Download maintain brand integrity by choosing a cloud marketing platform

MAINTAIN
BRAND INTEGRITY
BY CHOOSING A
CLOUD MARKETING
PLATFORM
CLOUD MARKETING FORUM
RAINMAKER WHITEPAPER SERIES
BENEFIT #5: MAINTAIN BRAND INTEGRITY
BENEFIT #5 - M AINTAIN BRAND INTEGRITY BY CHOOSING A CLOUD M ARKETING PLATFORM
The Idea in Brief
Customers and clients want to purchase items that are reliable, and can be replaced
or upgraded later. As a result, they tend towards companies with a consistent, accurate
message, which indicates a stable, trustworthy company.
By utilizing a Cloud Marketing Platform, you can instantly make marketing assets
(complete with messaging and branding) directly available to individual marketing
partners. This kind of unified messaging is critical in creating a consistent, accurate
message to potential buyers and protecting your brand integrity.
Since everything is automated for your marketing partners, they are unable to
change the integrity, look and feel of the content and marketing materials (unless you
allow them). You have complete control over your brand, even as it is spread across
your entire distribution channel — either around town or around the globe.
In this whitepaper, you’ll learn:

why customized branding messages are important

how to simplify branding for individual company divisions

how to support multiple brand identities
©Dynamic Marketing Systems, 2012. All rights reserved.
BENEFIT #5 - M AINTAIN BRAND INTEGRITY BY CHOOSING A CLOUD M ARKETING PLATFORM
Practical Example: Managing Multiple Brands in Multiple Markets
Let’s assume that you are a multi-billion dollar financial holding company who has
acquired 21 community banks in multiple geographic markets. Each community bank
already has its own distinct, local brand identity, and management has made a decision
that it wants to keep them that way.
Why? They feel strongly that instead of competing head-on with major regional and
national banks, staying the “hometown” bank is crucial to their market success. They
want to stay closely involved with the community at the local level, and provide a higher
degree of personal interaction with their customers.
In fact, management has adopted a “micro-marketing” mentality: they think that
each individual branch should be examined relative to its surrounding market area, and
that its marketing efforts should reflect the wants and needs of the primary trading area
instead of the market as a whole. This is because the branches are widely dispersed and
located in a mix of urban, suburban, and rural areas.
This poses some major problems:
• Each of the community banks has evolved over the years with varying degrees of
marketing sophistication. Some banks are marketing savvy, others are not.
• From an image perspective, some banks have brand identities that are very polished,
while others’ identities are lackluster.
• With so many different banks and brand identities, there are no graphic standards
which can be universally applied across the various distribution channels.
• The marketing message that resonates with an urban sophisticate is entirely different
from what will resonate with a rural farmer. Both are distinct markets, and require
distinctly different approaches.
• Without an automated solution, it seems almost impossible (or at least not
economically feasible) to create different marketing messages for 21 different banks,
located in five different states, with hundreds of branches — particularly down to the
individual branch level.
Given those challenges, the new corporate Director of Business Development chose
to deploy a Cloud Marketing Platform. Since “micro-marketing” was top-of-mind with
upper management, the manager turned to a shared cloud marketing platform called
Micro Merchant, which is designed to support retail banking operations.
©Dynamic Marketing Systems, 2012. All rights reserved.
BENEFIT #5 - M AINTAIN BRAND INTEGRITY BY CHOOSING A CLOUD M ARKETING PLATFORM
This platform provided a central online marketing portal where each individual bank
could access a wealth of marketing support materials, which could then be customized
for their particular bank. Based on individual user login information, the platform prepopulated the materials with the bank’s existing brand identity in terms of logo and
corporate colors. While the same templates were available to all banks, each individual
bank could then customize them by accessing a copy bank of headlines and subheads,
and a photo gallery consisting of hundreds of different images. Each bank could still
customize certain elements, and write their own headlines and/or upload their own
images into the platform.
The workflow was intuitive, so the users weren’t discouraged at the thought of
having to learn yet another software package. Basic user training took as little as 30
minutes. Creating professional, customized marketing materials could be accomplished
in as little as 10 minutes. Each member bank could be trained and online ordering their
marketing and training materials in less than an hour. In many instances, individual
branch managers were also given access to the system, which allowed them to select
graphics and copy which reflected the demographic characteristics of their primary
trading area. Regardless of the product being promoted, those in urban environments
could select different lifestyle images than those in rural environments.
Illustrated on the next few pages are sample screenshots from the Micro Merchant
platform which illustrate the steps involved in creating custom marketing materials. It’s
easy, and can be accomplished online in as little as 10 minutes including choosing the
product or service you want to promote, customizing the marketing material with copy
and graphics, proofing, and ordering. Once the order is placed online, print production
and delivery normally takes between 3-5 days. So you can quickly react to new product
promotions or competitive threats in a fraction of the time required by traditional print
production processes.
©Dynamic Marketing Systems, 2012. All rights reserved.
BENEFIT #5 - M AINTAIN BRAND INTEGRITY BY CHOOSING A CLOUD M ARKETING PLATFORM
Step 1. Go online to the Micro Merchant landing page to login to your account.
©Dynamic Marketing Systems, 2012. All rights reserved.
BENEFIT #5 - M AINTAIN BRAND INTEGRITY BY CHOOSING A CLOUD M ARKETING PLATFORM
Step 2. Navigate to the Catalog to see a list of marketing support materials
available.
©Dynamic Marketing Systems, 2012. All rights reserved.
BENEFIT #5 - M AINTAIN BRAND INTEGRITY BY CHOOSING A CLOUD M ARKETING PLATFORM
Step 3. Choose the type of marketing template that you want to customize.
Choose from pre-populated headlines and sub-heads, or write your own. Choose
from a gallery of available pictures, or upload your own images.
©Dynamic Marketing Systems, 2012. All rights reserved.
BENEFIT #5 - M AINTAIN BRAND INTEGRITY BY CHOOSING A CLOUD M ARKETING PLATFORM
Shown below are samples of how different financial institutions are able to use
the same Cloud Marketing Platform, while maintaining their individual brand
identity using Micro Merchant.
Figure 1. Graphic poster and statement stuffer for Your Bank.
Figure 2. Lending rate flyer, door sticker and drive-up lane banner for Quantum
National Bank.
©Dynamic Marketing Systems, 2012. All rights reserved.
BENEFIT #5 - M AINTAIN BRAND INTEGRITY BY CHOOSING A CLOUD M ARKETING PLATFORM
Figure 3. Mortgage realty flyer, outdoor yard sign and statement stuffer for the
Mortgage Division.
Summary
Even when challenged with managing multiple brands in multiple markets, a Cloud
Marketing Platform can help you maintain your graphic standards and brand identity.
Cloud Marketing is where traditional brand management meets on demand technology.
In this example, the company was able to use an automated solution to maintain
complete control over the marketing content and layout, allow their channel partners
flexibility in customizing their marketing materials, and create messaging specific to
their local market environment.
For More Information
For more information or a demo of our Stratus™ cloud marketing platform, please
go to www.dymasys.com or email us at [email protected], if you’re ready to
Lift Your Marketing Support into the Clouds.
©Dynamic Marketing Systems, 2012. All rights reserved.