Strategy180 drives revenue and impacts positive change by delivering effective sales enablement tools, creating successful marketing promotions, designing dynamic brand strategies and leading proven change management programs. Strategy180 believes that BECAUSE RESULTS MATTER, restoring credibility, accountability, and influence to the marketing function is critical to better position
marketing for greater impact on the company's bottom-line. Whether engaged on a promotional project or to drive a broader change initiative, Strategy180 delivers short-term improvements to address immediate needs, and works with management to outline an action plan to make sustainable and measurable process changes that offer quantitative marketing accountability and a realizable impact on brand perception.
BECAUSE RESULTS MATTER™ (BRM) is both a philosophy and the term used to describe the tools and processes used by Strategy180 and its clients to create and deliver accountable marketing programs that drive leads, revenue, and efficiencies; and ultimately, impact positive organizational change.Marketing is an integral, strategic function that drives your
business, and like finance and engineering, should and can be held accountable in a similarly quantitative and predictive manner. Marketing is the foundation of your company's success. Executed properly, marketing provides the processes through which communication and strategy are leveraged to recognize and exploit market opportunities.
Areas Of Specialization
Strategy180 offers capabilities in six practice areas, and applies award-winning creative,
Strategy180 offers capabilities in six practice areas, and applies award-winning creative,
knowledge, and experience to bring about comprehensive solutions for each unique situation.
Strategy without tactics is paperwork. Effective MarCom proves effective strategy. Marketing communications are often confusing and difficult to produce because they have traditionally been viewed as subjective and not measureable; opinion over fact, art over purpose. Yet by understanding the company brand,
building emotional connections with your target market, and knowing the objective of each communication tool, Strategy180 and its nationally recognized design partners enhance awareness, improve consideration, and build preference for your company, product, and brand in every media.
Your customers, not you, decide what your brand represents. But we'll show you how to join the debate. Your brand is not just your logo, but the perception of your company or product and the expectation it represents. Brand image is developed, nurtured, grown - and too often damaged - by everything and everyone who ever 'touches' part of the customer experience. Strategy180 has developed many outstanding and
successful brands not only through award-winning identity efforts, but also through training and promotion of the brand promise among internal as well as external audiences from initial exposure to final billing and then some. When looking to create, re-launch, or determine the touchpoints that may be failing your brand promise, look to Strategy180 for a thorough consultation and design engagement.
Marketing is a mix of art and science. Strengthen both by understanding each. Marketing is an integral, strategic function that drives your business, and like finance and engineering, should and can be held accountable in a similarly quantitative and predictive manner.
Marketing is not adversarial to the goals of other corporate functions. It's the foundation of your company's success. Strategy180 can help you identify new ways to leverage marketing to identify, action, communicate and build consensus to recognize and exploit market opportunities.
Develop critical growth strategies by understanding your ideal customers, your value proposition, and your real strengths. When developing sales channels and technical partnerships, understanding the objectives and role of each contributor is as critical as understanding the ultimate sales objective or solution set development. Identifying the best cultural, brand and organizational fit among
potential partners - beyond the technology or solution set itself - is critical to creating an effective value proposition for the market offer. Strategy180 has worked with names such as HP, Cisco, Avaya, Microsoft, Nokia, Nortel and others to create common value propositions and effective sales enablement materials that are greater than the sum of their individual parts, and we can do the same for you.
Too many companies allow new products to simply 'escape'. Instead, launch them! The higher the better. Just as there is no second chance to make a first impression, in the effort to accelerate the time-to-market of a new product or service, there is no better opportunity to gain the most ground as when a product is first out of the gate and placed in GA (General Availability)
It creates a natural curiosity among your publics and an opportunity to leverage that excitement toward greater awareness. Strategy180 applauds your 'better mousetrap', but understands how leverage proven marketing and public relations skill sets toward a successful launch to make certain that the world - customers, analysts, and the media - 'beat a path to your door'.
Main | Areas Of Specialization
Marketing Communications | Brand CARE
Marketing Accountability/ROMI
Growth Strategy | Launch Strategy
Marketing Communications | Brand CARE
Marketing Accountability/ROMI
Growth Strategy | Launch Strategy
We never stop discovering, learning, and understanding. Explore the latest thinking on Transformational Marketing from the analysts at Strategy180, partners, advisors, and other experts in the field.
Contact Strategy180 for a complete list of practice areas
and qualifications.
Strategy180
4100 West Eldorado Parkway Suite 100
McKinney Texas 75070
469.223.8112
Strategy180 recognizes the critical importance of exceptional creative execution and we deliver it every day. We understand that the real magic happens before pen ever meets paper, the actor is mic'd, or the Quark application launches. Our key design and multimedia partners are renown in their fields and this success illustrates that Strategy180 best practices
translate exceptionally well to the MarCom process. Strategy180 offers superior advertising and communication tools for client organizations. Because the web is limited in its ability to represent creative materials, please contact Strategy180 to schedule an appointment to see a comprehensive creative portfolio.
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Dallas Cowboys 1 |
DDS 1
Metallect 1 | Palmaz Scientific 1·2
Rocketlogix 1 | Royal Island Bahamas 1·2
Metallect 1 | Palmaz Scientific 1·2
Rocketlogix 1 | Royal Island Bahamas 1·2
Here are a few of the real-world situations that led to the Strategy180 BECAUSE RESULTS MATTER approach to Transformational Marketing. While the cases may be specific to an individual organization, the lessons are applicable across all types of industries, and all sizes of companies.
For innovation to drive a company's revenue and culture, it is often necessary to treat product launches as separate marketing initiatives that are at once integrated with, but independent of, ongoing marketing activities. Issue: A well-regarded Fortune 10 company called upon Strategy180 seeking support for a critical launch of a solution that would mark the company's entry into a new market space. Action:
Strategy180 supported the existing marketing organization by applying branding, public relations, sales support, promotional and partner marketing activities to the launch planning. Strategy180 applied proven Best Practices and processes to the product launch that assured a successful market introduction of this solution. Result: This initiative eventually grew to where Strategy180
was also providing for internal communications and training initiatives as well. The practices established in this initiative have since been introduced to other areas of the organization as well, as corporate standard policy. This has assured not only the success with the launch with which Strategy180 was involved, but assure that future product and service introductions would
continue to be equally as effective and impactful.
It is critical that as difficult as it may be to articulate clear and confident messages during times of change for a company, that the company not shrink from the conversation altogether. Thus, in the absence of any other direction, customers and industry analysts were accepting the market positioning statements from the loudest dog, not necessarily the lead dog. This only results in a far more challenging
effort to regain lost mind share and to correct misperceptions when a clearer message and direction can be articulated. Issue: A telephony software and services company was uncertain of the best way to correct disfunction in a sales organization evolving from product to solution sales. Marketing and sales teams were bickering, sales complaining that marketing was too far removed from the day to day
requirements of sales, and marketing complaining that salespeople were subject to whims and tangents and unable to carry a consistent message to the market. Action: Strategy180 established communication procedures that set forth common objectives and maintained communication throughout all levels of the sales departments, not just the executive levels. Objectives were set to link corporate goals with
marketing strategies, and marketing strategies with promotional tactics. In this way, clear objectives and tactical priorities were agreed from the outset. These then need were communicated directly to the sales force. Strategy180 developed a process for developing, linking and budgeting these plans and applied it throughout the organization. Result: As changes in the company and market occurred
throughout the year, this process made it far simpler to reset expectations and forecast the impact of these changes on the objectives set forth at the beginning of the year or planning term. In the end, marketing and sales worked together with equal amounts of communication, cooperation, and regular measurement. Overall revenue spiked 20% in the following year
and margins improved by twice that amount.
If the nature of your firm's offerings forces you to be singularly dependent on a company, industry or even a technology over the long-term, you need to look into an inorganic acquisition that leverages core competencies yet allows a broader foundation and makes your company more resilient to the winds of change. Issue: For one well-regarded services firm, the greatest barrier to growth was
a dependence on serving a single industry. Strategy180 analysts recognized that this firm, like many modest enterprises or government contractors, was allowing a concentration of customers - in this case a single industry - shape their future. Action: Strategy180 analyzed the business and identified related industries that could benefit from the services. We then identified key prospects and consulted
on tools and materials development to specifically target these industries. Result: The business successfully sought out products and services that were complementary to, but independent of, the industry or company currently served and doubled billings in one year, while securing this growth with a diversified client base.
As common as it is to place a senior sales executive over both the direct sales team and the marketing function, this is opposite the way in which organizations should view these functions. Marketing should never be confused with promotions support, or in the end you'll find you'll receive neither. Marketing has a responsibility to drive sales, which come through myriad channels. Strategy180 sees direct
sales as a channel, one that needs to be supported in concert with other channels such as resellers, catalogs, partners or e-commerce. In making marketing a tool for the direct sales channel is to create an environment by which other channels are underserved regardless of their potential for growth or margin contribution. Further, marketing is often assigned other objectives such as customer satisfaction,
brand building or employee communication which are often subordinated if the priority is set to serve the near-term requirements of a critical, but not singular, sales channel. Issue: A telephony software and services company was uncertain of the best way to correct disfunction in a sales organization evolving from product to solution sales. Marketing and sales teams were bickering, sales
complaining that marketing was too far removed from the day to day requirements of sales, and marketing complaining that salespeople were subject to whims and tangents and unable to carry a consistent message to the market. Action: Strategy180 established communication procedures that set forth common objectives and maintained communication throughout all levels of the sales departments,
not just the executive levels. Objectives were set to link corporate goals with marketing strategies, and marketing strategies with promotional tactics. In this way, clear objectives and tactical priorities were agreed from the outset. These then need were communicated directly to the sales force. Strategy180 developed a process for developing, linking and budgeting these plans and
applied it throughout the organization. Result: As changes in the company and market occurred throughout the year, this process made it far simpler to reset expectations and forecast the impact of these changes on the objectives set forth at the beginning of the year or planning term. In the end, marketing and sales worked together with equal amounts of communication, cooperation, and regular
measurement. Overall revenue spiked 20% in the following year and margins improved by twice that amount.
M&As (merger and acquisition) activity have a miserable record of failure, with some studies suggesting that over 87% fail to reach stated goals, and of those, upward of 50% failing altogether (defined as not adding to, and perhaps reducing, overall market value). The reasons cited for these failures could be put on a looped recording and played in B schools worldwide... 'culture'... 'morale'...
'productivity'. These are far more easily recognized after the fact than before it, but what can be managed when melding two organizations into one is to be aware of the potential people issues. Instead of acting as a bull in a china shop and issuing immediate dictums as to roles, responsibilities, cost cuts and product changes before the ink dries on the agreement, companies are well-advised to
allow individuals with responsibility for functional areas an opportunity contribute to that decision-making. While this 90 day delay may postpone the initial lift from a merger, it does result in more long term success. Issue: Strategy180 found that an organization that was merged for what on paper appeared to be complementary markets and technologies did not take this important period to
involve managers in critical decisions and therefore lost their support and that of their teams- leading to failure, as mutual suspicion between employees of the two companies grew to the point that even years later they continued to refer to themselves as working for the original or acquired firm, but with few associating themselves with or recognizing the benefits of the merged entity.
Action: Strategy180 recognized that a sophisticated, executive led change management effort was required to draw the groups together, which included, at the core, communication and collaboration that would lead to broader organizational restructuring in order to tear down the suspicions that had developed through the earlier focus on paper 'synergies' and 'cost efficiencies'. Results: With
the support of executive management and the participation of functional department heads, Strategy180 was able to create a framework through which management could drive the crucial conversations required to finally leverage and benefit from the merger and ultimately lead the company to a long overdue, but ultimately successful future. And that's no bull.
If you do not know your destination, any road will get you there. Change favors those with a clear picture of the objective. Issue: In the case of a New York-based creative design agency seeking growth, management and staff suffered from not so much a lack of direction, as much as conflicting ones. This contributed not only to
individuals pulling resources in different directions, but led to misunderstandings of roles and responsibilities, priorities, even advancement opportunities. Action: Strategy180 facilitated a visioning meeting among management and employees to set forth a vision and objectives for the company, and conducted similar exercises on
an individual level that drew from the organizational goals. Organizational goal setting sets forth parameters for individual goal setting, with clear and widely understood and agreed upon objectives, each measurable and actionable. All then worked together toward the Vision of the organization, serving both collective and individual interests.
Result: Turnover was reduced and new services introduced to expand the number of revenue streams into the organization, all established without the earlier disagreements and inefficiencies regarding roles.
Strategy180 best practices are scalable and practical regardless of the scope of the change required or the size of your organization, region, department or team. The key is commitment to that change. Issue:
While turnaround specialists will tell you, and correctly so, that a successful change effort starts at the top, Strategy180 knows that it is also possible to implement
While turnaround specialists will tell you, and correctly so, that a successful change effort starts at the top, Strategy180 knows that it is also possible to implement
change to great impact on the departmental or functional level. Such efforts can not only influence the morale and efficiency of a department, but can influence the behavior of other departments as well. Action:
One department head in an enterprise CRM software firm applied Strategy180 concepts toward improvements in their own department.
One department head in an enterprise CRM software firm applied Strategy180 concepts toward improvements in their own department.
Result: The result was so significant it was noticed by senior management and the department head was selected to drive a 24 month long change management effort for the entire organization.
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Product launch, or leak? 1
market vacuum 1·2 | one trick pony 1
Lead from the front 1·2·3
Of bulls & china 1·2 | Destination? 1
Bottoms Up! 1
market vacuum 1·2 | one trick pony 1
Lead from the front 1·2·3
Of bulls & china 1·2 | Destination? 1
Bottoms Up! 1
"Strategy180 delivers on its promises, and I have and will continue to recommend Jim and Strategy180 to any company looking to leverage the marketing function toward more effective relationships with customers and all their stakeholders"
"Jim and his team provided us with creative ideas and on-time execution - with great results."
"Jim took a technology company from what was perceived as an old dinosaur to a very dynamic company that moved to the cutting edge within just a couple years... the market awareness drove more business and made our competitors very nervous."
"We now have a cohesive marketing unit that represents the needs of a global organization. From marketing communication and trade show planning to strategic marketing analysis and product direction, Jim built a very successful marketing department from the ground up."
"Jim is very easy to work with. The team consistently delivered quality work, on time. In addition, his team was always available to provide expert marketing advice and recommendations"
"Jim played a key role in the company's transition from a technology driven to a market driven organization"
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