The ROI of Primary Research- Taking the Madness Out!

As Seen on ERE.NET- This article marks my debut as contributor to ERE.net, the online community comprised entirely of professionals who are part of the recruiting industry. I look forward to being a valuable part of such a long-established leader in the virtual publishing field.
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Coming up on the second weekend of the NCAA tournament, I am happy to report that I’m in first place in my pool of 35 basketball fanatics. I won two years ago and I’m looking to repeat the performance. The funny thing is that I don’t even follow the sport. My personal secret is my professional weapon: pre-project research.

Research is an oft-forgotten yet essential business tool and can save money, time, and resources. While the cost of entry for my basketball pool was only $25, the stakes are significantly higher when assessing the costs to launch a new branding campaign, career site, or national recruitment program. Small mistakes can create long-term headaches like high turnover, poor performance, or dropped conversion rates.

So before the next round of hoops begins, lets take a moment to look at some of the different kinds of research there are, and when it makes the most sense to launch yours.

There are three kinds of research.

Secondary. Secondary research already exists, and is therefore the least useful in helping you, since every project in unique. Your company, your culture, and your objectives are different from everyone else’s on your buddy list, so you can’t expect to have the same outcomes from similar projects that you launch. (Secondary research did however, account for my early success in the basketball pool.)

Quantitative. Quantitative research is often used as an independent survey tool, but it is most effective when used to validate the findings of your qualitative study. Think quantity, think survey, think slice and dice statistics. It’s much more objective since when the questions are crafted correctly, the answers are unbiased. The costs of running quantitative research surveys have come down considerably through online tools like SurveyMonkey or Zoomerang. The trick is getting the right analysis from the data. Make sure that you get a fair-size sample pool across geography and skill sets, if applicable to your project.

Qualitative. Qualitative research should be both the beginning of your discovery process as well as the launching platform for any next research steps. Bring in a small sampling of the “right” types of people and do a focus group, in-depth interview, or telephone campaign. The questions are open-ended and the answers are subjective. A trained moderator will probe to explore the deeper perceptions, opinions, and feelings about your topic. Think quality, ideas, and individual interpretation.

The costs of launching qualitative research vary, but expect a price tag of $3,000 to $5,000 per group, depending on the circumstances, and don’t make the mistake of going cheap and doing it yourself. You’ll be biased and won’t get good data from the effort.

Qualitative research using employees can help define: Internal culture; employer brand and value propositions; alignment of executive strategy with general population; and the strengths/weaknesses of your recruiting campaign among target populations.

Launching internal research using your own employees? It shouldn’t take more than two hours at the max. Get a skilled facilitator and have it off-site. The more people can rely on anonymity, the closer you’ll get to the truth.

Offer an incentive. These can range anywhere from a really nice catered lunch or dinner to $100 gift cards depending on the circumstances. If you’re doing a group with commissioned salespeople, consider that they might be losing revenue from possible missed sales.

Have a well thought-out discussion guide, but allow for the flexibility to go “off-road.” I’ve been involved in situations where from the moment the first group begins, I know I’m in for a bumpy ride. Whether there was a disconnect between assumption and reality or a significant event that shaped the course of the conversation, don’t worry if a group goes somewhere unexpected. Often that’s the precise outcome we’re hoping for because it demonstrates engagement of the attendees.

As in the adage “if it can’t be measured it can’t be managed,” research is the fundamental starting point of any new effort. For a cost of less than $20,000 and a window of 90 days, you’ll reap the benefits from new insights or a confirmation of gut instincts that ensures the successful outcome of your project.

Your Digital Brand Voice - Humanizing the Printed Word

Kal Turner at Agency.com has offered some rules for finding the right Brand Voice across the newest Social Media. As creative communications professionals, we're all aware of the all important creative brief- the guiding principles for creating a branded identity and roadmap of communications. But marketing across social media- even in the internal sphere i.e. an intranet, means going back to the Branding 1.0 exercises we learned in school.

IF YOUR BRAND WAS A CAR...
In focus groups, we ask these questions to establish a brand personality- are you a Volvo, stable, safe and middle of the road; or a Jaguar - stylish, refined and sophisticated?

Matching your personality to your style of writing is critical in establishing a humanizing brand among your audience.

The Brand Voice of Starbucks is the voice of Brad, who posts on Twitter for them. Here he’s posting a picture of himself with some colleagues, just as any group of friends might do on Twitter.

Brands often go wrong on Twitter by thinking that in order to appeal to a certain demographic segment they need to somehow imitate that group. This is most obvious when brands go after the youth market and awkwardly pepper their language with outdated slang and a tone that is meant to sound ‘trendy’ or ‘urban’.










This post is both conversational, and informative. It’s what you would expect from Capgemini.










This Adobe developer posted about the product he’s working on, and since we’re getting a behind the scenes view of his work, it’s much more compelling than just having the link on its own.

Find Your Brand Ambassadors- they're closer than you think!

Kal cites a tech specialist who constantly improves the image quality of a camera lens. He could explain all the little details that go into creating a perfect image with such enthusiasm that you would be drawn into his world, and a topic you wouldn’t have guessed would be exciting– suddenly is. Adam Denison, “A PR guy at Chevrolet,” talks about cars without always directly promoting Chevrolet products.










Define your company's digital Brand Voice and incorporate it into your Brand style guide. Share it, hone it and spread it. It's as authentic as you make it.

And remember, when you think BRANDing, think BRANDEMiX.
Check out our newly enhanced website. If you haven't been lately, you're in for a treat.
Happy Spring!

The Making of BRANDEMiX.COM 2.009

Join us tonight for the premiere as we launch the newly enhanced
BRANDEMiX Website.

The newest release of www.brandemix.com is the latest chapter in the evolution of an agency and a dream that began almost 4 years ago. This is the backblog, the behind-the-scenes look at its release history- and in the spirit of transparency, names have not been changed.

4/05 BRANDEMiX begins.
Kelly was a flash designer who was going out with my nephew. I was looking to conserve capital, she wanted something for her book. Unfortunately, my nephew broke up with her mid-project and between heartbreak, and my craziness, she was glad to say goodbye. This was the intro and home page that resulted from the partnership.




We never did launch the portfolio, and I didn't think too much about the website, busy as I was growing the business.

2/07 OPPORTUNITIES abound.
Marlene brought us an opportunity to bid on a really huge web project. Great work and a really professional presentation resulted in our coming in a very close second. We believe we didn't win because they saw our site. and worried.

9/07 BRANDEMiX re-design begins.
To his credit, Fred tried really hard to find the balance between what I wanted: edgy, out-there and street, and something more representative of the clients we were pitching... Fortune 1000s. non-profs and education. The fighting was ferocious, and after many iterations and one episode of Fred throwing his back out and winding up on the floor for several hours as he waited for the spasm to pass, we finally settled on what you may have seen, if you stopped by www.brandemix.com yesterday.
These were among the many designs.




































1/08 The Winner Is...













It wasn't necessarily my favorite by by now, I was obstructing progress and major decisions were taken out of my hands.

The portfolio always remained "coming soon" and the only people that seemed to care were my competition. It still wasn't where I wanted it to be, but I resigned myself to minor tweaks like adding a HOME button. Fall 2008, I resolved to move forward.
3/09 BRANDEMiX 2.009 is here.



















Sometime tonight the curtain goes up. After almost 4 years, I'm as proud of what we've already accomplished as I am to unveil it to you. The requisite gradients and reflections keep with our passion for the latest design trends. And the back-end cms will keep it fresh, so do drop by often.

Just like an academy award winning documentary, there are many people who deserve a thanks and/or an apology for their enduring efforts on behalf of the project. (I never said I was easy.) So Kelly, Freddy, Mat, Asunda, Diana, Anita, Anita, Anita- let's hug it out.

And to all my valued clients, thanks for signing off on the great work that I'm so proud to display.

And for those of you who aren't my clients yet, let me say that it's much easier building websites for other people than it is for myself.


And I promise, it doesn't always take 4 years.

With a Name like Best, You've Got to be Good.

It's no surprise that certain names keep blogging up all the time on the BRANDEMiX BRANDEblog. These are the ones that continue to push both the creative envelope and choice of messaging. So, here we again write about Best Buy.

I've been following Best Buy's internal buzz for a while and continue to be impressed with their efforts- from internal operational ROWE (results-oriented workplace) to hologram mall messages, their internal employee community named "Blue Shirt Nation" (influential in affecting changes to the email policy, improving enrollments in the 401k program and setting up systems for employees to communicate between shifts) and now today's subject Best Buy Connect, they seem to have it all going on.

Best Buy Connect is an external site - its purpose to showcase the people, behavior and unedited perspectives/ideas of those who power Best Buy-- their employees. It personalizes the brand, increases accessibility and affects current and future customer and employee perceptions. No small feat.

“If people outside of this company could really feel the culture and drive that makes this place what it is, we can strengthen our reputation, goodwill, and ultimately grow our talent and grow the company. The beauty of that is that we didn’t need to create anything new, people are doing it and we don’t want to control it, we simply want to make it easier for the rest of the world to find the energy and human-ness”. This from Dawn Bryant, Best Buy PR.

The site aggregates employee blogs, Twitter, YouTube and other sources including Tweets and blog posts from Barry Judge, Best Buy’s CMO. Best Buy employees are already active with the social web, aggregating sources is good for many reasons including creating a central location for employee insights in different media as well as providing additional flavor for the personality of the people that make up the company - at all levels.

A few tips of advice from Best Buy on a social media aggregator:

* A legal team can help with traditional concerns but it can be tricky since most companies aren’t approaching social media with an aggregator mentality. Many are still focused on controlling the message.
* Organizations will lose credibility pretty quickly if they persist in trying to control electronic mediums. ”If you don’t like what you see out there as a company, you need to make changes on the inside”. The truth will manifest outside.
* Don’t mess with the authenticity of the medium (thus, aggregate and don’t try to control)
* This kind of project brings some risk, so think it through and update your PR crisis plan as necessary
* Spread the word grassroots style - promotion via social media using traditional PR tactics doesn’t work
* Revisit with those involved to stay relevant and up to speed with the technology
* Make guidelines public and easy to find - it’s about transparency

During the current economic situation, this kind of transparency is particularly interesting since most companies are probably tempted to control “the message” more now than ever as they deal with lower sales, staff changes & layoffs and inevitable belt tightening. I think by aggregating multiple sources, Best Buy is giving interested readers multiple stories to consider, which gives a broader picture of the organization.

These insights provided by Lee Odden in his Online Marketing Blog were summed up as follows:
"I can say from those interactions and the social participation by corporate and employees, Best Buy really appears to be one of those companies that’s walking the talk both in terms of their public social media projects and the culture of the organization."

And so I praise Best Buy on the weekend that their former competitor Circuit City is going dark. Coincidence? I think not.

Employees Find Trulia Happiness

Sami is the coo & co-founder of trulia, a real estate search engine that people (like me) find homes for sale. This from his blog:

Employee happiness dashboard - Really?

We typically have a small group lunch with all new employees and one of the questions I often ask is “What is different at Trulia? What can we do better?” Erika, offered an eye-opening response yesterday: “During my career, I’ve never worked for a company that surveys and listens to all the employees on a regular basis, not to mention shares all the results with the entire company in an all-hands meeting.”

I thought that – tuning into employee happiness - was what every respectable organization does in a professional environment, where the most valuable assets of the company walk out the door every evening (sometimes in the morning). We even have fresh new Harvard University backed research proving that happiness is actually contagious between people.

So they started asking, ranking (on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the best) and tracking 2 simple questions from August 2005 until November 2008:

• I like to go to work every morning
• Work at Trulia is fun

Here's what he has to say about the results:
Overall we have had very high “happiness” scores throughout our company life, about 4.25 on a 1 to 5 scale, which is especially impressive considering we have grown rapidly from just 4 people to about 85 today as well as moved offices three times during this period

- We’ve noticed some annual cyclicality tied into summer time, all company off-site event and holiday season
- Our team reacted into the overall economic downturn and dozens of other (online) media companies’ aggressive lay-offs; after we announced that we would not do lay-offs, but continue hiring selectively, the index bounced back again (last month)

While we may not be able to reduce the secret of happiness to a single number (and hopefully never will!), we have found that these anonymous surveys are an invaluable tool in adjusting and improving our culture, as well as other company practices to stay on the right growth track!

My favorite part of Sami's blog was found at the end --

How’s your daily happiness and excitement level when you walk into your office? If you’re looking for something, possibly greener grass, check out our jobs page.

This "always be selling" approach to blogging and jobbing was really great, especially for a bean counter. But may I just say that with such a great culture and story, I think the Jobs page could be better?

I guess I'm always blogging and selling too.

BRANDEMiX adds Trulia to my list of companies to watch.

Pepsi Gets it Right

Back in June you may have read about my disconnected experience with Pepsi and their new website launch.

I'm happy to say that the issue has been resolved. In an apparent Phase 2, the new Careers site is fresh, informative and interactive with just the right combination of information and branding. (And no, sadly BRANDEMiX did not do the redesign.)

But that's not the only thing Pepsi is getting right these days. According to a recent article in Brandweek sent to me by consultant Bruce Dorskind, back in December, Pepsi employees in Purchase were treated to the surprise of a new brand launch when they came to work. Rising on both sides of the campus driveway were 20-foot tall billboards plastered with greetings: "Howdy," "Hope," "Tango" and just "Yo." Pepsi's new circular logo stood in place of every "o" in the words. As employees parked their cars, they noticed an enormous blue flag that had been unfurled from the headquarters' roof -- a giant refresh symbol. The in-your-face signage was meant to give employees the same feeling that consumers would get in Times Square during New Year's Eve, which is where PepsiCo would be launching its new initiative publicly.

Hall posters, floor and elevator decals and other placards made it impossible for anyone at headquarters to miss the brand's new look and message. The push culminated with "Rally Day" on Jan. 15. Pepsi execs gathered up to 4,000 employees, in person and online, and laid out the brand's strategy for the coming year. But in terms of size, scope and ambition, this effort was a first, according to Bill Wyman, senior marketing manager for trademark Pepsi.

Pepsi took great pains to assure that its employees weren't just part of the marketing process, but that the internal and external messaging was aligned. Beginning a whole month before the holidays, the company conducted no fewer than 10 Webinars for its employees and bottlers, introducing them to the "refresh" message. Feature articles and meeting reminders were placed in the internal company "Pepline" newsletter and MyPepsiCo.com intranet site leading up to Rally Day. "We had to take the communications level to new heights," Wyman explains. "It was critical to get information to every person [as to] how they could bring [the brand's new marketing message] to life in the marketplace."

We at BRANDEMiX, have always been a strong proponent of internal Brand activation but both experts and I concede that it happens less than it should.

Before you could blink your eyes, Coca-Cola followed in kind. On Jan. 21, Coca-Cola aired a Webcast that previewed its marketing plans (including its highly anticipated Super Bowl spots) for both employees and bottlers. Employees in the Atlanta office all got T-shirts bearing the new slogan next to Coke's iconic "contour" bottle. To reinforce the "Open happiness" message, Coke invited its employees to share photos of ways they were living positively. They accepted, submitting some 4,000 pictures showing people behaving optimistically both in and outside the office.

According to Coca-Cola North America CMO Katie Bayne, taking the time and effort to introduce new messaging internally is critical-and something the company has not always realized. "One of the things we fundamentally feel is that our employees -- not just at the Coca-Cola Company, but the Coca-Cola bottling company -- are the best brand ambassadors we have," Bayne says. "At times we have left them behind." She also adds a concept that you can find as well on BRANDEMiX website and in our materials--

"If employees are not aware of the goal or strategy for achieving that goal, how can they be expected to implement it? They need to understand that they are critical to the organization's success."

Most importantly- let's look at the business results-- Pepsi was rewarded with the 3 words every influencer wants to hear after launching their campaign.

Following a town hall-style meeting in which the brass explained the new logo and the marketing, "People came up to us afterwards and said, 'Now I get it.'"

So great news in Soda-land. I am optimistic that change is coming, and that more and more, we at BRANDEMiX will be preaching to the choir.

One last treat: Pepsi's Valentine, this courtesy of talented Matt Kalish also known as my talented nephew and BRANDEMiX Buzzmaster.

Happy Valentine's Day