MARKETING
marketing department! A job well done supports the brand. A job done poorly detracts from the brand. There are five things you should
do if you want to have a strong, bullet-proof brand. And when you accomplish all of these, every employee in your company will realize they work in the marketing department!
FIVE STEPS FOR BUILDING A STRONG BRAND.
1.
Decide why people should buy from you. Keep it simple. Develop a very clear and simple statement defining why people should buy the product(s) and/or service(s) you offer from you and not from your competitors. This involves identifying your company’s key strengths. Make sure those key strengths (or “reasons to buy”) are important to those you want to influence.
The key here is to keep it simple. One strength, or in some cases two strengths, are all that most people can assimilate and remember. More than two is too many. Most companies have a problem doing this. All too often management wants to give people 8 or 10 or even 30 reasons to buy from them. That’s too many. Think about it. Are there 10 reasons your favorite restaurant is your favorite restaurant? Are there 20 reasons you prefer your favorite brand of shoes or favorite hotel? Keep it simple.
2.
Craft a simple and clear core message that communicates your company’s one or two
strengths. Once you have identified your key strength (or strengths), craft those strengths into a clear message that is easy for anyone to understand. In the advertising world, this is called your “strategy.” It’s the primary benefit (or, in some cases, benefits) of doing business with you. Simple strategies work best.
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Get rid of the silos in your company. Communicate between departments. Most
companies, large and small, have silos. It’s not easy to get rid of them. But you are limiting the power of your brand if you don’t do this.
Make absolutely sure that your sales people and your marketing people are on the same page when it comes to the messages that reach customers, consumers and prospects. Make sure everyone is promoting the same strategy, using the same core message.
This may seem like a very simple idea, but my experience shows that this is a common problem. All too frequently a company’s advertising and other promotional messages are saying one thing while the sales force is saying something different. Analyze all your collateral (brochures, ads, website content, etc.) to make sure that your “strategy” is there as well and then make sure the words, phrases, graphic treatments, etc. are consistent.
4.
Train everyone. And I mean everyone in your organization. (Top management should not
be exempt!) There are three aspects of this training, and all three are essential.
a. Make sure that every employee knows that their job is important and critical to your company’s success. (If a person’s job wasn’t important, the job wouldn’t exist.) It makes no difference where they work in the company (credit, operations, procurement, sales, maintenance, accounting, etc.). Every employee should understand how what they do contributes to the success of the company.
b. Teach every employee what your company’s “strategy” is. Make sure everyone understands and can communicate the reason(s) your
customers, consumers and prospects should buy from you. Test them to be sure they get it and can explain the company’s strategy to someone else.
c. Teach every employee what their role is in delivering that strategy. People perform more consistently, deliver higher quality work and are generally happier with their job if they understand what role they play in the company’s success. Require every employee to develop a statement that specifically states how that employee helps the company deliver on its strategy, positively impacting the company’s brand.
5.
Take your company’s “brand temperature” often. Never make the mistake of guessing when it comes to determining how your customers, consumers and prospects are defining your brand. The only way to do this is to conduct research. You have to be proactive, not reactive, when it comes to gathering research data that are accurate and reliable. Do not rely on people who volunteer positive comments or who are so mad at you that they complain to measure the strength of your brand. Both groups (praisers and complainers) are not typical and most likely make up only a small fraction of people who make your business successful.
You need to routinely conduct two types of research: 1) customer satisfaction research and 2) perceptual and behavioral research.
With customer satisfaction research,
you can learn what your customers’ experiences with your brand have been and determine if you are building your brand or weakening your brand. You can identify strengths and weaknesses in your organization and often learn what you can do to improve your brand. The key is that you have to make sure the customers
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