Meeting client needs key to success

Ten years into her career at HCC Marketing in Barrington, Kerry Chaffer learned from a confidant that the “chemistry” she engendered in making clients comfortable was not necessarily her biggest asset .

“I think I hid the smarts behind the personality, and I didn’t have to do that,” she said.

Chaffer, a partner at the marketing communications company, declined to name the person who advised her, noting it was somebody she respected.

“He said it to be helpful,” she said. “He was saying: ‘I recognize the strengths you have building chemistry, but you’re also really smart and you’ve got to play that card more.’ It’s made a difference in everything. It’s empowering. I took myself more seriously, and subsequently, so did everybody else.”

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Chaffer’s first job after getting her degree in journalism in 1975 at the University of Rhode Island was in the public affairs office at Bryant University (then Bryant College), which was followed by more communications and marketing positions. Then, in 1989, she moved to Mariani, Hurley and Chandler.

Chaffer, 61, says she never planned on becoming partner, which happened in 1992, and having her name added, two years later, to the company name at the time, Hurley, Chandler and Chaffer. (In 2010, the name was changed to HCC Marketing.)

“Once I became partner, it really was an eye-opener, having to learn how to run a business,” she recalled. “Up until that time, I had to only worry about helping a person with their business.”

Leveraging the agency’s experience with financial services and nonprofits has allowed HCC to grow from $1.38 million to $3.3 million in revenue over the past three years, she said.

Some of HCC’s major clients include the Cooperative Bank of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, Newtown Savings Bank in Connecticut and Meredith Village in New Hampshire, she said.

Marketing community banks is an area in which HCC has developed strong expertise, Chaffer said.

“We’re great at this: We really understand the category and … their needs, ” she said.

Some of HCC’s successes include a first-ever member communication program for the Warren-based Touisset Point Community Club and four years of statewide multimedia public-awareness campaigns for the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence from 2000 to 2004.

The firm’s success, Chaffer said, comes from looking at a client’s business or organization from a consumer or user point of view.

“We have to put ourselves in the heads of who they’re selling to,” she said. “Objectivity: that’s a responsibility. The most exciting thing for us is when a client says, ‘This campaign was a great success.’ Our concern is: Did it work?” •

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