“Our partnership with TREW Marketing resulted in clear, consistent company, product-level positioning and messaging with a well-organized strategic marketing plan. Their smart, collaborative approach, flexibility with our evolving team and strategy, and a commitment to truly understand our business model enabled them to define and deliver our unique value proposition in a highly competitive market.” – Jon Pafk, Sr. Director of Marketing

Founded in 2006, Starmount delivers software solutions that transform the retail environment to a more connected and engaging store experience. Their mobile selling, interactive kiosk, and digital signage software brings the richness of the web and the power of mobile into the store, where retailers can create more personalized, relevant, and dynamic interactions while shoppers can learn, discover, and buy anywhere in the store. Starmount’s customers include leading retailers such as Pep Boys, Urban Outfitters, and Home Depot.

Starmount selected TREW Marketing to develop the company and product-level positioning and messaging “brain”, followed by a 12-month integrated campaign-based marketing plan to establish awareness and preference of Starmount and its products and services.

Deliverables:

• Developed core elements of the “brain”, including:
  • A clearly defined mission and vision statement
  • Company positioning and quick pitch
  • Distinctive and intriguing tagline concepts
  • Product- and services-level positioning and messaging
• Custom, integrated, campaign-based 12-month marketing strategy and activity plan, including:
  • Prioritized trade shows, recommendations to extend “event shelf life” with pre/post-show promotion
  • Content development plan to generate qualified leads through compelling, targeted content
  • Direct marketing centered on launch of a quarterly e-newsletter
  • A multi-tiered PR approach to maximize resources and target top-tier relationships
  • Search engine marketing analysis and recommendations across multiple campaigns, including natural search and pay-per-click reporting metrics
  • Recommendations for co-marketing with Oracle Retail to increase leads and become an aligned partner on events and news opportunities

Results:

• Communications Brain used as messaging guide for primary company and product communication
• Consistency and efficiency gains by using Brain vs. reinventing messaging with each new activity
• Scalable and integrated mix of low- and high-cost media investments to generate demand
• Creation of the company mission and vision statements:

• • Mission: ”Starmount solutions bring the richness of the web and the power of mobile to create relevant, engaging store experiences.”
  • Vision: “To transform the in-store shopping experience to make stores relevant and more connected than ever before.”
  • Taglines: “We make shopping sense.” “Don’t just serve your customers. Engage them.”; “Create relevant shopping experiences. Anytime. Anywhere.”; “Software that makes shopping local, mobile, and shared.”

Here are examples of the Starmount “brain” brought to life:

Which event attracts over 3,000 of the world’s brightest engineers, educators, and scientists from around the world each year? Answer: NIWeek – a premier event on graphical system design organized by National Instruments.

TREW clients Alfamation and Cyth Systems participated throughout NIWeek, from the keynotes to technical sessions and the exhibit floor. TREW Marketing put our events and PR hats on to help with the wide breadth of marketing planning and execution at the show.

Alfamation

A key event of Alfamation’s 12–month marketing plan, developed by TREW Marketing, was planning and executing participation at NIWeek and showcasing three new product launches:

• SuperNova – a Test Development Software for NI TestStand
• FlexMedia VA-01 – a PXI-based high-speed LVDS HD Video BER Analysis module
• FlexMedia AM-01 – a PXI-based  automotive infotainment test module

Alfamation logo designed by TREW Marketing

TREW created technical product brochures and flyers for Alfamation’s products – SuperNova, FlexMedia VA-01, VG-01 and FlexMedia AM-01.

With years of trade show experience, we planned and executed the trade show marketing, from designing and producing Alfamation’s booth to developing the promotion strategy for driving traffic to the booth – one of them being iPad give aways for the NI sales force and NIWeek participants. Members of the TREW Crew helped staff the booth and bring energy and excitement to encourage attendees to stop in.

Alfamation and the TREW Crew also enjoyed showcasing the new products during in-person meetings with editors from some leading trade magazines -ECN Magazine, Photonics Spectra, Electronic Products, Desktop Engineering, and Evaluation Engineering.

Alfamation engineers leading product demonstrations in the booth at NIWeek

The Alfamation and TREW team effort paid off, with total leads exceeding set goals, new sales opportunities identified, and productive meetings with top-tier press throughout the week.

Cyth Systems

Cyth Systems had some very big news to share at NIWeek, and hired TREW Marketing to help. With a short time to build and execute the strategy, TREW worked with Cyth to position and launch their new product Circaflex – a low-cost, ready-to-use embedded control system for Life Sciences applications, such as bioprocess, biomedical, and biotech. The product was strategically launched around NIWeek so that Circaflex could be positioned at NIWeek and presented to key partners and customers.

TREW Marketing created various collateral elements for the product launch:

• 1-Pager for parnter sales force on how Cyth’s domain expertise can be leveraged in product marketing
• One page flyer detailing product features, key applications, and benefits
• Presentation slides to succinctly introduce Circaflex for to customers, partners, and press

Cyth Systems Circaflex Product Flyer

TREW also implemented various PR activities for Cyth such as improving web visibility and SEO, and pitching targeted in-person press meetings.

Leading trade magazines Cyth Systems’ met with during NIWeek to share more about their new Circaflex embedded controller.

Some other marketing activities that TREW executed for Cyth were:

• Developed a compelling customer testimonial for use in booth, online, and in parnter sales and marketing meetings
• Wrote and distributed Circaflex product launch press release
• Worked with NI to add Circaflex to 3^rd party partner website

Cyth and Alfamation Announcements Featured on ni.com

In addition to developing and executing the marketing plans for its customers, TREW was directly represented at NIWeek by co-founders Rebecca Geier and Wendy Covey, who presented the 5 Most Important Marketing Investments to an audience comprising small to medium-sized engineering product and service companies globally. The 5 investments highlighted during the presentation were – Website, Content and Collateral, Search Engine Marketing, Co-Partnering, and e-newsletters.  Read more about this presentation at the Building Stronger Partners blog, published by Jack Barber, NI Alliance Program Manager.

As the fall trade show season approaches, contact TREW Marketing to discuss how we might help your organization develop and execute a targeted product launch and trade show strategy.

This article will appear in the next issue of Greenlights for Nonprofit Success e-newsletter, Power Steering.

Are you considering hiring an intern to help with marketing projects?  When you have a lean staff, interns can help fill the void, bringing creativity and a fresh perspective to your organization.  They can also be a huge time investment and distraction, depending upon how you’ve structured their work.

Here are a few best practices pulled together from our experience at TREW Marketing:

1. Recruit and hire as you would a full-time employee.  Conduct a formal interview, ask probing questions, and as you make your hiring decision, think to yourself, “would I hire this person as a full-time employee someday?”

2.  Set clear expectations of the internship.  This includes compensation, duration, work hours, work location, and attire.  Given that this may be the intern’s first professional job, be as specific as possible.

3.  Pay your interns.  Ok, I’ll admit that I’ve heard of several free intern situations that worked out just fine. In the past I’ve paid interns, which I believe in turn helped set clear expectations of professionalism expected. We have given raises for returning interns, as they were more valuable to us and it was a nice reward for their past good work and loyalty.

4. Define a project(s) for the intern that are hands-on with a well-defined scope where they can work autonomously (see #6 for more ideas on ideal projects).

5. Make sure the project has a defined timeline with a clear start and end date.

6. Pick the right project.  Try to find projects that are important to the organization but you may just not be able to get to them; also try to find projects that will not be detrimental to the organization if they blow up – examples include competitive analysis, technology recommendations (social media for instance), new collateral or content development, media or event research, etc.

7. Assign a mentor (may be you).  Set up weekly meetings where you provide the structure, but they run.  The intern should come with an agenda, and prepared updates of progress, obstacles they’re facing, and support they need as well as what they’ve learned and are enjoying/not enjoying.

8. Have interns present their work.  Have interns present the findings of their project at the end of their internship – this is really important because they not only learn much by going through the process of developing the presentation and presenting in a professional setting, but their work is then nicely packaged for you.

9.  Conduct a formal performance review.  Depending upon the duration of the internship, perhaps do this twice — in the middle of the internship and at the conclusion.  You can even provide performance review criteria to the intern at the beginning of the internship in order to be very clear about your expectations.

10.  Have some fun!  Be sure to take your intern out to lunch or happy hour with the staff and help them feel like they are part of the group.  Remember how intimidating it can be to start a new job with new people, especially at the very beginning of your career.

We recently attended the 2009 Gala for the Children in support of the Children’s Medical Center Foundation of Central Texas.  Events such as these sometimes struggle to strike the delicate balance between communicating information and raising funds while providing opportunities for fun.  I am pleased to say this wonderfully-executed event struck the balance with excellence, raising over $700,000 for the children.

We began the evening by peeking at the live and silent auction items up for bid.  After imbibing in a few adult beverages and some wonderful appetizers, the program began.  We heard of many firsts and accomplishments of the Medical Center from the past year, including being named the only hospital in the world to be Leed Platinum certified, and watched an incredibly moving video of patient stories.  

We had the opportunity to dine with the nice folks from Austin Suburu who played a significant sponsorship role of the gala and were touched by their commitment to the Children’s Medical Center.

The gala also featured a killer band, casino, and crazy fun photo booth courtesy of Say Cheese.

TREW Marketing Co-Founders Wendy Covey and Rebecca Geier, plus spouse Randy Covey enjoy the Say Cheese photo booth during the gala

Congrats to the Foundation staff for putting together a memorable night for all, and for raising over $700,000 for the children.