Brand Strategy … 3 Examples from the Zappos Culture

The front line of any brand in the marketplace is not the advertising, packaging, or product design. It is the interaction that the customer experiences that determine the brand’s reputation to a large degree. It is human and emotional, and at that critical time when a customer engages with one of your employees or someone in your channel, your brand (your product and reputation) will either be enhanced or diminished. Why leave brand strategy to chance … Zappos certainly doesn’t.

Check out our thoughts on creative marketing.

Before we continue, let me ask you a question. 

What works best for branding in your business? We would love to hear what it was. Would you do us a favor and post it in the comments section below? It would be greatly appreciated by us and our readers.

The ultimate goal of all the points I list below is this: eliminate the fluff from your marketing strategy and focus only on the things that work.

Related post: Walmart E-commerce Strategy … 6 Reasons Why It Won’t Beat Amazon

Here is a short video that will refresh a brand for you:

Beginning Graphic Design: Branding & Identity

I am a BIG fan of Zappos and its company culture and brand. Zappos is well-known for its culture and customer focus and its company culture is built around maximum, personalized customer engagement.

Brand strategy

Want to know one of the most effective examples that Zappos uses to build its brand and create reciprocity with its customers?

Brand strategy examples … by surprising them!

People like getting things for free and like them, even more, when they are viewed as “favors”. But even more, they love receiving these favors as surprises.

For instance, did you know that Zappos automatically upgrades all purchases to priority shipping … without so much as even a mention on the sales or checkout page?

Why give away this sort of benefit without mentioning it?

Simple …

a company like Zappos (known for its legendary customer service) recognizes the benefits of surprising people with next-day delivery. That’s not even mentioning the fact that this shipping creates immense goodwill between Zappos and their first-time buyers. (I still remember my first order.)

Here another great example … of how Zappos uses the element of surprise so effectively. Note this story is told by the customer:

When I came home this last time, I had an email from Zappos asking about the (returned) shoes, since they hadn’t received them. I was just back and not ready to deal with that, so I replied that my mom had died but that I’d send the shoes as soon as I could.

They emailed back that they had arranged with UPS to pick up the shoes, so I wouldn’t have to take the time to do it myself. I was so touched. That’s going against corporate policy.

Yesterday, when I came home from town, a florist delivery man was just leaving. It was a beautiful arrangement in a basket with white lilies and roses and carnations. Big and lush and fragrant, I opened the card, and it was from Zappos. I burst into tears. I’m a sucker for kindness, and if that isn’t one of the nicest things I’ve ever had to happen to me, I don’t know what is.

Those kinds of examples are justified by almost any cost, and the cost hit Zappos takes by doing this is paid back multiple times over by the customer loyalty they generate from making people happy.

Related post: Brand Management … 12 Ways to Humanize the Brand to Build Trust

So … a company’s brand communicates every time it touches a customer.

As a marketer, you need to manage this communication and be responsible for each ‘moment of truth’. Zappos certainly has this brand marketing down pat and recognizes the value of building your brand.

 The bottom line

If digital media is ever going to become a profitable industry, it will have to learn how to build brands, not just produce a direct response.  Ironically, to build the consumer brands of the future, today’s digital marketers will probably have to learn a lot from the ad giants of the past.

Please share a brand-building story or two with us from your experience vault.

Need some help in capturing more customers from your branding design strategies? Such as creative branding ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your branding for yourself and your team?

Do you have a lesson about making your brand marketing better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change.  We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.   

More reading on brands and branding from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:

New York Yankees … 11 Awesome Lessons From Yankees Brand

6 Favorite Brands and Why I Like Them So Much

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