December 5, 2022
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Spire Agency

Faithful to the belief that the world around us should be well-designed, Dallas-based Spire Agency elevates B2B brands through strategic brand design that builds bottom lines. The agency helps companies achieve better results faster by developing brand assets that are targeted, innovative, relevant and cost-effective. Spire Agency’s ultimate goal is to elevate their client’s B2B brands, creating positive and memorable interactions between the brand and its audience.


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Spire’s Mike Stopper Extols the Value of the Newsletter
Spire Agency Posted On November 21, 2022


For some, the thought of an email newsletter for B2B marketing might seem outdated. Perhaps it’s because they have seen the tremendous changes in social media marketing, like the use of hashtags, stories, highlights, and live videos. Or maybe they simply see newsletters as promotional and boring, or even a waste of time.

But if we’ve learned anything during the pandemic, it’s the need for strong remote selling tools. At one point, we were not allowed to be face-to-face with customers because of shelter-in-place. And then at another point, prospects began to prefer shopping on their own terms and without contacting sales. So, as you continue planning for the new year, why not plan on integrating a newsletter into your B2B marketing mix to consistently stay in front of customers?

The Spire Wire, our agency newsletter, is an important way in which we keep our own clients, prospects, and employees engaged in our agency. It’s filled with news, stories, events, employee profiles, account wins, B2B stats, white papers, and even our #SpireOnSpotify playlists. For at least one day a month, we know our agency becomes a priority for this group as the newsletter hits their inbox. And we know these stories help drive not only agency awareness, but also traffic to our website.

A newsletter is a digital 1:1 meeting with your consumers. It’s personal and intimate, and professional and effective at the same time. Ignoring the potential of a newsletter, or believing they are “old school,” can restrict B2B brands from growth. A newsletter opens the door with news and updates to help further your reach, generate leads, increase user engagement and increase conversions.

That said, you should approach every newsletter with the explicit intention of providing your audience with immediate value. Ideally, your newsletter will motivate your customers to take some form of action, such as:

  • Read your latest blog post or news story
  • Sign up for an upcoming event
  • Check out a new case study
  • Visit you at a trade show
  • Watch a video
  • Learn more about a new product or service
  • Take part in a prize drawing, giveaway, or offer
  • Buy something from your online store

According to Statista, there are 3.9 billion daily email users, a number expected to climb to 4.3 billion by 2023. What’s even more impressive is that 58% of us start our day by checking email, according to OptinMonster. With 91% of all U.S. consumers still using email daily, newsletters are one of the most efficient ways to put your products in front of your customers.

In fact, according to the Content Marketing Institute, 74% of content marketers say that emails (such as newsletters) are the most successful way of helping their businesses reach their specific conversion goals. They also found that 40% of B2B marketers claim that email newsletters are the most important tactic in their content marketing strategy, and 31% say that sending email newsletters is the best way to nurture leads. And email is 4% better at converting than social media, which is why 4 out of 5 marketers stated they would rather give up social media than email marketing, according to HubSpot.

As with any other email campaign, there are several main email marketing metrics to keep in mind when tracking the success of your newsletter:

  • Open rate
  • Click-through rate
  • Engagement level
  • Bounce rate
  • Unsubscribe rate

For a newsletter to be effective, marketing and sales need to work together on ensuring a steady stream of news and insights. Without it, brands tend to struggle in generating consistent, impactful content. But when done well, there are five benefits that can result from a successful newsletter initiative.

1. Building Relationships

Simply by signing up for a newsletter, a current customer or prospect is giving you permission to communicate with them regularly, provided your information is of value. This is the beginning of an ongoing relationship that will strengthen with time.

“Signing up is a powerful signal of intent to buy. Send them an email until they do.”

– Jordie van Rijn, Online Marketing Consultant

That’s because newsletters provide a great opportunity to connect with your audience and show that you care. In a report by Salesforce, 84% of customers said that being treated like a person, rather than just a number, was an integral factor in winning their business. This goes to show that connecting with your audience on a personal level shouldn’t just be a bonus, but a necessity for growing your business. An easy and effective way to connect with them consistently with valuable information and not just a sales push.

Readers enjoy receiving real, raw thoughts from a brand or business they love. Done right, using newsletters to connect with your customers can ultimately translate to a more loyal and valued customer base.

2. Establishing Credibility

Using your newsletters to curate news updates, industry insights, and thought-leadership pieces can be a great way to engage your subscribers and add interest beyond your brand or business. By including summaries of news stories and linking out to reputable sources, you can instantly offer information that’s compelling, digestible, and relevant in an easy-to-read, bite-sized format.

To put together a must-read newsletter that captivates your customers every time, make sure you’re creating or curating content that’s relevant to them. Whether it be through instructional content or how-to articles that help them accomplish a goal, listicles that provide them with a collection of tips, trends, or products, or roundups that recap your company’s recent news, accomplishments, or updates, using your newsletter in this way is a great digital marketing tactic to repurpose content that already exists and package it up in a way that’s truly valuable. And done consistently, customers begin to rely on your ongoing content to make them smarter in their business life.

3. Deepening Brand Understanding

Every marketer knows that the key to any successful campaign is a strong and recognizable brand, and a big element of developing a brand is coherent, consistent, and compelling storytelling. Newsletters present the perfect vehicle to share your brand story, add depth to your business, and show your customers who you are and what you stand for. By revealing little snippets about what your brand is all about, what goes on behind the scenes, where you came from and how you came to be, your audience will stop seeing your business as a faceless entity and start paying attention to the real people involved.

“Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind.”

– Walter Landor, Designer and Online Marketing Pioneer

Instead of using your newsletter to push products (you can use targeted ecommerce emails for that), try sharing inspiring customer stories and testimonials, mini profiles on your employees, words of wisdom from your founders or company executives, or even infographics showing business impact. Readers will enjoy the fact that your newsletter is more than just an advertisement for products. And the more they get to know who you really are, the more their loyalty to your business will grow.

4. Sharing of Knowledge

As stated before, one of the best things about newsletters is that they help brands stay in front of customers. But they can also help sales stay in front of customers.

The news, insights, stats, and information found in newsletters all become things your sales force can post on LinkedIn and other business platforms. Sharing these articles with the leads keeps a salesperson top-of-mind with the customer base, but without being too salesy.

More than half (55%) of decision-makers on LinkedIn use thought leadership to determine which organization to work with. What’s more, 20% of investors say that it’s the best platform when you want to learn about a topic. The content of your newsletter becomes a vessel for the sales team to bolster that thought leadership among decision-makers.

5. Generating Sales

We’ve all heard of the 80/20 rule. But for B2B, it’s more of the 95/5 rule, which shows that 95% of your potential buyers aren’t ready to buy today. These 95% are “out-market” today, but will be “in-market” sometime in the future. A newsletter helps you fill that 95% gap, and helps close that 5% sales opportunity.

According to Pagely, emails are said to prompt three times more purchases than social media posts, with their average order value also being 17% higher. A study by Campaign Monitor found that for every $1 that businesses spend on email campaigns, they can potentially see $44 in return. That’s why 80% of professionals say they continue using email marketing because it grows both customer acquisition and retention, according to Insider Intelligence and eMarketer.

“Never forget social media is for reach but email is for revenue.”

– Bryan Eisenberg, Marketing Author

So, how do you get started on publishing your first newsletter in the new year? Many major CRMs (HubSpot, Constant Contact, Mailchimp, and Emma, for example) have pre-made templates to get you started on creating a professional-looking newsletter, no matter what industry or niche you’re targeting. Now all you need is the content and a database of customers. Start with a few stories and perhaps a stat or two in your first newsletter and build from there. Once you have a mindset of finding stories, the content becomes easier to generate and your newsletter becomes even more effective.

Before the ball drops, don’t drop the ball on implementing an effective newsletter program. Newsletters have evolved to be a crucial tactic in a successful B2B marketing plan, and when executed well, they can truly increase your brand presence and boost your sales. As your business weighs which channels to utilize in the new year, we hope we’ve made the case to include newsletters as part of your marketing strategy.

And to stay up to date on Spire news, awards, and blog posts, don’t forget to subscribe to our Spire Wire newsletter.

Mike Stopper is Executive Vice President of Client Service and Planning at Spire and AAF Dallas’ most-awarded account director for the last eight years.

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Maxwell Page Group Selects Spire as Its New Marketing Partner.
Spire Agency Posted On November 5, 2022


Maxwell Page Group, a joint venture between iMax Healthcare Group and Page Healthcare Development, has selected Dallas B2B branding agency Spire as its new marketing partner.

The Georgia-based firm was founded by Dr. Clyde Maxwell and Greg Page with the intent to develop, plan, build, and operate world-class facilities that support the cognitive health and overall wellness in America’s most vulnerable areas.

From healthcare services to healthy food, access is what plagues the poorest communities. Maxwell Page Group exists to create access to services that will ultimately bridge the gap of social determinants of health in underserved communities, offering services such as pediatric health, childcare, and dentistry to podiatry, nutritional health, pharmacy, and family counseling.

“My overall goal is to be able to provide those services that I always sought after growing up,” says Greg Page, Co-Founder of Maxwell Page Group and Founder and CEO of Page Healthcare. “Spire’s expertise in business-to-business creative design and writing will allow us to approach investors and turn our vision of creating access to healthcare in underserved communities into a reality.”

Spire is the most-awarded B2B agency across Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Arkansas, and is one of the most-awarded B2B agencies in the country. The 2022 Marketer of the Year from the D/FW Chapter of the American Marketing Association is also a Gold Verified agency on Clutch, making the Clutch 1000 global list of Best B2B Agencies in the World.

The agency’s work for Maxwell Page Group will begin with creating an investor presentation deck, with more projects to come.

“We’re excited to work with a company with such a noble mission,” says Steve Gray, Partner at Spire. “We look forward to partnering with them as they continue to source investors to fund the first few medical facilities.”

Spire was founded in 2005 and works with notable clients, including TrinityRail, Morris & Dickson, Customized Communications, Halff, and State Bank of Texas.

To stay up to date on Spire news, awards, and blog posts, subscribe to our Spire Wire newsletter.


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Is Your Brand Socially Awkward? Spire’s Mike Stopper Offers 10 Signs It May Be
Spire Agency Posted On August 22, 2022


To me, one of the best things about social media is the opportunity to be in front of customers each and every day. By following you, they are literally giving you permission to consistently interact with them and provide another page in your brand story.

But for many B2B brands, their social media program is underdeveloped and even, shall we say, socially awkward. For the most part, it’s lack of experience with the media—not just by marketing, but perhaps by the whole organization—where the problem starts. And that lack of understanding turns into lack of commitment. And lack of commitment becomes complacency.

So the question is, how committed is your B2B brand to social marketing? It’s easy to find many B2C brands who truly embrace the power of social media. But it seems to drop off significantly when looking at B2B. Why is that?

“Social media is just a buzzword until you come up with a plan.”

— Felicia Lin, Taiwanese American Writer

Social media is actually the #2 most successful tactic for B2B marketers behind only SEO, according to Sprout Social. And Datareportal found users spend an average of nearly 2½ hours using social media each day. So done right, social media can be an incredibly effective B2B marketer too.

Another thing that’s great about social media is that it can be activated quicker than most any other forms of advertising. As we bring brands into the agency, social media is often one of the first things we implement for a brand refresh or rollout.

Knowing how to use social media is not the same thing as knowing how to use social media as a marketing tool for your business. So, what are some signs that there may be some awkward tendencies in a B2B brand’s social media? Here are 10 things that instantly tell us that a brand is in need of some serious social love.

1.   No engagement

Our first step is to look at the engagement a B2B brand is receiving in relation to its total number of followers. So, what is engagement? Social media engagement is the measure of comments, likes, and shares received as a result of your posting. Quite literally, it is your audience telling you what they think, or don’t think, about your content. It’s shocking how often we see B2B brands with tens of thousands of followers, yet engagement you can count on one hand. Equally shocking is how long the trend has likely been occurring, and yet no one sounded the alarm that there might be an opportunity for improvement.

All brands want to rack up a ton of followers. But ultimately, the greatest measure of social media success is an engaged audience, not just a big one. Engagement is proof that you’re building a positive brand experience, and developing meaningful relationships with new and potential future customers. And as a B2B marketer, you can’t really say you know your customers if you’re not getting the affirmation of their engagement.

“A lot of people use social media to share mundane things or for self-glorification. I try to use it to share interesting things with people.”

— Ashton Kutcher, Actor and Entrepreneur

2.   Inconsistent posting

When it comes to content, it’s quality, not just quantity, that you should be striving for. But there still needs to be some level of quantity to posting. It’s not unusual to see a B2B brand post, then several weeks or even months pass before their next post. It’s a clear sign that the brand is not working with a content calendar that is planned out in advance. And it’s also a sign that no one in marketing is truly owning, or at least prioritizing, social media.

A content calendar for the month should really be planned at least 30 days in advance so you can get a holistic view of how individual posts interact with other content. It also ensures you have a drumbeat of content to keep followers engaged with the brand.

According to HubSpot’s State of Marketing 2022, out of 3,400 marketers surveyed, the majority of them post between one and six times per week. As we introduce B2B brands to social media, we start with consistently posting at least two times per week with quality content and then growing from there.

3.   One-dimensional content

When you think about your friends, those who you are closest to are generally those who you have lots of things in common with. And those who only talk about themselves are those you typically become less and less friendly with. The same can be said for brands. Without a mindset focused on customer engagement, it’s easy for B2B brands to create content that’s all about them. The idea is to develop several channels of content that speak with your customer rationally and emotionally. After all, Sprout Social found that 45% of customers unfollow a brand because of irrelevant content.

4.   Wrong brand voice

Brand voice is the distinct personality a brand takes on in its communications. The tone for social media can definitely have more of a customer relations vibe than a print ad might. In essence, it can sound more human. But it should still be professional and align with your overall brand voice. We unfortunately find that with many B2B brands, social media takes on an entirely different voice, one that tends to be far younger and less sophisticated than what the brand portrays in its other marketing communications. On the other hand, it can also be robotic or confusing because of non-marketing influences within an organization (ahem … legal).

The strongest brands are those that have the most consistency from touchpoint to touchpoint. So ensure the voice is consistent across all channels.

5.   Too wordy

Albert Einstein once said, “If you can’t explain it, you don’t understand it well enough.” Social posts that are too long are generally the result of lack of understanding, and the inability to be single-minded. When social content is too long, you alienate a great portion of your followers right off the bat.

So edit thyself. Posts should be short and sweet, as shorter posts receive more engagement. In fact, Facebook posts with 80 characters or less receive 88% more engagement. Recommended character counts for Facebook are between 30 and 80 characters, Twitter is 71 to 100, LinkedIn 50 to 100, and Instagram 138 to 150. As our general rule of thumb, we try to limit content to one sentence, or two at the most, if edited down.

6.   Liking your own posts

Engagement should come from your customers and employees, not you. An obvious sign that a brand is struggling with engagement is when the marketing manager in charge of social is the first—and sometimes the only—person to like the post. And worse than that is when the social media manager does not realize they are, in fact, liking the post as the brand, not themselves. There’s nothing funnier, or more uncomfortable, than seeing your feed read, “Spire Agency likes a post from Spire Agency.” In both circumstances, it comes across to a follower that you are patting yourself on the back. It also signifies there is not enough of a follower base to create the real engagement your brand needs.

7.   Not measuring or monitoring

Social media is magical for marketers because of the real-time analytics. We’re able to learn tons about our B2B buyers by looking at insights like engagement numbers, demographics, and interest categories. But when we ask questions about the numbers, it seems many B2B marketers are not looking at the data at all. Having a social content calendar is nice. But measuring and evaluating the effectiveness of that content is the big “a-ha!” that social media brings to the marketing mix.

As mentioned earlier, you have to recognize that when you are receiving little engagement, there is a problem. Looking at each post and seeing what performs best (and what underperforms) is all a part of learning your customer. So brands must have a monthly recap report that looks at the effectiveness of their content and spend.

But don’t forget to look at your competition, too. As we do an initial social media evaluation for a brand, we look at followers and engagement of competitors and how it stacks up to our brand. There is nothing more terrifying for a brand manager than when we show them how a competitor is schooling them in engagement. But there is also nothing more optimistic than showing them that their competitors are not much better, and with a stronger social strategy from Spire they can truly own their industry’s social space.

“The social media landscape changes incredibly fast, so you have to be open-minded and nimble to keep up with it.”

— Alexis Ohanian, Reddit Co-Founder

8.   Not spending

For the longest time, brands fell in love with social media because they saw it as “free advertising.” And while organic social, meaning unpaid content, has its place, the truth is that social media is paid media. It’s no secret that most social platforms operate on a pay-to-play model for brands.

Without boosting content, you simply will not have enough eyeballs on your content. And without viewers, you should not expect to have any type of sizeable engagement. Hootsuite found that the average reach of an organic post on a Facebook Page hovers around 5.20%. That means roughly one in every 19 fans sees the page’s non-promoted content. In our agency experience, that number is actually quite a bit less.

It’s sometimes quite depressing to see just how few people see a B2B brand’s posts. And it’s even more heartbreaking when we present these facts to a new client. Without a boosted-ad budget, and a follower campaign soon after, you simply cannot make social media effective for your brand fast enough.

9.   Single platform

In assessing brands, we look at their activity across all social platforms. It’s not uncommon to see a B2B brand only utilizing one or two social platforms. When asked why they alienate the others, the answer is oftentimes, “We like to focus on these few exclusively.” The problem is, we don’t hear the word “customer” in that answer.

It sounds strange, but buyers are humans as well. They have a work life, as well as a personal life. And they use an average of 6.6 different social media platforms each month according to Datareportal. As B2B brands, we don’t know what social platform our customers are using when we post our content. So ensure your content is spread among multiple platforms to intersect with buyers where they are, not where you hope they’ll be. The process of elimination may eliminate a sale. That’s why we lean into Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram as a starting point for all our B2B brands.

10.   Exclamation marks

When it comes to B2B voice, our team functions under the social directive of “You get one exclamation mark a month … and it’s only in case of emergency.” An excessive use of exclamation marks generally signifies discomfort in writing by the content creator. They either don’t have anything impactful to say so they fill it with exclamation marks, or they don’t understand the brand voice. This simple punctuation mark generally symbolizes unbridled enthusiasm or just plain yelling. B2B brands should not be either.

Social media has been around since 1997. But even after 25 years of it, we’re all still learning every day. So, while algorithms and back-end measurement seem to change weekly with Facebook and others, you’ll want to ensure the foundational part of your social media program is working the best it can, so your brand isn’t the one in your industry that’s socially awkward.

Mike Stopper is Executive Vice President of Client Service and Planning at Spire. In addition to being an award-winning social marketer, he is also AAF Dallas’ most-awarded account director for the last eight years.

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Spire Begins Work with Slack Davis Sanger
Spire Agency Posted On August 15, 2022


Slack Davis Sanger, your Texas personal injury lawyers, has selected Dallas business-to-business (B2B) branding agency Spire as its new marketing partner.

The Texas-based firm was founded in 1993 by Michael L. Slack, Mike Davis, and the late Tom H. Davis, and today is a national leader in aviation accidents. With offices in Austin, Dallas, and Fort Worth, the firm has handled and tried cases in 39 states, and offers services in a variety of practice areas, including aviation, automobile and worksite accidents, as well as medical malpractice, class action, and whistleblower. The firm and its attorneys have been recognized as US News & World Report® Best Law Firms, The Best Lawyers in America®, and Thomas Reuters Super Lawyers®, among others.

“Bringing justice for our clients and their families experiencing life-changing events is our firm’s top priority,” says Mike Slack, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Slack Davis Sanger. “Spire’s experience and award-winning creativity will help position our firm for growth over our next 29 years.”

Spire is the most-awarded B2B agency across Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Arkansas, and one of the most-awarded B2B agencies in the country. Awarded 2022 Marketer of the Year from the D/FW Chapter of the American Marketing Association, Spire is also a Gold Verified agency on Clutch, making the Clutch 1000 global list of Best B2B Agencies in the World.

The agency’s work for Slack Davis Sanger will begin with creating and managing the firm’s 18th Annual Fall Event materials, with more projects to come.

“We’re excited to work with such a reputable and community-involved firm as Slack Davis Sanger,” says Kimberly Tyner, Partner and Chief Creative Officer at Spire. “We look forward to partnering with them as they continue to add more offices and new practice areas.”

Spire was founded in 2005 and works with notable clients, including TrinityRail, Morris & Dickson, Customized Communications, Halff, and State Bank of Texas.

To stay up to date on Spire news, awards, and blog posts, subscribe to our newsletter.


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Spire’s Julia Cardali Offers Brands 5 Steps for a Successful Brand Launch
Spire Agency Posted On July 18, 2022


At Spire Agency, we’re big on building, refreshing, and elevating B2B brands—in strategy, messaging, design, and marketing. And while many think the buck—and the budget—stops there, the Spire team rolls up their branded The North Face® quarter-zip sleeves and says, “We’re just getting started.” It’s one thing to build a brand and it’s another thing entirely to launch the new brand in-market, which is no simple feat. Luckily, Spire is here to help the “many” understand the importance of a proper brand launch and guide you through the process.

Step 1: Establish a Comprehensive Budget

Since budget is always top of mind for marketing managers and executives, it should be noted that the deployment of the new or refreshed brand is equally as important as the re-brand itself. As such, if companies are willing to invest in rejuvenating their brand, they must also be willing to invest in the proper launch of the brand. Otherwise, the former is not only a waste of dollars but can cause confusion in the market, which has the potential to lead to customer dissatisfaction and thus decreased revenue.

“Brand marketing improves not only the brand but other components as well, such as the return on marketing investment (ROMI) on performance marketing, customer advocacy, and even employee satisfaction. The bottom line: B2B companies that underinvest in brand marketing are literally selling themselves short.”

— Boston Consulting Group

B2B companies typically spend 5% of revenue on marketing annually. With this in mind, a brand refresh could cost anywhere between 10% to 20% of the overall budget, ranging anywhere from $100,000 to $300,000 and beyond, depending on each brand’s specific needs. Based on the sheer number and volume of assets that need to be developed / updated and rolled out in a brand launch, this range shouldn’t be a surprise.

Yes, it’s true, a brand refresh and proper launch are not inexpensive feats, but it is incredibly important to get them right. It would be a shame for a newly flipped brand’s entrance into the market to flop due to a lackluster launch execution, and vice versa. That’s why it is important to factor the proper launch of the brand into the overall refresh budget from the beginning.

Step 2: Set a Realistic Timeline

Given the plethora of components that need to be considered and updated amid refreshing an entire brand (or creating a new brand), it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the process. To further complicate things, each element of a brand refresh—from social media channels to sales collateral to an entire website—requires its own unique production process and timeline. That’s why it is crucial to put together a plan before embarking on such a multi-faceted endeavor.

“If You Fail to Plan, You Are Planning to Fail.”

— Benjamin Franklin

In developing a brand refresh plan, it is important to consider the order and cadence of the plan’s tactics and deadlines. For instance, you can’t get started on a logo until the brand name is established. And even if the brand name will remain the same, as another example, you can’t get started on designing a brochure until core messaging, tone, and color palette are established. Keeping all these specific project complexities and various lead times in mind is critical when establishing a plan.

At the same time, you need to be cognizant of the preferred launch date and ensure that all project deadlines are backed out from that date. Speaking of launch date, it is best to be realistic when choosing launch timing.

Brand and/or product names can take weeks to months for legal review and registration; messaging may involve interviews with busy stakeholders or traveling executives and takes time to craft; and website content development, design, and programming alone can take anywhere from six months to one year to complete, depending on the size and complexity of the site. Given the large investment and importance of getting the moving targets aligned prior to launch, this is not a process that should be rushed.

Step 3: Determine Your Initial Touchpoints

Each brand is unique and has different needs. However, there are elements that are more or less required as a first step towards a successful external brand rollout, including:

  • Name
  • Logo
  • Website
  • Brand Positioning & Strategic Messaging
  • Collateral & Sales Enablement Tools
  • Business System
  • Social Profiles & Email Signatures

Depending on how experiential you want the launch to be, there are further tactics and initiatives that you may want to consider. This is hardly an exhaustive list, but consider how you can scale your new brand or refresh your old one with:

  • Name
  • Trade Show Booth
  • Customer Notification (may include gift item, personal phone call, email, etc.)
  • Swag
  • Company Automobiles, Uniforms, Office or Storefront, etc. (if applicable)
  • Press Release and/or PR Event
  • New Brand Awareness Campaign
  • Paid Search
  • Etc.

This list goes on and on, and, again, is different for every company, depending on its specific needs, budget, and goals.

Step 4: Create a Meaningful Employee Rollout

The only thing more critical than the external brand launch is the internal brand launch. And yet, somehow, this crucial rollout step is so often missed and/or undervalued by companies. So, you might be asking yourself, what makes the internal launch so important?

First, employees are stewards of brand—both inward, to each other, as well as outward, to the world (including customers, prospects, and potential future employees). So, it’s critical that they are not just made aware of the shift in brand, but that they understand it, connect with it, and embrace it. According to the Harvard Business Review, “…when employees live [the] vision, customers are much more likely to experience the company in a way that’s consistent with what you’ve promised.” If employees are empowered to live the brand, passion and loyalty will shine through.

“When employees live [the] vision, customers are much more likely to experience the company in a way that’s consistent with what you’ve promised.”

— Harvard Business Review

With the great power of the internal brand rollout comes great responsibility. It takes time for a brand to come together from soup to nuts. During that time, only the core marketing team should be aware of the goings on, and more importantly, involved in decision-making for the new brand. It is vital that the efforts are not dribbled out (this is still not a drip campaign, people) so that surprise and excitement are maximized around the finished, unified product.

Take our client ACAP Health, for example. Spire worked closely with the client’s core marketing team for over a year on all of the necessary branding and asset updates, which culminated in an internal launch event for employees. During the event, employees were anxiously awaiting the tearing down of brown paper covers to reveal their newly updated office space.

Smiling employees excitedly entered their newly re-branded work-home.

Once inside of the space, the Chief Experience Officer of the company revealed the lobby area as well as some key components of the new brand, including the manifesto, visuals, website renderings, etc.

To learn more about ACAP Health’s brand refresh and rollout, view the work page.

Elements of a successful internal brand rollout include:

  • Environmental Branding
  • Employee Gift Box (may include new business cards, branded swag, etc.)
  • Delivery of Core Brand Assets (e.g., brand standards guide, strategic messaging, etc.)
  • Timely Shift of Website
  • Internal Launch Event (may include speech from leadership and/or marketing team: a fireside chat describing the new brand story, unveiling of internal branding, sharing branded treats, etc.)

Step 5: Involve Your Customers

There are many people that need to be made aware of a shift in brand when the time comes. It goes without saying that external brand rollout to customers, prospects, and stakeholders/investors is imperative. When planning how to notify such key audiences, it is important to consider that they may be reached best through different channels. For instance, you may be inclined to send high-value customers a custom, more high-end gift item, whereas you may not want to spend that kind of investment on a smaller customer. Or you may want the sales team to personally call each of their customer contacts as part of the notification strategy, whereas you may not want or need to spend the time calling prospects.

No matter how you go about notifying these key external audiences, take advantage of this worthy reason to reach out to these folks. It’s a chance to continue or begin a conversation. Let them know who the new company is, what has changed, why the change, when it will (or recently has) come into effect, etc. With that, you’ll also want to ensure that the external audience’s transition to the new brand is seamless. It should seem as though a flip was switched overnight versus elements of the brand getting dribbled out over time (this is not a drip campaign).

Even with the new brand rolled out externally, the work is not yet done. Although you’ll want to eliminate all instances of your old brand to mitigate any confusion in the marketplace, a transitional period is necessary to ensure customers and prospects can still bridge the connection from old to new. Within this transitional period, prominent pieces (e.g., website pop-up, email, direct mail, etc.) should have co-branded logos for six months to a year. That way you’re leveraging the credibility of the old brand while driving awareness of the new brand.

A consistent, positive customer experience is a main driver of building trust and loyalty. In fact, a study that surveyed over 200 organizations found that consistent presentation of a brand has been seen to increase revenue by 33%. In a world where it takes five to seven impressions just for people to remember your brand, companies ought to ensure that those impressions are consistent.

While there are ideas to execute and steps to plan for and budgets to consider, no business is alone when they come on board with Spire. As an award-winning B2B branding agency, Spire is here to facilitate all steps in the process to ensure your brand execution and deployment are flawless.

For more tips and marketing insight and to stay up to date on Spire news, awards, and blog posts, subscribe to our newsletter.

Julia Cardali is an Account Supervisor at Spire Agency.

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Advertising  / AMA DFW
Spire Named Marketer of the Year by DFW AMA
Spire Agency Posted On June 21, 2022


Spire Agency, one of the country’s most-awarded business-to-business branding agencies, was recently named Marketer of the Year by the DFW chapter of the American Marketing Association. The in-person show was held June 16 at the Venue Forty|50 in Addison, and Spire was the night’s big winner with three different awards for marketing excellence.

The “Be Certain with Cervey” campaign, for pharmaceutical software provider Cervey, won the award for Best Healthcare Marketing. Cervey has been a client since 2020, but the company’s launch efforts were withheld until 2021 due to COVID-19.

Additionally, Spire’s self-promotion piece “B2BBQ” received the award for Best Direct Mail Marketing. The custom barbecue bottles and mailer have already received accolades from AAF Dallas, Hermes Creative Awards, AAF District 10 and the national American Advertising Awards.

Each entry required a case study of at least six pages long that outlined the marketing challenge, objectives, actions taken, creative work, results, and supporting documentation. Submissions were judged by a panel of 18 marketing executives, such as VPs of marketing, professors, and chief marketing officers. Winners are chosen based on a combination of strategy, creative, and measurable results.

“The Marketer of the Year ceremony is the crowning event of our chapter’s annual calendar.”

— Brad McCormick, President Emeritus, DFW American Marketing Association

The Marketer of the Year is awarded to the submission that received the highest overall score of all entries. The “Be Certain with Cervey” campaign integrated research, digital media, website, social media, content marketing, and event marketing, and resulted in a record year for the brand.

At the event, AMA DFW President Angela Neal read aloud several of the judges’ comments about the Spire campaign. One judge said: “Great identification of customer’s needs, especially during uncertain times. Effective use of tools and powerful strategy centered around bringing awareness and presence of the client in the market. Outstanding results are a testament to the effectiveness of the vision, marketing strategy, and execution.”

“The Marketer of the Year award is a unique award because it accounts for strategy, creative, and results,” said Mike Stopper, EVP of Client Service and Planning at Spire. “Being named marketer of the year for all of North Texas is an enormous honor and a testament to our amazing clients at Cervey.”

In 2021, Spire was the recipient of two awards from the DFW AMA. The first award was for Best B2B Branding for Avantax. And the second was the inaugural Best Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Marketing award for its work for the Global Semiconductor Alliance.

The American Marketing Association has 30,000 members from 76 professional chapters and 250 collegiate chapters across the U.S. The AMA was formed in 1937 with the merging of two predecessors—the National Association of Marketing Teachers and the American Marketing Society. The mission of the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter is to educate, support, and enhance the performance of its members and marketing professionals in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.


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Advertising  / Awards
Spire Wins Three District ADDYs
Spire Agency Posted On May 1, 2022


The district level competition of the American Advertising Awards is in the books, and Spire, Texas’ most-awarded B2B agency, has garnered three prestigious ADDY awards.

The Tenth District of the American Advertising Federation (AAF) includes local chapters from Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas. The district competition comprised all Gold and Silver awards from the 14 local chapter competitions held in February and March.

AAF Dallas had 22 agencies recognized with 34 total awards at the AAF District 10 competition. Spire was the recipient of three of those awards: a Gold for 3D Direct Mail, a Gold for a B2B website, and a Silver for Direct Marketing and Specialty Advertising.

With two Golds and one Silver, Spire will have more entries advancing to the national competition than any other agency in Dallas. The district show is the second step in a three-tiered competition that culminates into the national American Advertising Awards this June in Nashville. It is our industry’s largest creative competition with over 35,000 professional and student entries each year from 15 different districts across the United States.

“Imagination has a great deal to do with winning.”

—Mike Krzyzewski, Duke Basketball Coach

“It is an honor representing Dallas advertising at the national level,” said Kimberly Tyner. “It’s a testament to the exceptionally high level of strategy and creativity that Spire is able to bring to B2B clients.”

The three District 10 awards continue the strong, nine-award showing Spire made at the local show in February.

The American Advertising Federation (AAF), headquartered in Washington, D.C., the “unifying voice” of the 40,000 professionals in our nation’s advertising industry and the oldest national advertising trade association in the United States. The AAF also has 15 district operations, 200 local federations, and more than 200 AAF college chapters, with over 6,500 student members.

To stay up to date on agency news, awards, and blog posts, subscribe to our Spire Wire newsletter.”


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Advertising
Spire Begins New Social Feature Called “Spire Inspired”
Spire Agency Posted On April 28, 2022


At Spire, it’s more than just elevating B2B brands and award-winning work that makes our agency special. It’s the culture that makes our shop one-of-a-kind. And we’re not just talking about golf outings, Spotify playlists, horse races and poker nights, though we do all of those. Company culture is really about the shared values, attributes, and characteristics of an organization. And ours is welcoming, inclusive, celebratory, award-winning, and embraces continual improvement.

Unfortunately, it has become hard to tell if companies today care more about people or just profits. And is their purpose focused on improving the world or simply improving the bottom line?

Spire stresses from our initial interview process that being a cultural fit is just as important as your accolades and resume. We’re a culture of motivated doers who care about each other, people who laugh together and celebrate the special moments in life—inside and outside the office. Most importantly, we’re a team that respects each other’s differences and embraces them.

“I believe that as a nation, and a world of beautiful minds, we should show each other respect, give one another the space for free thinking, and treat everyone with empathy.”

—Tyler Fonville, Spire Graphic Designer

Working in the advertising industry, it’s our job to tap into our targets’ hearts and minds, and be experts in their wants, needs, and even pain points. B2B research firm SiriusDecisions found that 80% of purchasing decisions are based on the buyers’ experience with the brand, only 20% is based on price or the actual offering. That’s why emotion is so important in connecting with people—in the B2B world and the world at large.

Through our various internal Slack channels, we often post about things that inspire, astound, and move us. So we thought we might bring some of that emotion to life through a new Instagram Stories feature called Spire Inspired. A recent Gartner study found that 56% of employees said COVID made them want to contribute more to society. We couldn’t agree more.

The idea is to spotlight inspirational people, both today and from the past, who bring a unique perspective to the world. They will represent racial, cultural, age, gender, sexual orientation, and disability diversity. In the first couple of months, our plan is to focus on Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Diversity Month, and Deaf History Month.

“We must not only learn to tolerate our differences. We must welcome them as the richness and diversity which can lead to true intelligence.”

—Albert Einstein

Celebrating different cultures in this way is not only meant to educate our followers, but also to broaden our own perspectives of the different cultures that inspire our work every day. Spire is powered by diverse voices and minds that enter every brainstorm session, lead every business pitch, and touch every piece of content produced. Culture and diversity are something that we not only want to celebrate inside of our agency walls, but also something that can celebrate with the rest of the world.

Younger generations are highlighting the importance of diversity in their places of work, with 85% of millennial females saying they heavily considered prospective employers’ policies on diversity, equality, and inclusion before accepting a job, according to PWC. And a recent *Forbes *article discussed how having diversity in the workplace make employees more innovative, creative, happier, and even more productive. Having a diverse environment not only benefits a business but is also likely to attract the best talent out there.

Spire Inspired is a small way we can become informed while promoting positivity and change in the world. As an agency and as individuals, we should always be looking for new ways to grow.  How do we grow our business as an agency? How do we grow as a team? And most importantly, how do we grow as people? Being informed and open-minded helps open up the imagination, and that’s when great things happen.

Follow us on Instagram to be part of the Spire Inspired feature.

Caitlyn Pobee is a Senior Account Executive at Spire – Texas’ most-awarded B2B branding agency. And to stay up to date on agency news, awards, and blog posts, subscribe to our Spire Wire newsletter.


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Advertising
Spire’s Ashley Morales | Playing the Long Game During Challenging Economic Times
Spire Agency Posted On March 17, 2022


The ebb and flow of the world’s economy is constantly challenging B2B organizations to adapt to the current state of the market and plan budgets accordingly. When consumer demand and sales revenue begin to decline, B2B organizations historically make the same ill-advised decision we see in B2C companies: severely slashing or even eliminating their branding and marketing investment entirely.

This knee-jerk reaction tends to address near-term financial challenges, but in turn creates an even bigger long-term problem: loss of market share, customers, and enterprise value. Additionally, this creates a large void in the market for opportunity-minded competitors who wisely choose to play the long game. These nimbler competitors benefit greatly by using these times as an opportunity to bolster their own B2B brand in the market.

B2B businesses must keep in mind that in order to grow your audience, you must expand your reach, even during challenging economic times. Reminding your existing client base of your strong industry presence and finding new prospects to meet your brand, learn about your product, and make buying decisions is key to maintaining your market presence and demand for quarters and years to come.

If revenue shortfalls are going to be a challenge, compromising the primary drivers of that revenue (your branding and marketing efforts) certainly isn’t the answer. A strong brand will generate enterprise value during times of economic uncertainty while a weak brand will compromise it. Ultimately, B2B buyers are looking to build relationships with brands that they’re proud to work with and that demonstrate long-term commitment to their clients.

“80% of a B2B purchasing decision is based on the buyer’s experience and exposure to the brand they select; only 20% is based on price of the actual offering.” 

— Gartner Insights

Utilizing marketing costs to create effective messaging

An economic downturn offers a chance for businesses to reassess their messaging and positioning to insure they are still connecting with their audiences and their current needs. Spire works with many of its B2B clients through a proprietary positioning pyramid to guide them in their efforts to uniquely distinguish and differentiate their brand in the market. The pyramid is a funnel-like structure starting from the top, exploring concise messaging to introduce the business, and then working its way down to more specific levels of content that resonate with specific audiences.

The pyramid begins with introductory sections that are unwavering in establishing high-level positioning for your brand and differentiating attributes in your industry.

As the positioning pyramid evolves, opportunities exist to craft more targeted audience-specific messaging driven by the needs and areas of concern for those you are targeting. Ultimately, messaging is crafted to incorporate your brand’s enduring attributes, while tailoring to specific audiences and current needs.

Stay true to your core brand attributes, but as economic cycles shift, constantly evolve your message to your audience’s changing needs and areas of focus.

“Successful companies do not abandon their marketing strategies in a recession; they adapt them.”

— John Quelch, Harvard Business School Professor

Figuring out buying behavior

B2B buying behavior is driven by Heuristics as detailed in LinkedIn’s excellent whitepaper, “Brand and Demand.” The Availability Heuristic explains why an audience may choose a service or brand simply because they are consistently seeing their messaging. Similarly, the Affect Heuristic explores how building a bond and trust between the consumer and a brand will lead to consumers using their emotions to choose you over your competitors.

In a slowing economy, truly understanding your market needs and who you’re selling to is essential. It’s no secret that most purchasing decisions, even in the B2B sector, are driven by predisposed emotions about your product or company. In fact, around 90% of purchasing decisions are made purely off the buyer’s emotion.

The best way to understand your buyers is by conducting market research and creating personas. This will give you a better understanding of how your audience reacts to downward trends in the economy and what influences their buying behavior.

“What we forget is that personas not only define who our customers are, but they also serve as a reminder of who is not our customer.”

— Ardath Albee, B2B Marketing Strategist and CEO of Marketing Interaction, Inc.

Your creative team will then have a better understanding of the type of content needed to elicit a productive buying response. Understanding your target audience is the best way to ensure that your messaging is reaching not only your current audience, but any potential buyers, too.

Playing the long game pays off in the end

It’s no secret that a recession or a downturn in the economy causes an immediate reassessment of spending for B2B decision-makers and their consumers. But completely slashing the budget instead of allocating money into more long-term consumer investment campaigns is a large mistake that many B2B companies make.

A key to driving long-term growth and profit for your B2B business is to focus on expanding your reach and generating repeat exposure to your content. The increase in impressions will build brand preference, create long-term memories, and drive positive associations with your brand to influence purchasing decisions.

Highlighting why your product or service is unique and more valuable than your competition will drive unwavering brand loyalty, even during tough times. This will prevent your brand from becoming “out of sight and out of mind” and losing market share.

The emotional ties that a buyer makes with a brand creates brand loyalty that can stand the test of any economic downturn. Therefore, it is so important for companies to continue building relationships with their audience and continue investing in their market presence.

B2B businesses must balance brand awareness for short-term gains that will align with their long-term business goals. Thinking long term with marketing and creating the appropriate message on the relevant platform is the best way to allocate marketing funds during a recession. Cutting marketing spend altogether will cause businesses to lose future clients and fail to retain current clients.

Before you slam on the brakes with your branding and marketing investment, pause and consider the long-term impact of your decision. What is the correct decision to make during uncertain economic times? Stay in the game, inspire your clients, and seize opportunities to grow your brand awareness and revenue opportunities from your competitors that use times like these to only play defense. As Henry Ford once said, “A man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time.”

Ashley Morales is an account coordinator at Spire. To stay up to date on agency news, awards, and blog posts, subscribe to our Spire Wire newsletter.


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Spire’s Mike Stopper Breaks Down Why the Big Game Can Command the Big Bucks
Spire Agency Posted On February 10, 2022


Football is by far the most popular sport in America, but the Super Bowl is next level. Of the top 10 most-watched American television programs of all time, nine of them are now Super Bowl games. The game transcends nationality, race, gender, age, and even the love of sports.

And in the advertising industry, the Super Bowl is as big as it gets. As the game has increased in popularity worldwide, so has the cost and talk-value of our television commercials. Both B2C and B2B companies have invested enormous amounts of media and production dollars to showcase their product or service on the world’s largest stage in the hopes of generating MVP-level buzz.

Apple’s “1984” spot that aired during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII in 1984 is still regarded as the best Super Bowl commercial of all time. But back in 1984, no one could have ever predicted the viewership of today’s Big Game, nor the cost of the commercials.

“The Super Bowl is so fresh that every single commercial is even on, you know, some next-level entertainment.”

—will.I.am, Musician and Producer

An estimated 100 million Americans, and 160 million worldwide, will tune in for Super Bowl LVI as the Rams face the Bengals on Sunday, February 13 from SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. As the popularity of the game has grown, so has the cost of advertising during the game. Commercials for the first Super Bowl in 1967 cost anywhere from $37,500 to $42,500 per spot, according to SuperBowl-Ads.com.

1995 marked the first year that the average cost surpassed $1M when a :30 commercial sold for $1.15M. Fast forward to today: commercials for this year’s Super Bowl on NBC averaged a record $6.5M for a :30 spot, a whopping 18% increase over CBS’ numbers in 2021, and the most expensive in history. Broken down, the cost of a spot this year equates to $216,667 per second. 51% of this year’s Super Bowl commercials are expected to be :30 in length, 21% are :15 and 28% are :60 or longer.

According to Forbes, NBC’s ad sales are projected to top $500M for this year’s Big Game. Even at record rates, their inventory of Super Bowl commercials were 85% sold out by July 2021. With a few last-minute spots still available, NBC allegedly sold some spots for as high as $7.1M before inventory was officially depleted February 3.

Because of the cost, it’s now quite common for Super Bowl advertisers to release teasers of their spots to generate early buzz and social sharing. Here are a few sneak peeks.

Historically, the top three advertising categories for the Super Bowl are Auto Manufacturers, Motion Pictures, and Non-Alcoholic Beverages. The categories with the largest commercial unit growth in this year’s Super Bowl vs. last year’s game are Automotive, Technology, Entertainment, Travel, and Health & Wellness. And there are 30+ new advertisers in this year’s Super Bowl vs. last year’s game, representing about 40% of the total advertisers in the Big Game.

Ad Age has compiled a full list of national advertisers with spots in this year’s Super Bowl. Feeling nostalgic? Vogue has also compiled their picks for the best Super Bowl commercials of all time.

“How many commercials do you have during this year’s Super Bowl?”

—Stopper’s Mom, 1999

So what about B2B advertisers? How active are they on Super Bowl Sunday? Many B2B businesses have made a splash over the years during the Super Bowl. EDS (Electronic Data Systems) debuted Cat Herder, its anthemic :60 spot, during Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000. Domain registrar Go Daddy used commercials with risqué subject matter from 2005 to 2010 to intentionally be rejected by the networks as part of a marketing publicity stunt.

Squarespace in 2022 will continue its tradition of advertising at the Big Game; it has made an appearance each year since 2014, except for 2019. Medtech company Hologic will advertise during Super Bowl LVI for the first time with a message about women’s health. Workflow software company Monday.com will make its Super Bowl advertising debut with a 30-second spot. And Intuit will also be promoting its QuickBooks products for the first time this year.

The ability to have so many eyeballs on your brand at once is what continues to drive up the cost of advertising during America’s biggest game. And it’s hard to say whether the return truly justifies the cost. But with 30% of Americans citing ads as a major reason for watching the game this year, networks will continue to increase the price as advertisers continue to buy in. So it’s a win-win, right?

Mike Stopper is Executive Vice President of Client Service and Planning at Spire—Texas’ most- awarded B2B branding agency. To stay up to date on agency news, awards, and blog posts, subscribe to our Spire Wire newsletter.

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