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By Silvia on September 02nd, 2010

Strategic Business Branding, part II

This is the second part of a very complex article to help you brand your business strategically. You can read the first part of this article HERE.

Level Three – The Rest of the Story

There may be far more that your company does than expressed in the brand promise and the specific reasons to believe in that statement. For instance, I do brand strategy, but I also do coaching, customer interviews, advertising, online marketing, startups training, etc. This is not a plug as much as to say that we all have a number of offerings. But are they all equally important to introduce right away, put on the front page of the website, or show on the cover of the brochure? Not necessarily. But they are an important part of the full brand story and building a lasting relationship and loyalty over time. It is very tempting to want to mention everything that we do all at once, but that really only serves to confuse the prospect. These messages are best placed on the services page of the website, discussed deeper in a conversation, or carefully placed within context in a brochure. Examples of this level of information are:

The full line of products or services, packages or bundled offerings
A deeper dive into any one topic area, the rest of the story
Price-of-Entry information or attributes that you must have to be legitimate, but won’t differentiate you (i.e. ATMs, online banking, branches, etc. for banks)

Level Four – Purchase Accelerators

Purchase accelerators can be used anytime to help move someone along through a natural purchase process from awareness through consideration, evaluation, trial, purchase and loyalty. If you aren’t thinking about your purchase accelerators, then you should give this area some consideration. Purchase accelerator examples are:

News that establishes leadership and credibility
Incentives (discounts, bundles, trials, etc.)
Downloads, blogs, white papers, POVs, etc.
Consultations, seminars, comparisons, trials, value calculations, etc.

One of the most effective descriptions of how to stop wasting your marketing dollars is found in a special report from Business Week that came out in 2008 entitled, “A practical Guide to Branding.” The sub-head reads, “Define your brand identity—your product’s “personality”—before you spend a dime on advertising or marketing.” The opportunity for most of us is to make our very first step as business owners to develop our brands. The article goes on to highlight this through three main points:

1. Studies show that companies who market their products or services without first establishing their brand identities are not likely to achieve return on investment.

2. If you’re spending money to advertise and market without being connected to a brand position, you might as well pile the money up and burn it.

3. Branding is about getting your prospects to perceive you as the only solution to their problem.

The question then becomes, “How do I develop a powerful brand that creates the perception behind my company’s offerings that I am the only choice for prospects?” This is where the large Fortune 500 companies start out right…they know their customer inside and out. [...] Continue Reading…

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By Silvia on September 01st, 2010

Strategic Business Branding, part I

When the Harvard Business Review recently stated that few executives could say what their strategy is, it gave the impression that a tidal wave of businesses are potentially wasting a lot of time and money in marketing. I have witnessed this many times in my own experience where individuals within top level management teams each have a very different interpretation of the company’s strategy.

April 1, 2008, HBR Article Excerpt – “The thing is, companies with a clear, concise strategy statement–one that employees can easily internalize and use as a guiding light–often turn out to be industry stars.”

In addition to your employees, your partners, vendors, customers and network can all be advocates if they are empowered to properly and simply represent the company. In essence, your company’s strategy or brand is the key to making all your marketing efforts work much harder. The better you are at creating a brand promise that relevantly differentiates your company, the more likely you are to attract the right leads, and close a much higher percentage of them.

In addition to your employees, your partners, vendors, customers and network can all be advocates if they are empowered to properly and simply represent the company. In essence, your company’s strategy or brand is the key to making all your marketing efforts work much harder. The better you are at creating a brand promise that relevantly differentiates your company, the more likely you are to attract the right leads, and close a much higher percentage of them.

Creating Your Brand Promise

Most companies don’t see themselves in the business of marketing and thus spend little time trying to craft a brand strategy. If you are a company that tries to attract new clients or additional sales, then you are in the business of marketing. But don’t be confused by thinking that your elevator speech is your brand. A brand is a guide for every action and interaction that surrounds your company. This not only includes marketing, but product development, customer service, pricing, incentives, sales presentations, point-of-sale, events and much more. The brand embodies the total experience with your company that builds trust, expectations and perceptions over time. It is the consistent filter through which every decision from within the company should be judged. This is why so many companies waste their marketing dollars without a solid brand strategy in place. How do I create my company’s brand strategy and stop wasting time and money?

Below is a simple, four level outline of how to start thinking about creating and conveying your brand promise and entire brand story. It is a guide for what to say and when. This is important since we could all talk for an entire day about our [...] Continue Reading…

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By Silvia on August 31st, 2010

Why do brands and social media work so well together?

In marketing, the critical question is: How do I ensure that every dollar I spend is being maximized to benefit my company to the fullest extent possible? The two key components to that equation are Branding and Social Media. First, brands guide every decision and action in a company whether that is around marketing, product development, customer service or hiring. Think of it this way. Your brand’s promise to customers is the answer to one simple question, “What’s in it for me?” Thus, how you deliver products, what you say in marketing, who you hire to represent your business, how customers are treated, etc. are all critical factors in delivering against that promise. The brand is the rudder for your company that ensures that you aren’t just working hard at your company, but your company, your marketing, and your employees are all working hard for you.

Brands help to attract higher quality leads, justify pricing premiums and close more sales. This is why Business Week advises to not spend a dime on marketing without a strong brand strategy. But brands are no good unless they are fully infused into everything your company does. In marketing, the brand encapsulates the reasons to buy, not the means to communicate that message. And marketing has always been seen as complex and costly, and usually results in some degree of frustration because you have no idea if it is really working or not. There is a saying, “I know that half my advertising is working for me, I just don’t know what half.” Without the right marketing, there is no way to get your brand message out to prospects in any scalable way.

This leads to the second key: social media. Social media is the most cost-effective way to target your prospects with dramatic scale and precision. Additionally, some of the best social media tools are often free to those that know how to use them. Brands and social media work so well together as partners because there is no better way to add power to your marketing message than through branding, and there is no more powerful way to get the message out to incredibly targeted prospects, in mass, in a more cost-effective manner than social media.

What do we mean by social media? If you ask 20 different people, you will get 20 different answers. The crux of it is that the internet has completely changed the #1 factor that influences purchase decisions, which used to be word-of-mouth. The Online Publisher’s Association conducted a study of the top purchase influencers on all stages of the buying process and found the internet to be the top purchase influencer by a factor of more than 2:1 over traditional word-of-mouth.

Social media often refers to blogs, [...] Continue Reading…

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By Silvia on August 30th, 2010

Should you buy or generate marketing leads?

The two ways of distributing marketing leads had been a center of debate. The question lies on whether network marketing leads should be generated on own efforts or should it be bought from the market.

There are conflicting beliefs between these two sources. Some believes that it is more practical to buy marketing leads. While others believe that it is more worthwhile to stick to personal efforts on generating the leads.

The other part of the business population is somewhat stranded in the middle. Unable to decide which option is better. The irony of the situation is that, those who are still in the midst of arguments are the ones who are still struggling for a stable marketability. Actually, both ways could yield lead generation. But then, each of these options has their own advantages and disadvantages.

Generating your own lead would give you quality leads. People you will speak with are really interested in the product or services that you are offering. In fact, on certain occasions, people will be coming to you about your product. On the other hand, if you will buy a lead, you will be speaking to people who are remotely interested in what you are saying.

You may have bought 100 leads in a day. But if 90% of your leads will not even talk to you, your efforts will still be futile. Purchased leads can be recycled. This means that a set of leads could be sold to different distributors in order to make the most benefit that it could possibly get from the leads.

But then, producing your own marketing lead is quite challenging. It takes effort and patience. Most of all, it will take a lot of your time. You will need to do presentations, establish your own website, talk to people, engage in forums and so on.

On certain occasions, you will end up with few leads. Sometimes, there is even none at all. On the other hand, you do not have to worry about time consuming efforts if you will buy leads. You will have your leads as you purchase them.

Producing your own sales leads gives you the leniency to practice your own marketing approach. More so, it gives you the opportunity to promote your business brand. It gives you the chance to market your business in a manner that speaks for your personal approach. You do not have to be tied to a network marketing company.

Generating your leads requires skills as well. You would need know-how on lead generation, conversations, dealing and influencing people, copywriting and more. You will be the one selling your business brand so you will have to be equipped to represent them. If you will purchase leads, you do not need any knowledge about lead generation. Your primary and only task is converting your sales leads into sales.

Both has its advantages and disadvantages. You can weigh from here which will suit you more. One option may work well for John but may not work well for Peter. So, it [...] Continue Reading…

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By Silvia on August 26th, 2010

Managing Your Marketing Leads

Managing your marketing sales lead is as important as driving a good sales for the business. After all, sales lead is the source of your prospective sales. On this note, it is important to determine how you could make sales lead easier to manage.

A well managed leads can be useful for a strategic marketing leads. Organizing your sales lead is also beneficial especially for follow ups. This is to keep track all your leads and to be able to maximize the benefits that they offer.

Before you can organize your sales leads, you have to determine first your targeted consumers. To assist you, the marketing specialist would be able to help identify your targeted consumers. The key is to determine the group of people who patronizes your product and service. Remember that knowing more about the details of your customers is geared towards marketing and sales strategic approach.

You can gather the basic information from your sales lead. These set of information are the name of the customer, Company name, alternate contact person, and address with zip code, phone number, fax number, cellular phone number, e-mail address and website.

It is beneficial to use a computer in order to complete your work. Or you can have a record in hard copy.  You can do both. Have a file in application software and a hard copy at the same time. In case your computer is not working well, at least you have a back up record.

If you will do it on the conventional method, you will need index cards. The size of your index card will depend on the information that you will put in the index card. One advantage of an index card is that it is easier to follow-up your lead. Use your front as your main source information. And the back should be used for notation for each follow up.  Keep the cards organize by arranging them alphabetically. It would be best to put your cards in a box as well.

Another option is a rolodex card. With this system, you can manage a large number of index cards. And such can be done with ease and comfort. Rolodex card system is a clerical device that has a rotating cylinder with a center bar that organizes the removable cards. This way, you are secured that the card will be intact.

You can also use a notebook to organize the lists of your marketing sales lead. Choose a lose leaf so you could write as many leads as possible. With this option, you gain more space as compared to an index card. It is advisable to choose thicker papers for longevity of its usage. This is actually the most economical way to manage your sales leads. Further, it could be accessible to anybody.

Another option to maintain your marketing sales leads is a business card organizer. This is applicable only if you have a minimal number of sales leads. You would have to change or improvise once your sales lead grows. One possible challenge [...] Continue Reading…

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By Silvia on August 25th, 2010

Social Media Marketing is Branding

Think of all the ways that companies use branding to build awareness of themselves or to promote their social awareness and customer service values. A few things come to mind such as greeters at the entrance of your favorite store, go-green awareness issues, charity drives that “give back” to the community for every purchase made, TV screens playing music videos or news as you wait in line, and the list goes on.

None of these things lead directly to conversions but they do lead to higher company awareness and the good old fashioned fuzzy-feelings we get when we know that we are valued as a customer. Many times we are probably not even aware of these things on a conscious level. But the effect shows as we have a tendency to patron these companies more frequently than the other alternatives.

Branding is a viable marketing strategy

Businesses worldwide invest millions of dollars in branding campaigns each year. In fact, let’s put aside pure branding campaigns. If you think about it, providing good customer service is branding too. The quality of customer service a company provides (good or bad), causes an image of that company to be branded into the consumers mind. Over time, a little here and a little there builds up into a solid perception of that company. Whether they like it or not they have established a recognizable brand by doing little more than going about their business.

When it comes to realizing the benefits of branding, most companies will tell you that it is valuable. But increases in sales can rarely be traced back to a single customer service or branding event. But that doesn’t negate the value or stop companies from investing their money into these types of campaigns. The lack of trackable ROI on a per-sale level doesn’t make branding (or good customer service) an unnecessary expense. In fact I don’t think any consumer would argue against the necessity of excellent customer service.

So what’s all this have to do with social media?

Social media is branding

Over time we can see an increase in brand awareness and overall sales due to their clever TV commercials that do little more than show people dancing around a red target symbol, but I doubt they can trace any sales increase to a single commercial spot. I’m sure Wal-Mart can’t track a single purchase to the addition of the elderly employee standing at the entrance greeting customers. But when we walk through those doors, we feel that Wal-Mart cares just a little bit more about me, the customer. And here comes social media.

When we engage in social media and online social networking, we similarly don’t see any immediate, trackable results. But, like branding and customer service, we don’t need to understand that it’s valuable. When companies engage in social media they [...] Continue Reading…

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By Silvia on August 24th, 2010

Conversational Brand

Anyone can set up a Facebook fan page where nothing happens. When it comes to community management, thinking in terms of tools totally misses the point. One should think about this issue from a change management standpoint. The real question has to be “Is my organization structured in a way that makes it possible to conduct a social media strategy? “. Social networks are primarily a distribution channel.

In order to live and grow within social networks, your brand must adopt a “conversational stance”. To generate interest, you must feed your community with value added content. Finally, to engage in a meaningful dialogue with your community, you must listen and evolve according to its aspirations. Because if you continue to push content that no one cares about like in the old days, your community will be tired of your marketing messages sooner than you think. And we don’t want to make all these efforts in vain, do we? Here are 6 smart moves you can do to join the conversation before it’s too late.

Component 1, the basics

First and foremost, you must create a “community management committee” (CMC). This will be your special forces, the core of your social media initiatives. As soon as you have identified the Web 2.0 superheroes within your organization and set up this committee, make them work on establishing social media guidelines. This way you will insure the consistency of your “conversational stance” across all touch points. Once this is done, CMC must provide countries with the appropriate tools (Blog platforms, social media guidelines, monitoring tools…) and develop KPIs in order to measure the effectiveness of your strategy as it develops. If you run a small business, you should consider hiring a VA (virtual assistant) to set up, monitor and support your social media strategy.

Component 2, the content

CMC must cover your events, fairs, conferences and other significant actions at the corporate level (including articles, photos, videos…). One thing that we know for sure is that when you forget to cover an event or a news on the web, you miss 90% of the conversational potential of it. It’s too bad because these events cost money and you want your brand to be seen, right? So each time something happens, make sure someone is around with a camera. Then make sure that they talk about it on your corporate Blog, your Facebook page or any branded User Generated Content tool. If you are a multinational organization, the CMC must motivate local community managers to do likewise according your social media guidelines at the country level. Moreover, CMC will be responsible for mobilizing your staff so that it creates powerful content in order to drive traffic and jumpstart the conversation. There are many ways to incentive employees to comment on your [...] Continue Reading…

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By Silvia on August 23rd, 2010

How To Promote Business Brand Through Social Media

Establishing a business brand online is challenging. This is especially true if you are working on a limited budget. As an alternative, you have to check out all our available resources and make these available resources on your advantage. But then, you should be keen in examining each details of your marketing strategy. Remember that you are working within a limited resource. Therefore, you should make sure that you are maximizing each of them. It is important that you do your marketing strategies correctly. The goal is to get your business brand standing tall in a shortest time frame possible.

Business branding is one of the most prominent words in internet marketing. To be successful, you should have a distinct and an excellent marketing strategy. It is an advantage if you are maintaining a website. A high traffic can accumulate more customers for you. And therefore, could facilitate great marketability for your business brand. But then, it takes more than site maintenance to promote your business. It would require a more extensive help from the social media as well.

Social media is an excellent promotional tool for your business brand. In fact, it is also a very useful tool to optimize our web site. But then, you can not be a jack of all trades. If you have short manpower, it would be wise to sign up to one site at a time. Join one social media that you could work on and monitor. Like your website, it takes time before you could build a significant number of followers. But then, it all depends on how well you handle your resources. Introduce your business without sounding to aggressive. Be sincere. Your follower could surely smell a phony from the distance. Hence, it pays to be natural in your contact with them. That is the key so your followers would acknowledge what you are selling.

As you position your business brand, you also have to position your profile in the social media. Being able to successfully sell your profile means more followers. And this gives a leeway to effectively promote your brand. Considerations that you should determine are the correct site to set up your profile. Choose the social site that matches your forte. It is great if you could sign up for a site that best matches your business profile, then that is where you should sign up.

Quality content is extremely important. You should take note of this once you are already set up in your profile. Your marketing strategy will be futile if your content has no value. The tendency is that your followers will take your content lightly. Therefore, your followers will not take your business brand seriously as well.

Though not as marketable as social network sites, another accepted from social medium is blogging. It could actually yield numerous benefits for your business brand. This is a space where you could project a more visible proof of your expertise on your product. Most importantly, you have a better chance of [...] Continue Reading…

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By Silvia on August 20th, 2010

How To Move Your Business Online

If you are currently enjoying success as a business owner in the tangible world, you may also consider reaping the benefits that moving your business online can present.  Business branding is crucial to anyone in an industry of selling products or services.  You must develop a name for yourself in your niche.  As important as developing that brand is in the business world, the virtual world must also recognize your business brand.  We are living in a very virtual world.  Technology is changing and growing by leaps and bounds.  If you’ve ever considered moving your business online and branding your business on the Internet, then you’ve come to the right place.

First, advertising your business brand in cyberspace is not as difficult as it may seem.  Business branding on the Internet can occur rather seamlessly, especially for offline business owners already enjoying success.  If you have developed that perfect business branding technique, then bringing your name to the World Wide Web won’t be too trying.  By following some steps, you’ll soon enjoy success in business branding online.

First, you’ll want to establish a content-rich website.  You’ll want your clients to be able to reference your information easily on the Internet.  By developing a web page with material that is optimized for key word searches, you’ll enjoy success.  For instance, if someone types in some common search terms associated with your niche into a popular search engine like Google or Yahoo, you will want your web page to pop up first on those search engines.  Of course, a content-rich website with attention to key words commonly searched in essential to making your business brand known on the Internet.

Of course, business branding doesn’t just stop with a well-developed website.  Like any form of advertising, it is essential that you point your consumers to your site.  There are a number of creative tactics you can use online.  For example, article writing is one form of Internet marketing.  By writing short articles about your niche, and submitting these articles for free to article directories commonly searched on the Internet, you can enjoy some advertising, credibility, and visibility on the Internet.  When consumers search your niche, they will be able to view articles about your industry.  You’ll also have a link back to your own website on every article you submit.  Thus, your consumers will be able to click on the link and be taken directly to your web page.  You’ll enjoy a heavier traffic volume, along with credibility.  If you write enough articles, you’ll be viewed as a leader in your industry.  Thus, you’ll really be utilizing some excellent business branding techniques online.

Though going online can be a little daunting for business owners used to navigating the business world offline, it is essential to get your name on the World Wide Web.  Because we are living in a virtual world, where everyone seems to have access to the Internet, good business branding techniques involve learning how to utilize Internet marketing tactics.  With a little practice, [...] Continue Reading…

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