Don Rigby, Integrated Marcom

The need to stay in touch with customers, to cultivate top of mind awareness, to create preference for doing business with you has never been greater or more difficult to accomplish. With the advent of exciting new communication methods, the ability to communicate effectively, respectfully and appropriately will differentiate the winners from the losers. Customers have an unprecedented number of choices in the marketplace -- so the need to connect and be compelling is both imperative and urgent.

HOW TO CONNECT: Don't sell …Nurture. It's a powerful communication strategy fueled by fresh new technology. It's a way of connecting personally to build rapport with prospects and embed your brand in their hearts and minds causing them to call you when they're ready to buy. Automating these processes helps you be more efficient and effective.

With each prospect and client, we help you manage ongoing, personalized correspondence and carefully sequenced personal touch-points. It's a systematic, step-by-step method that eliminates human error while celebrating the human spirit. People don't care what you know until they know you care. This simple idea revolutionizes the cultivation of loyal customers. Set yourself apart. Don't sell. Through a nurturing philosophy, help people buy.

HOW TO BE COMPELLING: You earn it. Your product or service offering is deeper, more relevant and better strategic fit than your competitors. That's because you know your customer--you've taken the time to understand their wants, needs and desires. You've analyzed competitive offerings and created an added dimension that further solves the customer problem. A true differentiator, the only one that matters, is one that's admired by your customer.

Are the promises of quality and service good differentiators? It's not enough. You sound like your competition which adds noise and confusion to purchase process leaving price as the primary consideration. Give your customer tangible reasons to make emotional decisions they can justify logically.

HOW TO CREATE PREFERENCE: Live your brand promise. Your brand is the sum total of what you say, how you deliver and the customer experience you provide. In essence, your authenticity. You can certainly influence your brand, but you don't own it as it is the perception of how your prospects, customers, partners and vendors view you. A well articulated brand strategy is the bedrock foundation of every successful enterprise. It's no longer optional or nice-to-have. It's required.

Your brand strategy serves as a blueprint for management and marketing decisions. It articulates what makes you unique, supports long-term vision, explains why customers buy and aligns all your employees with messaging elements that reinforce the values and principles your company stands for.

WHAT DOES YOUR COMPANY STAND FOR? We can help. The best brands are created from the inside out, yet require outside objectivity. We analyze your competition, talk to your customers, interview employees and review industry trends. Together, we co-create the brand values of your company that are authentic and revered important by your target market.

Integrated MARCOM and GrowthANSWERS make profound contributions to our client's success. We help emerging companies differentiate their offerings, build this quality into their brand architecture and create communication systems to advance relationships across the entire customer lifecycle. Our clients are connecting, compelling and creating preference. If you could use a healthy dose of objectivity in your business, today is good. By this time next year, we're seeking 12 more testimonial accounts who will enthusiastically endorse Integrated MARCOM and GrowthANSWERS in any economy. Out of sight, out of mind, out of business is now a choice.

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