Posts tagged branding


Are you big enough to have a brand?

Jun 9th

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Many business owners think their companies are too small to have a brand. Do YOU have a brand?
Yes, you do!

A brand is your promise to your customers.

It is the personification of your company.

It is defined by …

… everything you do and say
… everything you DON’T do and say
… what your customers say about you
… what your customers have to say about you

To demonstrate the power of the idea of “brand,” let me pose a question. What would you think if Coca-Cola announced it was moving beverage production to China to save money? You would be outraged, right? But why? Thousands of companies have out-sourced overseas with nary a whimper from the public. But Coke … well it’s all American, it’s the real thing. No! Not China.

Right?

So somehow this company has established a personality and a “promise” for sugar water. Pretty neat, huh? Take a look at the images above. Can a single letter elicit an emotion from you? THAT my friend is the power of a brand!

What about you? What do your customers think about when they hear about your company? What are you known for? What is YOUR promise to your customers?

If you can’t answer these questions, you better do some homework. If you haven’t defined your brand, your customers will. And, increasingly, your customers will, to. Through the Internet. everyone is a critic, publisher and reviewer. Word about a bad customer experience could be broadcast within moments of when it happens.

Today an influential blogger had a bad experience with an Apple store. He wrote a scathing article called “Go to hell Apple” … FROM THE STORE!

So yes, you have a brand. And it’s probably your most important business asset. Now go defend it!

Graphic credit: In The Picture Design

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The writing's on the wall: An interview with Sharpie's Twitter Queen

Jun 2nd

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When I first learned that Sharpie pens had its own Twitter-er, I couldn’t believe it. How in the world could you spend your day writing 140-character statements about INK PENS?
I decided to “follow” SharpieSusan and see for myself. I’m hooked. The enthusiasm, authenticity and wit driving her stream of tweets is addictive!

A former newspaper reporter and PR counsel to Kraft, Honeywell, American Airlines and others, Susan Wassel now combines “traditional” with “new” as both PR and social media manager for Sharpie. This week, Susan and her company launched a new community website and social media strategy. Amid this chaos, she had time to talk to me about her social media job and challenges.

How did you become the Twitter Queen of Sharpie?

Like the rest of us, I was reading about the Twitter phenomenon and the opportunity it offered marketers to connect informally with their audiences. It also worked out that Twitter was a platform that seemed most successful when a “personality” was involved. Let’s just say Twitter and I were a match made in heaven. I was lucky that lots of passionate Sharpie users were already Tweeting away and welcomed me into the conversation.

Does your company participate in other social media channels? Which seem to work best for your brand and why??

We just officially launched Sharpie’s Facebook fan page and You Tube site. Both are part of a larger initiative to celebrate Sharpie’s passionate users and the amazing things they create with our product. Our community channels are all housed on this new community site, http://www.sharpieuncapped.com/, along with a Sharpie gallery, a how-to video section, a virtual product test drive app, and of course the Sharpie blog, which I edit and which was our very first foray into social media.?

How do you measure the effectiveness of your Twitter-based promotional dialogue?

To date, we’ve only looked at number of followers, not because we didn’t want to know more but because we didn’t have the resources in place to dig deeper. The launch of our new community website includes an analytics initiative led by our agency Draftfcb that will take a closer look at some of our social media properties and Sharpie’s share of voice overall in the social media sphere. While we’ll get some fairly immediate feedback, we’re looking at measurement over the course of 6 months to give us broader measure of Sharpie conversation over time.

Other than raising awareness for your brand, have there been other, unexpected benefits of your Twitter campaign?

Again, nothing quantitative yet but more anecdotal. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Twitterers in general love Sharpie. They often express how surprised and excited they are to see Sharpie on Twitter. Everybody seems to have a Sharpie story they want to share – whether it’s a favorite color or a great idea about how to use Sharpies — from the Sharpie dress one sculptor sent me to the giant Sharpie-shaped birthday cake a fan made for a friend. People send me Twitpics of Sharpies on their desks at work, in their backpacks at art school, in the hands of celebrities at rock concerts and Broadway performances. It really is an amazing thing to see so many people so passionate about a little ol’ marker!?????

How do you explain to mainstream management what you do and why you do it?

Mainstream management isn’t so mainstream any more. I think you’d have to be living in a cave to have missed the social media movement and the power it can wield over brands. While not all execs have it figured out, they know it’s big, they know it matters and they couldn’t be more supportive of efforts at Sharpie to open a dialogue with our consumers and find out how we can continue to make them happy.

Everyone knows you are blatantly promoting a product … yet you remain so authentic and endearing! What advice do you have for others learning to promote their products through social media channels?

Ah, this is where the magic comes in. This is the part you can’t buy at the store. I think that for the most part, the people today who have stepped up to the plate within corporations to commandeer social media are those with their own deep passion for the product. And it is that genuine passion that consumers connect with.?I use Sharpies, my family uses Sharpies, my friends, my relatives — who doesn’t use Sharpies? There’s just something about their shiny cigar-shaped barrels, the bold, brilliant colors, the bright and smooth way the ink lays down, that I love! Not a day goes by that I don’t use them to label one of my kids’ lunch bags or make a Christmas ornament with the cousins or create big loopy bubble letters on my daughter’s 8th?grade graduation poster. So I have lots to of real-life Sharpie fodder for my Tweets. And then of course I always get off on these talk tangents. There is a group of us addicted to NPR, another caught up in the Jon & Kate crisis. It’s not just all Sharpie all the time and I think that’s important too.

Photo credit Promo magazine
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Ten reasons your website is killing your business

May 22nd

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I’m alarmed by the number of otherwise brilliant businesspeople who are allowing their website to kill their company.
Many business leaders I meet have abdicated their responsibility to market and sell their products by handing this power to a web designer – believing their website IS their marketing plan. The web has become too prevalent, too easy. The Internet has lulled us into becoming lazy marketers! Here are 10 ways websites can sub-optimize a business strategy, drive away customers and make your competitors look great:
1. No purpose. Before you start a website, be clear about your purpose, audience, message, and call to action. You must have a clear marketing strategy BEFORE you have a website. Your website must be part of an integrated and measurable initiative to build a link between customers and your company, brand and products.
2. No promotion. A website only works if people see it and respond to it. Once you have built your site, work it! Drive traffic to your website with advertising, promotions, mailings, placing the web address on your company literature, business cards, etc. “Build it and they will come” is a line from a movie — not a marketing strategy.
3. Ego trip. It’s heady to see your product in cyberspace for the first time, but don’t let personal interests and emotions get in the way of effective marketing. A majority of websites focus on their company and not on the visitor, customer, or potential customer. A website should address your customer’s needs, pain, goals and educate them on how you can help them. Look at your website through the eyes of your customer. Is your website all about you? Don’t sell what you DO. Sell what they NEED.
4. One size fits all. Don’t try to sell too much, to too many people, in one place. Micro-market wherever possible. Design web pages for every market segment and customer need. That’s the beauty of the web – slice up that target market and communicate to them effectively and often.
5. Unrealistic expectations. A website is not a marketing plan. It is an OUTPUT of a marketing plan and is only as effective as the preparation behind its execution. No website can overcome an inferior business strategy or lousy products. I have encountered people who think they will make money just by having an online presence. Business is business and you have to follow the fundamentals to achieve profitable growth. And remember, a website often is NOT the most effective way to reach your customers.
6. Lack of measurement. My teacher and mentor Peter Drucker, the famous management consultant would tell us, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Web analytics track every page a visitor sees on your website and a lot more. By analyzing your traffic you can see what needs to be improved and what people are responding to.
7. Becoming stale. It’s easy to build a website, relax and expect new customers. But nothing turns off visitors faster than an outdated website. Keep your site fresh, expand it, improve it. Keep making it easier and more fun to do business with you. Keep it alive and relevant.
8. Forgetting your customers. Don’t rely on customers to come back to your site on their own. Instead, capture their email and stay in contact with them. Send them new product announcements, press releases, follow-up messages, surveys, and newsletters. And when you do, make them happy you did it. Always leave them with some new information or insight that will make them glad they are doing business with you.
9. Focusing on traffic, not conversions. The ultimate goal for most businesses is to turn a website visitor into a buying customer. But a conversion might also mean the visitor signs up for a newsletter, contributes an idea, responds to a poll, provides feedback on a product, calls a sales rep for an appointment, or donates money to your non-profit organization. Conversions lead to business growth, not page views.
10. No SEO. In the past 12 months, I bought a car, house and $5,000 in consumer electronics. My first stop for research? A search engine. And I’m not alone. Today, the Internet is overwhelmingly the first place to go for shopping, entertainment, education and information. Not having your business show up in the top level of searches probably means you’re leaving money on the table. SEO has become a key, stand-alone marketing skill. Underestimating the need to keep your site atop search engine results provides an enormous edge to your competitors.
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Recession Essentials Part 1: Protect your brand

Apr 27th

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brandThis is part one of a three part series providing the essential marketing strategies you MUST drive during this downturn.

Imperative #1: PROTECT YOUR BRAND.

You might be shaking their head thinking, “my business is too small to have a brand.” Well of course you have a brand. Your brand is the essence of your company. It’s your promise to your customers. Your brand is what makes you special and defines why customers keep coming back to you.

Think about this. What would you think if Coca-Cola announced it was moving operations to China to save money? That would be so counter to the company’s all-American image that it would cause a backlash against the company. It breaks their implied promise to America.

Similarly, what would be your reaction if Trump Hotels started a line of hotels to compete with Motel 6? You would be shocked because it is so inconsistent with the brand promise Trump has nurtured. It might meet a short-term customer need for value, but in the long-term the brand would be ruined!

Everything you do and everything you don’t do defines your brand. And if you don’t carefully protect and market your brand even when times are tough, your brand will be defined by what your competitors say about you.

In the age of social media, there’s another new element that can jeopardize your brand — the constant buzz on the Internet. Today, every individual can have a stake in creating the image of your company. A bad experience in a restaurant can fly over the internet immediately over Twitter. Bad service will be reported on any number of sites that review businesses. For the first time in history, public opinion is really PUBLIC – immediately, pervasively and permanently! In this environment, listening to your customers, monitoring the buzz and reacting immediately to protect your brand is more important than ever.

One last comment about the importance of forming an impenetrable shield around your brand — in a recession, people turn to who they trust. Keep them trusting in YOU and your brand promise. Don’t do anything to react to short-term conditions that will jeopardize your success in the long-run.

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