Posts Tagged brand
Managing Brand Touchpoints: What If You Only Had One Customer?
Posted by Mike Paffenback in Brand Touchpoints on April 14, 2011
What if the entire success of your business depended on one customer, alone? What kind of heightened focus would you have on delivering the best all-around brand experience possible to ensure that customer remained your customer?
It’s hard to think this way when the reality is you likely have tens, hundreds, thousands or even millions of customers. But the same reality is that each of those customers is a single entity or individual, each one exposed to your brand — and those of your competitors — positively or negatively, based on how the brand’s touchpoints are delivered.
In a previous post, I referred to Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s new book, Onward, which became available last week. In it, Schultz made one interesting observation about the problems plaguing Starbucks which lead to a brand revitalization focus in early 2008: company management was consumed with managing the big behemoth into which Starbucks had grown rather than focusing on the ”ones” (the individual neighborhood stores and customers) which drove its business. Starbucks had simply forgotten that the ones add up. To fix this, Shultz rededicated himself and the entire organization to refocus on the ones and improving the delivery of the smallest details of what makes Starbucks uniquely Starbucks.
So, what if one customer — one person, alone, was responsible for the success or failure of your business? How different would the brand experience be that you deliver? How much closer attention would you pay the the various brand touchpoints that make and keep that customer a customer and that make your brand distinctively what it is?
Something to ponder over your next cup of coffee.
Is Traditional Advertising Dead?
Posted by Mike Paffenback in Brand Touchpoints, General on February 9, 2011
I grew up in a kinder, gentler advertising world: TV, radio, outdoor, newspaper, magazine, point-of-purchase. During that time, media options were relatively few and well-defined and the emphasis was on creatively engaging the prospect and breaking through the ad clutter. Advertising, in its purest definition, was the workhorse called on to create a favorable brand image, to generate interest in the product or service, and, ultimately, to drive more sales.
Today, the old rules of advertising haven’t just changed, they’ve been thrown out altogether as any newspaper ad salesman will tell you. The myriad of legitimate social media tools now available enable an almost one-on-one marketing relationship with prospects. Traditional media options still exist, though in much more fragmented forms which draw narrower (=targeted) audiences. Brand messaging can be much more specific to a precisely-defined audience. And, properly conveyed, those messages are organically pulled through the market with a sense of authenticity never before achieved through push forms of marketing. Creativity, once the driving force of all forms of advertising, is still imperative, as our collective minds have become more cynical and expectantly demanding (I’m talking to you, local car dealerships!). And metrics, once relegated to pre-testing and awareness/recall studies, have emerged as a new science all to themselves as marketers demand campaign performance accountability.
Today, brands aren’t built with the sledgehammer of advertising. They’re precision-crafted with the tools of brand communications: a broader, more encompassing set of brand interactions — touchpoints. Advertising, is one tool. But now, thanks largely to constantly evolving technology and a population willing to embrace that evolution, there are hundreds of other tools available, each with its own role in tapping an individual prospect on the shoulder for a chat.
Are you still using traditional advertising as your only go-to brand-building tool of choice? No matter what industry you’re in, it’s time to check out the new tools of brand communications.
Advertising is dead. Long live… Brand Communications!
Brand Communications: Exactly What Is It?
Posted by Mike Paffenback in Brand Identity, Brand Messaging, Brand Touchpoints on October 5, 2010
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.
But experience has led me to a more evolved perspective. And it’s based on the larger view that ”brand,” or more specifically “Brand Identity,” plays a central role in a company’s ability to sell more of their stuff.
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. (Do you have one for each of your brands?) At its core, this should remain constant for the individual products or services that will be marketed under the brand identity.
Now comes the communications part, and there’s two primary areas to consider here: content and contact.
Content is what you say. It’s the messaging that comes directly out of the brand identity. 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 various brand touchpoints — those significant and seemingly insignificant interactions or 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 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.”
Finding Ways To Become A “Remarkable” Brand
Posted by Mike Paffenback in Brand Touchpoints on October 4, 2010
For the past few weeks, I’ve been working on an assignment to help launch a new brand into a mature market already dominated by several well-entrenched competitors. This new brand will be smaller, with fewer products offered – each equally as remarkable (or unremarkable, as the case may be) as those offered by competitors. And it will be launching into a market that’s been particularly hammered by the economy of mass destruction. Pricing will be competitive, but nothing remarkable. Product quality will be comparable to that offered by competitors. And delivery will take several days longer than competitors are able to provide as a result of the manufacturing logistics involved.
If you’re like me, your first thought is “this thing is a doomed venture from the start.”
I’m a stong proponent of the idea that relevant differentiation is the key to business success. That is, stand out from your competitors in ways that your customers and prospects will find remarkable.
In his classic must-read book, Purple Cow, Transform Your Business By Being Remarkable, Seth Godin defines being remarkable as being different enough that your target audiences talk about you to one another, thereby spreading the good word. He calls it being a “Purple Cow” — remarkably standing out from the herd.
Re-reading this amazing little book provided the renewed inspiration I desperately needed to climb the formidable hill we were staring at for this particular branding project.
Godin presents several key thoughts that any business can embrace to help them become remarkable:
- Invest in making your product or service truly remarkable, not your advertising
- Don’t play by your industry’s defined/accepted rules
- Don’t try to appeal to the masses — focus only on those customers who will most likely spread the word (early adopters)
- Don’t make “very good” stuff — people expect that, and get it every day. Make “remarkable” stuff.
- Explore the farthest reaches of the outer limits: the fastest or slowest, the cheapest or most expensive, the oldest or newest, etc
While this little brand I’m working with will be comparable (at best) in many ways to what’s already there, we’ve now uncovered several opportunities to make it truly remarkable, specifically in the areas of customer service and marketing programs.
How about you? Is your business or brand truly remarkable — a “Purple Cow?” If not, right now would be a great time to consider why not and what you may be missing out on.
What is “A Brand?”
Posted by Mike Paffenback in Brand Identity, Brand Image, Brand Touchpoints on September 20, 2010
This question was recently posed to a LinkedIn group to which I belong.
Not surprisingly, the responses were varied and, depending on one’s perspective, correct. If ever there was a loosey-goosey marketing term, “brand” is probably it.
The question got me thinking, and I submit the answer lies in one or more of three key areas, depending on who you’re asking:
- The Brand Identity: this strategic platform is developed by internal company management and answers the questions, “what do we want this brand to be when it grows up, and what are the steps we need to take to ensure it happens?” To these brand stakeholders, this is “A Brand.”
- Delivery of Brand Touchpoints: how the various brand interactions with target audiences (customers, prospects, influencers) are delivered will affect what those audiences actually believe about the brand, regardless of what was planned in the Brand Identity. Delivery of the touchpoints should be in sync with the brand identity platform. To those responsible for delivering these touchpoints, this is “A Brand.”
- Formation of the Brand Image: As target audiences interact with the brand touchpoints, they form an impression about the brand — good or bad — depending on their individual experience with the touchpoint(s). To those creating an opinion as a result of these experiences, this is “A Brand.”
“A Brand” is a both process and a result.
It’s an interesting question to post to an Internet social group, but the more important question is what, specifically, is your brand? What’s your brand identity? How synchronized are the delivery of your brand touchpoints with this identity? What’s your brand image being formed this very minute by your target audiences?
Now, those are good questions to answer, aren’t they?