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PETROLEUM DIRECTORY: Results-based marketing Marketing Solutions sees marketing plans and a focus on results as keys to success Alan Bailey Petroleum Directory Contributing Writer
If lots of great advertising and marketing literature for clients indicates success for a marketing agency, Anchorage-based Marketing Solutions must be a front runner in the marketing world. However, the company sees business results for its customers as the true barometer of its success.
“The focus (of Marketing Solutions) is not on producing work — it’s on what the (the work) does for the client,” Laurie Fagnani, president of Marketing Solutions, told Petroleum News. “We start each new client relationship by identifying what they want to achieve, where they want to go with their campaign — whatever their goal is, we come up with a marketing strategy and the tools to implement it. That’s really the essence of our business.” Founded in 1995 Fagnani and her sister, Julie Buck, founded Marketing Solutions in Anchorage in 1995.
“We decided that there was a market in Anchorage for results-based advertising and that’s been the platform for our business ever since,” Fagnani explained.
Although Buck left the company when she moved out of Alaska two years after the company formed, the company grew steadily to its present size of nine staff. And Fagnani feels particularly proud of the strong cadre of staff that the company has established over the years.
“We have some of the top design talent, two of the most experienced media relations experts, one of the best media negotiators and several advertising campaign veterans at the agency,” she said. “And everybody, at every level, is empowered to make sure that a campaign is effective and that the client sees results.”
The company now serves a wide variety of clients in areas such as health care, tourism, retail, mining and the oil and gas industry.
“We have a large sector in the business-to-business market,” Fagnani said. “We (also) have strong foothold in the retail, consumer market.”
Marketing Solutions offers its customers a full range of marketing services.
“The firm has always been founded in marketing, advertising and public relations — we’ve been full service from the very beginning,” Fagnani said. Marketing plans Fagnani thinks that one of the keys to her company’s success is its emphasis on doing initial planning, rather than diving straight into the design of advertisements or other media tools.
“Every one of our clients has a results-based, goal-oriented marketing (plan and) strategy behind every campaign,” Fagnani said.
The production of a marketing plan involves clarifying marketing goals, identifying target markets and preparing a marketing strategy. This initial spadework then enables Marketing Solutions to work with a client to develop communications tools and materials that completely focus on the purpose of the campaign.
The marketing plan also assures a consistent marketing approach throughout an annual marketing cycle — this consistency brings the highest likelihood of achieving measurable marketing goals.
“Having a marketing plan and an annual media plan assures that a company’s investment (in marketing) is going to produce a strong return,” Fagnani said. “A one-time ad in a market isn’t always going to impact change — you need a campaign strategy that delivers numerous exposures to a customer message.”
With a marketing plan in place, Marketing Solutions’ creative professionals swing into action, designing and preparing brochures, advertisements and other communications materials. Communications such as advertising become tools for implementing the marketing plan.
“We may (for example) determine that it’s a TV and print campaign — different media are selected for different messages and audiences,” Fagnani said. Public relations Marketing Solutions provides public relations services alongside its advertising production — the company sees public relations as integral to marketing.
Public relations can include such activities as communicating company news, managing perceptions of an issue or organizing special events. These activities bolster an advertising campaign by underpinning an organization’s credibility and image.
“Public relations and issue management really have been a key part of the marketing mix, but most agencies handle one or the other,” Fagnani said. “Public relations makes your paid advertising believable. It’s that combination — that marketing plan that puts them all together and ensures a return on (marketing) investment.”
Since a campaign generally requires this combination of strategic planning, advertising and public relations, Marketing Solutions assembles a small team of internal staff to find out what the client wants to achieve and to prepare the marketing plan. As the project moves from planning into production, the team may expand to include appropriate expertise.
If a particular project requires some specialist knowledge or skills, Marketing Solutions can draw on an extensive external network of marketing and advertising talent.
“If there’s a particular expertise we don’t have (ourselves), we don’t hesitate to bring that service in — web programming for example,” Fagnani said. We write and design the site using staff that are familiar with a client’s marketing message and we outsource the technical programming, she said.
In effect the client can command a comprehensive pool of experts, quickly and efficiently focused on achieving business goals.
In tandem with its team approach, Marketing Solutions empowers its staff to work proactively with clients to take a strategic view of marketing needs. Marketing Solutions staff needs to understand a client’s industry, markets and sales cycles.
“I task my employees to know where that company’s going in six months ... they need to be thinking six months, 12 months down the road.” Fagnani said. “That kind of marriage is a real resource for our clients ... we’re doing our best job, when we’re seen as part of their management team.” The Special Olympics The 2001 Special Olympic Games, held in Anchorage, provides a good example of the success of Marketing Solutions’ approach. The award-winning marketing campaign that Marketing Solutions spearheaded for the Olympics proved spectacularly successful in encouraging both participation in the games and support for the games. Marketing Solutions created a brand for the games as a central pillar for creative advertising and packaging.
“The campaign ‘proud to play’ worked to get athletes excited about playing, it got corporate sponsors excited about donating money and it motivated the general public to come to volunteer and watch the games,” Fagnani said. “So, that was the goal — those three markets with those messages. “The ‘proud to play’ theme, with the associated advertising and public relations, all came from a comprehensive marketing plan for the games.
“The marketing plan allowed us to do a creative strategy that everyone could get behind,” Fagnani said.
The result: a consistent message with creative energy that really stoked up general enthusiasm for the games. Future growth Marketing Solutions’ success continues to lead to carefully managed growth for the company. In October the company will be moving into a new office and adding new staff. Future expansion plans include some new strategic planning management services.
Fagnani believes that the company’s results-based focus underpins success.
“As long as we continue to offer the best product, I think we’ll continue to grow,” Fagnani said. “And that product is results-based marketing ... as long as our (clients are) successful, we’ll be successful.”
And success for clients requires measurable returns from marketing dollars.
“Our unique approach is that we are consistently working for our clients — looking for opportunities in the marketplace,” Fagnani said. “I am very conscious of the investment they make and that it has to produce results.”
Editor’s note: Alan Bailey owns Badger Productions in Anchorage, Alaska.
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