One thing we like to stress to the clients we work with, is the importance of cultivating brand loyalty.
Consumers are spending more and more time on the social web, and are becoming increasingly savvy over which brands are truly listening, engaging, and paying attention to their needs. Smart brands will recognize their consumers loyalty, encourage it, and ultimately reward it. Read more »
Heading back to Michigan for its 3rd year is Brand Camp University, an event that focuses on business and personal brand development.
The subject of personal brand inevitably brings up a long and heated discussion. Some feel brand can not and should not exist within the confines of online identities. That the pursuit of personal brand is nothing more than a platform to feed the ego. Many defend it. Recognizing that brand, personal or not, is a vital foot print in one’s overall marketing and communication strategy.
This year, BCU focuses on “Awaking your Inner ‘Prenuer’.
More than just a “this is how your brand yourself” workshop, BCU brings in some big names who share how businesses and individuals can reinvent their own professional brand identities. The speaker lineup is stellar, and range from hometown business owners, to industry experts across the county.
Marketing, business, communications, PR, SEM, SEO, Social Media, regardless the tactic; we can not deny that the web has changed they way we work. More and more, it has become important to adopt the flexible and innovative entrepreneur mindset regardless if you are small business or major corporation.
As we start to reinvent our own business mindset, we in turn empower ourselves to help reinvent our communities. If we are going to turn the corner, new ways of doing business are required. Innovation and brand development will go hand in hand. This will lead to new marketing solutions that will ultimately reinvent Michigan’s brand.
Brand Camp University is October 8th, 2010. 9am – 5pm at Lawrence Tech University. You can follow BrandCampU on Twitter, Facebook, and on the Blog.
re:group is happy and proud to be a sponsor of this great event.
Technology has made this happen. Just about anyone with a flip cam or phone can grab footage, add titles with some free editing software, post it to YouTube (also free), and away you go.
As far as entertainment goes, the value factor can be extremely high. As far as the waste your time factor goes… it can be even higher. But the value in this medium is the immediate access it provides. Access into communities, individuals, thoughts, expressions, art, music, culture, and everything that makes us human. Video helps connect us on this human level that is not only gratifying but incredibly important.
When it comes to your business or organization this can play a huge factor in bringing your message across. Video ranks as one of the highest traffic drivers for Google. Just today I came across that Facebook is up to 20 million video uploads a month. The ‘viral’ potential is there.
However, like all mediums that touch the social web, it requires a very humanistic approach. Posting only commercials and your ads won’t work. But will work is experimenting. Remember video is a collaborative effort. It require both you and an audience to connect.
This can only be done by organic experimentation and the courage to try new things.
Putting into practice the collaboration/access combo, they are providing a contest in which anyone around the world can submit a video to be selected for their YouTube channel. 200 entries will be chosen and from these 20 will be selected to be viewed in the Guggenheim museum.
Companies should consider videos. Just remember to be human about it and you’ll see the collaboration effect. The results will be access into the viewers world.
Our discussion revolved around the use of social media and communities, how brands need to leverage this space, how they can do this, and which companies are doing this well.
istock announced the other day that it would be selling logos. Forums are now overloaded with outraged designers shouting to boycott istock and crowdsourcing, not without good reason. As a graphic designer, I believe an offering like this diminishes the value that designers offer when creating identities.
In creating an identity, designers go through a 3-step process:
1. Research. It’s only through research and collaboration with a client that the designer begins to gain an understanding of a business and its goals. This is the most important stage of a logo design. Who do they want to be? How would they like to be perceived? How do they differ in the marketplace?
2. Design. The designer begins to assess what type solution is appropriate, explore relevant imagery, stylistic approach and color choices. All of these are calculated choices to express something about the company. They come together for the design phase.
3. Refine. Through client feedback, the logo may evolve through illustration, color exploration and font selection.
The istock offer eliminates the research and refine stage, and therefore, the unique personality of the company. Eliminating 2/3 ofthe work that goes into an identity explains the bargain price. istock is not the first to offer logos at basement prices and they won’t be the last.So go ahead… Upload your logos for “company x”and carve out their unique position in “marketplace y”.
The important thing to remember about branding and marketing is that it’s not fluff, it’s not a luxury, it’s not extraneous. It’s vital, during both good times and bad. So even if the market dictates that you must cut your budget, be sure you’re not cutting your business’s throat along with it.
The less money you have, the more important it becomes that you use it well. Here are a few tips on getting the most bang from your skinny buck.
1. Happy customers are your most valuable asset. Engage them. Whether it’s online or face to face, ask them to recommend you. If you’re getting good comments online, thank people. If you get some bad ones, respond and ask how you can make things better. Then actually follow up and make things better. Ask your customers what they want or need and give it to them.
2. Narrow your target. When you have less to spend, spend it on fewer people who are more valuable. Really look at what your offer is, examine who needs it most and is most likely to buy, and segment more narrowly. Move from mass to target media where it seems sensible. Choose your online tools very carefully, sharpen your senses, get inside their heads. Know what they want to hear, then say it.
3. People still want to buy stuff, just for less. However, they’re looking for value, not just the lowest price. Emphasize the benefits of your product or service – how long it will last, what it will do for the customer, what it stands for – and not just price. Otherwise, the only thing you’ll be known for is being cheap.
4. Measure twice, cut once. Look at ROI and adjust accordingly. See what affect your program is having on awareness, perception, sales. Don’t waste a cent of that precious budget.
5. Have a great marketing partner who watches your money as closely as you do. If your agency’s culture is simply spend, spend, spend then you should leave, leave, leave.
It’s not easy for anyone these days, but businesses that spend wisely will come through it best. Good luck.
It’s sad to see a leadership brand, slide out of the limelight. I was speaking with someone this morning about Hoover’s, A D&B Company. After decades we had stopped our paid subscription. In the course of our discussion, we both agreed that while recent mergers, and acquisitions had been great financial decisions, however they did not do much to support the Hoover’s brand. Just added to the confusion.
Somehow in the midst of those changes, they lost sight of the changing needs of their customers and of the competitive landscape. Lost focus. They tried to become all things to all customers. Information is rapidly becoming a commodity, without a value proposition and point of distinction the Hoover’s brand is simply a logo (a rather dated one at that.)
Today it is not action which kills a brand, it’s inaction. Like all living things, if your brand is not reviewed, fed and nurtured, it will fail to thrive. Hoover’s has wilted, but with great deal of rapid strategic effort it may have the ability to make a comeback or it could disappear in the blink of an eye.
I met Emma years ago. I was her 14,000th friend, so she sent me a t-shirt with her picture on it! We have been working together for years now, doing e-mail marketing. But Emma is a company not a person.
Why do I write about them? Because they have done an outstanding job of delivering an integrated brand in the form of their persona “Emma”. They have 60+ employees and they deliver lots of communications to thousands of clients and yet they all speak with one voice, it’s the voice of “Emma”. She speaks in an upbeat and snappy manner. She signs off her mail with “Cheers!” Her response time is amazing, often responding within minutes. Emma is charitable, she donates trees and gives email marketing services to non-profits. What a woman!
Woman? Oops! That is the the voice of a well designed and executed brand. So hats off to the team who works to keep Emma alive and enchanting.
