Branding Edge
Big company branding ideas translated for smaller company relevancy.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Visual Branding on the Cheap
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Warning for the Technophobic SMB: Engage or Be Left Behind
This post is for the 40+, techno-phobic small business owner or nonprofit director. If that’s you, read on.
Lets begin with a quick story. It’s the early 80’s, and computers had not yet taken over our car dashboards. So odds are pretty good that one of your ‘circle of five’ most important Rolodex contacts -- along with your doctor, lawyer and trusted tailor -- was your mechanic. And if you happened to live in Los Angeles and drove a German engineered car, that mechanic might have been my dad. Great at his craft, he used his hands and talent to build a successful auto repair business that provided a nice middle class existence for our family and helped pay for my marketing degree. I’m eternally grateful.
The problem came toward the end of his business life when technology invaded the workings of our autos. He, then a 50-something technophobe, refused to acknowledge the signs of change around him, and more importantly, refused to adapt. Slowly at first, then more rapidly with each ensuing year, he watched his client base and revenue drop. Lucky for him, he was nearing retirement.
Now let’s fast forward to 2010 and you. If you’re still reading, I assume you fit the profile of 40+, techno-phobic small business or nonprofit director. Maybe you’re resistant to digital marketing. Heaven forbid you still don’t have a website. Perhaps your tech blockage is all things social media, after all, isn’t it just teenagers and celebrities out there on Facebook and tweeting their every move?
To you I say, in a caring yet firm way, wake up! Get engaged. Or be left behind. Need I state the obvious that this lesson is all around us in big businesses and smaller fish.
Its not a matter of if your business will suffer. It’s only a matter of when.
So where do you begin? Well, almost anywhere is better than inertia. Personally, I recommend LinkedIn as a simple launchpad for the uninitiated business person. It will yield at least three immediate results:
- After you enroll (it's free) and you create your basic profile (will take you less than an hour), you will have put the first stake in the heart of leaving your technophobic ways behind. That's a major mojo booster.
- After you next invite several business colleagues to connect to you, you'll see it's simply the old school notion of networking your Rolodex, only online, on steroids.
- Finally, search for a few of your top customers or clients. Odds are they're already there. You'll learn info about them you didn't know, which in turn will very likely get your idea engine cranking about how you can use these new insights to provide better service, ways you can help them connect to others you know, etc. The possibilities are endless.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
The Customer is Queen
It's long been known by big and small business alike that it's cheaper to keep a customer than to gain a new one. But the gap between what we know and what we do is often wide. As many small businesses struggle in this challenging economy to stay afloat, one tool to help ensure you weather the storm and indeed to position your company more competitively is to be the best in delivering great customer service. Whatever that looks like in your world, B2B or B2C. And positioning, of course, is a key component of branding.
Apparently women business owners have honed in on this fact, however they're not taking full advantage of customer loyalty programs nor do most have formal customer service strategies.
In a recent Forbes Insights/Key4Women Customer Service Survey of women business owners conducted by Key Bank, the survey found that many women business owners polled said customer service was a higher priority for their business than cost containment, sales prospecting, or increasing productivity as they worked to survive the recession. Only customer retention beat out customer service as a top priority. Looking ahead to 2011, customer service dropped behind prospecting and sales and customer retention, but still 1/3 of the responding business owners said customer service would remain their top priority.
So what are some simple steps you can take, regardless of whether you're a woman owned enterprise or not? Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Leverage social media to be a better listener. Chances are some subsets of your customers are active on Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites? Much of the buzz about business use of social media focuses on how to monetize its use, overlooking the fact that these sites are first and foremost great feedback channels. Your customers are talking - are you listening? Ask them how you can improve service- you may be surprised at the answers you get.- You can never say ‘thank you’ too much. From old school handwritten thank you notes to email campaigns using providers like Constant Contact, when was the last time you said ‘thank you’ to your most loyal customers, no strings attached?
- Identify one small change to how you deliver your goods or services that would have a big impact in service delivery. For example, if yours is a retail location, could you put coffee service out in a.m. like one daycare center does for busy parents? Or the chiropractor that gives every client a chilled bottle of water as they exit? If yours is a service business, could you highlight a client of the month on your website? These small adds are very inexpensive if not free, yet can make a difference in your brand’s stickiness.
The possibilities are endless. The point is whatever you can do to up the ante on customer service
helps you to keep your existing customers and ensure more brand loyalty.Wednesday, June 9, 2010
If It Ain't Authentic, It Ain't You
- Lesson #1: Define your unique POV. If you can't already clearly articulate what makes you unique, this may take some time, soul searching and work. But you've got to start here.
- Lesson #2: Define your value proposition (VP). What benefit will someone get from engaging with you? Joan has many roles - comedian, entrepreneur, TV host, etc. As funny lady, Joan's value prop is "Invest $100 (or whatever the ticket price) for one of my live shows and I guarantee you'll forget your cares and laugh for a few hours."
- Lesson #3: When you've finished #1 and #2, take the authenticity test. Do your POV and VP pass the smell test? Are they really a true reflection of You, Inc., or are you describing a figment of your imagination?
Monday, June 7, 2010
Why Branding Edge
As a marketing professional, I've come into contact with so many small to midsized for-profit and nonprofit organizations, inspired by big company branding and PR efforts yet frustrated in how to apply big enterprise ideas to their own needs.
So Branding Edge is my outlet to help.
I don't claim to have all the answers, but I'll share what I know from 20+ years experience observing and executing brand development for several companies big, small and startup, across numerous industries. The focus of this blog is to distill and translate big company branding tips, thoughts and trends for smaller organization relevancy.
To paraphrase "The Chairman" on Iron Chef, "let the branding begin!"