Category: Brand

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Charting New Directions.

The Difference is You.™

April 2024 | Brand & Database Marketing | Background & Current Services

I am currently offering marketing and writing services including permission e-mail/database marketing and e-commence support in tandem to building out ZENECIST.

Your call/inquiry is welcome. Thanks, Tom Lanen (508) 951-0130 | Email

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OVERVIEW OF QUALIFICATIONS: THOMAS MARKETING SERVICES CORPORATION ERA (1989-2023)

(Edit: April 2024) If you’re a business owner ready to generate more revenue there’s no time better than now to kick-start your marketing to make it happen. It’s also absolutely the right moment to get out front and build revenue, momentum and brand equity–with more projectable results you can see, count and manage. Even if marketing isn’t your thing.

Why hire a fixed-cost marketing staffer or pricey agency, when I can be your go-to, get-it-done resource for a fraction of the cost? The only reason might be if you wait too long to engage my limited bandwidth, only now available after a 5-year contract as Director of Marketing for what became a 5-location retailer plus 4500+ product online store during my watch — and which netted my principal a nice endgame payday.

You see, I work especially well with business owners who don’t love marketing but get they need it to grow, regardless of the economy. Those who want do-able options to sustain and expand their revenue streams. Well, I’m all about options. Because there is always an answer to the challenge at hand. Always. Even if you sometimes feel reluctant to gain more attention for yourself, and your business. That’s just natural.

“It’s not easy to run a business.
Not everyone can do it.”

Ted Lanen (1926-2008) , Sales Engineer (Tufts EE),
Owner, Leo C. Pelkus Inc., Wellesley, MA
New England Manufacturer’s Rep, Emerson Electric/Wiegand

Just give me, Tom Lanen, a call and let’s have a confidential chat. Right now if you want. It costs you nothing — unlike inaction, which can cost you opportunity. 508 951-0130

If we’re of like mind and it makes sense to you, I can help get revenue-generating programs off your ‘to-do when I have time list’ and into the ‘done and kicking it column’ — fast. Because I’ve never been accused of lacking enthusiasm — and nothing gets me more fired up than working with good people ready to make a difference. And I’ve been told, more than once, my positive intensity is infectious — you know, in a good way.

A disciple of the P&G school of strategic brand marketing, my core strengths are in retail, consumer package goods (CPG), and technology sectors, including medical and healthcare. I also have a strong sense of the entertainment & hospitality categories having worked in customer-facing roles.

Projects have run the gamut of marketing strategies and tactics including branded content & writing, e-mail marketing, merchandising, and advertising & creative services for digital and analog channels.

I am well-versed in creating lead generation websites, and e-Comm shopping sites (Big Commerce, Shopify, Squarespace, WP, etc.) including user interface (UI/UX) strategies, design, imaging & content — even crunch-time posting and website population.

Recent documented e-mail marketing strategies and tactics have tripled the industry average Open Rate (45%+ versus the 17.1% category Open Rate average).

A Brand Is A Story & Its People, Products & Services–And Customers–Are Its Chapters.

A brand is anything but static. But if its core story–your vision–is tied to a strategic communications platform and a defined position, its tactics can be managed, measured, and executed to create revenue, momentum and equity, the sum of its parts greater than the whole.

Tom Lanen, principal, during the summer of 2022 at the Xfinity Center in Mansfield, MA where he fully enjoyed the Season Pass his 20-something sons gave to him for his birthday – 34 shows!

My mission, in partnership with my principals, is to tell the Brand Story through process-driven and compelling content that engages and informs, while addressing the real issues of customers and constituents. And those who would be.

The story, and how it’s presented, create ‘comfort levels’ needed to make a purchase decision be it as small as clicking through to a sale or as large as a capital equipment acquisition. It also helps people believe what they know, which can be a real issue, and affirms and validates their comfort.

And it’s about helping people build the confidence needed to make your brand part of their own personal and professional brands. This creates loyalty, goodwill, and salable equity, a real valuation metric – and a significant element of any brand owner’s endgame.

Samples of Recent Work 1 | Samples of Recent Work 2

You’re the director. The Difference Is You.™

Tell Me Your Goals & I’ll Give You Options.
Affordable, Do-Able Options.

• Permission-Based E-mail – Brand Communication Strategy/Platform, Copy, Email Formatting (via your Email Service Provider – MailChimp, Constant Contact, EMMA, etc.) Recent documented Open Rates averaging over 40% (industry average is 17% according to SpringBot ESP)

• Point-Of Sale – Art & Copy; also Large Format Printing

• Blogs – Research & Write/Post, create imaging and/or video, SEO: WordPress, Medium, etc.

• Website/Commerce Pages/SEO Copy – also populating and imaging via most CMS & Shopping Platforms: Big Commerce, Shopify, Squarespace, etc.

• Thought-Leadership Articles – Writing & editing based upon executive input

• Presentations – Video, Powerpoint, Speeches, etc.

• Trade Show Booths – Semi-Custom & Custom – Strategy, Concept & Design

• Sales & Marketing Literature, Sales Decks – Copy & Art, also Printing

• Technical Writing & User Manuals

• Advertising – Online, Print, Broadcast, Cable; Direct Mail, E-mail

• Strategic Brand (Marketing & HR) Creation and Development: Identity/Logo, Brand Standards, Positioning, Culture/Human Resources, Coaching

My rate is moderate. Our first discussion is always on me. And I work to budgets – at the speed of retail. And, I take direction well.

If you engage me beyond a single project I can offer significant volume discounts, assuming available bandwidth. The longer we work together, the more efficient it gets. Cash discounts also considered.

Art and/or imaging will be quoted in advance or you can provide your own. I’m happy to work with your existing creative and marketing relationships and resources.

Need it done well and fast? You got it. I provide real value and measurable results. And, I can demonstrate it with metrics and documentation to prove it.

It’s really easy to work with me. I’m here to give you do-able and affordable options that can help make you more successful. Simple.

I’m Tom Lanen, and I welcome your call. Let’s talk a few moments on my nickel.

All credit cards and bank transfer (ACH/EFT) are accepted.

508 951-0130 | Email

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Thomas Marketing Services Corporation Principal, Tom Lanen, Now a Professional Member of The International Association of Professional Writers & Editors (IAPWE)

(March 23, 2023) After a qualifying process requiring writing samples, references and other credentials, Thomas Marketing Services Corporation principal, Tom Lanen, has become a Professional Member of The International Association of Writers & Editors (IAPWE).

This is all in an effort to reposition Tom from a full service advertising and marketing agency brand strategist and creative director, to a role now focused on providing freelance writing services to retail, hospitality, healthcare, entertainment, & technology sectors. He will also continue as a digital and brand marketing tactician, including website creation, social media, and permission email marketing.

From the IAPWE website:

The IAPWE or International Association of Professional Writers & Editors is an organization dedicated to providing helpful resources to writers and editors and disseminating helpful ideas and resources across the greater professional community in the form of outreach, blogging, networking and thought leadership.

In addition to providing free resources for our members, we are always seeking talented writers and editors to help create engaging, locally relevant, educational and inspirational content to help support our outreach efforts. We believe in paying our writers and editors a competitive wage, unlike many of the “content mills” and comparable low-paying clients and/or companies.

The IAPWE is also dedicated to bringing the most updated, legitimate and vetted writing and editing job opportunities to its members.

Currently, there are many different websites containing both legitimate as well as illegitimate writing and editing job opportunities and we make available, in one place, all of the opportunities that have been determined to be legitimate across over 100 different websites.

In addition to this, the IAPWE provides helpful tools, resources and networking opportunities for professional writers and editors, as well as making all members aware of potential writing job scams.

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Please contact Tom at 508 951-0130 if you have writing or marketing project you’d like off your desk; I’ll get it into the done column fast and on budget. T-

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Clever marketing tactics? Sure — what’s your strategy? 

Clever marketing tactics (HOW you’re going to achieve your goals) can only be effective (and measured) if they’re built upon a defined strategic (WHAT you’re going to do to achieve goals) platform. When this is done well, the sum of all tactics is greater than the whole–and can drive the desired return.

[Hiring an accomplished part-time marketing guy is a good start.]

Sit with anybody who watched the Super Bowl, and you can be sure they’ll comment on what is usually some of the most clever advertising on the globe.  This year it was TUBI, the free streaming service out to expand its audience, who got us to go for our remote as they ‘changed the channel’ from my YouTube TV to theirs, which I know I have never done. They created action AND showed us its value by giving us samples of their programming we might never have seen. In my mind it was one of the most effective ads in years, and well worthy of the special CLIO™ Award they received as the best of the Super Bowl ads.

Business owners think: “if only we could be so clever with our marketing.” And the repressed creative within them will come up with a clever slogan, most often ending with “for all your (fill-in-the-blank) needs.” 

Right.

Here’s the thing. The most clever tactics in the world are as useless as the bar napkin they’re written on unless they are tied to an actionable and measurable strategy. Their effect is as equally short-lived. Money and ROI: poof! 

That’s not how P&G does it. Their brands perform to expectations because all marketing tactics are built on a strategic foundation, step-by-step.

First they decide what they are going to do; they formulate a strategy and define possible strategic communications statement/platforms based upon defined goals. And they execute their first tactic, research.

Only then, and armed with a refined strategy/statement tempered by research or other insights, do they create tactics—the how they’re going to fulfill/payoff the strategy/platform—designed to move the needle on their strategic platform. 

And, as tactics are executed, their impact adds up to a brand outcome that’s greater than the sum of its parts.

Get it? Well, you’re way ahead of the curve for most business owners, assuming you can also act strategically. (But to know and not do, is not to know.)

I can tell you this, it’s only with decades of mentoring and partnering with Dave Manley, P&G’s first Brand Manager on the Pringles Brand, with whom I worked on Chinet Disposables, Boston Whaler, LoJack, Bay State Power, and Keurig/Green Mountain brands (to name a few), that I started getting good at the strategic brand marketing process and discipline. And it works.

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“I worked with Tom Lanen for well over 25 years. You don’t work with someone for that long unless they bring you real value. Whether it was a poster series at Boston Whaler, a brochure at LoJack, or research, sales promotion and dealer support at Keurig, he’s always taken the time to understand my needs, and then made it happen, exceeding expectations.”

Dave Manley, Senior VP, Core Systems Innovation (Retired),  Green Mountain, Keurig Premium Coffee Systems

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Now hiring Dave, if you can draw him out of beach-side retirement, might be one option. Or you could make a far more moderate—and affordable—investment and hire me. I’ll listen, and then show you the best options to meet your goals. And the means to measure your outcomes.

So what’s your marketing and sales/revenue strategy for the economic period ahead? Here’s one to start: let’s chat on my nickel for few moments. I may be just the resource you need to kick-start some sustained momentum.

Today is good. Tom- | 508 951-0130

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What Do You Believe? [Repost]

A bulletin-sized billboard (large format), perhaps my favorite tactic created in support of New England Hydroponics, here repurposed as a website slide/rotator.

As those of us in the Northeast face yet another of New England’s infamous winters, I can’t help but look back with a sense of pride to a billboard Thomas Marketing Services created and posted for 3 months in 2019 in support of what was then New England Hydroponics’ 4th store in Seekonk, MA. Within months it became a destination for Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts hobbyists and commercial cultivators. (See below for radio spots.)

Advertising works. But, like all other marketing programs its tactics need to be based in a strategic framework, and a strong and clear position so each of its parts have a defined platform upon which to gain traction, momentum, and top-of-mind recall. And of course, short- and long-term return on investment.

Do you believe some determined marketing could help your business? It’s more affordable than you think. Call me, Tom Lanen, at (508) 951-0130 and let’s chat a bit on my nickel. Or send me a note at [email protected]

PS: Take a listen to:

  1. An Event Marketing Promotional radio spot produced with Mike Hsu in support of New England Hydroponics open house events in Seekonk & Auburn, and;
  2. A Branded,”Price Match” Pull Marketing radio spot produced with Mike Hsu in support of the Auburn & Marlborough stores.
  3. A Grand Opening radio spot produced with Steve Kelly in support of the Seekonk store – Providence/Fall River, MA DMI

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New! Open Bandwidth for Business Owners With An Endgame. Especially Those Who Don’t Love Marketing.

POS created by Thomas Marketing Services on behalf of neHydro
Cha-Cha-Cha Changes! It’s said all good things come to an end, and so it is with our 5-year contract with New England Hydroponics, and its new parent company, Hydrobuilder Holdings, to whom my principal, Ethan Holmes, sold the business and brand in January. I’ve been informed they will take the work in-house and will let our contract expire at the end of August … even as our work continues to over-perform, as evidenced in our email Open Rate report below – the category average is 17% (Springbot ESP).
Frankly, this is exactly how most mergers go, and we’re not terribly surprised. Even if it’s a bit of a jolt to the system. Hey, we’re human. But it happened when 3 Thermo Electron business units with whom we had worked for 15 years merged with Fisher Scientific and the agency of record took over. They rightly compensated us for our copyright & imaging, and were very honorable during the transition. Fact is it’s been a great 5 years (almost), and we’ve accomplished our mission: to create salable brand equity for Ethan for when it became his time to sell the business. When I started with him in 2017, he’d been doing all his own marketing and no longer had any time for it. He’d built the business to 3 stores, one of which we moved into a space 4 times the size within the year. Then we added stores in Seekonk (6000 sf), and recently in Sanford, Maine (13,000 sf) bringing the total to 5, all while building the online business at neHydro.com into what is now 4500+ products. We worked well together, and I’m proud of the good work we did, and of the friendships I’ve enjoyed with store GMs and Supervisors. These are good folks. But it’s time for what’s next. If you have a business and a vision, give me, Tom Lanen, at (508) 951-0130 and let’s chat a bit on my nickel. The Difference Is You.™ I can help you present your business and brand well, and drive near-term sales & revenue …. and fully prepare your brand as a line item in your endgame that could be closer than you think. T-
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