“Don’t leave home without it.” “We bring good things to life.” “It keeps going and going and going.” “Finger lickin’ good.” “Strong enough for a man but made for a woman.” “How old do you think I am?” “Have it your way.” “Maybe she’s born with it.”
If you can identify the companies from the slogans mentioned above, then those are marketing dollars well spent. Companies spend significant amounts of money to sell or promote their products to the marketplace in hopes of separating themselves from the pack. So you’re wondering, how does this tie to the world of training? Well, we must also sell and promote training to the rest of our organization so they see our value and, more importantly, keep us around.
In our course, Marketing Your Training Internally, we emphasize the importance of knowing your product, understanding the market, using promotional techniques and building relationships within your organization. One of the promotional techniques we discuss (out of a whopping 85!) is developing a “Tagline” or “Slogan” for your department.
Tag lines are essentially free marketing. The idea is to come up with a catchy phrase that defines the training department or its philosophy and place this one-line message on the bottom of emails, memos and brochures. This technique also helps to continuously present a consistent training message to your audience.
According to brand coach, Ted Matthews, “It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling soda pop, a company or a city. It has to be rooted in what really makes you different.” Of course, it’s not always easy to come up with a catchy tagline or slogan. I bet the slogans mentioned above didn’t just happen overnight. So get your people together from the training department and spend some time brainstorming ideas. Think about the nature of your services and how you hope to be viewed by your clients and/or customers.
Interestingly enough, for this year’s Canada Day celebration in the Great White North (Canada was formed on July 1, 1867); Ottawa, our nation’s capital, reportedly spent $100,000 to come up with a new catchphrase to promote it to the rest of Canada and increase tourism there. The winner was “Canadian. Just like you.” (Glad they chose that one instead of “Frostbitten. Just like you.” Apparently, Ottawa is in the top 10 coldest capital cities in the world!) The message behind the slogan is to come and experience the pride and history of our capital city, and have a feeling of belonging. Let’s not worry about our differences or diversity because here, we’re all the same. Sounds nice, don’t you think?
Now, I leave it with you to come up with a clever and catchy tagline for your department that will set you apart from the rest. Remember, you deserve a break today and just do it!
Marsha
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