Posts Tagged brand
If it happened to Kodak, could it happen to your brand?
Posted by Mike Paffenback in General on January 20, 2012
No matter how strong your brand, game-changing situations can develop. Just ask the good folks at Kodak, as that historic and much beloved brand continues to deal with unthinkably life-threatening challenges. Could it happen to your business or mine? Standing in the front door of a fresh 2012, it’s a good time to consider things like:
What if there was a dramatic, game-changing advancement looming from within or around your industry? A dramatic new innovation? An entirely new market approach that made yours obsolete? Is there? Could there possibly be?
What if your market position as the industry’s (insert your distinctive position here) weren’t completely bullet-proof? Is your brand, your intellectual property, your product or service, your primary point of distinction susceptible to being (easily) copied?
What if demand for your specific product or service dropped off dramatically? What would the conceivable reasons be? How would you respond?
If someone put a gun to your head and demanded you increase sales and/or market share this year — irregardless of market realities — what would you do, specifically?
Over the past few decades, Kodak has been hit by competitive challenges from Japan and by the dramatic emergence of digital technology which they actually pioneered — but couldn’t keep pace with. Serious game changers for a historically strong, globally dominant brand.
As you stare 2012 in the face, a complete 360 degree look might be in order.
Of course, there’s still that little thing of the Mayan calendar…
Focusing on “Brand” in Marketing Communications
Posted by Mike Paffenback in Brand Identity on November 4, 2011
Following is something I wrote a while back, but thought it worth revisiting as the concept of “brand communications” gains traction in popular marketing jargon:
For years I referred to what I did for a living as “Marketing Communications.” That is, communications activities that specifically supported the marketing efforts of a client’s product or service, differing from “Corporate Communications,” which delved into internal communications, PR, financial reporting, etc.
More properly, the term I should have been using is “Brand Communications,” embracing a more encompassing recognition of the role of “brand identity,” and the role communications plays in delivering and reinforcing that identity to marketing audiences.
The brand identity is the strategic platform developed to define what the brand stands for, what its value is to customers and prospects, and the decisive differences and advantages over competitive offerings. Think of it as a distinctive set of fingerprints – brandprints — that can only be associated with your particular brand. (Do you have a formalized brand identity for each of your brands? If not, check out more details here.) At its core, this should remain constant for the individual products or services that will be marketed under the brand identity.
Now comes the brand communications part, and there’s two primary areas to consider here:
CONTENT is what you say.
It’s the messaging that comes directly out of the brand identity platform. It conveys why the product or service is better, different, of value, etc. The content should be consistently delivered and reinforced in the next part of the equation, contact.
CONTACT is what you do.
It’s the delivery of the content through your brand touchpoints — those significant and seemingly insignificant ways folks engage with the brand. It could be sales pitches, advertising, social media, trade shows, the receptionist, invoices, delivery personnel, community goodwill, sponsorships, public relations, packaging, etc. Each and every point of contact should be carefully considered, ensuring the desired content is delivered as prescribed in the brand identity.
Collectively, it’s ”Brand-Centric Communications.” But that’s too mind-numbing to say. Let’s just leave it at “Brand Communications.” Ultimately, the goal is to sell more of your “stuff,” but from a more strategically-considered brand platform. Are you there?
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?
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!
Employee Training for Brand Touchpoint Delivery
Posted by Mike Paffenback in Brand Identity, Brand Touchpoints on April 15, 2011
Last week my wife and I traveled to visit my daughter at college. Stopping at a Dairy Queen about half way for a mid-afternoon pick-me-up is part of the routine. One of DQ’s signatures is, of course, The Blizzard, and I’m a big fan. A Blizzard, for those unenlightened few, is simply a cup of soft vanilla ice cream hand-blended with your choice of ingredients like Oreo cookies, M&M candies, Reeses candies, etc.
No doubt, DQ has identified at least a few important brand touchpoints for employees to deliver during their preparation of this brand-defining, flagship product: complete blending of ingredients, clean presentation of the cool treat, and a warm smile. It’s likely there are others, but I imagine these are the very basics.
On this particular visit, our DQ server completely failed to deliver on those basics, which left me with a less-than-stellar impression about that DQ location specifically, but also a bit of tarnish on the DQ brand overall. The product was virtually un-blended and the rim, upper inside, and outside of the cup were splattered with ingredients. It was an unappealling mess.
Clearly, the employee had not been properly trained on the nuances of making and presenting a perfect rendition of The Blizzard. It made me wonder what else he hadn’t been trained to properly do. That’s a problem of local franchise management to be sure, but also for corporate management who is charged with defining and managing delivery of the DQ brand identity. I mentally compared this experience with the obvious care my local Starbucks barista takes in preparing a perfect cup of coffee and it occured to me who’s paying closer attention to important brand-defining touchpoints, and who’s likely more sucessful as a business.
Are your employees completely steeped in your brand identity and the brand touchpoints required to properly deliver that identity to your customers? Are you sure?