Northern Brand Positioning

After an acquisition that doubled its size from 75 to 150 employees, Northern Commerce wanted to reposition its brand to focus on the digital transformation sector.

Client

Northern Commerce began in 2015 when Atmos, a digital marketing firm, merged with Inspiratica, an e-commerce company. In 2020, seeking to expand its web developer staff extensively, it acquired Digital Echidna, a Drupal open-source content management system (CMS) agency.

Brief

Northern Commerce hired me to research opportunities to position itself within the competitive digital transformation market. It wanted to find larger clients to support its more significant size and continue growing at a pace that listed them among the fastest-growing companies in Canada.

Challenge

From internal stakeholder interviews, I learned that, based on its acquisitions, Northern continued to operate as three separate companies: a digital marketing company led by employees from the Atmos acquisition, an e-commerce company made up of staff acquired from Inspiratica, and a CMS agency from the recent Digital Echidna merger. Yet, when these distinct units combined, they offered an opportunity to increase Northern's revenue with its more significant clients. Northern could provide expertise in helping clients find prospective customers (digital marketing), convert prospects into customers (e-commerce), and nurture customers toward more rewarding lifetime value (improved digital experience through a CMS).

The Northern leadership team shared a list of competitors (some immediate competitors and others competing where Northern aspired to be). Northern's competitors were significantly larger than they were; each competitor grew through acquisitions and leveraged a positioning acquired through them. One leveraged its analytical capabilities from a data science agency purchase, another with its creative depth and another with its ability to co-innovate through staff augmentation. All offered comprehensive services and the know-how to address the challenges of digital transformation.

My research uncovered insights into why organizations invest in digital transformation.   

• They receive pressure from customers who want more transparency, choice, consistency and convenience. 

• Through enhanced customer experience, they hoped to gain a competitive advantage (or catch up to a competitor).

• They experienced market pressure and disruptions from digital innovation from new market entrants and competitors.

• Organizations must accelerate their digital transformation efforts to keep up with the rapidly evolving digital landscape. 

• They felt pressure from employees who experienced digital transformation's benefits as consumers.

• They require digital transformation from acquiring disparate systems through mergers and acquisitions and face globalization pressures.

I also learned why organizations often need help to improve digital transformation results.

• Companies need to plan out digital transformation thoroughly.

• Organizations often opt for incremental, experimental innovation, a strategy that offers quicker payback and reassuringly lower risk.

• Companies need to budget for different types of digital transformation, such as incremental improvements to core systems, opportunities to enhance adjacent systems and transformational or breakthrough change.

• Organizations need more effective means to measure success.

Strategy

My research highlighted the significance of a purchase. It's a pivotal moment when the customer invests substantial energy in evaluating the brand, warranting organizations' considerable investment in creating an exceptional commerce transaction. I crafted Northern's positioning on this notion, considering the entire customer journey leading to the first purchase and the efforts required to encourage additional purchases. 

Northern's digital marketing services emphasize the experience that leads to an exceptional transaction. Its e-commerce services ensure a frictionless and brand-lifting transaction, and its CMS digital experience services encourage more rewarding customer relations, leading to higher lifetime values earned from each customer.

Northern's tagline became "Commerce is our North star. We engineer commerce-led consumer engagement and immersive customer experience at every touchpoint."

We made Commerce the tip of the spear, and engagement and digital experience became the supportive pillars toward an exceptional commerce-led experience.

Working with Northern's leadership team, we developed three service pillars.

1. Commerce: The Inflection Point.

2. Experience: Earns Trust and Loyalty.

3. Engagement: Draws Consumers In.

The other insight I learned from my research is how challenging, time-consuming, and lengthy (requiring iterative efforts over numerous projects, often several years) digital transformation is. Northern incorporated this into its sales copy, expressing the long-term goal of reaching digital maturity throughout its project planning, emphasizing its work to extend superior services to clients to ensure it continues to help them strive toward their long-term digital transformation objectives.

Results

The research project resulted in modest changes to Northern's brand positioning rather than a complete overhaul, reducing the total cost of rebranding and lessening the staff change management efforts.

My collaboration with Northern's creative and developer teams led to a comprehensive redesign of its website and marketing collateral. I helped with extensive editing and new copywriting, securing a thorough and effective transformation.

I supported Northern's Marketing Manager while incorporating the new branding into ongoing campaigns. I worked with sales to use the new positioning, connecting with prospects and in proposals and sales calls.

Northern continued to grow at an impressive pace and earned a second consecutive award as one of Canada's top-growing companies for 2021.