THIS ISSUE INCLUDES: •  What's New? •  Going, Going Gone! •  Resource Referral •  Lessons Learned •  Tips & Tricks •  Community Leaders •  Member Spotlight •  Community Stats •  Your Account Summary •  Success Story •  Special Thanks •  Last Laugh

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WHAT'S NEW?

Dear Askers & Answerers,

The drive from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara is 90 miles up the coastline. Typically it takes about two hours to get there. But not last week! You may have seen the story of Southern California's torrential rainfall and flooding in the news.

As luck would have it, our semi-annual meeting - in Santa Barbara - was scheduled then. Nine of us had a variety of adventures as we made our way there. I began to think of Santa Barbara as an island when Amtrak and the highway patrol reported that mudslides, sink holes and boulders had blocked every route by land.

But we are a tenacious group! Most of us made it there by Day 2. We juggled our agenda to fit whoever had arrived, so far. And we managed to cover nearly every subject we planned to discuss. Ann paints a humorous picture of the week in her Note to Readers, if you're curious to know more.

My top priority was bringing SRyan up to speed. She is undertaking a project to help us enhance the user experience for our Premium members and seminar attendees. As you all know, she's the Queen of this kind of thing. I'm thrilled to be working with her on it!

Curious to see the MP team? Here's a snapshot from our meeting. Front row: Me (moderator/customer service), Achim (graphics) Roy (strategy). Middle: Ann (editor), Kim (graphics). Back: Sharon (circulation), Shelley (customer service), Allen (publisher).

Now that we're back home and dried off, we're hard at work on new developments. We recently installed our own SQL server. Next we'll be doing some database work to improve the pageload time in KHE. And right now Aaron is coding a new Search Questions page I know we're all going to enjoy. More on that next week!

Happy exchanging,

Val Frazee
Moderator, Know-How Exchange
MarketingProfs.com

GOING, GOING, GONE!

Here are KHE's 10 oldest questions. They're likely to close soon. Have an idea to offer? Better do it now!

1. Loyalty Marketing Programs
2. How To Become VP Marketing at 35 yrs age?
3. How Do I Increase My Client Base?
4. Tagline needed for orl instrument manufacturer
5. Need help promoting my tax preparation business
6. Name for an IT Project Needed
7. How To Write a Brief To Get Best Results?
8. Is Pursuing an MBA the best bet?
9. Looking For A/B Split Conversion Service
10. STEPS IN STARTING A MARKETING FIRM

RESOURCE REFERRAL: BIZSTATS

jillc shares today's resource with us. It's a site called BizStats. Since I learned of it, I've found myself popping in every couple days to find quick answers to things I'm wondering. .

For example, let's say you have a restaurant with $1 million in revenue. Curious what a typical advertising budget would be? Grab a quick benchmark in 3 clicks. (Answer: $16,200)

You can find how many businesses there are in the U.S. and which are most risky. This is a great place to get started, if you're working on a marketing plan or thinking about starting a new business.

Resource: BizStats.com

I'm always looking for resources to share with our readers. If you know of one, send me a blurb. I'll send you 250 Question Points.

LESSONS LEARNED: RE-BRANDING

New member joanne.worthington recently asked a question that many companies could benefit from. She wanted to know how to start a rebranding project. Read on to learn more.

• JBtron: WHY ARE YOU REBRANDING? I see the research info you've mentioned, but are you losing sales? Not gaining market penetration? The research points to a weak brand, but RE-branding? There's so much cost associated with it, I just hope they're aware of the expense: signage, stationery, collateral, Website, premiums, promotions, etc. PLUS the cost of the redesign itself. IF YOU MUST REBRAND ... Start with the name. Is that a barrier by itself? Without the typogaphy, do people get turned off by hearing the name? If so, then perhaps all you need is a new name and some graphics.
• thinkmor: JB is right, but regarding your research: Were ALL stakeholders involved in the brand audit? And did you receive the same opionions from current and potential customers, or have the reasons to re-brand been voiced internally by some key stakeholders? Have you recently had any senior management changes? As a starting point, search the questions as JB advised, but also go through articles and papers at http://www.brandchannel.com.
• Bill Moore: What are your organizations top 3 objectives? Be wary of crummy logo = need for re-branding. Did the survey yield at least a 50% response? If not, it is statistically not valid. What other factors did the survey bring out? Re-branding is expensive, a real pain in the you-know-what and it often serves to confuse your audience. You really need an objective and thorough analysis to determine your needs.
• davidr: 1) Within your company leadership, decide what you want to be - what you see your company meaning in the next 1-3 years. 2) Talk to your target market. Blindly ask them: "If you were buying a product like this, what KIND of company would you buy it from" (high-tech? personal-touch? global? local?) 3) Survey your market (as a second part of the prior step, or separately) to find out what they think about your company and some of your competitors. 4) Do a gap analysis. Do they want local touch and consider you global? Do they want low prices and see you as premium-priced? 5) Develop a strategic plan to close the gaps (and make good use of the correlations). ...
• mgoodman: Davidr has the right idea. Figure out what your target audience values and how the various companies/brands stack up against those critical features and benefits. Use that knowledge to develop a positioning statement and marketing strategy. Then see whether re-branding is the critical element in implementing the strategy. Most of the time, re-branding is not the answer. Sometimes, it is. You have to go through the whole exercise before you can make that decision for your particular situation.
• shardman: You might also consider the motivations and/or professional expertise of those who specified rebranding. If it is someone that would benefit from such an endeavor or if they do not have serious expertise in REBRANDING, then there may be some personal motives or sometimes just fear or misunderstanding of what is involved. Interestingly enough, I very likely know what organization this is. If so, you do NOT need rebranding... you just have a weak brand. If you throw off your history, company character and every personal perception, then what you have is nothing. In most cases, it is far easier, faster and more successful to build on what you have. Repackage part of it as necessary, shine it up, and use what is out there already as your leverage.
• joanne.worthington: I would like to thank all the marketing profs for their excellent insight into my complicated question. ... I was surprised to learn that every one of you recommended to seriously consider NOT rebranding. I agree, I think that firstly we need to try out all those things that David suggested, and then consider if we still need to rebrand.

Question: Where Do You Start When Re-branding a Company?

Do you have something to add? Feel free, if you like. Even though the question is closed (and you can't earn points for it), the Asker will be alerted to your response.

TIPS & TRICKS: CITING SOURCES

Have you wanted to jump in at KHE and provide answers, but you don't have much first-hand marketing expertise? Doing some research online to dig up helpful ideas is a great way to get started. But keep in mind, when you do this you're working with other people's intellectual property. Here are our guidelines, to help you stay away from copyright violations.

You are welcome to answer a question by doing Internet research and then expressing the facts or ideas you learn in your own words. But, if you want to copy someone else's writing word-for-word, we have two rules for fair use:

1. Keep it short (100 words)


2. Cite the source (provide a link)

To copy anything longer, you must obtain reprint permission from the copyright holder, and state this in the response you post. For official terms (and legalese), see the link below.

MarketingProfs Terms & Conditions: See KHE Info in Section 4

Have a question? Ask the experts.

Post a brief synopsis below, and invite other members to offer their feedback.

My Question Title

COMMUNITY LEADERS

As of this week, these are our superstars! The Most Resourceful are those who have contributed the most entries to the Resource Library. The Most Expert are those with the highest number of Expert Points (earned by answering questions).

NOTE: These are our top members as of midday January 22, 2005

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: MEET CAL

cal is one of our Top 30 experts. He's been a member of MarketingProfs for two years now and has answered 226 questions in KHE. Learn more about this week's featured member.

What do you do in real-life?
My work is mainly in troubleshooting, mostly of a physical nature. However, some situations require that marketability be a key component of the solution - marketing-led innovation, vs. technology-led innovation.

Tell us about your company.
We carry out diverse joint R&D projects with other companies and individuals. At the moment we're involved in a project dealing with some golf course problems and another project dealing with some pavement problems.

How did you find KHE?
I was looking for some good marketing sites and came across KHE while doing a search.

What kinds of KHE questions do you enjoy most?
Strategy; questions on generating new product and service possibilities.

What is your favorite marketing book? Why?
Al Ries and Jack Trout's 1st book, Positioning. I believe positioning is the key concept for effective marketing in most situations.

Did you study marketing in college?
I didn't study marketing in college in the traditional sense. One of my majors was psych studies - cognitive psych studies, in particular. How we learn, remember, reason, perceive .... which has served me well when it comes to marketing. Ongoing reading, to stay on top of what seems to be working and not working today in marketing, is also important to me.

Do you have a favorite tool that helps you do your job?
One favorite is a simple but effective thinking tool usually referred to as 'random input'. It can easily be applied to just about any situation one can think of to stimulate new lines of thought. Visit MindTools.com, if you're interested in learning more.

Do you have a favorite quote you want to share?
A conclusion is often just a point where people got tired of thinking.

COMMUNITY STATS

Active Unique Participants (to date): 4,161
Closed Questions (to date): 4,695
Currently Open Questions: 215
Total Responses (to date): 35,149
Subscribers to this newsletter: 13,620

YOUR ACCOUNT SUMMARY

These numbers come directly from YOUR profile. Question Points tells you how many points you have available for asking questions in the forum. Expert Points indicates your standing in the community based on answers you have posted. Visit this FAQ, if you want to know more.

Question Points: %%PointsBalance%%
Expert Points: %%PointsCum%%

Click here to buy more Question Points

SUCCESS STORY

This week's story comes to us from whitefeud. His question, titled Animated Character, inspired the following comments:

"The animated character (the negative side) that was supported by some KHE members helped my company to win an advertising spec (6 countries) with an advertising budget of US$500,000. I combined all ideas and suggestions plus my personal knowledge and I presented the strategy + concept and happily won the account. I would like to thank all the KHE members."

SPECIAL THANKS

Thank you, jillc, cal and whitefeud, for providing content for this newsletter. And thanks to all the following community members who have emailed or posted suggestions, technical reports or questions in the last week. Your energy drives this community's development. We couldn't do it without you!

Vevolution, JBtron, jose04, Michele, W.M.M.A., Google, tjh, Stokefire, Richard B, J McCay/Avenue East, sudhirgijare, jillc, rbooht3399, mccarthy, Colleen Sharen, sesameleigh, Phoenix, ASVP/ChrisB, okonjo_c, thecustomer, clara, Peter (henna gaijin), Ezmi, ppsingh, adam.joyce, AndrewS, Jett, Corporate Glue, , julius, Frances, csmitc, Suze, Pepper Blue, hamed_amir and Deremiah, *CPE.

Finally, thanks to my MP colleagues for making my job easy: Aaron, Sharon, Megan, Charles, Achim, SRyan ;], Ann, Roy and Allen.

LAST LAUGH

I like to end with a smile. So this space is dedicated to something amusing I find posted in our forum. This week Michele posted a grammar question that generated 26 posts in 5 days. That's a litte funny in itself. I enjoyed the whole thing, but my favorite bit was Stokefire's comment about Tom Peters:

"I'm serious - great lessons, but my glasses need glasses when I read it."

The Question: For Grammar Pedants: Do We "Comply With" or "Comply To"?

Forum Feedback: The Know-How Exchange is still young. So we're constantly refining how things work. We have a gigantic list of action items, and your feedback helps us prioritize it. So please feel free to reply to this email with any suggestions. Thanks, in advance, for your time!

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