we work

Choosing our clients carefully has been a key driver in our agency’s own success and growth. We take the engagement process very seriously and start by listening.

Brand Strategy & marketing planning

Our team has successfully energized hundreds of brands. Our proven, research-driven process is fun and delivers bottom-line results!

research & discovery

Result: Data, context, confidence, direction

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Research summary
Clear vision & mission

  • Strategic Goals
  • Vision & Mission
  • Quantitative, Qualitative, Testing & Secondary Research
  • Customer Experience
    • Touchpoints
    • Sales History
    • Customer Satisfaction
  • Key Products & Services
  • Culture
  • Business Strategy
  • Market Environment
  • Competitive Landscape
  • Research & Analysis
    • Surveys
    • Listening Groups
    • Focus Groups
    • Interviews
      Digital

clarity & strategy

Result: Personality, brand story, common goals, clear focus

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Strategic brand & Marketing brief

  • Core Values
  • Brand Attributes
  • SWOT
  • Corporate Strategic Planning
  • Business Category & Supply Chain
  • Audiences
  • Target Market
  • Competitive Advantages
  • Brand Strategy
  • Growth Strategy
  • PR Strategy
  • Promotional Strategy
  • Digital Strategy
  • SEO & Content Strategy
  • Social Media Strategy
  • Marketing Planning

positioning & differentiation

Result: Your uniqueness and value

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Brand plan

  • Unique Selling Proposition
  • Taglines
  • Key Messages
  • Positioning Statements
  • Proof Points
  • Brand Name
  • Product Names
  • Public Relations
  • Government Relations
  • Crisis Communication & Planning

identity & visual assets

Result: Identity, creative assets, messaging

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Brand assets & standards

  • Logo & Sub Logos
  • URL
  • Social Tone
  • Voice
  • Visual Style
    • Colors
    • Graphic Standards
    • Imagery Style
  • Product/Service Names
  • Key Message Platform

launch & measure

Result: How you show up in the world’s performance measures

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Business development materials

  • Environment
    • Customer Experience
    • Employee Behavior
  • Digital
    • Paid
    • Organic
    • Website
    • Email
    • Social (Paid & Organic)
    • Content
    • Video
    • Applications
  • Word of Mouth
  • Materials
    • Collateral
    • Signage & Vehicles
    • Packaging
    • Trade Show
    • Advertising
  • Public Relations

PUBLIC RELATIONS

Through our deep understanding of industry sectors and careful listening, we have become experts in identifying opportunities for our clients. We know how to build brands, deliver press coverage, tell stories, and write an appealing headline, subject line and press release. We deliver real business impact.

And our team loves to build presentations, coach presenters, write messages and design events that maximize visibility and gain leads.

 

GOVERNMENT RELATIONS

Are policy barriers or lack of government programs holding your organization back from success and growth? Our team will develop a strategy to help you take advantage of opportunities, overcome obstacles, and educate local and state representatives.

CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS

More than ever, companies are facing high-stake challenges and need proven crisis management advisers.

Marketing Department, Inc. is trained and seasoned to support businesses and public service organizations during crisis situations. As one of Michigan’s leading strategic communications and public relations firms, our senior-level team has the experience to counsel on COVID-19, cybersecurity, public health, financial, mergers & acquisitions, sensitive employee issues, personal, organizational, technological, natural disasters, workplace safety, and other critical matters.

Clients depend on us to solve complex, highly sensitive and mission critical challenges. We work to contain crisis, manage public information and social media meltdowns. On the proactive side, we elevate leaders, build brands and strengthen cultures.

The right custom message, response and plan are opportunities that address employees, stakeholder, customers, suppliers and media.

Let us help position you for a brighter future. We are ready to help you develop a strategy and manage:

  • Messaging
  • Media
  • Planning & Timelines
  • Communication coaching
  • Social media
  • Internal communication
  • Reputation management
  • Information flow

research & validation

Strategy without research is just an assumption or theory. Research instills confidence and provides direction that leads to great marketing AND great results. The Marketing Department has experience in a variety of qualitative and quantitative research methods.

In addition, our agency partners with the Michigan Tech School of Business, which gives us access to resources like technology, trend forecasting, and student research teams.

Quantitative

  • Customer Satisfaction Survey
  • Brand Loyalty
  • Brand Equity Survey
  • Employee Happiness
  • Distribution Channel
  • Competitive Analysis

Qualitative

  • Focus Groups
  • Street Surveys
  • Brand Audit
  • Secret Shoppers
  • Employee Happiness
  • Distribution Channel
  • Customer Profile
  • Buyer Journey Mapping
  • Customer Touchpoint Mapping

Testing

  • Market Research Reports
  • Sales Figures
  • Price Testing
  • Position Testing
  • Segmentation research
  • Concept Testing
  • Brand Name Testing
  • National/ Local Statistics
  • Small Scale test launch

Secondary

  • Market Research Reports
  • Competitor marketing literature
  • National/ Local Statistics

Our Process

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Define Objectives

Identify key decisions and initial hypotheses – what is the problem?

Determine information needed – what we need to verify/eliminate assumptions

Outline areas/section of information if needed

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determine research design

Articulate the research mix

Verify secondary resources (if needed)

Logistics plan

Develop a final proposal and budget

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design & prepare research

Design questions

Design sample & contact lists

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collect data

Promote & distribute survey

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analyze data

Aggregate data

Determine most important take-a-ways

Drill down into important data points

Outline customer experience

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present data

Presentations of data to stakeholders with initial strategy

Quantitative Methodologies

Tools
What it Addresses
Ideal Customer
Customer Satisfaction Survey
Develop an understanding of a customer’s satisfaction with a brand
B2C, B2B
Brand Loyalty
What motivates customers to stay or what it takes to attract new customers?
B2C, B2B, NP and municipalities
Brand Equity Survey
How favorably do consumers view the brand?
B2C, B2B, NP, Government, Anyone with strong direct competitors
Employee Happiness
How to attract new employees, retain the current ones, and understand the culture
Any business with 10 or more employees wanting to attract and retain talent
Competitive Analysis
Define competitive differences; product & price
B2C, B2B

Qualitative Methodologies

Tools
What it Addresses
Ideal Customer
Secret Shoppers
Identifies specific areas of improvement in the customer experience and can also be used to shop competitors
B2C, B2B
Brand Audit
To identify opportunities to improve specific or all areas of marketing and the customer experience
B2C, B2B, NP and municipalities
Focus Group, Street Surveys
Develop an understanding of a customer’s satisfaction with a brand, transaction, product, etc.
B2C, B2B
Situational Observations
Observe customer behaviors and reactions
B2C
Brand Loyalty
What motivates customers to stay or what it takes to attract new customers?
B2C, B2B, NP and municipalities
Brand Equity Survey
Identifies specific areas of improvement in the customer experience and can also be used to shop competitors
B2C, B2B, NP, Government, Anyone with strong direct competitors
Employee Happiness
How to attract new employees, retain the current ones and understand the culture
Any business with 10 or more employees wanting to attract and retain talent
Buyer Journey Mapping
To determine what motivates people to buy and what decision-making process they use
B2C, B2B
Customer Touchpoint Mapping
Inventory of the customer experience
B2C, B2B
Distribution Channel Audit
To assess distributors’ and retailers’ attitudes toward a product, brand, or company
B2B
Competitive Analysis
Define competitive differences, position & promotion
B2C, B2B

digital stategy & social media

GROWING COMPANIES IN A NEW AGE OF MARKETING

We simplify digital marketing for our clients. This goal came from our own experience partnering with young teams to help generate leads, create websites, plan social media campaigns and develop software applications for our clients. Over and over again, we got mediocre results. Eventually we came to understand why – these young teams, while bright, energetic and digitally minded, were not seasoned enough in marketing thinking, strategy, and data analytics to fully understand our client’s needs.

So, we created our own in-house team and processes to help our client’s generate leads and gain brand equity in their industries.

SEO icon

SEO

Social Media

Social Media

Web Development

Web Development

Google Ads

Google Ads

Video

Video

Software Development

Software / Mobile Development

Why digital marketing?
Your customer has never been more empowered. Generating leads has never been more fragmented into technologies, platforms or communication channels. You need a seasoned team with all required skillsets along with a strategic and systematic approach.

Here are four solid reasons to talk with us about digital:

  1. We’ll keep it simple.
  2. You will be confident that your digital campaign is integrated into your overall marketing strategy with the region’s most experienced team of marketing thinkers and strategists.
  3. You can’t afford to be a dinosaur. Your company needs a strong online presence to win business.
  4. The data we provide will help you understand your market and your customers and support your strategies.

Website development

It's all about the process!

Planning
  • Project purpose/strategic goals
  • Site map
  • Photos and video assets
  • Wireframes
  • Content outline for each page
  • SEO
  • Keywords & key phrases
  • Title tags & descriptions
  • Photo names
  • Page URLs
  • Workflow
  • E-commerce, Payments & Shipping
  • Product catalog
  • Security needs, SSL’s & Data encryption
  • Sensitive information
build

Concept
Based on the site-map and wireframes, the creative team will work to develop a few home and interior page concepts.

Page Development
Once the concept is proven to work in mobile and desktop, we will pull through the pages including all copy and artwork.

test

Cross Platform Tests
Today websites require testing on seven screen sizes and four main browser types. In this step, we take the developed website and make sure it functions in all of these environments.

Proofread
Toward the end of the project, we enlist several members of our team and the client to do a final run-through and proofread of the entire website to assure the project launch is as polished as possible.

launch

Performance
We will navigate the new website to the host of your choice.

More importantly, we will work with you to employ analytical tools, train your staff to update the website and put your SEO plan into motion and increase the amount of visits to your website!

advertising

Advertising is where ideas and brands are expanded into media, websites, google, social media, billboards and more…

Out team is experienced in all media, from print to digital and from video to public relations. We execute in-house and partner with printers and photographers to help with the rest.

We work in your best interest and DO NOT ACCEPT MEDIA COMMISSIONS. This allows us to design a campaign around the clients budget and goals.

And we do all this with creativity and consistency.

strategic planning

The idea of strategic planning can be daunting, bringing to mind a long, complicated process and dusty manuals. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Our strategic planners David and Karyn keep it simple and authentic. They don’t believe in cookie-cutter processes; instead they customize each company’s plan. They focus strictly on understanding the needs, resources and capabilities of our small and medium-sized clients.

We will design a strategic planning process just for you… one that everyone in your company can relate to.

determine market position

Research. Data. Facts.

Strategic Issues

Industry Data

Stakeholder Input

Customer Insights

SWOT

develop strategy

Dialogue

Vision

Mission

Values

Competetive Differentiators

Competetive Advantages

Long-term Objectives

3 Year Vision

execution plan

Design. Plans

Priorities

1 year goals

KPI’s and cascading goals

Team member goals

Budget

Timeline

execution

Implement. Measure. Adjust.

Communicate

Regular meetings & adapt

Celebrate successes!

no jargon. no b.s.

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