One strategy is to focus on the knowledge and experience of the firm’s employees. I recently wrote about the importance of selling what you know (your smarts), not what you do (your services) to effectively market a professional services business.

There’s another factor that can help differentiate your company in a competitive market: How your employees make your customers feel. Case in point: My UPS delivery guy, Tom.

What can smart marketers learn about marketplace differentiation and customer retention from a UPS driver in Cleveland, Ohio? Here are some tips for your smart marketing strategy.

Delivering Packages and Much More

I opened a UPS account almost 20 years ago when I started a marketing consulting business from my home near Cleveland. A driver named Tom was assigned to my area. Later, when I moved the business to a nearby office building, Tom’s route covered my home and business.

Tom’s been serving us in both locations for many years. Like most UPS drivers, he’s smart, courteous, and efficient.

But Tom delivers much more than packages. He provides an exceptional level of personal service that you won’t find in a job description for a delivery truck driver. As the competent, caring face of the company, Tom helps ensure our loyalty to UPS.

Here are five principles of customer loyalty and retention that Tom practices every day:

1. Know the customer. Tom figured out quickly that my home was also my business. From the very beginning, he treated me like an executive, even when my office was 10 feet from the kitchen. As we grew, he came to know our whole team and what our business is about.
2. Value the customer. Though ours is a small business, Tom gives us the same respect as a large client. Our packages seem to be just as important as the ones he’s delivering to the biggest tenants in the building.
3. Anticipate the customer’s needs. If there’s no one available to sign for a package, Tom will deliver home-bound shipments to our office and vice versa. That may not be in the UPS rule book, but it gets important packages to us without delay and we love it.
4. Know your own business. Tom can answer almost any question about shipping via UPS. We can consult the UPS website (and we do), but it’s nice to get the right answer from a real person.
5. Delight the customer. When my business was home-based, my children helped answer the door. Tom brought them Dum-Dum lollipops and Tootsie Rolls. All these years later, he still leaves treats for my dog. Is this a corporate strategy to protect UPS drivers from dog bites? I doubt it. I think he’s just a genuinely nice guy who cares about the people he serves.

Lessons for Your Smart Marketing Strategy

If you’re marketing professional services, you’re selling what your people deliver. Promoting their expertise is essential, but so is promoting how they exemplify your commitment to great customer service.

Here’s how to make customer service excellence a core part of your brand and your marketing:

• Hire and train employees who make your customers feel so good about your company that they wouldn’t consider switching vendors because they place so much value on your team.
• Ask customers to help you tell your story in marketing campaigns through testimonials and case studies. Feature employees alongside customers in your advertising.
• Never forget that business is about relationships. Building great relationships with customers – who have the power to refer you to new prospects – is the smartest marketing strategy of all.

Whether you’re selling legal services, marketing services, accounting, IT, insurance, benefits, payroll, or consulting, it can be tough to create a marketing strategy that differentiates your company from everyone else who does what you do.

Here’s the usual approach: “We have great capabilities and we deliver great service.” No offense, but you must, or you wouldn’t still be in business. Plus, all your competitors say the same thing.

Is that really what makes you stand out?  Is that the real reason clients choose you?

I think not. In my experience as a marketing consultant, professional services firms can skip over most of the blather about what they do and how responsive they are.

The real value professional services firms sell is their expertise and their ability to use that expertise to solve clients’ problems.

Here’s how to create a smart marketing strategy for a business-to-business professional services company by selling your smarts.

Set Your Firm Apart by Showing What You Know

The knowledge you bring to whatever problems you solve for clients is what makes your professional services firm different from everyone else. You’ve acquired that knowledge through your education and experience, which is yours alone. You want to build a marketing strategy around the value of that intellectual capital.

The first step is to focus. Do you have unique experience with a specific industry, challenge, application, or situation that sets you apart? Are you an expert on this topic? Decide what you can talk about with credibility and authority.

Then, organize your content. What keeps your clients awake at night? Think about how to organize what you know into topics and content that will help prospects deal with everyday challenges or prepare for trends and issues impacting their business.

Finally, create the communication vehicles to share your knowledge. Here are some suggestions:

1. Be a blogger. Blogging is the best way to regularly demonstrate your knowledge and your unique point of view.
2. Create case studies showing real-life solutions you’ve developed for clients’ problems.
3. Develop white papers that offer an in-depth assessment of a key issue your clients care about.
4. Be a columnist or contribute feature stories in your industry media .
5. Create and present original seminars.
6. Speak at industry conferences.
7. Conduct original research, share the results, and add your perspective on the findings.
8. Create a video. Repurpose your seminar or presentation content in videos for your website or YouTube.
9. Develop podcasts from your presentations.
10. Write a book. If you’re truly an expert in your field, writing a book is the ultimate way to demonstrate your knowledge.

Sell Your Smarts for a Smart Marketing Strategy

Showcasing your expertise is the best way to differentiate your professional services company in a competitive marketplace.

By sharing the knowledge and insights you’ve gained from your unique experience, you can position your company as an authoritative resource that clients and prospects can trust. That’s smart professional services marketing.

The Next Great American Consumer by Brian Braiker provides a fascinating look at this development. Braiker says branding at birth is “a trend—fueled in part by the growth of digital devices—toward aggressively targeting a demographic that didn’t exist, in marketers’ eyes, until recently: infants to 3-year-olds. By getting their logos and iconic characters in front of babies—even those with still-blurry eyesight—they hope to establish brand-name preference before she or he has uttered a word.”

Is this a smart marketing strategy? Or is this the scariest thing you’ve seen all week? The answer to both questions is yes. Here’s why.

The Brilliance of Early Marketing

Establishing brand awareness and brand preference is the goal of every smart marketer, and as a marketing consultant, I have to acknowledge the brilliance of this strategy. The article cites plenty of research to prove the impact of early marketing on infants and toddlers, including studies which show that an American child can recognize an average of 100 brand logos by age 3. If you’re marketing products to kids and parents, you certainly want your logo on that list.

The real power of this marketing strategy may be its influence on parents. I bought Disney-themed baby toys for my kids and if Kate Spade had made designer baby bags when my daughter was born, I’d have been first in line to buy one.

I probably also would have let my young children play with my iPhone or iPad if I’d had one back then, as many parents do today. That’s why so many marketers like Fisher-Price and Nick Jr. are creating branded apps and online games for the very youngest technology users and why Dora the Explorer has a Facebook page (supposedly for parents) with over 770,000 followers.

But How Young is Too Young?

Of course, licensed characters on clothing, toys, and other products for babies and toddlers are nothing new.

But I wonder if marketers are beginning to take this too far. The level of marketing to infants and toddlers is clearly on the rise, as Braiker’s article illustrates, and the idea of marketing to someone too young and vulnerable to perceive the difference between reality and fantasy makes me queasy. In my experience as a marketing advisor, when it feels like you may be crossing the line of what’s appropriate, you probably are – and the negative fallout usually outweighs the marketing benefit when you do.

Is This Really a Branding Strategy?

From a marketing strategy standpoint, I also wonder whether this approach really can be called “branding.”

Branding is making a promise to a customer about the value you deliver and the experience the customer will have when they choose to do business with you. Is that what these marketers are achieving by targeting consumers far too young to understand product value and differentiate between products? Or are they just cementing an image of an icon in a young child’s mind without attaching any meaning to it?

If that’s the case, I think it’s an open question whether this will pay off as a branding strategy in the long run. Brand recognition doesn’t automatically translate into sales; sales are driven by value.  Even if a young child can recognize and name a brand logo or character, that’s not the same as achieving true brand loyalty among children and parents because of the quality of your products. And marketers who go too far by targeting infants could find themselves facing a backlash from society and parents.

What do you think? Where should marketers draw the line when it comes to targeting images and messages to babies and toddlers? When does a smart marketing strategy become a societal concern?

These aren’t just idle comments. Misconceptions about social media can hurt your brand and hamper your ability to compete in your marketplace by limiting your company’s participation in the social media dialogue.  And if the people who hold those misconceptions also control the marketing budget, alarm bells should be ringing in the marketing department.

Here’s how to get your company onboard with social media marketing and help everyone understand why social media is a powerful element of a smart marketing strategy.

• Educate. Create training sessions to help others at your company understand how social media works and why your company should be part of the social media conversation. You may need to begin with the basics for those who are unfamiliar with social media. Profile social media use in your industry, especially by your competitors. Share examples of effective social media marketing campaigns by organizations like yours.
• Ask for ideas. Encourage everyone, from the CEO on down, to suggest ideas for social media content and customer engagement and to follow your company on social media. Create an easy way for people to share ideas with the marketing team. If you have a company blog, ask for help with content.
• Partner with other departments. Reach out to customer service, tech support, product development, and other units for help in preparing prompt, accurate responses to product-based comments and questions on your social media pages.
• Keep score. Create and distribute a regular social media “scorecard” to report the results of your social media marketing and track competitors’ social media efforts. Keep it simple, straightforward, fact-based, and user-friendly.
• Equip your sales team. Everyone who has direct contact with customers and prospects should have easy-to-use tools, such as branded premiums or sales collateral, to share your company’s social media addresses.
• Keep social media visible. Ongoing high visibility for your company’s social media efforts will help others recognize how much emphasis you are placing on social media in your marketing plan. Put your social media links and information on all your marketing materials and company communications.
• Plan for negative comments. Develop a plan for rapid response to any negative comments that are posted on your social media pages. Share the plan widely to reassure those who worry that social media will expose your company to criticism.
• Establish a company policy on social media. Employees should know your company’s views on appropriate social media behavior and understand who can and cannot speak for your company in social media, especially in response to a complaint.

Help Your Company Succeed with Social Media

As a marketing consultant, I believe that social media marketing should be among your top marketing priorities, whether you sell to businesses or consumers.

Get your company excited about social media so you can become a visible, active, and engaging participant in the social media conversation in your industry and connect more effectively with your customers and prospects.

But trade show sponsorship can be a big investment. Premium sponsorship packages for some national shows are topping six figures and even smaller sponsorship options can be costly.

Before you spend valuable marketing dollars on a trade show sponsorship, here are 10 guidelines for choosing sponsorships that are worth the marketing investment:

1. Focus on traffic. The key measure of a sponsorship’s value is visibility. Select sponsorships that place your brand where there is high traffic, to give you maximum exposure to the largest number of people.
2. Going big can pay off. The premium sponsorships at trade shows (such as the opening reception, lanyards, badge holders, and the outside of the tote bag for show materials) are the most costly because they offer the most visibility. If you’ve got the budget to make a big splash and you plan to be a dominant presence at the show (with a booth to match), it may be worth the investment.
3. Stay out of the tote bag. Most trade shows offer you the opportunity to buy placement of an insert in attendees’ tote bags. As a marketing consultant, I advise my clients to avoid this, since I believe marketing messages get lost in the clutter inside the bag.
4. Look for exclusives. Trade shows often sell shared sponsorship of an activity to raise more revenue and make sponsorship more affordable. This can lower your costs but also dilute your marketing message. If your budget allows, select sponsorships where you are the only sponsor of a particular event, place, or activity.
5. Aim for engagement. Some of the most effective sponsorships I’ve seen are for activities where attendees are engaged in participation, such as using technology or playing games. Engagement can increase your exposure.
6. Explore new ideas carefully. Many shows are offering new, interesting things to sponsor, such as charging stations for mobile phones or a Twitter board where tweets with the show’s hashtag appear in real time. Explore these new ideas, but be sure you know where the activity will take place at the show so you can gauge potential traffic.
7. Look beyond your logo. Showcasing your logo may be your only option as a sponsor, but if you have the space and flexibility to do more, take advantage of the opportunity. You should always give your brand top prominence and strive for simplicity, but look for ways to deliver a more complete marketing message, such as including your marketing tagline, booth number, or website.
8. Use common sense. It makes no sense to buy a big sponsorship package if you have a small, hard-to-find booth in the back of the hall or you’re a first-time exhibitor who’s unfamiliar with the show. Select a sponsorship that’s appropriate for your other show activities and base your decision on knowledge from prior show participation.
9. Prepare for next year. One of the smartest things you can do as an exhibitor is scope out this year’s show to plan sponsorship marketing decisions for next year. Walk the show floor and exhibit hall at various times of the day to see how much visibility and engagement different options really get. If only a handful of people are watching the tweet board or everyone is ignoring the branded floor stickers, you’ll know what to avoid when planning next year’s trade show marketing strategy.
10. Think strategically. Sponsorship is just one tactic in a trade show marketing plan. Review your entire show strategy — booth design, placement, and activities, pre-show and post-show promotion, and your plan for differentiating your company from competitors — to choose a sponsorship that supports your marketing plan.

Making Sponsorships Part of Your Smart Marketing Strategy

Trade show sponsorship can be an effective element of a smart B2B marketing strategy and today’s trade show operators are offering many creative ways to display a company’s brand to attendees. Choose carefully to select sponsorships that deliver the best return on your marketing investment and showcase your company creatively and effectively.

What trade show sponsorships are you seeing that justify the cost? What’s working best for your B2B company? I’d welcome your input.

Here are my top 10 recommendations for developing a smart business-to-business (B2B) marketing strategy, based on the tried-and-true principles of B2B marketing and my experience as a marketing strategy consultant:

1. Position your company as the preferred vendor in your industry, offering capabilities and value no one else can match. Your brand should stand for the industry’s best.
2. Demonstrate your expertise and results. Show what you know – and what only you know. Use case studies, testimonials, and real-life examples to prove that yours is the company that delivers successful outcomes for its customers.
3. Build your industry’s best, most complete database of targeted prospects. Keep it constantly current and use it as the foundation of your lead generation efforts.
4. Use mass communication like advertising, web marketing, and public relations to build awareness.
5. Use direct marketing to generate leads for new sales opportunities.
6. Use one-to-one communication, email, and social media to cross-sell, up-sell, and build relationships.
7. Use trade shows and conferences to meet face-to-face with customers and prospects and stay current on industry issues.
8. Use every customer contact to tell your story. From call center CSRs to product packaging, every interaction with a prospect or customer is an opportunity to demonstrate your company’s superiority.
9. Communicate regularly via Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, an e-newsletter, email, direct mail, or sales calls. You need to constantly remind customers and prospects of who you are and what sets you apart from competitors.
10. Give sales representatives effective tools to demonstrate your products and services and capitalize on the opportunities your smart marketing strategy has helped create.

What are your best tips for B2B marketing? Do these recommendations make your top 10 list?

Telling a brand story through well-crafted marketing copy can capture the essence of a brand. And building those brand messages into the physical product itself can reinforce the brand’s value proposition every time the product is used.

Here are three consumer product marketers who are doing this brilliantly, and some branding advice for your smart marketing strategy.

How Three Marketers Make the Product a Brand Ambassador

1. Old Spice Classic Men’s Deodorant: Yes, it’s been around forever and it hasn’t changed much. But Old Spice has rejuvenated its brand with attention-getting TV ads and a branding strategy driven by its heritage.

Here’s the clever copy that appears on the product label of Classic Men’s Deodorant, where you see it every time you prepare to apply it: “If your grandfather hadn’t used this, you wouldn’t be here.”

While most of us don’t want to think about exactly how we got here, the underlying message – attractive men have always turned to Old Spice, and with great results – is the essence of Old Spice’s brand. And because it’s part of the physical product, it’s a can’t-miss marketing message.

2. Tilley Endurables: Made in Canada, Tilley Hats are designed for people who enjoy outdoor life. The company positions its products as long-term investments in comfort and self-protection. So Tilley sews a fabric label inside every hat with a stitched message that reminds you why you spent so much money on a head covering.

“This is the Tilley Hat,” says the label in the classic men’s version. “It is the best outdoor hat in the world. It floats, repels rain and mildew, won’t shrink, and will be replaced free if it wears out. (Yes, put it in your will.)” Boy, were you smart to buy a Tilley. And your kids will thank you, too.

The company’s Canadian roots also are crucial to its brand identity as a team of perfectionists up north who fuss over every detail of their products. The label also assures the user that the hat was “sewn with Canadian persnicketiness.”

3. Altoids: Candy maker Callard & Bowser has built a phenomenal brand identity for Altoids, the “curiously strong mints” that are so potent they require a metal box. Inside each Altoids package is a paper liner that protects the product.

Clever Callard & Bowser realized that paper = messaging opportunity, but instead of boring copy, they print brand-centric messages on the liner that emphasize the powerful taste of Altoids and the courage of those brave souls who dare to enjoy them. “Not for the Faint of Tongue” and “Enter at Your Own Risk” are two examples.

Since a typical package of Altoids contains about 75 pieces, that’s up to 75 repetitions of the marketing message per pack. Not bad for adding a one-color message to a product liner that had to be there anyway.

Branding Advice for Your Smart Marketing Strategy

As a marketing consultant who helps companies plan branding and marketing strategies, I advise clients to see every space inside and outside the package as a potential opportunity to say something meaningful to the customer and restate the brand promise. 

I also believe that product packaging is most effective as a branding and marketing strategy when the message is delivered via the actual product itself – not just the wrapper it comes in. Building the brand message into the physical product can make the product itself a brand ambassador.

One is Chris Brown, owner of Marketing Resources & Results, a full-service marketing consulting firm in Northeast Ohio that helps companies attract new customers.

Chris has published the blog Branding & Marketing since 2006. She’s written more than 900 articles on marketing strategy, marketing tactics, branding, social media, and market research. Last week, she reached a major blogging milestone: 10,000 subscribers.

In this interview with Smart Marketing Strategy, Chris shares how she has used blogging to build her marketing agency and offers some lessons from her success.

SMS. You were one of the first marketers to launch a blog. Why did you start blogging?

I started blogging to connect with other marketing professionals and learn more about the changing tools in marketing. Blogging – the act of building online publications that are easy to update – is a tremendous marketing tool. Because of my activity at blogging conferences, I’ve connected with thousands of marketing professionals I never would have met without the Internet and the ability to self-publish.

SMS: How has your blog changed over the years?

After trying out several different software platforms, I switched to the WordPress self-hosted platform and in 2009 adopted the Thesis theme. As I got more proficient, the technology of the blog has evolved. I also added video to my blog.

SMS: How do you keep your blog fresh?

I use Google Alerts for keyword phrases to learn about new tools and techniques. I read about 80 blogs in my RSS feeds, maybe 10-15 a day, to stay current. Usually after about 20 to 30 minutes of reading, I have a topic I want to discuss, a common thread between recent bloggers, something in the news, a new website, a new tool, or a change in something we’ve all been using for years. I have a loose editorial calendar so I rotate topics. I promised myself never to start a post, “Sorry it’s been so long since I published, but…” because I see too many bloggers do that. I attend conferences, workshops, and webinars.

SMS: How did you grow such a large subscriber base? Were there pivotal moments when your readership spiked? Or has the growth been gradual?

It’s definitely been gradual with a few big snowballs. The first time I checked the stats, I felt I was so far behind no one would ever notice my blog. Then I started connecting with other bloggers. Leaving comments is a great way to connect. I also like to help new people get started and meet local bloggers in person. I found a few key connecting individuals who helped me and I’ve tried to connect others. Twitter has certainly helped because it’s easy to promote a link to a blog post and even easier for other people to pass it along.

But the most important thing is writing good content. No one subscribes unless they want to come back and read more content.

SMS: How often do you blog?

I prefer 3-4 times a week because it keeps my mind always thinking of the next post.

SMS: What types of posts get the most response?

The most comments usually come from something personal. I try to keep the blog more professional than personal, but sometimes it creeps in. Controversial posts get longer comments. Response depends on the left hand column’s featured posts. People click on what’s on the top left the most.

SMS: What is your audience most interested in reading? 

They like to learn new marketing tools that aren’t too complicated but they can easily apply in their own business. “How tos” and checklists are very popular. They don’t like a lot of negative critiques, nor do they like glowing “Pollyanna”-type reviews of products. Real-life stuff and my honest opinions are usually the most often read posts. 

SMS: How do you promote your blog?

I tweet new posts and have installed a plugin to tweet an encore post daily. I use networked blogs in Facebook to automatically update Facebook with each new post. My website has a link to the blog’s RSS, but I prefer the blog to bring people to the website, not the other way around. When I do speaking and workshops, I suggest that participants visit my blog for PowerPoints, videos, and other information. My e-news spotlights several blog posts, so I use the blog as the hub of my marketing.

SMS: How has blogging helped your business?

After Google, it’s the biggest source of referral traffic to my website. It’s helped me stay current with changes in the marketplace and build credibility about my marketing expertise. The blog is much stronger than any brochure or advertisement. My ability to blog and build community has given me the confidence (and excitement) to embrace new technology.

SMS: What advice do you have for other bloggers?

Figure out what you want to be known for and jump in. Write in first person. Connect with other bloggers and leave comments. Talk to other bloggers. If you want to grow your business, blog about your industry, writing things that would be of interest to potential customers or potential referral sources.

To engage readers, ask questions and have a conversation. To develop great content, research your content, use links to show your sources, be generous with links, and write about what you know. Format your blog so it’s fun to read, with a photo, a strong headline, bullet points, and subheads, and end with a question to make readers think. Final point: Proofread!

Congratulations, Chris, on your success — keep on blogging!

But what’s the difference between a good brand and a truly great one? How do you create a brand identity that’s so powerful, it becomes one of your most valuable assets — and the centerpiece of a smart marketing strategy?

Here are six factors that separate the best brands from the rest, and examples of marketers who are using these factors to set the bar for branding success.

6 Factors Shared by Great Brands

1. A Clear Identity: The marketer’s brand stands for something unique to the customer, something clearly different from any other competitor in the company’s marketplace. What Apple and Mercedes-Benz represent, for example, is so distinctly different that no competitor can match them.
2. Trust: The customer trusts that what the marketer says is true, because the customer knows from experience they can believe what the marketer tells them. When you ship with FedEx, your package will arrive on time. When you buy from L.L. Bean, the product is guaranteed for your entire life.
3. Value: The brand delivers something the customer wants, needs, and appreciates, and the customer believes they get a fair deal for their money. Target sells consumer products of very high quality at modest prices. Tiffany customers pay top dollar for jewelry, but the value of a Tiffany’s piece, from the quality of the product to the beauty of the distinctive blue package, is perceived to be worth the investment.
4. Consistency: The customer’s experience is consistent every time they encounter the brand, whether it’s in advertising, a retail store, face-to-face with an employee, or using the product. Disney is the master of brand consistency in entertainment, Nordstrom in retailing. You know exactly what to expect from these marketers because you almost always receive it.
5. A Distinctive Voice: The brand has a point of view, attitude, or persona that comes through to the customer in everything the marketer does. This point of view is so well-defined that the customer can recognize it even when the brand logo isn’t present. You don’t need to see the logo to know you’re watching a Victoria’s Secret ad, reading their direct mail catalog, shopping in their store, or wearing their clothes.
6. Intimacy with the Customer: The customer feels they have a relationship with the marketer; the marketer knows them and knows what they like. Amazon.com customizes messaging and product selection at every step of online shopping to make you feel they actually know you. Starbucks customers and baristas share a private language where words like skinny, tall, and a double shot have a special meaning; baristas often remember customers’ favorite drinks.

Can Your Brand Do This?

You don’t have to be a FORTUNE® 500 company or a giant consumer marketer to do branding well.  Any company can use these same six factors to create a unique, memorable, and meaningful identity that establishes an effective presence in the marketplace.

For more tips on branding, see 10 Steps to Building a Great Brand.

Major marketers can choose agencies anywhere in the world, yet more and more are selecting marketing teams in Northeast Ohio.

Top executives from three regional agencies and a large Midwestern bank explained why global brands and other market leaders are “Choosing Cleveland” at a NOCA (Northeast Ohio Communications Advocates) Forum at the Cleveland Plain Dealer on April 27.

Here’s how these local firms are landing prestigious accounts and helping national and local clients create smart marketing strategies.

Start with Ideas, Build Relationships

Lisa Zone, Senior Vice President, Dix & Eaton and President, AAF Cleveland, led the discussion. Tim Brokaw, Managing Partner, Brokaw Inc., Joanne Kim, Partner/Chief Idea Officer, Marcus Thomas LLC, and Julie Clemo Tutkovics, Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer, FirstMerit Corporation, were panelists.

Everyone agreed that the quality of an agency’s ideas trumps its location. “No one cares where you are,” said Kim. “The question is, ‘who has the best thinking, the best ideas,’ not ‘where are you?’

“Large agencies in bigger cities tend to be focused on brand, with some digital,” she continued. “Marcus Thomas has both brand DNA and digital DNA in-house, with more holistic thinking. Our clients like this.”

Brokaw said that new client Vitaminwater “appreciated our Midwestern values. We offered the same quality of ideas as big city agencies without the egos.”

Clients also value in-depth expertise more than location, said Zone. “Large clients often pick Dix & Eaton for a specialty practice area, like crisis communications or investor relations. We grow the relationship from there.”

Tutkovics said FirstMerit Bank wanted an agency in its Midwest footprint, but didn’t care where. The bank sent RFPs to 12 agencies in Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, and Akron and chose Cleveland-based Brokaw. “It’s not about location, it’s about relationships,” she noted.

Kim agreed: “Great work wins the business, but chemistry keeps the business.”

The Power of Midwestern Values

All panelists cited “Midwestern values” as a big advantage for Northeast Ohio marketing firms. “Having Midwestern values means you’re scrappy, humble, hardworking, with a roll-up-your-sleeves attitude,” Brokaw explained.

Kim stated that Cleveland-area firms were more approachable and collaborative. “Other agencies sometimes can have an attitude: ‘We know more than anyone else in the room, including the client.’ We like to tout our Midwestern sensibility.”

Tutkovics called Clevelanders “honest, candid, and direct. The issue is ego,” she said. “It’s just easier here; there’s no attitude, just great collaboration and partnerships.”

Silencing the “Little Clevelander” in All of Us

“We thought big, out-of-town clients cared that we were from Cleveland and we had to quiet the ‘little Clevelander’ in all of us that has an inferiority complex,” Brokaw recalled. “When we won Vitaminwater, it affirmed our self-belief: ‘We can do this.’

“We started embracing our location and our position as the underdog, especially when pitching against agencies three and four times our size.”

Tutkovics, who worked for several years in Boston, observed that “there’s a pride in being from Cleveland, like a best-kept secret. We tend to have a chip on our shoulder, but when you leave the area, you see how great it is to live here. Also, it’s fun to win with local people.”

Agency executives said that despite the great quality of life in Northeast Ohio, it can be hard to attract seasoned talent from other cities. “But young kids are hungry,” Brokaw noted, “and they want to do great work. Most of them don’t care where.”

Telling the Northeast Ohio Marketing Agency Story

Though there’s a great story to be told about the success and creativity of Northeast Ohio marketing agencies, Brokaw noted that one of the challenges is convincing major marketers in the Cleveland area to select local firms. “It’s like the ‘no one ever got fired for picking IBM’ syndrome,” he explained. “It’s the same with Madison Avenue or Michigan Avenue agencies. It appears to be more risky to pick a local firm. We have to prove that we’re worthy, that we can handle the large accounts.”

Kim said getting the word out was essential. Marcus Thomas uses public relations to generate press coverage in industry media and stay on prospects’ radar screens. Brokaw landed another large, national client that read about the agency’s work in Adweek. Dix & Eaton has eight bloggers who constantly publish content related to the firm’s expertise.

“We have the passion and we’re more nimble,” Brokaw concluded. “We need to celebrate the success and let local and national companies know the level of talent here. We need to build the buzz.”

“Some clients in New York or L.A. will never look at a Cleveland marketing agency,” Kim acknowledges, “but others will look for the best ideas. If you end up in the pitch with the best ideas, you will win.”