Brand IDentity

A Better Mousetrap?

Marketing & Design in the 21st Century

By Silva Devarj

The American economy is founded upon innovation. By improving existing products or services new markets are opened, and both new and old customers are driven to a better place, with the promise of an increased health, greater wealth, a better life in the most efficient route possible. Small and medium-sized businesses are largely responsible for innovation in America, and they haven’t stalled at all in their mission – in 2003 alone more than 500,000 new businesses popped up in the US. However, the 21st century company stuck in marketplace clutter – too many mousetraps chasing too few mice. That same year, an equal amount of businesses failed. The truth is, almost every year as many small and medium sized businesses fail as start-up.

According to the 2002 US Census, there are more than 22 million small businesses (fewer than 499 employees), each jostling for position in a burgeoning world market place and making the “Go Global – Think Local” axiom a fight more likely to take place on Main Street than MTV to capture and maintain clients, and more to the point, to grow the customer base. A million-and-one do-it-yourself marketing strategy books, one-to-one marketing, viral marketing, direct marketing, e-mail marketing have flooded stores and the net attempting to teach enterpreneurs how to gain a global foothold through efficient message delivery. Multiply that by 22 million and the thousands of competing companies working in your city and you have a massive message and paper jam that reproduces like rabbits.

Better Mousetrap or Better Mice?“ It’s a case of too much and too little from the managerial level,” explains Shanoor Devarj, president of Devarj Design Agency, Valparaiso, Indiana. “Managers are functioning with a Reagan-era ‘bottom-line’ mentality and in the process creating havoc by selling into the mass and splintering their message – and brand – because they read half a book on market segmentation. Many of these managers think they are creating better customers by projecting their ideas in the abstract onto them. It’s chaotic. But an interesting question – can you create a better client?” Great ideas, says Devarj are often sabotaged by poor execution, a get-it-done bottom-line attitude based upon a misunderstanding of the market place. “Customers do not exist for a brand, and so being creative is not enough” he explained. “Changing a logo, the color of a brochure, adding an 800 number with Beatles music playing while customers hold, isn’t what a competition is about, but a systematic mapping of who the customer is or could be, who the prospects are, and responding to these groups with the attention – the right message at the right time – they deserve. It’s a bit more complex than ‘If you build it they will come.’ Not always. Rarely, in fact. And why? Because most people don’t know what you’ve built.”

What does this mean in practical terms? Unifying the message across all aspects of the company, branding the service or product and seeing to it that the puzzle that all companies are is no puzzle at all to the client. What is the Unique Selling Position? What are the benefits? What’s the offer? Who can I talk to? Beyond giving clients every possible way of responding (web, email, letter, phone, walk-in) and having a team to truly work with prospects and clients, follow-up is critical. Why? Because, as a general rule, 20 percent of your client base represents 80 percent of your revenues. If you don’t follow up and nurture your base of 80%, this important group will never move into the upper reaches of the revenue pyramid. They’ll go nibble on some other cheese. Heck, it’s a free world.

Making it Count

Case in point: Laciak Accountancy Group, P.C. has been in business over 20 years and, seeing that the retail financial marketplace had evolved considerably, the firm’s president Joe Laciak recognized the need to show their unique difference in accounting and financial services. And not only to their existing customers but to the thousands of prospects they’ve identified. Laciak now offered multiple “wealth generating” services to a burgeoning prospect base. The makeover needed was essentially a reinvention of the ordinary CPA firm. Would his existing clients upgrade? Would new clients migrate to Laciak? Not as it was then.

Devarj Design Agency looked deep at the client database, analyzing not only accounts, zip codes and the existing marketing communication structure, but also how the company was seen by its own customers as well as by its employees. The problem Devarj determined was: How to build the company’s image and guide growth in a very competitive marketplace? Devarj re-branded the company and its image: with a tag line “Laciak is more than a CPA firm” and “Information is power. Having the right CPA is wealth.”

“No piece of marketing material or advertising left Laciak without a message that was not only visually interesting but highly readable and above all, consistent,” says Devarj. While name recognition is still the immediate goal, since the re-branding went into effect in 2002, the company has grown 56% and added four new employees, and projected increase in revenues for 2007 are expected to top 20%.

“As prospective customers have a financial need Laciak would be the ideal source to consider since they already strategize the accounting aspect and the financial service would be just the next step,” notes Devarj.

Mr. Laciak says, “Devarj is the ideal strategic agency for growing businesses. Their value is in both creative services and the positive long-term impact they have created for my business.”

“Much of what we do is the detail-oriented common sense thinking that unites a company’s strongest assets,” says Shanoor. “We love working with businesses and setting them on a course that not only helps the company but in the end their clients. That’s good for the American economy – the local one and the global one.”