A powerful brand is a powerful asset — it can help you stand out in the marketplace, create raving fans, and demand premium pricing. But how do you get to the point of having a powerful brand in the first place?

Logos Get Their Power from Brands
A logo, which is just a part of your brand, gets its power from the brand it represents. What do you think of when you see this symbol?

For millions of people around the world, this symbol — in all languages and without any words — makes them feel like they can jump like Michael Jordan, run the soccer field like Mia Hamm, and hit a golf ball like Tiger Woods.

And then there’s the phrase, “Just do it,” which has just about as much cache as the swoosh symbol itself. These powerful symbols of the Nike brand didn’t gain their power by accident. They gained their power from Nike’s frequent and consistent promotion of the Nike brand.

Secret #1. Powerful brands are consistent
Take a look at your favorite brands. Notice how consistent they are with their brand messages. Nike has been consistent with their message that Nike is the brand that top athletes use. Even if not stated in those exact words, you’ve been hearing and seeing that message from Nike for years.

Secret #2. Powerful brands are seen frequently
How often do you see Nike? In magazines, in retail promotions, on TV, and even on the athletes themselves, Nike is out there frequently.

If it were as easy as being consistent with frequent promotion, every brand could be as powerful and successful as Nike, correct? So there has to be something else — why isn’t every brand as powerful and as successful as Nike?

Brands Get Their Power from Values
Brands flow from values. It’s not enough to be frequent and consistent with brand promotion, although frequency and consistency are both vital. Values also play a vital role in the Power Brand Mix of consistency, frequency, and values.

When correctly developed, an organization’s brand reflects the organization’s values. It stems from identity. It flows from what the company truly is, at its core. That’s good news, because developing an organization’s brand is a chance to show the organization’s authentic self, to put its best foot forward. Just keep in mind that it still has to be the company’s actual foot — it has to be genuine.

The truth is, a brand is only as good as the organization is. Customers are smart; they can always tell when a brand isn’t based on values. Brands not based on values have a hollow ring to them, they lack the personal feel necessary for people to connect emotionally.

Secret #3: Powerful brands are based on values
Nike’s strong values are attached to the athletes who endorse the brand. By buying Nike products, you’re buying into Tiger Woods’ strong values, and the values of other top athletes. Those are the values Nike has come to represent as well.

Add these three secret ingredients to your Power Brand Mix and your brand will be well on its way to becoming a powerful brand.

Tags: brands, branding, brand strategy, Nike, brand mix, brand values, brand frequency, brand consistency

CREATING CUSTOMER CONNECTIONS, part 2

This information-packed introductory audio class will pick up where the April 30th class left off. We’ll also review my 3 best personal recommendations for jump-starting powerful connections with your customers — to bring you more sales.

Comments from the April 30th teleclass:

Thanks so much for the wonderful conference lesson today! I very much look forward to connecting online soon, plus on the next conference call.

Your wisdom and experience shine …
Christine

Thanks for sharing the other day, Marcia.

I enjoyed your ‘chat’ very much. Points well made on presenting authentic values and focusing on Branding as representing a firm’s reputation. These matters need to be a reflection of genuine character, that begins first within individuals and then should naturally spill-over into the quality of goods and services produced to fulfill customer needs.

Well done! Looking forward to the follow-up call.
Scott

I was on the call and it was excellent, thank you!
thanks,
Sybil

Hi Marcla,
I enjoyed your message and I am looking
forward to your next Phone Conference
Bill

Friday, May 16, 2008, 3:00 pm EST.
Please join me! Get more information here.

Tags: authentic branding, branding teleclass, branding teleseminar, customer connections, connecting with customers

If you want customers to connect with your organization, they first need to feel emotional about your organization. They need something to connect with.

How do you get people to feel emotional about your organization? You need to do the same thing you’d do if you, as an individual, wanted to connect emotionally with another individual. You’d reveal things about yourself, you’d show them who you are. To reveal things about “who” the organization is, it helps to think of the organization as having human traits. This will not only help customers relate to your organization’s brand, it will help you to begin forming an authenticity for your organization that will become more real to you as you move forward. So start now to think of your organization as a person, for the following good reasons:

people know how to talk to people; people don’t know how to talk to organizations (so they invented “corporate-speak,” which you must avoid!)

organizations are like crowds, and crowds are impersonal — they tend to yell rather than communicate

an organization’s instincts for survival are different than an individual’s — a person’s first instinct for survival is to connect with people, not so for an organization, which will often retreat under stress

FOUR MAJOR QUESTIONS: DISCOVERING YOUR BASIC TRAITS
To get started thinking of your organization as a person, there are four major questions you need to ask.

What are your organization’s basic traits? Take a moment to think through this exercise. Close your eyes and picture your organization standing in front of you, then answer the following questions.

1. Is the brand male, female, or neither? (Most will be either strongly male or strongly female.)

2. Is the brand young, old, middle aged, or ageless? (Try to put an age on this “person.”)

3. Is the brand upscale, blue collar, or all-encompassing? (Be honest, here, if you want to attract the correct audience.)

4. Is the brand local, regional, national, or global? (This will also help you focus on the correct audience.)

Start now to think of your organization as a person, and watch the effectiveness of your communications rise.

Tags: brand strategy, emotional branding, authentic branding, basic traits

The purpose of a headline is to pick out people you can interest. A clever phrase or play on words may attract initial attention, but probably not the attention of those you need to influence — the people you are after may never realize that the following content refers to something they want or need.

We pick out what we wish to read by headlines, and we don’t want those headlines to be misleading.

Example: Robert Allen’s best seller The Road to Wealth was originally and forgettably titled, The Challenge.

Tags: headlines, headline, increase readership

Want to ensure that you’re able to generate leads effectively and efficiently? Then be sure to heed the following advice from the Wellesley Hills Group:

1. Don’t be content with just “getting your name out there.”
Advertising should be specific, demonstrating what you can offer your customer. Don’t blow your budget barraging the world with your company’s name, out of reasonable context.

2. Don’t send direct mail or email without a valuable offer.
If you send mail to your clients, make sure your correspondence offers them something of value, like special offers, useful information, or seminars. Junk mail is just junk mail.

3. Don’t rely on only one tactic.
Your best bet is to build a website, offer informational downloads, follow leads up with a phone call, send newsletters, and so on and so on. Don’t just send a blanket email to everyone in your database and leave it at that.

4. Don’t drop leads.
Remember that most business buyers don’t buy right away. Follow up, follow up, and follow up. Be patient and nurture leads, and eventually, they may become customers.

5. Don’t skip the measurement.
How can you know if a method of lead generation works if you don’t measure it? Stick with a head-generation tactic for a while and check your metrics on it before deciding to keep it or ditch it.

6. Don’t over-rely on junior people or on rainmakers.
There are some things you can’t delegate. Senior team members will need to stand alongside juniors when pursuing some leads, and “big gun” marketing firms or “rainmakers” won’t usually just “do the job for you.”

The bottom line? Those who control the company are ultimately responsible for lead generation and follow-through, too.

Tags: lead generation, follow-through, sales leads, generate leads

If you’ve been a visitor to my blog before, you know that I’m big on authenticity. Along with authenticity comes a connection, and I’ve rarely seen one without the other. Sometimes you have to study organizations to see this, you have to pause and think about it. And so it bears repeating.

My philosophy
In today’s world, we can’t pour a lot of words and explanations on people and expect them to act in a way that’s beneficial to the organization, either by buying the organization’s products and services or by supporting the organization internally. We need to hit customers and employees between the eyes with our messages, to show meaning in clear, consistent, and immediately understandable ways that will connect with them at a deep level.

The truth is that good products and good customer service are not enough. We need to connect with customers with a point of differentiation that is unique to our businesses that our competitors can’t also claim. If you are authentically “you,” that’s something no other organization can be. And it won’t change or become obsolete with the next trend that comes down the pike.

I believe that instead of focusing so much on promoting products and services, organizations need to start revealing more about “who” they are as a company and how that relates to the product or service, so that customers can connect with them on an emotional level. The best known brands with the most loyal fans share their authentic characters and personalities with their customers.

Think about your favorite brands. They got where they are by being authentically themselves — think the freedom of individualism, like Harley-Davidson. Or cool design on a budget, like Target. Or a great brand experience, like Starbucks. You get the point — but many organizations continue to “hide” any shred of human traits behind thick walls, preferring instead to let their products and services do the heavy lifting. This, I believe, is a mistake. Customers are people, and studies prove that people, regardless of what they’re purchasing, still like to work with people, they like to relate to people, they like to buy from people.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned in my many years of marketing is this — if organizations will be more like people when communicating, whether it’s to customers, shareholders, partners, or employees, the audience will respond.

Tags: connect with customers, emotional branding, authenticity, authentic branding, differentiation

“I will stop myself from saying negative things.
I will stop myself from trying to win every argument.”

These are some of my past personal New Year’s Un-Resolutions.

I’m not really good with New Year Resolutions. I’ve never been able to choose a few really good things to resolve to do and remember them, much less stick with them. For me, it works better if I pick a few things to stop doing — like trying to stop myself every time I start to say something negative, or trying to stop myself from trying to win every argument. (Our whole office wore rubber bands around our wrists last year for this purpose, and snapped them whenever we caught ourselves backsliding.)

And so because I just can’t stop myself from thinking along those lines at this time of year, I offer below my list of 2008 Marketing Un-Resolutions for you.

Three Things to Resolve NOT to do in 2008
Repeat after me:

1. “I will not jump on every new trend.”
Have you made some good marketing decisions in the past year? Do you have a plan to move your organization in a particular direction? Have you accomplished some good work on your brand? If so, stay the course. Give your plans some time to work. One of the biggest problems we see with failed marketing initiatives is a lack of focus and commitment.

After doing all the work to get a marketing initiative started, it’s easy to lose interest in it, especially when you see competitors doing something different or notice a new trend. You also might think your customers are tiring of your marketing and want to see something fresh (after all, that’s the way you feel after months of hard work, right?), when actually, just about the time you’re getting tired of your marketing approach is when customers are beginning to notice and relate to it. Remember, your customers aren’t seeing it and obsessing over it every day like you are. Be consistent, give them something familiar to connect to. Stop jumping on every new trend.

2. “I will not try to fit in with the crowd.”
Remember in high school how difficult it was to be different, and how much you wanted to fit in with the crowd? As you got older, you realized the value of being yourself. It’s the same way with organizations.

It’s still tempting to look to your competitors, to the industry, and try to fit in. To do what’s expected, to fit the industry norm (our website should be like this, we should do this type of marketing) — you’ll be respected that way, right? But that’s not what positioning and differentiation are all about, and it won’t help you break out above the pack.

You need to look outside of your industry for inspiration, and your organization needs to be authentic. You need a point of differentiation that is unique to your business that your competitors can’t also claim. If you are authentically “you,” that’s something no other organization can be. Be yourself. Stop trying to fit in with the crowd.

3. “I will not ‘keep a stiff upper lip’.”
You know, keep a straight face, do your duty and don’t show emotion. Even the proper British have relaxed their standards on this one, and their “footballers” sometimes cry in public when they lose. It’s still difficult for businesses, though, to show true character and personality.

Many organizations continue to hide any human traits behind thick walls, preferring instead to let their products and services do the heavy lifting. This, I believe, is a mistake. Customers are people, and studies prove that people still like to work with people, they like to relate to people, they like to buy from people.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned in my many years of marketing is this — if organizations will be more like people when communicating, whether it’s to customers, shareholders, partners, or employees, the audience will respond. Don’t be afraid to show your organization’s human side in your marketing. Stop keeping a stiff upper lip.

Tags: marketing consistency, brand authenticity, positioning, differentiation

I have a stack of papers, bills, and files on my kitchen counter that I’m going to “get to later.” No, wait, make that two piles — one for the more urgent “later” stuff and one for the later “later” stuff.

At my office it’s much the same, except that the piles seem to multiply and spill onto the floor. I can’t throw it away — some of it I really have to address, and some of it is just good stuff I want to get to. I’ll bet you have piles like this as well.

As a marketer, I can’t help but look at my piles and think, “Someone went to a great deal of trouble to get that thing/offer/information to me, yet here I am, frozen in time, not acting on it.” Why not? Is it me, is it the thing/offer/information, or is it something else entirely, some missing element that would have gotten me to act sooner, perhaps as soon as I received it?

This very subject came up with a client project I’m working on now — how can we avoid having our own direct response materials end up in the “get to later” pile? And so I thought it might be helpful to address it here.

How to avoid the “later” pile
It would be wonderful if our clients and customers were so eager to hear from us that whenever we contacted them in any way, they immediately responded by purchasing our products and services or taking the action we’d like — but that isn’t likely to happen! There are ways, however, to increase response rates with various customer touch points. Let’s talk here about direct response marketing, such as traditional direct mail, online marketing, or any vehicle used to solicit an immediate, direct response from customers.

1. Target your audience
This should go without saying, but it we all need to be reminded. The most effective direct response programs are those that focus narrowly on a select audience most likely to want, need, or be interested in what you have to offer.

2. Make an irresistible offer
Maybe your product or service alone is irresistible. If it is, let the audience know with great copy and photos/illustrations that will draw them in and get them excited. If you’ve got the right product for the right audience, sometimes all you have to do make the match, point out how it will benefit them, and tell them what they need to do to get it — don’t leave that to their imagination. Make your offer clear, make it irresistible, and make sure they know what you want them to do.

Sometimes you’ll need to sweeten the pot. Especially if you’re asking your audience to act, give feedback, or respond, you’ll want to give them something for their effort. This can be in the form of prize drawings or a gift to every respondent, just make sure it’s interesting or unique enough to really catch their attention. Remember, “irresistible offer” doesn’t mean “key chain” anymore.

3. Give them an ironclad deadline for responding
This is the clincher, and where your program runs the risk of ending up in the “get to later” pile. It won’t, if you give respondents an ironclad deadline, a short ironclad deadline. Don’t give in to the temptation to give them more time, thinking you’ll get more responses — that’s exactly what makes people put things off. You want people to respond right now, and the best way of doing this is by telling them they’ve only got “until midnight tomorrow,” or they’ll lose out.

You’ve already got the right audience, and you’ve made them an irresistible offer. If they don’t respond now, chances are they aren’t going to respond at all, so you’re not losing anyone. Be brave, give them an ironclad deadline, and make it as short as you can. You’ll get more response this way, not less.

4. Let them know how and when they’ll receive the offer
Okay, now you’ve got them ready to act, but you’ll lose them if you don’t tell them, right now, how and when they’ll get the offer. They need to know if it’s going to take six weeks for delivery, and they’ll probably be okay with it now when they’re excited about it. And it’s a sure thing they’re more likely to be okay with it now than if they don’t find out about it until later, and start calling customer service demanding to know where it is.

If the offer is available immediately, punch it up! It’s a bonus to be able to deliver on your promise right away, and it should result in increased response.

If you’re sweetening the pot with prizes or gifts, get these out as soon as possible, and let your customers know how and when they can claim them. Gifts and prizes lose their allure when there’s too much of a wait involved.

5. Extra tips for snail mail direct response
Here’s a bonus section for direct mail programs using traditional snail mail:

• real postage stamps on envelopes outpull postage meters or bulk mail permits for open rates
• special or commemorative stamps outpull regular postage stamps for open rates
• stamps on an angle outpull stamps put on straight for open rates
• multiple stamps adding up to total postage outpull single stamps for open rates
• printing sales or “teaser” copy on one or both sides of a business envelope works well for mailings to existing customers
• no sales or “teaser” copy on business envelopes works well for mailings to new customers
• 3D mailings or “puffy” envelopes outpull regular flat mailings for open rates

Tags: direct response, direct mail, increase response, target audience, irresistible offer, open rates

What’s the best way to get decision makers all on the same page when important marketing and communications outcomes are at stake? What can you do when design and branding decisions need to be made by a group — especially by a group of people who don’t necessarily value the creative process?

It’s important to help people make connections.

A method is needed to help make the connection between the unspoken, emotional aspects of people’s feelings and perceptions about a company, product, or service, and the visual representation of it — a tricky thing to understand for many people.

The problem
Often, brands, logos, and graphics are created by outside marketing firms without executive level input, and are based on a designer’s interpretation of communication value. There is often a substantial gap between the designer’s natural understanding of the creative process and the lack of this understanding on the part of the individuals in the company who are purchasing the creative solution. This gap causes company management to relate to the visual representations on the surface, out of context, and with knee-jerk reactions—even if they understand the objectives used by the designer to develop the solution. In the absence of a process to bridge this gap, personal likes and dislikes are used to evaluate the appropriateness of the creative solution, as individuals have little else on which to base their reactions. When you’ve got a group of decision makers to satisfy, this is bad news. As everyone’s personal likes and dislikes are going to be different, coming to agreement can be very difficult.

The solution
The solution is to bring the people responsible for the approval and ultimate use of the visual solution into the creative process at the beginning and have them involved in the creative development. With the group’s participation, everyone’s input is prioritized and put into context, and relationships between graphic elements and their purpose can be explored. This process helps to bridge the communication gap and match specific objectives with visual interpretation and/or wording in a way that makes use of each person’s valuable insight about the organization, its products and/or services, and its objectives for the future. Understanding, agreement, and ownership are all outcomes of this method.

The process is relatively simple. An initial session can take between two and three hours to complete, depending on the amount of discussion that is a by product of the session.

When to use it
Obviously, you wouldn’t use this process for every marketing or communication project that comes across your desk. But for the larger ones, like branding your organization or major marketing campaigns, the addition of a process like this can save time and large amounts of resources in the long run, allowing you to avoid multiple expensive false starts.

How it works
There are three main parts of the session:
1.) determining where everyone stands at the start, in terms of understanding the objective and why it’s being undertaken;
2.) identifying everyone’s current perceptions regarding the objective; and
3.) identifying where the group wants to end up in terms of future perceptions for the initiative.

After all of these elements are identified through exercises, discussion uncovers similarities and direction that can be agreed upon. These will be the basis for the creative direction.

The details
2 to 3-hour session/Attended by everyone who has a voice in the outcome/4 to 25 attendees

Baseline Brainstorming — a working session to identify individual understanding of the objectives.

Current and Desired Perceptions — a two-part exercise to identify current and desired future perceptions.

Emotional Tests — The group “reacts” to common graphic and communication elements as they relate to previously defined desired future perceptions. The group rates and categorizes communication elements for appropriateness for the initiative.

Summary and Review — Progress and direction are reviewed, next steps are defined.

Results Report and Creative Development — Information gathered at session is condensed and organized into a report for team approval of direction. After approval of results report, creative conceptualization can begin.

Assessment — Group critiques creative solutions, approves direction, or feedback is given for further development

When embarking on major marketing or branding campaigns, organizations that take the time to lay the groundwork with this critical process will pave the way for group buy-in, saving time and large amounts of resources.

It’s all about helping people make connections.

[tags]marketing, marketing initiatives, branding, branding initiatives, how to get buy in, building consensus, communication gap, branding process, marketing process

Have you ever enjoyed learning so much that you inhale the information in big gulps, and think your head will explode? That’s how I felt when I attended Alexandria Brown’s Online Success Blueprint Workshop in Los Angeles November 8 -11.

I’ve felt for some time that traditional marketing communications and design firms were missing some critical understanding when it came to marketing and selling online — our years of offline training didn’t prepare us for the invisible online customer and the new ways in which he’d search and buy. So I felt it was my duty to learn what successful online marketers knew that I didn’t. Ali’s 3-day workshop was a great learning experience — power-packed with information, presented in an easy to absorb manner. And I learned some major differences between successful online and offline marketing approaches.

Relationships always matter.

But by far the biggest thing I came away with is the major similarity between online and offline marketing — and that’s the importance of relationships. Offline and online, marketing is built on relationships. There are different ways of building relationships with people no one in your company will probably ever meet in person, but the bottom line is that people buy products and services from people and companies they like and trust, and ignore those they don’t.

Whether you’re marketing online or off, it’s important to remember that people still like to buy from people. Even when purchasing from large product-driven companies, customers want to know that there are real people behind the company, and they gravitate to organizations that have values, things that they stand for, and go out of their way to connect. Starbucks fans don’t only like the coffee, they love the fact that Starbucks is generous with health care for their employees. Nordstrom’s customers have long been smitten by the extraordinary personal attention given to customers. And Amazon’s customers feel close to their invisible book source, which routinely finds new ways to personalize and offer the help and products that they crave. That’s why it’s important for you to establish real relationships with your customers, too, and to continually work on building them.

Here are three simple secrets for building those important client relationships.

1. The “who” is more important than the “what.”
This is one of Alexandria Brown’s mantra’s, which she attributes to Dan Kennedy, of direct marketing fame. Ali maintains that in order to influence, it’s important to make sure you’re talking to the right people, and in front of the correct audience. You can have the best product or service in the world, but if you’re building relationships with the wrong target market, you won’t make sales. Find your ideal customer first, then you can start building the relationship.

2. You have to be top of mind with your customers — all the time.
Building relationships is a long-term proposition — it doesn’t happen overnight. Many organizations take steps to build customer relationships with tactics and programs that they find difficult to sustain, and then abandon them. Regular phone check-ins with customers sound like a great idea in January, but dwindle off as the year progresses. Direct mail programs are suspended because of lack of response. And online programs like e-newsletters and blogs are discontinued for lack of time. This is difficult, I know, but listen to this: one online study found that the most stated reason for purchasing a certain product or service was that it was the product or service needed at the time. This means we have to be there, in front of the customer or prospect, all the time — or they’ll choose someone else who is.

3. You have to make it easy for your customers to work with you.
Here’s an interesting way to look at making things easy for your customers, relayed by Bill Glazer, Dan Kennedy’s partner (he spoke at Ali’s workshop). He says that the old story of “give a man a fish and you’ll feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you’ll feed him for life” isn’t true when it comes to customers. Customers, he says, don’t want to learn how to fish — they don’t want to think that your product or service will add work for them in any way. Busy customers, he says, “just want the damn fish.” They don’t want any extra work. You have to tell them exactly what you’ll do for them, how it will help them, and exactly what they need to do (hopefully not much) in order to get them to act. Make it easy. Just give them the damn fish.

Tags: building relationships, customer relationships, online marketing, offline marketing, ideal customer, target audience, top of mind, Alexandria Brown, Bill Glazer