ironically, turned into a marketing boom for REI. Now, fans continue to celebrate #OptOutside in lieu of Black Friday and use the hashtag beyond the holiday.

The success of #OptOutside is a good reminder that holidays are ideas; their meanings can change. Think about how your organization can challenge people to turn a holiday (or just another Tuesday) into an altruistic event.

P.S. Take a look at how REI is evolving their #OptOutside messaging with “Opt to Act,” which puts an activist spin on the holiday.

#4 – Expand your audience through outreach and meaningful acts.

Right now, individuals may be donating smaller amounts, but you can make up those losses by expanding to new audiences, focusing on underrepresented demographics – or demographics you haven’t connected with in the past – and using your organization as a platform for community education and outreach.

Once you’ve identified your audience, the best way to connect with them is by taking action. Attend community meetings. Host or sponsor virtual networking events. Join local Facebook groups. Make on-the-ground efforts to get facetime with your audience and build relationships with community leaders. Reaching audiences through targeted advertising and boosted posts is one thing, but the best way to build trust is by getting out there and getting active.

For example, while Abbey was working at Naper Settlement, an outdoor history museum in Naperville, Illinois, the organization built connections with Naperville’s Asian American community by participating in meetings of local organizations, listening to members of the community, and inviting local artists and cultural experts to get involved in the Settlement’s work.

By building those relationships, Naper Settlement was able to work closely with the community to create new exhibits and host a cultural event, which earned media attention and built further trust. It was a success—so much so that the organization decided to turn the one-time event into an ongoing series featuring various underrepresented cultural groups. In 2019, the Settlement worked with members of Naperville’s Indian American community to host “Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation,” the follow-up to the previous year’s exhibit and event.

How can your organization use your platform to educate and advocate? What demographics and cultures are underrepresented in your community? Could you partner with local organizations to put a new spin on your mission and your messaging?

#5 – Don’t cancel your donor events. Go virtual.

Like most nonprofit organizations, the Edward Foundation depends on large-scale donor events – like its annual Big Gig gala – for a significant portion of its fundraising. Obviously, the pandemic has made many of these events impossible, and it seems unlikely that gathering large groups of people together will be feasible anytime soon.

Instead of canceling the Big Gig, Edward created a virtual version of their event called The Big Give. The online event featured a variety of video stories and testimonials that highlighted Edward-Elmhurst’s response to the pandemic and showcased its efforts to care for patients with COVID-19. To encourage participation, Edward invited community members to submit short videos showing their support for Edward and played the videos during the event.

Virtual events can be a cost-effective alternative to traditional events. However, make sure you know the best practices of hosting a virtual event before you make your own.

#6 – Give people a reason to attend your virtual event (beyond the act of giving).

There are so many online events right now. And, to be honest, some of them are pretty boring. There just isn’t anything compelling about sitting at a computer and watching people talk.

To keep your event from being a virtual snooze-fest, we recommend featuring an entertaining main activity, like a talent show, cooking session, race, raffle, fashion show or videogame tournament.

For example: On October 29th, the March of Dimes Chicago (a nonprofit that supports the health of mothers and babies) is hosting a virtual Signature Chefs event, where corporate sponsors and individual donors can attend a variety of online experiences, like wine tastings and cooking classes. Take a look.

#7 – Get some free advice.

We know that many nonprofits are struggling to navigate this year, and we understand that hosting virtual events and raising funds over social media can be intimidating, so MACLYN is happy to give some free advice. Reach out to us, and we’ll help any way we can.

Everyone is on social media these days, right? Even our grandparents are active on Facebook and discovering YouTube videos. Pretty much every demographic has a social media platform or two they spend time on. So, it stands to reason that when it comes to marketing your business, you want to take advantage of all those eyes with a good social media marketing strategy.

Social media marketing involves using the paid advertising options offered by most social media platforms to boost your company’s visibility. This, of course, can also be done without using paid ads or posts – a good social media marketing strategy will include both paid and unpaid tactics to achieve the maximum benefits. But there are some specific benefits that come with a paid social media marketing strategy.

Cost effective

Social media is one of the most cost-effective forms of marketing, as it costs nothing to have a profile or presence on most social media sites, which is a basic requirement for marketing. Paid options vary, but they are typically much less expensive than a standard ad campaign. Some platforms allow you to select the amount you want to invest up front and then provide a certain number of guaranteed views at that price point. This way, you can decide how effective your campaign is before putting more money into it, which almost guarantees a good ROI.

In-depth targeting

Each social media platform tends to be popular with different audiences, which means each platform will allow a deeper reach into particular demographics. However, it is possible to refine your targets even further, as many platforms offer options that let you select subsets of users you want to see your content – users in a certain geographical region, for example, or those involved in a certain area of business. By concentrating on your target audience, social media marketing allows you to invest money and resources exactly where they will be most useful.

Multiple ad objectives

Typically, advertising is designed to meet a specific objective, such as raising brand awareness, increasing website visits, or capturing more quality leads for your lead generation efforts. Social media ads can meet multiple objectives, although you’ll typically be asked to choose one to measure. For example, sponsored posts that link to your website can raise awareness of your brand by allowing it to appear in more users’ feeds, and also drive website traffic as those users click on the link in the ads.

Tracking capabilities

One of the best things about social media marketing is the ability to track performance. As we noted earlier, most platforms will ask you to choose a specific objective when creating a campaign, and this is for tracking purposes. You’ll get a report showing exactly how your ad performed, how many people it reached, and how often it achieved the objective you chose. Even the data from one limited campaign can be informative, if only because it shows what content doesn’t work. Once you’ve collected data from several campaigns, you’ve got a treasure trove of data that can be sliced and diced to really focus your efforts, both on and off social media.

Reach your audience where they are

Have we mentioned yet that pretty much everyone is on at least one social media platform these days? Particularly in the “new normal” of 2020, people spend a good deal of time scrolling their preferred social media platforms – and that’s where you want to be. A sponsored Instagram post, for instance, blends in with the rest of the content without disrupting the user’s flow. Unlike a pop-up ad on a website, you can capture their attention without asking them to stop what they’re doing.

Better visibility, lower cost, good ROI, increased customer data – what’s not to like about social media marketing? We’re big fans – but we’re also experts. One of the only downsides of social media marketing is that there are so many options – multiple platforms, each offering multiple types of campaigns. Where do you start?

We’re here to help with that. As one of the best social media marketing agencies in Naperville, we can help businesses in the Des Moines and Chicago areas develop a social media marketing strategy. We’ve already done the hard work – we’ve researched social media marketing options for many clients, and it’s our job to keep up with the latest trends, algorithms and research. We can jump right in and apply that knowledge to your specific needs, developing the perfect social media marketing campaign to help you grow your business.

In the era of remote work, social distancing and the “new normal,” everything is digital. From conferences to school to happy hours, we can do anything that needs to be done on a computer, tablet or smartphone. This increased use of web platforms has made digital marketing, already a must-have in any company’s marketing arsenal, invaluable. As internet use has skyrocketed, having your company’s message seen online has become even easier – with the right digital marketing agency behind you.

Digital marketing is just what it sounds like – marketing on digital platforms. A digital marketing strategy leverages online resources like social media, search engines and email to get your message in front of the right people at the right time. Some common elements of a digital marketing strategy include:

Social media marketing

There are a couple of ways to use social media effectively in a marketing strategy. The first one is paid advertising. Most major social media platforms (LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, for example) have paid advertising programs that will let you get your name in front of an audience that might not already be familiar with it.

Unpaid social media marketing is more organic and cheaper than paid marketing, but it’s also a lot more work. Since you’re busy actually running your business, you’re probably not spending enough time on a social media marketing strategy, which should involve frequent, regular posts. Those posts should not only include information about your business, but useful tips, resources, and other information that will engage viewers and hopefully bring them back to your website. Often, a social media strategy will include another type of digital marketing – content marketing.

Content marketing

Think about seeing a video in your social media feed that caught your eye, or having a blog show up in the search results for something you were researching. You watched the video or read the blog, liked what you saw, and began looking at the company’s website for more. This is the essence of content marketing – using content assets to build awareness, drive website visitors, and boost sales. It can also be great for lead generation, as valuable content like e-books and research can go behind registration walls. These leads are also a great source of customer data, which, when analyzed, allows greater insights into your audience’s behavior and preferences, allowing you to better market to their needs and interests.

Search engine marketing

Search engine marketing, or SEM, means using paid advertisements to appear on a search engine results page (SERP). Why would you need to do that? You need people to find your website, and unfortunately, it’s not as simple as “if you build it, they will come.” You’ll need to do some work to get search engines like Google to find your website and display your results where people can find them – ideally on the first page of a search (because, let’s be honest, how often do you go past the first page of search results?) Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of refining content to have it appear organically in a search (like the example of the blog in the previous section). It differs from SEM because it is free – but just as with paid versus free social media marketing, it’s harder. And yes, you should do both.

Both SEM and SEO rely heavily on keywords because that is the basis of a search. When you search for something, what do you type in? For example, if you were looking for the best digital marketing agency for small businesses, you’d probably type in exactly those words. If you were looking for something local, you might search for digital marketing agencies in Naperville, or Des Moines, or Chicago – you get the idea. There are many tools available for keyword research to determine which keywords you want to rank for, and those key words can then be incorporated into your overall digital marketing strategy.

As with so many other methods of digital marketing, search engine marketing requires time and resources. For small businesses that are often already overstretched, it may be too much. MACLYN is a digital marketing agency that can help small businesses achieve their goals without stretching their budgets. Our a la carte services are perfect for small businesses that want to focus on one piece of a digital marketing strategy – maybe you’ve got someone to do social media, but you could use help with SEM. We’re the perfect partner, whether you want a little help or a complete strategy. Give us a call!

Everyone knows that first impressions matter. When you meet someone for the first time, the impression that you make stays with them long after the conversation is over, playing a disproportionate role in shaping their perception of you. That’s why, when we first meet someone, many of us pay extra attention to how we look and what we say, hoping to make a good first impression. We know that, whatever impression we make, it will last.

First impressions are just as important in marketing as they are in any relationship. The first time a customer or employee interacts with a brand, they form perceptions, and those perceptions stay with them long after the interaction ends, carrying a heavier weight than impressions based on additional interactions, sometimes even cancelling them out. First impressions help shape our long-term brand loyalty, our understanding of a brand’s values and our reactions to the brand’s decisions. Make a good first impression, and your audience may forgive any stumbles in the future. Make a bad first impression, and you’ll have a hard time gaining their loyalty, no matter what you do.

At MACLYN, we’ve guided numerous clients through “brand launches.” A brand launch is simply the introduction of a brand to its audience, including both the target market (potential customers) and the employees who work for the brand’s company. In other words, it’s the moment when people get a first impression of your brand.

As we worked with our clients to launch their brands, we learned that the way you introduce a brand to its audience is just as important as the quality of the brand itself, and it deserves the same level of attention as brand development. Too often, agencies and in-house teams focus all of their time and energy on developing an excellent brand, without putting any thought into the presentation of that brand. When they do launch, the excellent brand falls flat, making a bad (or just bland) first impression. Unfortunately, an otherwise great brand can fail to reach its full potential simply because it wasn’t properly introduced. First impressions really do matter.

What makes a good brand launch “good”?

We like to think of every brand launch as two launches: an internal launch and an external launch. The “internal launch” is the introduction of the brand to the branded company’s employees, while the “external launch” refers to the introduction of the brand to everyone else, including the target market. Within those two broad categories, there is a mix of events, teasers, videos, social posts, media blitzes and numerous other executions. The mix is always different, depending on the budget and the nature of the launch.

You’ll learn more about internal and external launches in the examples below, but the general rule of thumb is that a successful brand launch pays close attention to both sides: internal and external. In almost every case, the internal launch should always precede the external launch, so your employees are familiar with the brand before you introduce it to the rest of the world. A successful internal brand launch gives employees a sense of ownership over the brand, strengthens company culture, and acts as a springboard for a successful external launch.

Ignoring the internal launch can be disastrous. Some companies launch their brand publicly without first introducing it to their own employees, which we think is a huge mistake. Skipping the internal introduction can make your employees think that their input isn’t being valued, because it clearly isn’t, and they may ultimately distance themselves from the brand before it’s been revealed to the public. That can have disastrous effects on the external brand launch. If your own employees don’t embrace the brand, why would anyone else? How can you expect them to convince a customer to trust your brand, if they don’t trust it themselves?

To recap: A brand launch is as important as the quality of the brand itself, and both the internal (company-wide) and external (public) sides of the brand launch are equally important.

Now that you know the ground rules of a successful brand launch, let’s take a look at a few examples. For each of the real case studies below, MACLYN guided a client through an internal and external brand launch. We’ll take you through the story of each brand launch and provide some of our key takeaways, which may come in handy the next time you prepare for launch.

Case Study 1: IMRIS

A few years ago, we partnered with the medical technology company IMRIS for a re-brand. When we first encountered IMRIS, they were on the verge of a major change. For years, the company focused entirely on engineering, selling and supporting a single flagship product: a powerful MRI scanner, mounted on the ceiling and capable of moving between operating rooms. To the rest of the industry, IMRIS was synonymous with their flagship product, the same way the company Kleenex is synonymous with tissues and Jell-o is synonymous with, well, Jell-o. And while their product continued to be popular in the world’s top surgical suites, IMRIS’ leadership knew that it was time to evolve. To be successful in the future, they had to diversify their brand now and become known for more than a single product.

First, we worked with IMRIS to develop a new brand, complete with messaging, a logo system and imagery, as well as a new website, digital marketing campaign and various collateral. The new brand was beautiful. But when it came time to launch it, we were met with a challenge.

For years, IMRIS’ employees had operated under the assumption that their brand and its flagship product were one and the same. Our new brand challenged the industry to think differently about IMRIS and their capabilities, to see the company as more than a single product. But, if we were going to convince the industry that IMRIS had a new identity, we first had to convince the company’s employees.

A few weeks before the external (public) launch, we worked with the IMRIS marketing department to create a company-wide event. We called it “The Big Think,” tying into the new brand’s brain-related theme.

The Big Think brought together nearly all of IMRIS’ employees for a three-day event in Minneapolis, home of the company’s global headquarters. The first two days were mostly meetings and break-out sessions, designed to build collaboration and help employees understand the company’s new mission. The final night was a celebration, complete with a cocktail party, a TED Talk-style address from the CEO, a one-act play, a live chalk drawing and a video that revealed the company’s new brand. The Big Think was something the employees would never forget, and it successfully introduced the new brand and generated a sense of excitement and change.

For the IMRIS brand launch, we knew that employee buy-in was important, which is why we focused heavily on the internal launch before moving on to the external. By the time we launched the brand publicly, with a digital marketing campaign, updated social accounts, a new website and a high-tech tradeshow booth, IMRIS’ employees had already adopted the company’s new identity and begun to apply it to their day-to-day work.

Lessons Learned:

• Before you launch your new brand publicly, get your employees on-board. We typically follow-up company brand launch events by sending employees emails with everything they need to know about their new brand, including the new value proposition (elevator pitch), brand guidelines and instructions for updating their personal LinkedIn accounts with the new brand elements.
• Your internal launch event is an opportunity to do more than ‘just’ launch your brand. Consider holding workshops and breakout sessions while you have all of your people together (physically or digitally), and use your event to encourage collaboration and strengthen internal processes.
• Producing an original play in a few weeks is really, really hard. Who knew?

Case Study 2: BrownWinick

Similar to IMRIS, the new BrownWinick brand represented a significant shift in the way the company presented itself, and employee buy-in was essential to the brand’s long-term success.

BrownWinick is a law firm headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa. The firm is home to some of the most respected lawyers in industries like agriculture and energy.

As any attorney will tell you, brand is especially important in the field of law, where you’re only as good as your reputation. As we developed the new BrownWinick brand, we were keenly aware that every decision we made would affect not only the overall BrownWinick brand, but also the personal brands of the firm’s attorneys. You could say there was some pressure.

Due to the nature of the law industry, we knew that each BrownWinick attorney would feel personally invested in the new brand, so we involved them as early as possible in the brand development process and continued to engage them throughout. One of the first stages of MACLYN’s brand development is Discovery, a research phase. During BrownWinick’s Discovery stage, we conducted numerous in-depth interviews and surveys with the firm’s attorneys. We used their feedback to develop the new brand, and we even pulled specific language from their interviews and baked it into the new brand’s messaging. By the time the brand was ready for launch, many of BrownWinick’s attorneys had had a hand in making it – they could hear their own voices and perspectives echoed in the brand language – and that created a sense of shared ownership and pride. The employees felt as though they had created their new brand, rather than a third party.

Before we launched the new BrownWinick brand publicly, we hosted an event for all of BrownWinick’s staff and attorneys. We held the event off-site, at a beautiful space in Des Moines’ East Village. The day of the event, work ended early, and employees were shuttled to the event space, where the party began.

After a cocktail or two, everyone took their seats. First, BrownWinick’s managing partner was welcomed to the stage, where he addressed the company, similar to the address given by the IMRIS CEO during that company’s launch event. The partner spoke about the history of the firm and described how this legacy is shaping the future of BrownWinick. “That future,” he said, “begins today with the launch of our new brand, a brand that we all had a hand in making.”

At the end of his speech, the partner introduced the evening’s guest speaker: Chris Norton. Chris is a nationally renowned motivational speaker who has published several books and been featured on The Today Show and Good Morning America. (An interesting note: Chris happens to be a client of MACLYN’s. We worked with him to develop both his motivational speaking and foundation brands, as well as his websites.)

Leading up to the event, MACLYN worked closely with Chris to connect the messaging of his speech to the new BrownWinick brand. The result was emotional and impactful, and it added unexpected depth to the messaging. Chris, who was seriously injured in a tragic accident during a high school football game, recounted his journey through crisis and hope, and described how certain people had supported and guided him through his most challenging moments. “We all encounter difficult moments in business and in life,” Chris told his audience. “That’s why it’s important to surround ourselves with people who can guide us with their wisdom and motivate us with their boldness.” (This tied neatly into the new BrownWinick brand, which centered on the core message of “Be Bold. Be Wise. BrownWinick.”)

Chris, of course, was the highlight of the evening. When he left the stage to a standing ovation, he was followed by a video that revealed the new BrownWinick brand, weaving together the themes of Chris’ speech and the managing partner’s address, all building to the reveal of the company’s new brand. As the employees watched the video, they heard echoes of the feedback they had given us during Discovery, creating a sense of shared ownership; they all had a part in this.

When BrownWinick’s staff and attorneys returned to work on Monday, their office had been transformed with new branded décor. A box of branded gear was waiting at their desk, along with an email with brand guidelines and instructions for applying the new brand to their LinkedIn profiles.

Not long after the internal brand launch, we launched the BrownWinick brand publicly, with a new website and digital marketing campaign. Similar to the IMRIS brand launch, we believe that our focus on the internal brand launch laid the groundwork for the public launch and was key to its long-term success.

Lessons Learned:

• If possible, host your company’s brand launch event off-site, away from your office. It makes it feel less like another day at the office and more like an important and exciting event.
• Get creative with your brand launch. For BrownWinick, we invited a guest speaker who had nothing to do with practicing law, but his message was inspiring and clearly relevant to the brand’s core message. Inviting an unexpected guest creates suspense and, when done thoughtfully, can add depth.
• If employee buy-in is critical, get your employees involved in the brand development process as early as possible, even during the initial research phases. They will be much more receptive to the brand if they feel that they’ve had a hand in creating it.

Case Study 3: Blooming Color

We’ll end with an example of a successful brand launch at a smaller scale. This one’s a good model for small businesses or companies with a tighter budget.

Blooming Color is a printing company headquartered in Lombard, Illinois. When you think of printing, you may not immediately think of innovation, but that’s exactly what Blooming Color is: an innovative printer. They innovate every part of the printing process, from the machines and the ink to the way customers place orders online—all to provide more capability, more efficiency and a better customer experience.

Recently, we partnered with Blooming Color to rebrand their company as an innovator and an industry leader. We developed a new brand under the core message “Ink the Impossible,” which challenges audiences to join Blooming Color in thinking bigger about printing.

When it came time to launch the brand, we knew that employee buy-in was just as important as the brand’s public appeal (a theme that you’ve heard a few times now). However, unlike IMRIS and BrownWinick, Blooming Color didn’t have the budget for a huge brand launch, so we had to think of more subtle ways to make a splash.

We started by gradually introducing the brand to the company culture. We designed clothes for employees embroidered with “Ink the Impossible” – an instant hit – and wall graphics featuring the new brand aesthetic and messaging, which appeared around the company headquarters. The brand eventually found its way around the office with pens, notebooks, calendars and a puzzle featuring the Pegasus, a creature that’s become the brand’s de facto mascot. By gradually introducing the new Blooming Color brand to the company in fun, subtle ways, employees could adopt the new brand at their own pace. That pace turned out to be pretty quick, as the brand soon became a key part of office culture and a recruiting tool. It even inspired internal company events like “Inkspiration,” which kickstarted an employee recognition program.

Like the internal brand launch, Blooming Color’s external brand launch happened through gradual changes. First, we launched a new website, followed by updated social profiles with the new look and feel, and began producing content in the style of the new brand. We reorganized the company’s capabilities messaging and featured those categories through Instagram highlight stories, and we drew new and existing audiences to our website through targeted digital advertising and social media content. Today, following the gradual but creative launch of its new brand, Blooming Color is proud of its identity as a pioneer of print.

Lessons Learned:

• You don’t need a massive budget for an effective brand launch.
• A brand launch doesn’t have to be one big event. Sometimes, it’s best to gradually weave elements of the new brand into your existing brand architecture and allow your company to adopt it.
• People seriously love mythical mascots.

We hope these lessons come in handy the next time you’re preparing for a brand launch. Clearly, with COVID-19, the big gatherings we described aren’t feasible right now, but the principles behind them are solid. Create a strategy before you launch, focus on employee buy-in, and never underestimate the value of a good first impression.

Even if you’re launching your new brand remotely, think about how you can take these principles and apply them to a digital environment. Or, give us a shout, and we’ll work through it together.

Thanks for reading!

At its simplest, a Brand can be broken out into 2 sections, Core Messaging and Visual Identity. Neither is more important than the other, but today…it’s all about the Visual Identity. So, let’s break down the elements that make up the “look” of a Brand.

Logo.

Often considered the most important visual representation of a company, the logo is usually the first thing people see, and it’s usually the brand element seen with the most frequency. Sometimes, logos are ligatures. Sometimes, they are simply the company name in thick rounded font. And sometimes, logos are the company name in white inside of a lime green square. In all cases, with one glance, you simply ‘get it’. That’s a good logo.

Color Palette.

Gone are the days of black and white (unless those are your Brand colors 😀 ). With what seems like an endless combination of colors, it takes special consideration to choose the right palette. First, think about primary colors. Those are the ones seen most often, and are usually in the logo. But, when you get into the art direction, a secondary color palette helps carry the Brand through a variety of design. Then, of course you have pops of color. Small but colossal clusters of chroma that bring the palette full circle.

Brand Imagery.

The imagery might just be my favorite part of the visual identity. Imagery isn’t referring to photography, or illustration, or something else. But it’s the style in which all of those elements are made. The style that creates whatever emotion you want from the viewer. Maybe your imagery needs to convey fun, happy, exciting. That will look way different that one conveying sympathy or tugging at our heart strings. There are a million ways to bring ocular ownership to the Brand; the trick is finding the combination that’s distinctly “you”.

Brand Font.

The art of bringing visual ownership to words is pretty mind-blowing. Think about it—you can look at a word or even just a letter of some brands and immediately know exactly what company it “belongs” to. A lowercase “a” in a serif font makes you want to shop, a red “N” in a condensed san serif makes you want to chill. When done well, a font can be as ownable as any other element of your brand.

Written by Mike Naples, MACLYN Creative Director