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Workplace Design | Unleash Your Marketing Sherpa

Workplace Design: Branding from the Inside Out

If you’ve visited a Starbucks, Container Store, Barnes & Noble, or any other major comfort retailer, you’ll notice one thing…you don’t want to leave them. You’re relaxed, comfortable, alert, and completely immersed in the milieu. These environments appeal to all of your senses - with lighting, colors, textures, bold graphics, music, furnishings, and tastes.  Let’s face it, you’re pulled completely into their brands.   And the best part is that when you leave, you take that warm and welcoming experience with you.  

Typically, when companies talk about workplace design, they’re focused on the arrangement of furniture in the lobby, the number of cubicles that will fit into an area, what color the dividers will be, and who gets a corner office.  For the moment, let’s ditch those practical details and think about how you can create a work environment where brand-centric design and strategic use of fixtures, furnishings and color can create a positive emotional attachment to your company for your customers, and an atmosphere of productivity, and loyalty for your employees.

Brand-focused workplace design accomplishes these core marketing tasks:

• Builds perception: Sets the tone and expectation for what’s to come
• Communicates culture: Conveys the attitude and style of the company
• Promotes brand: Builds an emotional and memorable connection with customers, employees and vendors

Companies of all sizes have the chance to infuse their environment with a bigger, more exciting sense of who they are, and what they’re about by employing workplace design techniques. By doing so you’ll:

• Energize your employees and inspire pride in the company
• Improve productivity by creating a comfortable, people-friendly work environment
• Elevate perception with customers, vendors and competition
• Refresh, renew and re-energize your company brand 

Engage your design team and create a plan. Choose paint colors, design graphics, and bring new energy, positive emotions and a welcoming attitude to your workplace.

Just imagine the energy you can create.

To view samples of workplace design, click here: 1 | 2 | 3

For more information on this or other marketing and design subjects, contact
Gary Thompson at OnMerit Marketing at garyt@onmerit.com or 425.654.1814 x106.

© 2008. All rights reserved.            OnMerit Marketing, LLC                        www.onmerit.com

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Unleash Your Marketing Sherpa:  How Customer Feedback Can Guide You To New Heights of Success

Why do mountain climbers employ a Sherpa to guide them to the highest peaks? Because they have on-the-ground experience, and know the way.  An experienced Sherpa can provide direction about the path to take, and confidence in the decisions that a climber is required to make.   

In the same way, your customers have the potential to guide your decisions and lead you to more successful outcomes in how to best promote and market your business or services.    Create your own Marketing Sherpa by interviewing your existing customer base. Like a Sherpa, they’re right beside you, ready to tell you what they know.  And their first-hand-knowledge will provide insight and experience for future marketing decisions.

Just think of it.  Smaller, more effective direct mail campaigns, ads in publications your customers actually read, and branded imagery and messages that speak directly to them. By asking your customers what they think, and then using their feedback you’ll free-up unproductive marketing dollars, and gain the opportunity to employ more effective media based on what you’ve learned.

When preparing to interview your customers use these best practices:
• Select a good cross-section of your customer base
• Invite them to participate in advance - via phone call, written letter or email
• Create a focused set of questions with your marketing team
• Provide a variety of ways to participate: online questionnaire, phone interview or written questionnaire
• Consider using a third-party vendor to conduct phone interviews to ensure honest feedback  
• Offer a fun and compelling incentive for their participation: Something cool, with you logo on it

Using your  Marketing Sherpa will insure that your waypoints are marked, so that you can be more confident in your marketing decisions.   Climb over your competition, and reach peak impact with the know-how and preferences of your customers. Their experiences are your most valuable tool for future marketing decisions.

Customer knowledge is power.

For more information on this or other marketing and design subjects, contact
Gary Thompson at OnMerit Marketing at garyt@onmerit.com or 425.654.1814 x106.

© 2008. All rights reserved.            OnMerit Marketing, LLC                        www.onmerit.com

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