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
Research summary
Clear vision & mission
- Strategic Goals
- Vision & Mission
- Customer Experience
- Touchpoints
- Sales History
- Customer Satisfaction
- Key Products & Services
- Culture & History
- 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
Strategic brand & Marketing brief
- Core Values
- Brand Attributes
- SWOT
- Strategic Planning
- Business Category
- Audiences
- Target Market
- Competitive Advantages
positioning & differentiation
Result: Your uniqueness and value
Brand plan
- Unique Selling Proposition
- Taglines
- Key Messages
- Positioning Statements
- Proof Points
- Brand Name
- Product Names
identity & visual assets
Result: Identity, creative assets, messaging
Brand assets & standards
- Logo & Sub Logos
- URL
- Social Tone
- Voice
- Visual Style
- Colors
- Graphic Standards
- Imagery Style
- Product/Service Names
launch & measure
Result: How you show up in the world’s performance measures
Business development materials
- Environment
- Customer Experience
- Employee Behavior
- Digital
- Website
- Social
- 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
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
determine research design
Articulate the research mix
Verify secondary resources (if needed)
Logistics plan
Develop a final proposal and budget
design & prepare research
Design questions
Design sample & contact lists
collect data
Promote & distribute survey
analyze data
Aggregate data
Determine most important take-a-ways
Drill down into important data points
Outline customer experience
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
Social Media
Web Development
Google Ads
Video
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:
- We’ll keep it simple.
- 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.
- You can’t afford to be a dinosaur. Your company needs a strong online presence to win business.
- 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!
