We define it as: meeting the customer benefits, making it hard for competitors to imitate, and leveraging the organizations’ many products and markets. It takes various forms, including technical/subject matter know-how, a reliable process, and/or close relationships with customers and suppliers. It may also include product development or culture such as employee dedication. A core competency should provide an organization a long-term advantage in order to have sustainable competitive advantage.
Business Development
Successful business development requires a multi-disciplinary approach beyond just “a sale to a customer.” A detailed strategy for growing the business in effective ways is necessary, which involves financial, legal and marketing skills. Business development cannot be reduced to basic templates applicable to situations faced by real-world business challenges. Creativity in meeting new and unforeseen challenges is necessary to keep an enterprise on a path of sustainable growth. FEC subscribes to a comprehensive business approach in determining the best marketing communication strategies.
Economic Development
Economic development promotes the economic wealth of states or regions for the well-being of their inhabitants. From a policy perspective, economic development seeks effective ways to improve the economic well-being and quality of life for a community by creating and/or retaining jobs and supporting or growing incomes and the tax base. FEC has been involved in economic development on state, regional, and local levels by integrating marketing communication strategies that promote joint public and private initiatives.
Value Branding and Positioning
Positioning refers to the target market’s perceptions of the place an organization’s brand occupies in a market segment. Positioning involves the differentiation of an organization’s offering from the competition by making or implying a comparison in terms of specific attributes/values. In order to sell or promote a product or service, an organization must establish a relationship with its target audiences. It must build trust and rapport. It must understand their needs, and it must provide a product or service that delivers promised benefits. There are three components of positioning:
- Benefit – emotional reason to purchase from your enterprise
- Target – identifying your best potential customer
- Competition – identifying the competition that is vying for your customer
There are many ways consumers, users, buyers, and others view competitive brands and the products and services. As determined by primary and secondary research techniques, products and services are evaluated by using specific attributes as dimensions. This use of positioning is perceptual, not necessarily valid as based on measured attributes.
Historically, competitive products or services positioning were based on sales rank in the market, but this limited perception has long since given way to the full range of products or services assessment, including psychological ones. For new products or services, positioning means how an innovative organization decides to compare the new products or services to its predecessors. The mental state of the target audience in the marketplace is blank; this is the only chance the organization will have to make a first impression. Later, after the introduction is over, the earlier definition of positioning will take over, as the target audience makes their own positioning decisions. For both new and established products or services, positioning may be combined with a target segment to integrate the marketing tool decisions. Its earlier use exclusively in advertising is no longer appropriate.
FEC subscribes to a four-step process that has demonstrated success in branding and positioning for our clients’ growth and differentiation in the marketplace. (Read more)
Organizational Culture Communication
An organization is an extension of the people who are part of it. They should feel good about what they personally achieve in the organization through exceptional cooperation. If individual goals are more aligned with the goals of the organization then people will do what it takes to make the organization succeed at what it does best. As a group, the organization is more like family providing personal fulfillment, which often transcends ego, so people are consistently bringing out the best in each other. In this culture, leaders do not develop followers, but develop other leaders by communicating their vision to people within the organization. Then, almost everyone in this culture is operating at a high level within the organization. FEC has provided the strategic and tactical communication tools for organizations to grow and also attract people who want to be part of a successful enterprise.