Posts Tagged brand touchpoints
Time to Embrace Social Media Marketing As Part of Your Brand Touchpoint Plan
Posted by Mike Paffenback in Brand Touchpoints on October 27, 2011
Unless you’ve been hibernating in a cave for the past few years, you’re well aware of the prevelance of social media and the growth of social media marketing for business. But maybe you’re sitting on the sidelines, waiting for this fad to pass or at least to finish evolving into whatever its final manifestation is going to be. Maybe, too, you’ve been overwhelmed by the technologies and speed of change that’s happening.
Guess what? Social media marketing isn’t going away. And, as more folks like you and me use it for different marketing applications and push the definition of best practices, it will continue to evolve for a long time to come.
Time to get with the program.
Perhaps you dipped your toe into this new world by setting up a personal Facebook page or Twitter or LinkedIn account. After seeing what all the noise was about, maybe you decided it was a complete waste of time – and certainly not worthy of a serious business application. If that’s the case, it’s time to think again.
The simple truth is, with a strategic planning approach and some basic knowledge of the various platforms available, social media marketing can easily be an effective communications tool to help you sell more of your “stuff” — whatever the stuff your business sells is.
To help you form a more complete understanding of what social media marketing can do for your business — whether it’s to build your brand through a whole new set of brand touchpoints, generate qualified sales leads, facilitate product research and development, or one or more of several other business roles for social media marketing — a couple of social media marketing know-how guys put their heads together and wrote a terrific book: No Bullshit Social Media – The All Business, No Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing. Good stuff in here to get you grounded on why and how you should consider diving into the social media marketing world right now.
Many of your customers, prospects, influencers — and your competitors — are effectively using social media right now to engage with brands and swap information and experiences. Isn’t it past time you embraced this business-critical tool as part of your own brand touchpoint management plan as well?
What Exactly is Brand Identity and Brand Communications?
Posted by Mike Paffenback in Brand Identity, Brand Image, Brand Touchpoints on October 19, 2011
A lot of ad agencies and design firms refer to “brand identity” as the tangible visual elements of a brand — logo, typography, color palette, design style – the tactile look and feel of the brand. While this isn’t entirely incorrect, it is entirely incomplete.
Perhaps a better view of brand identity is this: a strategically-crafted blueprint for how you want your brand to be perceived among your customers, prospects, influencers, vendors, employees, and other stakeholders. It includes not only the graphic identity but also many other components as noted below and on this previous Touchpointers blog post.
Components of brand identity
Brand communications is the presentation of this carefully crafted identity to your markeplaces, resulting in the formation of a brand image that drives sales. Brand communications isn’t just advertising, social media marketing, website, public relations, trade shows, etc. It’s also the more subtle ways your brand identity takes root like the professionalism of your delivery and set up personnel, the helpfulness of customer care reps, the ease of navigating your phone system, the clarity of user documentation, and many other types of brand interactions — touchpoints — that can positively or negatively reinforce the formation of your brand image. There’s more to read about brand communications here.
Brand identity is strategic; it takes time and careful consideration to develop a brand identity that differentiates and resonates. Brand communications is tactical; it takes place over time (years), working to create your brand image and drive sales. Many businesses jump into brand communications without first crafting their brand identity, which harkens the old-but-true cliche, “without a map any road will get you there.”
Sure, a great looking logo is cool. But have you crafted a complete brand identity and brand communications program? Today would be the best day to get started.
A Healthcare Brand Touchpoint That Missed The Mark
Posted by Mike Paffenback in Brand Touchpoints on October 17, 2011
Sometimes it’s the brand touchpoint you least suspect that can cause the biggest problem for your brand image.
Late this summer I was the central character in an unexpected medical situation which ultimately involved my primary care physician, a hospital, surgeon, anesthesiologist, and specialist – each coming from a different practice under the mega-healthcare brand which dominates my local healthcare community. I’m fine now, and am told I will continue to be so.
The pre-testing, required surgical procedure, resulting hospital stay and related nursing care, and follow-up visits with the various doctors involved all went well. From a branding standpoint from this highly invested observer, all services and brand touchpoints were exceptionally well delivered. As a result, I would not think twice about using this same “team” again if my own personal situation depended on it, or in recommending each and every one to a needy friend or family member.
A few weeks after I arrived home, the billing statements began showing up. This is where things went awry for one of the service providers, and it’s this comparatively benign area — not their core service of providing a high level of medical care (which they did very well) – that has now caused me to re-think the favorable brand image I’d already formed as a result of my previous interactions with the practice.
The fundamental issues dealt with billing payment terms and the aggressiveness with which the practice’s accounts receivable folks followed up – including a letter threatening to turn the account over to collections because full payment had not been made (less than 40 days after I received their first billing statement).
My call to the “financial counselor” identified in the offending letter yielded this gem: ”You’re actually 61 days past due because we start counting from the date we first receive payment from the insurance company, which in your case, was nearly one month before we sent you the initial statement.”
Huh? So, by the time I received the first statment indicating the amount I would owe, I was already 30 days “past due” according to their calculations? “Yes,” she said. And is there an alternative to you turning this over to a collection agency if I cannot pay the full amount right now? “No,” I was definitively told.
Hmm… I would certainly recommend this practice purely on the shoulders of their medical ability. But now the brand image I’d formed of them has changed as a direct result of their obnoxiously aggressive collections practices. And it’s that necessary business function that I’ll bet garnered the least brand planning consideration when the founding physicians were forming their venture.
What’s a potentially critical yet unconsidered touchpoint for your brand? I’ll bet there’s at least one, and it might be time to do some digging to find out what it is before it costs you business.
How to Identify Your Brand Touchpoints
Posted by Mike Paffenback in Brand Touchpoints on October 11, 2011
Your brand — no matter what it is and to whom you sell — has many layers of subtle and not-so-subtle interactions with your customers, prospects and influencers. Identifying each and every one of those brand touchpoints is the first step in making your customers fanatics, your prospects lifelong customers, and your influencers brand ambassadores. It’s a worthy investment of time and resources.
Where to start? Much of this process is good common sense.
First, recognize that you likely have three different kinds of brand audiences, and your interactions with each may vary:
- Prospects
- Customers
- Influencers: a more encompassing group of people who can somehow weigh in on the relative benefits, value, features, purchase-worthiness of your brand. They include everyone from internal employees to outside sales reps, retailers, the press, existing or previous customers, bloggers and reviewers, and many others.
Secondly, recognize there are at least three stages to someone ultimately buying and using your brand, and each one contains different levels of brand interaction:
- Pre-Purchase stage where prospects seek any and all evaluative information available. Consider all interactions that build awareness, convey differentiation, create a brand connection, and drive purchase consideration. Brand audiences here are prospects, inflluencers, and even existing customers (repeat sales/upselling).
- Purchase stage where prospects become customers and seek validation. Consider all transactional and communications interactions from order placement through delivery and set up. Brand audiences here are prospects.
- Post-Purchase stage where customers use the brand and seek validation for a potential repeat engagement. Consider all follow-up activities and programs here, including loyalty programs, warranty performance, product quality, etc. Brand audiences here are customers and influencers.
Finally, recognize that brand interactions are likely company-wide, so consider the various operating departments and functions within your company and the types of brand interactions conducted within each. Finance (billing, credit terms, etc.), customer service (warranty service, touble shooting, etc.), R&D (product trials, market input, etc.), and most likely many others — you get the drift.
Now, (take a deep breath here), map out your complete brand marketing process – from initial product development through post-sale follow up. Think through every single known actual and potential point of contact while keeping the different brand audiences and the different purchase stages in mind relative to the different operating finctions of the company. Identify everything, from emails to phone calls to website, to packaging, to user documentation, advertising, etc. Solicit the assistance of the various departments within the company.
With the internal audit completed, it’s now time to conduct external research to probe customers, prospects and influencers about the buying/using/re-purchasing processes with which they engage the brand on their own terms. The goal here is to completely define the myriad of interactions that make up the brand relationship and their relative role in creating customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.
With the internal and external audits complete, you now should have a pretty clear picture of the various brand touchpoints. Next, we’ll kick around ways to prioritize each relative to the role they play in moving prospects to customers, and customers to lifelong fanatics. Yipee!
What’s Your “Brand Experience” Like?
Posted by Mike Paffenback in Brand Touchpoints on September 29, 2011
When it comes to buying and using a product or service, we’ve all had really good and really bad experiences. Chances are we’ll go back wherever the experience has been good and never darken the halls again where it’s been bad.
My wife and I recently went through the process of buying a new car, something I’d typically place on the list just below getting my eye poked with a sharp stick in terms of fun things to do. After much research and hand wrangling, we settled on a Hyundai. I can’t speak for all Hyundai dealerships, but ours represented the Hyundai brand extremely well and made the overall experience — dare I say — “enjoyable.” The net: I have no problem going back to the Hyundai brand (assuming the car performs as expected) — and that particular dealership — in the future. There wasn’t any one thing that made this brand engagement work well, but rather a bunch of small things conspiring together to provide an excellent brand experience. Small things like the way the salesperson interacted with us. His product knowledge. The comfort and confidence we felt as we set about negotiating price. The dealership facilities. The features and value of the car itself. The iciness of the cup of water I was provided. Etc.
A couple of weeks later we received a detailed survey about our experience, with questions probing all manner of our interaction with the dealership and the Hyundai product. Clearly, Hyundai’s mission is to continue to improve the complete brand experience by defining and correcting the specific areas where they under-perform relative to their brand touchpoint management plan. As a challenger brand (but for not much longer, I suspect), Hyundai needs to continue to leverage strengths and shore up weaknesses — just like any successful brand.
Which brings me to you and the brand experience with which you are providing your customers and prospects. Do you know precisely what it is? Are you systematically assessing the experience your customers and prospects have with your brand(s)? Do you have a touchpoint management plan which prescribes, specifically and in measureable terms, how your touchpoints — interactions — are to be delivered relative to your brand identity? Do you know which touchpoints carry the greatest weight in keeping a customer or moving a prospect to become one?
The connection between delivering an exceptional brand experience and growing your business is obvious, no matter what business you’re in. So, specifically what are you doing about it?