RICCI COMMUNICATIONS

Marketing Communications Firm

Ricci Communications is a full-service marketing communications firm, offering strategic planning and creative marketing solutions to help companies reach out to targeted audiences with a focused and effective plan and message, by applying practical knowledge and proven techniques to communication. Our substantial knowledge and experience working with local, regional and national media outlets, enables us to generate awareness, reinforce current audience decisions and influence key decision makers.

Founded in 2000, Ricci Communications has experienced rapid growth and substantial recognition, including being honored by the Washington Business Journal as one of the Top 25 privately owned marketing/public relations firms in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area in 2004.

Ricci Communications has developed relationships with trade and general business media outlets as a resource for experts and a quoted source, as well as provided articles and expert opinion for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and many other publications. Ricci Communications` has coordinated appearances for clients on CNBC, Larry King Live, Nightline, ABC Evening News, Good Morning America and numerous local and regional news stations.

We believe strongly in the continuous pursuit of education and excellence in marketing. To that end, Ricci Communications makes a dedicated effort to actively participate in industry and local associations for educational purposes.

Approach & Community

Our Approach

As a strategic firm, Ricci Communications will work with you to develop results-oriented marketing communications initiatives, developing appropriate messages and offers for targeted audiences to cost-effectively build your client-base and expand your market penetration.

Our philosophy is simple:

• Listen to the client
• Provide expertise to generate consistent marketing efforts that foster growth
• Plan, inform and implement Measure, evaluate and focus on continuous improvement
• Approaching each project from a strategic perspective, Ricci Communications can significantly improve the cost-effectiveness and results of your campaign. Whether you require a single managed project or a full range of services, Ricci Communications designs and executes each project with one thing in mind—your results—and we deepen success by measuring and tracking progress.

The employees of Ricci Communications have operated in the trenches of security companies and security associations, providing marketing planning, production, distribution and tracking/evaluation services, as well as liaison with boards of directors, volunteer leaders and related organizations.

Ricci Communications established network of contacts among security and security-related media and national, regional, and local business writers and editors provides our clients access to provide commentary and content to media outlets and conferences and the opportunity to position themselves as industry thought-leaders.

Ricci Communications has worked for, and with, a variety of leading security industry companies, associations and media outlets.

Associations pose special challenges for marketing professionals. Association marketers are often selling ideas and concepts as much as they are products or services. To make matters more complicated, it is often a large number of related, yet very distinct ideas that are being marketed to several geographically and politically diverse groups.

Associations must deal with an endless loop of conference planning, membership drives and fund-raising events. Somewhere in that loop, association messages often get lost and marketing campaigns fizzle, and while organizations spend time and money on recruitment, retention and non-dues revenue marketing, membership growth slows and sales initiatives fail to meet expectations.

Ricci Communications has the association experience and expertise to help you build long-standing relationships with members, potential members, business partners and association peers. We can help you successfully overcoming the unique and significant challenges of association marketing, operating as an outsourced partner to complete essential marketing initiatives, allowing you to most effectively utilize your time on core association objectives.

Ricci Communications was awarded two contracts under GSA`s Advertising and Integrated Marketing Services Multiple Award Schedules Program: GS-23F-0090N (SIN 541-N)-Integrated Marketing Services and GS-23F-0091N Small Business Set Aside (SIN-541-4D) Conference Events and Trade Show Planning.

Our knowledge and work performance providing marketing expertise and services to the federal government, including the launch of the FTC`s National Do Not Call Registry, combined with our location in Old Town Alexandria, Va., a metro ride from D.C., allows us to provide you with the resources needed to meet your objectives professionally, on time and on budget.

Strategic Marketing Consulting & Identity & Branding

Strategic Marketing Consulting

To be successful and develop a cost-effective marketing and communications strategy, organizations must understand their business strengths and weaknesses, core and secondary target audiences and influencers, past performance, goals and objectives, market position by target audience and service, and Unique Selling Propositions (USP)—messaging and offers—in each marketplace.

Ricci Communications will work with you to research and facilitate a strategic marketing, communications and business development plan and approach. This work will provide you with the knowledge and structure to develop a comprehensive branding strategy, a marketing communications plan for each product or service area of your organization, and a tactical implementation schedule to ensure maximum reach and efficient, productive use of marketing resources.

To develop these efforts, the Ricci Communications` process:

• Establishes objectives
• Develops an understanding of client`s operations and client-base
• Audits existing communications materials, messaging and channels
• Researches additional appropriate audiences and influencers, competitors and industries
• Develops a strategic marketing plan that provides structure and direction for tactical branding and marketing communications implementation

Identity & Branding

A company`s message is its promise to its clients and a differentiator in the marketplace. A company identifies itself with a set of standards and services it intends to deliver, and promises each client and prospect that it will work to achieve those goals. Branding is impacted by every contact with your company, from marketing and sales to the support personnel and invoices. It is cumulative and linked to intangible factors and emotions such as loyalty and honesty, further complicating branding success. Your company`s message will hold different meanings for different clients. It`s branding that gathers each of those disparate factors and unifies them. An effective branding campaign can often mean the difference between success and failure.

Effective branding can best be accomplished through consistent and appropriate messaging through multiple communication channels. However, the constraints of time and resources often limit the amount of commitment organizations can make to branding, marketing and sales, often requiring emphasis on one to the detriment of the others. Business development, marketing and branding must work hand-in-hand to promote growth and extend market influence.

Ricci Communications can provide the necessary strategic direction, branding and marketing communications planning and implementation to positively impact the performance of your initiatives and help your organization position itself as a resource and industry thought-leader.

Ricci Communications` branding and marketing communications plan focuses on differentiation of products and services, building recognition and developing one-to-one, permission marketing, including positioning your organization as a primary resource for targeted audiences through an integrated communications mix.

PR & Media Outreach/ Interactive Media

PR & Media Outreach

By working with Ricci Communications, you gain a partner who understands the business-to-business marketplace and can identify effective ways to help you achieve your business objectives. Ricci Communications` media/industry outreach efforts are geared with the sole focus of increasing your business growth, and our experience and relationships with members of the media and trade press have established Ricci Communications as a resource for expert knowledge and insight.

Ricci Communications has the right contacts and can help you develop the appropriate materials to reach your target audiences. We have compiled thousands of contacts with consumer, business and trade press, broadcast and online media outlets in a variety of markets, giving our clients opportunities to provide commentary and content and to position themselves as industry thought-leaders. We can create custom lists of editorial contacts based on specific criteria, including interests, industry, location, market area rankings and more.

In addition, we continuously track key editorial calendars for contribution opportunities for our clients. During the past two years, Ricci Communications has played a key role in helping organizations develop feature articles and case studies and to provide expert insight to leading industry trade publications and news outlets

Interactive Media

Your Web site, as a direct reflection of your message, is increasingly more important than any other communications tool to support direct sales. Our process, experience and expertise in the development of Web sites and understanding of the business-to-business marketplace, uniquely positions Ricci Communications to develop a site that effectively communicates your capabilities and drives revenue. Our ability to create interactive applications will provide you with the resources to continue to develop the site as a valuable communication and educational tool as your organization evolves.

By routinely distributing an informational, value-based e-newsletter, your organization demonstrates its commitment to client or customer growth and further positions itself as an industry thought leader. The e-newsletter also provides a consistent outline to promote ``hot`` issues, new products or services, communicate upgrades or changes in service and drive traffic back to your Web site.

Our proprietary Web-based delivery tool offers clients the opportunity to use their pre-designed e-newsletter templates to post information and distribute it quickly and accurately via HTML or text formats. The e-newsletter tool allows for tracking of those ``opening`` or ``clicking`` through to the Web site and provides other opportunities to survey and gather client/prospect information. E-newsletters can be distributed to your client or prospect databases, targeted lists purchased from the marketplace, or select individuals from Ricci Communications` database (List Rental).

Copy Writing & Design/ Trade Show, Event Planning

Copy Writing & Design

The Ricci Communications` staff features experienced writers, editors and designers able to craft creative, engaging copy and design for all your marketing initiatives, including press releases, case studies and feature articles; direct mail and corporate brochures; media kits; booth graphics; and other collateral.

Trade Show Support & Event Planning

With an increasing number of trade shows, the rising costs associated with exhibiting at an event, and the return on investment demanded to justify such financial and personnel expenditures, it is more important than ever to develop an integrated, strategic plan for marketing your company`s presence at tradeshows and conferences, including:

• Pre-Show Marketing
• Onsite Promotions
• Post-Show Follow-up

In planning for your next trade show or exhibition calendar year, Ricci Communications can handle as little or as much of your tradeshow marketing as you need. Our experience, expertise and focus on maximizing your resources provides for the most effective, proactive plan to generate booth traffic and media coverage. Whether developing trade show collateral, booth design and booth graphics, or providing onsite show support (manning the booth, coordinating media briefings, etc.), Ricci Communications can provide responsive, professional expertise to support your efforts.

New Products

New Product Introductions

Ricci Communications is committed to providing responsive, as-needed support to our clients to effectively and efficiently carry out new product introduction campaigns. From working to develop sales literature, product packaging and advertisements to working with the media and generating coverage, Ricci Communications has the experience and expertise to successfully launch your new products, generate user demand and drive sales.

The establishment of agreed upon, achievable, measurable objectives is vital to the overall success of a new product introduction. Such objectives include:

• Research, compile and build a contact list for media outreach efforts to support pre- and post-launch information and news.
• Provide editorial review for media communications related to the launch.
• Pitch news and feature article and case study abstracts for publication in targeted media outlets to build brand awareness, thought leadership and third-party credibility within targeted markets
• Conduct post-launch follow-ups with media representatives to ensure receipt of new product information and collateral and further pursue discussed editorial coverage.

Ricci Communications is the industry`s leading resource for distributing your information to executive-level security practitioners, federal, state and local government entities and the media. Our proprietary database contains more than 60,000 addresses and 20,000 e-mails for key decision-makers among security, facility, property and human resource managers and practitioners, including more than 5,000 federal government contacts, for immediate extended reach and access.

Additionally, Ricci Communications has access to a library of up-to-date contact information for 400,000 federal, state and municipal leaders and 40,000 institutions, including the U.S. Congress, federal, state and regional departments and agencies, the judiciary, associations, law firms, foreign representatives and the nonprofit sector.

Ricci Communications can distribute your news and information directly to thousands of media outlets worldwide, providing responsive feedback on where your news appears.