It is not hard to quickly discover, when sitting down with a client or prospect, when they feel that they are not executing efficiently. A few simple questions and they get that look indicating that they know they need help. This blog post is not another list to make you feel badly about your marketing efforts. This is a list of 10 signs that you are doing marketing right. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and is in no particular order, but hopefully when scanning you can mentally check off a handful of these to show you are taking your marketing efforts in the right direction.

1. You have an editorial calendar to align marketing efforts for thought leadership, product launches, news, events, and other corporate activities. An editorial calendar helps deliver a consistent message across all channels.
2. You are part of the right conversations. Conversations about companies, products, services, technologies, etc. are happening everywhere. It is important to be part of these.
3. Social media is integral to your marketing operations.
4. When a prospect visits you at an event, they get the same brand look/feel/attitude from your booth as when they visit your website or scan your social properties.
5. Your website is responsive, and you are starting to think of the mobile user experience first. The trend is your friend here – several recent studies show that more than half of web traffic is now coming from mobile.
6. You “own” your website, and
   don’t need to rely on IT or an outside vendor for consistent updates.
7. You are leveraging Google Analytics to ensure website content is most effectively displayed to deliver a solid experience for a variety of target personas.
8. You lead your business or marketing reviews with actual statistics on your results pulled from various tracking systems.
9. You listen to your customers. They know what they want and can be a fickle bunch across any industry.
10. Your brand tells a story. From the logo to the look to way your employees talk about you company, everything is aligned and powerful.

This list may be missing many tell-tale indictors, but it’s a good place to start. Please feel free to throw out other ideas, and we will add to this on a regular basis as markets and marketing efforts continue to diversify.

Over the past dozen months, Bluetext has renamed about the same number of brands – some as large as a global spinoff of GE – others the up and comers that challenge them.

Despite our counsel to open the naming process to a broader range of TLDs, about 90% percent of them required right up front that the new name have an available .com domain associated with it – not a simple task these days unless you are willing to cough up five – or more likely – six to seven figures to acquire it.

While we are by no means dismissing the .com as a viable option – it has been around since the birth of the internet – so it’s important to understand that as technology advances there is going to be an increasing shift to alternative TLDs as .coms eventually take their rightful place in history.

Among the steadily growing influx of new TLDs  – .CO domains are widely considered the most global and credible extension for your online brand presence. Universally recognized as an abbreviation for company, corporation, commerce, and collaboration -.CO domain names are memorable and in the vast majority of applications – shorter than their .com brethren  – who by the way even spots them a letter right off the bat by dropping the “m”.

With viable .COM inventory nearly exhausted, the newest innovators and challenger brands are left with limited domain choices within the extension – and often with very little in common with their brand – rendering them less and less likely to come to your user’s mind when they are searching for a specific company.

Most modern, tech savvy users are already directly typing in the URL and are likely to find you no matter what as long as they know what they are looking for. And with the emergence of even more new TLDs getting ready to stream out over the next few years  – more and more consumers will be looking more closely at the tail end of the domain.

And finally, for those of you who might be worried about how a .CO domain stacks up against a .COM from an SEO perspective – a .CO web address is treated the same say as any legacy TLDs, such as .com, .net and .org. and has the same potential to rank high among primary search engines – provided of course you have valuable, accessible and contextually relevant content regardless of your choice of extension.

Here’s a link to Google’s SEO authority and search quality engineer Matt Cutts confirming exactly that:

At Bluetext, we believe that .CO is a solid alternative for branding your business – offering a perfect way for new companies to reduce their barrier of entry into the market by providing a platform to acquiring shorter, fresher and more brand centric domains.

If the incoming administration is aligned on anything its increased U.S. security – both at home and abroad. Most predict that this will result in the elimination of the defense sequester and returning the defense budget to the levels proposed in the FY 2012 budget request – which would translate into spending increases of up to $500 Billion over the next 5 years.

The programs already being proposed go well beyond anti-terrorism to revitalizing the global defense infrastructure and increasing the foundational strength of the U.S. military across the board. This will require increased spending in a number of different categories – including agile force development, aircraft & aerospace systems, command & control systems, cyber security, smart technologies, shipbuilding, surveillance and ground, space based & missile defense systems – just to name a few.

However – since the last time the defense budget exceeded $600B in 2012 – the means by which government buyers, procurement agents and teaming partners across the defense contracting community consume industry related content has changed dramatically. Gone are the dozens of industry magazines that were piled high in their lobbies prior to the sequestration and gone are the days of flying around the country to attend big industry conferences, trade shows and events.

And to compound that, the industry will rebound in the face of an increasingly younger and mobile dependent demographic that has seized control of the content they want to consume and when and on what screen they want to digest it. Aerospace and defense industry brands must now adapt and market like every other major enterprise and consumer brands do and develop compelling contextually relevant content and deliver it to their customers – daily.

In other words –  you need to become your own publisher – because if you don’t shape your brand’s position in the market your competitors will gladly to do it for you – and have probably already started. The good news is that gives you significantly greater control over your message and how your brand is positioned and perceived in the market. But that market is about to become much more crowded and a hell of a lot noisier after the New Year with all of your competitor’s messages about innovation, transformation and the next big buzzword. So, you need to ask yourself – how am I going to differentiate my brand and defend my dominant market position – or in overtake the market leader – in this rapidly changing environment?

At Bluetext – we have achieved success for dozens of the most recognized and innovative brands in global defense and technology based on the premise that – to claim innovation you must demonstrate innovation. With the plethora of digital marketing tools, VR and other advanced technologies available for smart digital agencies to develop rich, immersive and interactive brand experiences to drive awareness, customer engagement and demand in the market – now is the ideal time to start making some noise.

Your path to brand – and market – domination begins and ends on the digital battlefield – the time to start preparing is now.

Well…given the polarizing nature of the 2016 presidential election, it’s a fair bet that families will spend as much time on Thanksgiving “talking turkey” as they will devouring it. The phrase “talking turkey” has an interesting history, with some tracing it back to colonial times to describe when colonists and Indians would barter over wild turkeys.

Since then, the phrase has been primarily associated with stating something frankly and matter-of-factly. I’m sure there will be plenty of frank comments at the Thanksgiving dinner table about how a Donald Trump presidency will impact the stock market. The energy sector. Foreign relations. The economy. How about the cupcake industry? Ok, so Red Velvet cupcake sales will probably not be materially affected by a new president, but you get my point: When a seismic news event occurs, an avalanche of commentary soon follows on how, in this case, a Trump presidency will impact every nook and cranny of society.

Rather than speculate in those areas, the focus of this post will be to view Trump’s victory through a publicity lens. Is there a “teachable moment” for the marketing and public relations industry given the uniqueness of how Trump used his brand and marketed himself? What does his victory say about the value of the estimated millions upon millions of dollars in “free” earned media coverage national and local media lavished upon him for several months, reducing his need to spend on traditional TV, radio, print and online advertising?

Depending on which way you bend politically, each person will no doubt have their own opinion on why Trump won. Either way, ad and marketing agencies across the country are re-evaluating what they know and thought they knew about consumers in the wake of the election results. An article in today’s Wall Street Journal cites how ad giant McCann Worldgroup assembled top execs to dissect what Trump’s victory means from an advertising perspective. The broader article theme postulates on whether brands have overlooked the same rural voters who fell under the big data and polling radar to propel Trump in key battleground states.

The uniqueness of the presidential campaign offers some insights for marketing, advertising and PR agencies wondering if consumer behavior will match voter behavior in the coming months and years.

Modesty doesn’t always sell

Imagining how and why Trump’s message resonated with so many people harkens me to a person watching infomercials at 3am. Deep down, you know that the BackMassage 3000 can’t possibly cure your back pain in five minutes or less, but its three o’clock in the goddamn morning. You’re tired, and everything else you’ve tried hasn’t worked, so why not give it a chance?

Trump as a brand was not modest about what he thought he could accomplish during the campaign, and the results suggest many voters responded favorably to his ambitious promises. Perhaps some knew deep down that he wasn’t going to be able to deliver on all of it, but like the BackMassage 3000, it sounded bigger and bolder than anything they heard before.

Jargon can obscure the brand promise

As an acronym, keep it simple stupid (KISS) has been applied to endless use cases, from politics to sports to sales. KISS traces back to a U.S. Navy design principle in the 1960s, and has served as a reminder to avoid adding unnecessary complexity. Trump kept his messages very simple; and these messages were either embraced or reviled by voters because the messages were easy to understand. Brands often complicate the product message with jargon that may be technically accurate, but falls flat when it comes to establishing a connection with everyday users.

It pays to be memorable

And then there was one. The Republican party began the 2016 presidential campaign with 17 candidates. My bet is that if voters were asked to describe 1-2 unique ideas that the other candidates had – whether it was Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, Rick Perry or Jeb Bush – they’d be scratching their heads for quite some time.

Think about the commoditization of budget to mid-level hotel chains, who typically offered similar rooms, at similar prices, with similar amenities. How does a traveler pick one over the other? It can often come down to creating some calling card that is memorable. For Hampton Inn, it was the Belgian waffles at the free breakfast buffet. Guests remembered the Belgian Waffles, and returned to Hampton Inn just for the breakfast.

Trump marketed campaign promises that were very, very different from other candidates, which made these promises memorable and, by default, Trump memorable with voters struggling to figure out how each of the 17 candidates was difference from one another.

You can’t build a brand overnight

One of the most overlooked but critical elements of Trump’s success is that he had spent decades building an oversized brand that could be immediately activated for his campaign. This was critical, because while 17 candidates on the GOP sides sounds like a lot, many ran out of time and money to develop brand awareness – not only around who they were but what they represent. For every Jeb Bush and Chris Christie entering the fray with baseline brand awareness, there was a Bobby Jindal, George Pataki, Scott Walker and Jim Gilmore – folks known inside the beltway but certainly not to most Americans. Trump came in with an established brand known to probably most every single voter, and the media fed this brand throughout the campaign with free publicity that negated his need to advertise heavily or introduce himself to voters.

Big data has its limits

Marketers and advertisers are stepped in big data today, but the previously referenced WSJ article makes another good point: Big data may not be telling them everything they need to know, and if this data skips over important source blocks such as rural voters, then it is by default flawed data. Finally, if the data misses key demographic segments, brands might make assumptions about who their customers aspire to be. Rural voters may not aspire to have the latest iPhone that celebrities and athletes use, but may just want reliable phone and data service that can be hard to come by in rural areas.

Will Donald make sales of Red Velvet cupcakes great again? Only time will tell.

Last week it was announced that software company Synopys would acquire Cigital, a leading provider of software security services to help software developers build security into their application development process.

Here is the news:
http://www.darkreading.com/perimeter/synopsys-expands-software-security-with-cigital-codiscope-acquisitions/d/d-id/1327434

In 2015, following an exhaustive search Cigital selected Bluetext for a full scale rebranding effort, including logo, corporate identity, and fully responsive website.

At the time, Cigital’s challenge was a common one we hear from many of our prospects. To paraphrase, “our services and people are so far superior to our main competition, but our brand is holding us back and we are getting out marketed.”

This assignment was directly in our sweet spot.

We worked with the Cigital team to create a powerful brand that was differentiated and visually appealing to send a message to the market that things are different at Cigital and now is the time to take notice. The rebrand created a swagger for the company that clearly led to success as judged by last week’s news.

We were not specifically hired with the assignment of positioning the company for sale. But this is another instance in a long line of rebrand efforts, including Acentia, Altimeter, Force3 and several others, where the company successfully sold shortly after our rebranding effort.

Every client has a unique challenge.

Rarely does a client call saying that they want to sell and need to rebrand now. But when engaging with a client, it is always in the back of our minds. Our goal is to take a seat at the table with our clients, understand their unique challenges and ultimate goals, and help them execute a campaign to achieve this goals in the most efficient manner possible.

Kudos to Cigital, Jim Ivers and the entire team. We could not be more proud of the work we did to help successfully position you for this exciting news. To read more about our solution check out our Cigital case study. To learn more about the importance of a strong brand, read our latest:

Planning for the New Year? Is Your Branding Up to Snuff?

With a new year comes new expectations. More qualified leads. Better content. More PR coverage…just some of the areas that b2b marketers are measured against.

The New Year marks a great time to unveil a new brand identity to the market. Usually in January there is the company wide sales kickoff meeting where the team is hungry for something new. Out with the old and in with the new. A new look is always a smart way for b2b marketers to kick off the year in style.

A lot goes into creating and launching a new brand. Determining the new brand identity, then doing all the steps to launch it are critical for success. How well you handle the transition process from the old to the new and how that plays out can go a long way toward determining the success of your launch. As you only have one chance at a first impression, every step you take in in the process must be executed flawlessly.

So let’s think about audiences. First and foremost is the internal audience. They say that more than 50% of the success of a rebranding effort is determined by how well it is received by your internal champions. These are the people that will be the first line of defense when presenting the new brand to their customers and partners. They should love it. They should feel inspired. They should be prepared to scream about why you did it and what it means to the market from the mountaintop.

To best do this, they need key messages delivered on a silver platter. And they need to be easy to communicate. Having a consistent story to tell is critical. Think of it like a game of telephone. Once you tell them why you did this you have no idea where the message will go. By the time it reaches a hot prospect it may lose its impact. And remember, you only have one chance at a first impression.

Once key constituents understand why you did it, the next critical question for b2b marketers to answer is how will the news and message get communicated, and when can people talk about it. From the smallest requests (when will by new business cards arrive) to the most critical brand story telling channels (when will the website get updated), no detail should be overlooked. A detailed rollout plan is critical for success.

Say it Loud and Say It Proud
Many brand marketers don’t get the respect they are due. Their efforts are reduced to simple questions from others such as “what hours do I need to be working at the tradeshow booth?”

A new brand identity is the time to make a splash, and what better time than the New Year when we are done celebrating past years’ success and are now ready to move forward with the new branding. If you are like most b2b companies you have a big sales kickoff where everyone is hungry to see what is new for the near year. If you coordinate efforts well, all materials are ready, all messages are crisp, and you have the perfectly captive audience of internal influencers to get behind your efforts. Leverage the promotional opportunity the kickoff presents to make it memorable.

You Made the Splash, Now What?
Let’s face it. Launching the new brand is just the top of the iceberg. There are a million things to do and pieces of communication to coordinate. People have questions, and you should have answers. Now is the time to move back into your measured marketing roll and create a perfect spreadsheet to show the team how things will roll out. Use the rebrand as an opportunity to create a cadence of messages for partners, prospects, and customers. This is your new brand platform to deliver a new message for 2017. The market should experience it in everything you do, from your tradeshow booth to your website to your lead generation campaigns. A coordinated effort will enable you to get rewarded for your efforts while successfully launching the new brand identity to the market.

Don’t forget What Got You Here
If you are thinking about rebranding for 2017, you have been successful in your job in 2016. That means that you had something valuable for the market and did a good job delivering it. Now is a good time to meet with your core audiences to get their feedback. What is resonating about the new branding and message? Have you and your team done a good enough job clearly explaining why you did this? Does the identity fit the company you want to be? Does the market understand the meaning behind the new brand?

Ready to Get Started?
At Bluetext branding is in our DNA. We work with organizations across many industries to help them create and launch new brands to the market. From logo development to corporate visual identity to responsive web design to trade show booths and new collateral, we have the resources and expertise ready to tackle whatever challenge you are facing with your brand. Now is the time – the New Year is just around the corner. Do you have the platform to deliver a powerful message to the market? Reach out today to find out how Bluetext can elevate your brand.

When television owned the only screen in a single screen world –  it controlled 100% of the “digital” content – brands and consumers alike were literally shackled by the format and programming television once controlled.

Today’s hyper connected consumer has gained complete control over what they want to watch, when they want to watch it and the screen they want to watch it on – but the majority of corporate brands have been slow to catchup to this change in consumer behavior and fail to recognize the role that consumers are now playing to drive corporate marketing strategy. This is largely because they are still beholden to more traditional channels – including online display – that dictate where, when and how their messages are served up to consumers.

Brands have to design customer experiences that meet the needs and expectations of an increasingly mobile consumer, and the creation and distribution of content plays a significant role in that customer experience. With so much noise and so many media formats vying for the customer’s attention, marketers now need to tell their own compelling, contextually relevant and visually impactful brand story.

As consumers gain control of the content they allow to reach them, some of the most modern brands are making the transition to what is probably the most significant shift in marketing since television and launching content publishing studios to create, manage and distribute content that rivals some network news rooms. Brands are experimenting with virtual reality, infographics, videos, mobile ads, native advertising and other creative ways to try and get their message in front of their customers in a time, channel and format that they chose to digest it.

And to compound that, technology is rapidly changing consumer behavior in unpredictable ways with mobile having become the primary enabler of the personal interactions the smartest brands are now having with their customers. As consumer preference for digesting content shifts to smaller handheld screens, innovative marketers will leverage that to create a more personalized experience with their customers. Branding is now a two-way conversation now that social media has given consumers a voice unlike anything ever seen before. As brands track individual consumer behavior in real-time, they can use it to tailor the individual experience for each specific person and their specific behaviors on a mass scale to create engagement and conversations at every consumer touch point.

With the rise of mobile, Brands will also need to become more nimble and at the same time, creative and digital agencies will eventually morph into one – like Bluetext – so that ideas are cohesively executed across all channels simultaneously to meet the needs of a new consumer culture – rather than those of the traditional media culture that has ignored them for far too long.

Even the most established brands risk becoming irrelevant if they fail to recognize that they need to adapt to these changes in human behavior. As consumers choose to embrace only the world that knows them – marketers need to develop and nurture a compelling brand narrative with content consumers will seek out to customize their own individual life experiences.

When I meet someone and they ask about Bluetext, I often reply with a simple “Bluetext is one of the top branding and marketing agencies in Washington, D.C.” That usually leads to a conversation about our team, our services, our clients, and eventually their needs and challenges. People generally understand branding and marketing, and therefore are able to talk about their business challenge in the context of the services we deliver.

I was at a dinner last week with a group of agency leaders from the top branding and marketing agencies in Washington and something that someone else said really struck a chord with me. He talked about solving problems and addressing challenges for his clients. As a leading marketing agency, I believe our clients think of us in a similar manner. We are more than a branding firm. We do more than design and build award-winning websites. We do more than execute PR and content marketing campaigns for our clients. At the end of the day, every company has some sort of marketing challenge they are trying to overcome. At Bluetext, that is what we do for our clients. We solve their challenges through a mix of strategies and tactics, and there is no one size fits all approach.

As you start to think about 2017, I would strongly suggest not specifically thinking do I need a new website or do I need to get more articles, but instead think what are the challenges my business faces and what type of agency is required to solve them. Does that agency have the creativity, passion and expertise to get their hands dirty and help me achieve my goals? Does that agency have the resources to think about new channels? A PR firm will tell you that you need more PR. A website agency will tell you need a new website. At Bluetext, we will analyze your challenge and recommend a campaign, solution or strategy to help you achieve your business goals. In my view, that is what a top marketing agency does. To learn more about what makes us a top agency, reach out today.

As companies mature and think about how to take their business to the next level, invariably one of the toughest questions to answer is when is the right time to hire a marketing agency. Every company is different. As one of the top marketing agencies in Washington, Bluetext meets with companies of all shapes and sizes, and it is safe to say has seen it all. From the CFO who is dabbling in marketing to the head of business development to the person who just graduated last week, companies tackle marketing in different ways. So when someone asks “when the right time to hire a marketing agency is?” I pulled together some telltale signs that would suggest it is time to call in the professionals.

1. The only money you are spending to get your name out there is the same industry tradeshow you have been attending for years, and you only go because “everyone goes.” I would be willing to bet that the money spent on that show could be spent on some much more effective tactics
2. When someone says that they went to your website and has no idea what you do. This is a problem. You need clarity. You need a digital platform that delivers for your business. Prospects need 6-7 touches as a minimum before they want to engage with your company. The message, design and impact of your website needs to be clear and differentiated. If not then it is time to call a top digital marketing agency.
3. You have no plan. How do you expect to grow a business with no marketing plan? Too many times we hear people say that they need to get around to focusing on marketing. That is likely a sign that it is too late. If you are selling a B2B product, a b2b marketing agency should be able to help you create a plan, determine the resources required to execute it, and then help deliver results with impact.
4. You think of marketing and business development as the same department…enough said.
5. You have to pinch to view your website on your phone…enough said.
6. You are constantly looking at your competitors and talking about how great a job they are doing with their brand and positioning. We hear this all the time.
7. Every vendor that calls with a marketing idea sounds like a smart plan. A good b2b marketing agency can not only help you craft and execute a plan, but also help you sort through all of the opportunities that exist for promotion and help you point your arrows in the right direction.

So there you have it. Seven signs that it is time to hire a marketing agency. I am sure that this list can go on and on. Please share other thoughts in the comments zone and I will update the list accordingly. And if you don’t know what to do, give us a call. We have worked with companies across many industries to tackle many different marketing challenges to help them take their business to the next level.

When people ask me about Bluetext, I often find myself calling us of the region’s top B2B marketing firms. We work with world class global enterprises. We are on the cutting edge of branding trends and focused on leveraging emerging marketing channels. And we have a world class team of people focused on delivering great results for our clients. So here is my take on what makes us one of the top B2B marketing firms:

1. A top B2B marketing firm works across a wide variety of industries. In my view, focusing on just a few industries can be limiting and lead to tired tactics. Instead, taking the learnings from some industries and applying them into adjacent markets can be valuable to clients.
2. A top B2B marketing firm can tackle a wide variety of marketing assignments, delivering integrated solutions for clients. Clients like integrated service offerings. They like to work with clients who create a strategy then are able to roll it out via many channels.
3. A top B2B marketing firm is working at the forefront of emerging delivery channels. See our recent work for Varonis at bluetext.com/varonis
4. A top B2B marketing firm gives guidance versus simply taking orders. Challenging assumptions, doing things differently, and looking at ideas through different lenses can be incredibly valuable.
5. A top B2B marketing firm starts with goals versus focusing on channels. Understanding where a client wants to go before deciding how to get there can be quite valuable.
6. A top B2B marketing firm should have a seat at the table with you during key strategic meetings.
7. A top B2B marketing firm should push your internal team to think beyond traditional channels and programs to reach prospects in new and unique ways.
8. A top B2B marketing firm is part of the community and recognized for its great work
9. A top B2B marketing firm is able to adjust strategies mid-course.
10. A top B2B marketing has a client roster that you immediately recognize.

So that is my list. That is how I define a top B2B marketing firm. What did I miss? Please share other ideas and I can update the post in the future. And for more insights on B2B marketing, reach out to Bluetext today: