"My father (who would have just turned 92) was ahead of his time...he repeatedly said to me, 'You cannot possibly know where you are going, if you have no idea where you are today,'" notes Kaye Communications, Inc. President & Chief Strategist Bonnie S. Kaye. As more and more businesses are re-visioning and refining to meet the needs of today's marketplace, Kaye Communications, Inc. has done its due diligence and developed its new KCOM EVAL-U™ service to help clients assess and enhance communications programs for small and large businesses, professional services providers and nonprofits.
Knowing that the foundation for building a strong communications program begins with an in-depth solid review and evaluation of the "state-of-the-business" with respect to its current and future revenue goals, the KCOM EVAL-U service is available to companies and organizations of all sizes. The service includes client discovery sessions, review of past and current marketing channels and their effectiveness, informal and formal focus groups, shopper service, analysis of marketing strengths, weaknesses, obstacles and threats, and action plan recommendations for enhancement.
“In a fast-paced world with sufficient cash flow in pre-economic tsunami days, businesses kept doing business the way they have been doing business for years without a concern for a formal PLAN B, C, or D if any need arose (including an executive succession plan),” adds Bonnie. “During the pre-downturn time, the denial approach masked underlying fundamental business development issues while significant lines of credit from banks were easy to secure, hedge funds and investors were providing substantial working capital, and employment rates were high so employees could keep the economic wheels moving for a variety of industries by buying homes, cars, refrigerators, and going to dinner several times a week.”
To succeed today, all businesses need to review and assess their unique selling proposition (what differentiates them from their competition), and to whom and how they are communicating the value of their product and service. We often hear resistance to change...”we have never done that before”, but reality is:
- In today's highly competitive business and ever-changing communications environment, traditional public relations and marketing approaches alone, can no longer deliver desired results. Afterall, what is traditional today, may no longer be traditional within even a matter of weeks. It is in looking ahead-not just at today's agenda-that a business must effectively prepare for tomorrow, and tomorrow's tomorrow.
- To achieve results-driven success you must effectively blend traditional and non-traditional approaches, and not rely on repetitive “cookie-cutter” plans and programs that may have worked for a business in the past, but are no longer relevant to today's and tomorrow's goals.
- At KCOM, the process requires a synergistic combination of research (formal and informal); knowledge of a client's business and how they do their business; familiarity of a client's clients and customers; and ability to distinguish a client from their competition. That all reinforced by the keen ability to identify new, untapped prospects; absence of tunnel vision (a common and costly error); clear mutually agreed upon objectives; a purpose-built communications plan; a realistic budget, and astute implementation.
