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  • Home
  • So What is Message Mapping ?
  • Services
  • Hire Me
  • Blog
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  • Get a FREE E-Book
  • Contact

Soulati-'TUDE!

Confused Messages Driving Catch-22 Brand Marketing

10/14/2014 By Jayme Soulati

ALT="Pink Campbells Soup Cans, Soulati"The headlines in national newspapers and trade ‘zines are a mixed bag of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Consumers are taking the biggest hit amidst the confused clutter of brands’ messages.

Let’s take a look at several finger-in-your-eye examples and see if you agree:

Price Drop Tests Oil Drillers, Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2014
In this front-page story, you already know the gist. If you’re like me, you’re likely ticked off about it, too. Consumers have not even realized the benefit of one week of under $3/per gallon of gasoline and the analysts that cover the oil industry are bitching. If oil being fracked in Bakken sells for less than $84/barrel, then fracking is uneconomical. What does that mean for consumers? Another squeeze in oil supplies due to the cease in fracking, the loss of jobs and a price increase.

It’s that supply and demand thing, and the consumer conundrum remains for marketers — do we continue to pinch the customer and force higher prices so we make our margins and keep stakeholders happy, or do we risk losing market share and influencing a nose dive in local economies dependent on the jobs created from oil exploration? The media love to report on oil companies emotions

Pay TV’s New Worry, “Shaving The Cord,” Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2014
Do you subscribe to a television provider where the most favorite and in-demand channels cost the most money? Is your bill for satellite or cable television in the hundreds of dollars monthly? YES! Consumers are looking elsewhere for entertainment to try to cut frivolous expenditures. and the pay-TV companies are none too happy. Upon further examination, consumers are not totally ditching pay TV, they are shaving dollars off the monthly fee and leaving the big channels.

What’s the impact? No surprise, it’s the brand marketers seeking the subscriber base to feed us advertisements on CNN, USA Network and ESPN. If the subscribers aren’t there, ad dollars disappear and BAM! pay TV just got pricier as there’s no one left to subsidize programming. And, who’s responsible for the story behind this headline? A research firm probably dueling as an industry analyst seeking buyers for reports like this.

Smile! Marketers Are Mining Selfies! Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2014
Ahh, the ubiquitous selfie soon to grace a Snapchat, Instagram or Facebook near you. And, if that selfie is a smiler complemented by a brand logo, then look out consumer! You’ll soon get more advertising messages from the brand that bought the image catching you in the happy moment.

Guess how? [Read more…]

Filed Under: Branding, Marketing, Message Mapping/Mind Mapping Tagged With: Allstate, brand marketing, CNN, consumer squeeze, Ditto Labs, Facebook, fracking, health insurance premiums, message mapping, messaging, privacy, selfies, Wall Street Journal

Mobile Marketing And The Ubiquitous QR Code

10/06/2014 By Jayme Soulati

03B33818It’s everywhere, right? The small, black, squiggly, nonsensical square that adorns objects all over, and it’s called a QR code. A few years back, these were all the rage; a trend that made first-mover marketers excited.

Today? Not so much, based on this personal mobile marketing story that happened this weekend.

I’m having shower woes; the master shower leaks, and I’m relegated to the extra basement shower which needs some TLC. At Lowes Saturday morning, I spied a really attractive end cap featuring four designs of Oxygenics shower heads.

The one I wanted had a QR code that when scanned promised:

1. See the Force (sic) spray settings in action
2. View a quick install video
3. And much more

Because the end cap wasn’t digital (the company should use Coloredge) and I couldn’t see a video in the display, I pointedly got out my QR code reader on my iPhone to immediately scan to help me make a purchase. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mobile Marketing Tagged With: Coloredge, iPhone, Lowes, marketing, messaging, Mobile Marketing, Oxygenics, Pinterest, QR code

Message Mapping: 40 Reasons Why #Infographic

09/17/2014 By Jayme Soulati

ALT="Message Mapping Book, Jayme Soulati,"When you hear the words, Message Mapping, what comes to mind? In my experience with executives about positioning to external audiences, messaging and the map oriented to a suite of approved messages, is not at the forefront of strategic thinking.

In my new infographic right here, I provide “40 Reasons Why You Need Message Mapping.”  See if any resonate, and then perhaps you’ll share on your blog and social channels! [Read more…]

Filed Under: Message Mapping/Mind Mapping, Public Relations Tagged With: Blog, Facebook, Infographic, LinkedIn, marketing, message mapping, messaging, positioning, Public Relations, Social Media, strategic planning

Got Messaging?

06/01/2010 By Jayme Soulati

One of the widest differentials between marketing and public relations teams is messaging. Marketing launches campaigns with seriously involved step-by-step initiatives that involve a framework for branding, value proposition, and so much more. When complete, a company has a sense of its clothes, so to speak – what will we wear today to present ourselves in public? (Please weigh in marketers!)

In public relations, when launching a new relationship, service, product, or program strategy, we do messaging right up front as step one much like marketing. When conducting integrated marketing communications, the need for messaging by both marketing and public relations duels for attention. When public relations can’t get an opportunity to do its thing in re messaging, practitioners are left to dangle.

Messaging by PR is the voice of the company to its tiered audiences. Used to be message maps were created for media relations only. Now, I use a message map to help gather, hone and develop approved messages usually collected from the executive team in a facilitated meeting.

No one would believe executives answer questions about the company differently. One would think all company leaders are on the same page about the what, who, why, how much, and when. Not really. That’s the number-one reason messaging is important – disagreement among a company’s senior echelon and how to position external messaging.

Prior to launching program strategy, consider these suggestions to secure content for external messaging:

1. Get the senior team in a room and garner consensus about the 5 Ws + how.

2. Lacking the ability to corral the senior team, then the senior public relations team needs to draft suggested messages for delivering up the chain for approval. Sometimes seeing wording in print will get needed attention.

3. Tier two messages ought to complement a larger corporate message map – the approved song sheet for all spokespeople. When there’s a turn-key program being launched, ensure messaging is one of the foundational tactics executed.

4. Share the approved messaging with marketing teams; they will thank you as copywriters always need public relations driven content to tap.

5. Get in the habit early and often to ask “what shall we say, why does this matter, who are we speaking to, how much does it cost, when will it launch?”

No message is set in stone; adjust as you go, but never launch a program without some messaging guidelines to work with.

Filed Under: Message Mapping/Mind Mapping Tagged With: Marketing Public Relations, messaging, planning and strategy

ALT="Jayme Soulati"

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