Stay curious; keep refreshing your sources. We often get new client inquiries for help to build a brand development strategy. Are you increasingly looking to jazz up your brand strategy? Depending on the business, and where it is in the life cycle, that can be a tall order.
Great brand stories succeed because they are able to capture the imagination of large or important audiences. A great brand story is true. Not necessarily because it’s factual, but because it’s consistent and authentic.
Consumers are too good at sniffing out inconsistencies for a marketer to get away with a story that’s just slapped on. Great stories are trusted. Trust is the scarcest resource we’ve got left. No one trusts anyone. People don’t trust the beautiful women ordering vodka at the corner bar (they’re getting paid by the liquor company).
As a result, no marketer succeeds in telling a brand story unless he has earned the credibility to tell that story. Great stories are subtle. Surprisingly, the fewer details a marketer spells out, the more powerful the story becomes.
Talented marketers understand that allowing people to draw their own conclusions is far more effective than announcing the punch line.
There is a brand, and there is branding. One is a noun, and one is a verb.
But the funny thing is that when it comes to what defines a brand and what defines your branding, the noun and the verb are switched. Branding is defined by things like a logo, look and feel your website copy, and all the visual details that go into managing your brand. It sends out a vibe, and it’s made up of many things.
A brand, on the other hand, is defined by your actions. How do you serve your customer? What interesting service do you offer? How do you approach relationships with business partners and vendors? A brand is defined by your actions, by what you want to stand for.
The most important thing to remember, it’s not about you in the sense that you are in control. You are not. But you can influence.
Brands deliver an emotional connection to a business’s products and services. Most purchase decisions have critical emotional components, which is why brand marketing is so important.
Your brand represents a collection of your customers’ perceptions of how they see you, how they feel about you, and what they say about you. It communicates every time it touches a customer. This makes you, as a marketer, responsible for this communication ‘moment of truth’.
Here are the key actions, you as the brand marketer, can take to improve each ‘moment of truth’:
The best brands extend their value propositions beyond products and services
Awesome brands change how people view the world surrounding the brand. Take the Red Bull brand as a great example. This brand wants consumers to explore their limits. Their advertisements are loaded with examples of these limits.
They are illustrating that we are defined by what we make happen. If you relate, then you are pulled into their worldviews.
Brand development strategy … the best brands make a difference
You can probably name a few brands that do a great job of making such a difference that you remember and tell your friends about. These brands are consistently showing their conscience and offering it as something prospective customers can buy into.
Tom’s Shoes is such a brand. For each pair of shoes we buy, Tom’s donates a pair of shoes to the poor and needy. Many consumers buy from Tom’s for their promises as much as their products.
Or Zappos … they don’t sell shoes. They deliver that extra dose of love we all need from time to time. There is no secret here. Zappos became Zappos because of the fanatical customer support it offered. That is the company’s brand.
As Tony Hsieh, the Zappos CEO, puts it, back in 2003, we thought of ourselves as a shoe company that offered great service. Today, we really think of the Zappos brand as about great service, and we just happen to sell shoes.
Brand development strategy example … don’t interrupt, rather involve
The best marketing is about involving customers that is more engaging. And much less about interrupting. It is really all about making friends and building relationships and trust with customers. Taking away the sales approach is always a great strategy.
Types of brand strategy … engage consumer emotions
Great brands drive greater engagement by creating emotional responses. They find that these emotions propel better enduring connections.
The FedEx brand does this very effectively. Simply put, the FedEx brand is synonymous with “reliability.” Define your benefit to customers in the most straightforward terms possible. If your promise is reliable, then you need to offer reliability in everything you do — from your products and services to your website and communications.
Peace of mind. FedEx famously built its brand around a singular idea: by coming through when something
“Absolutely, positively has to be there overnight”
Help consumers help themselves
The best brands offer lots of help/advice …giving value in every interaction. You see this very often with online brand marketing.
Deliver value propositions people care about most
… And they will care more about the brand. JetBlue is one brand that does this as well as it can be done. Their brand success centers on the achievable – the simple things – they knew would make a difference for their guests.
This set the stage for direct TV and XM radio, the provision of first-class seats to everyone, more legroom, great snacks, and high-end service at lower end pricing. No other airline others these value propositions. They are different and their brand stands out because it represents those differences the best.
JetBlue recently launched a brilliant new ad campaign called “Air on the Side of Humanity”. Have you seen it? You should check it out.
They ingeniously use pigeons as a transposed metaphor for frequent flyers who are challenged by business travel and crowded flights. Believe me, I can relate. The spot shows crowded skies full of pigeons while an off-camera narrator says “the reality of flying is not very pretty”. It’s a royal headache and a major inconvenience.
They show crowded jostled pigeons on a building ledge lined up single file facing the camera while the narrator says, “They pack you in there, you hardly have any space for yourself. Hey, I’m a big guy and I need some room to breathe”.
As the narrator continues talking about the future situation being bleak the camera focuses on a man’s legs sitting on a park bench throwing crumbs to pigeons on the sidewalk as the narrator says, “They throw you crumbs and act as if it’s a 5-course meal”.
Next, they show a lonely pigeon on a busy pedestrian sidewalk as people walk around ignoring a confused bird as the narrator says, “I feel completely ignored”. Then the narrator asks the question, “There’s gotta be a way to fly with a little respect, you know?”
Then they cut to a different voiceover announcer which says, “Enjoy JetBlue’s award-winning service, free unlimited snacks and the most legroom in coach.” An awesome way to engage customers with their value propositions, isn’t it?
The bottom line
What I love about this engagement approach is that it takes a customer experience perspective that no doubt was derived from deep customer insights.
As a frequent flyer myself I was able to relate to the spot on multiple levels. How about you? Does the brand connect with you emotionally?
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 continuous learning 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 him on 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 continuous learning from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
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.
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.
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.
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:
