Aligning your positioning with your practices

Key considerations in bringing your positioning into alignment with all of your major business practices.

Once defined, the agency positioning must be supported by all of the agency’s business practices, from product to place. Here are the main areas you should consider in identifying key initiatives to bring the agency positioning to life.

Product

  • New or special capabilities. To fully deliver on our agency brand, what is lacking from our mix of products and services?
  • Outmoded services. What should we stop doing?
  • Integration. What services or functions need to stop operating independently and start operating as part of the agency?
  • Business partnerships. For the needed services we don’t or can’t offer, can we find strategic business partners?
  • Strategy and idea development. Is this an opportunity to redefine how we approach strategic development, concept development, and channel recommendations?
  • Proprietary approaches. Could we develop our own proprietary processes and approaches that would add value to our agency brand?
  • Client value. How can we maximize the areas in which we can be a brand and minimize the areas in which we are a commodity?
  • Knowledge base. How can we capture what we learn in our area of expertise in a way that can be shared with the entire agency?
  • Accountability. How can we enhance our agency brand offering to include tools and approaches to measure success?
  • Additional information resources. To add to our expertise in our area of focus, do we need access to new or different information resources?
  • Industry support. Would the support and resources available from membership in industry associations or agency networks help enhance our agency brand?

People

  • Internal communication. How can we use all available means to communicate our positioning with the agency staff?
  • Agency meetings. How can we use agency meetings and get-togethers as a platform to educate and inform about the agency brand development efforts?
  • Roles and responsibilities. Should roles and responsibilities be redefined to bring the organization into better alignment with our positioning?
  • Hiring standards. Given our focus, what kind of criteria should we use when selecting new employees?
  • Feedback and recognition. How could we tie the agency positioning into an effort to recognize and reward exceptional performance?
  • Professional development. What can we do to educate our people about the agency brand and train them to improve their performance?
  • New employee orientation. How can we indoctrinate new employees about our purpose, principles, and positioning.
  • Performance reviews. How can we improve our performance review process and use it to help every associate contribute to the agency brand?
  • Handbook. Would it help to develop a new or better handbook that reflects and explains our agency brand?

Promotion

  • New business approach. Given our positioning, what should be our new business approach?
  • Prospective clients. What specific criteria – both objective and subjective – should we apply to prospective clients?
  • Corporate identity. How does our agency brand impact on our corporate identity standards?
  • Self-promotion materials. What kind of self-promotion materials should we have?
  • Online presence. How does our positioning impact the design and architecture of our Web site, and how can we have a more prominent online presence on search engines, blogs, etc.
  • Agency publicity. What should we be doing in the area of agency publicity?
  • Information sharing. How can we use what we know to help market the agency?
  • Search firms. Does our agency positioning give us an opportunity to introduce or re-introduce ourselves to agency search consultants or other influencers?
  • Industry recognition. What award shows or other industry competitions would help us showcase our agency brand?
  • Unconventional marketing approaches. What else can we do to get the attention of our key audiences?

Process

  • Work processing system. In what way could we use our internal processes as a means to further differentiate our agency brand?
  • Project management. Is our approach to project management just like everyone else’s, or could we add or subtract value based on the needs of individual clients?
  • Pricing practices. How do we need to change our pricing, compensation systems, or billing practices to better reflect our desired brand?
  • Intellectual property. How can we use our new agency brand as an opportunity to develop and own more of our own intellectual property?
  • Forms and formats. Do we need new or different agency forms and formats, both offline and online?
  • Policies. Are any of our policies in conflict with our positioning?

Place

  • Offices. Does our place of business communicate and reinforce the agency brand?
  • First impressions. Are we sending the right message about our brand when others make contact with us, including email, voice mail, etc.?
  • Working environment. How can we create an environment that is conducive to our brand?
  • Meeting space. Do we have meeting space that is conducive to our brand and encourages creative collaboration?
  • Tools and resources. Have we armed our people with the things they need to do their best work?
  • Technology. Have we leveraged available hardware and software to create a competitive point of difference for the agency?
  • Virtual office. Could we strengthen our brand by creating a better digital asset management system or agency intranet?

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