Monday
12Oct2009

Brand and The New Normal

DateMonday, October 12, 2009 at 01:39PM

I've been giving a lot of thought to this lately: This recession – and its aftermath – will serve as a giant resetting mechanism for American business and the capitalist way. The excesses of previous decades will be tempered by tight control from within organizations of all sizes and stripes and with pressure from government regulation. Salaries won’t increase rapidly. In fact, employees will continue to be asked to do more with less. We’ve already seen the evidence. During this recession, many people have been fired from their jobs only to be rehired at a significantly lower salary, even half of what they were making before.

As a result, we’ll have a society of people working harder for less. Most won’t be able to chase the big fat paychecks that had allowed them to live ever larger lives, ever farther beyond their means. Since they won’t be chasing happiness with dollars, they’ll need to find it first within themselves and then in the things that they do – their own identities and their own roles in life, including work. Satisfaction, happiness and joy will be about whom they are and what they do with their life’s energy. Most of that work is completely their own to pursue. Yet, when considering that on average, work and the activity to support work takes at least half of our waking hours, the workplace must support the individual pursuit of happiness, the desire to bring congruency between personal values and our work. And so, as businesses move forward with stricter financial controls and practices, they will have to do so in a way that supports the very real human needs of everyone they touch, especially their employees. These new organizations will need to be smarter and authentic. They’ll need to provide a human context for their workers.

For me, I see this as brand strategy that is tightly linked to business strategy. It's an effort that begins with the company’s leadership and is passionately imbued through every individual who works for the business, whether it’s a tiny venture in the owner's spare room or a multinational mega employer. From there, it must reach out to all of the groups the business touches, from prospects and customers to volunteers and donors to the media and investors.

My hope is that rather than take a warlike “win at all costs” competitive stance, organizations will understand who they really are, what they stand for, what they do for people, and why it matters. And then they'll authentically live their corporate brand to connect with the right people while creating sustainably profitable business that serves community and culture.


I guess I have a dream.

 

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Saturday
29Aug2009

Heart and Soul

DateSaturday, August 29, 2009 at 10:31PM

Digging in to Google search results on my name, I found the following post I wrote elsewhere back in December 2006:

 

I've often been heard saying that brand starts inside a company. For me, these aren't just empty words, not just part of some marketing spiel I've perfected. I believe this with my heart and soul.

Heart and soul...That's really what brand is all about.

Now, I've heard that some people think this means I could care less about the audience. That's just ridiculous. What kind of brand strategist would I be if I ignored the market? No, my point is that a brand has to start from the inside because that's where authenticity is found. In a world of fake and plastic and lies, we individual humans long for the authentic, for companies to tell the truth. We want them to be at least as passionate about their own products and how they affect our lives as they expect us to be in spending our money with them. We want a genuine reason to trust businesses. So, a company has to think deeper than "biggest" or "fastest" or "most profitable." Companies have to think beyond efficiency and stockholder value. They have to dig deep into the hearts and souls of their businesses to discover what they're about. Really about. They have to ask "Who are we? What do we stand for? What do we bring to the world?" That's not just where the spark of a good brand is. In the heart and soul of the company, you'll find the roaring fire of a great brand.

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Friday
14Aug2009

How Are You Looking?

DateFriday, August 14, 2009 at 04:12PM

We do judge books by their covers. When we meet a professional for the first time, our brains search for what a CPA or an attorney, for instance, should look like and pass judgment before we consider her intelligence, skills and experience.

As competition for work becomes more heated, every little bit of our personal brand is a factor. That may bite, but perhaps now is a good time to review your personal brand strategy and check all branding, including personal packaging. Make sure that what you see in the mirror matches what you're saying on your resume or in your marketing messages.

The same is true for your business branding and marketing. When a prospect or customer sees anything you're putting out there (you know, out there, in the great world of business), he is making a judgment based on visuals before he ever considers what you're saying. How do you know what he's thinking? One way to start to answer that question is to do an audit.

Collect as many of your brand's touchpoints as you can from the last year or so. Remember business cards, brochures, screen captures of websites, social media avatars, pictures of your store or office, newsletters, emails, ads, packaging, company vehicles, signage, apparel, proposals, receipts, and so on. Go beyond your marketing materials. Get anything that the customer may come in to contact with. Now, stick them up on a wall, look over the results and assess what you see. Is it cohesive and consistent or do you look like you have more personalities than Sybil? Does the overall impression match your brand strategy (who you are, what you stand for, your values and your culture) or do you see a circus? Ask a few other people to do the same assessment. What do they see?

The results should give you a good sense of direction for ways to improve your brand's image. Shameless plug: I'll bet a decent professional would love to help you make an even finer assessment and outline a strategic plan for dressing your message the way it deserves to be.

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Wednesday
29Jul2009

The 2,000 Books Campaign - Metrics and Lessons

DateWednesday, July 29, 2009 at 09:38AM

It's possible you've landed here because this space originally housed information about the 2,000 Books in 2 Weeks for Indy Youth campaign that I ran. To make a very long story only somewhat shorter, I personally committed to help MCCOY (Marion County Commission on Youth) and SYPF (Summer Youth Program Fund) obtain 2,000 books to distribute to Marion County summer camps that had participated in a summer reading program. The books were to be given to day campers on July 9th, 2009 to celebrate National Summer Learning Day and the culmination of the summer reading program. I'd heard about the need through one of my closest friends who is associated with the organizations and programs. I thought that since I have a relatively decent number of connects, mostly through social media, that I could be the lynchpin for collecting a large portion of those 2,000 books. And I did pretty well, all things considered. With the support of some extraordinary people, I raised 1,156 books in two weeks.

If you think of this as a marketing campaign, and it was, you might wonder about the metrics.

  • Email - 10 books and $100 (2 people)
  • Facebook - 273 books (4 people)
  • Freecycle - 260 books (1 person)
  • Twitter with a little Smaller Indiana assist - 474 books (all because of 1 person who read my Tweets and took action...she asked someone who asked someone who came up with 7 boxes of books)
  • Face-to-face - 63 books (2 people)
  • Smaller Indiana - 76 (1 person)

That's eleven points of contact across six different media. That shows me (again!) that consistency and frequency over a spread of integrated media can produce results.

My marketing plan included the use of:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Smaller Indiana
  • Freecycle
  • Email (to a small group, including my Vistage group, not a mass email to my entire database)
  • My voice (word of mouth)
  • A simple website with a journal as a place to house the details, a place to drive people to for information

The only media source that didn't "produce" (I'm not counting it in the six quoted above) was LinkedIn. I did see some interest expressed, but no follow through. Also with Smaller Indiana I saw a lot of interest, but the follow through didn't happen there either. It's possible I didn't pursue those "leads" properly. Also of interest to me is that both LinkedIn and Smaller Indiana have more of a "business" tenor than my other media outlets.

The other thing that surprised me is that so few people generated so much. I went in to this campaign expecting numerous donations of 5 books on average. What I got was just over 100 books on average from ten points of contact. I had three big and seven medium to small donors. This made me think of the Pareto Principle, or as you may know it, the 80/20 rule that states that 80% of your output comes from 20% of your input. My figures are a little off the Pareto Principal. In this case, 20% of my donors produced 64% of the outcome, 30% produced 80%. Regardless, every little bit helped and I'm not discounting a soul who participated. So, whatever part you played in the 100% - THANK YOU!

Perhaps the most significant problem was, in marketing speak, at "the point of sale." I hadn't worked out the details of how to "complete the transaction." Because there was not a series of locations or even a central location to collect books (except for a two hour window of time on a single day) the act of collecting the books was difficult. If I do this again, I'll arrange with retailers across the metro area to have collection boxes. I'm convinced that the freedom of dropping a few books while sipping coffee would have increased the numbers.

So, from a marketing perspective, what were my big lessons?

  1. Integrated Marketing Communications rule. Brand and marketing messages are most effective when delivered in an integrated, consistent fashion across a variety of relevant touchpoints.
  2. Pareto Principle: 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. In marketing, you might look at the business you're doing now and see that a minority percentage of your customer list is producing most of your income. Use that information to segment your list and adjust your marketing and service delivery models.
  3. Social media is quite powerful, especially when used within a human context. I could not have just set up accounts and started blasting this need with much success. Only because I'd been involved in the media and had made personal human connections did people pay attention to what I had to say. They saw that what I was doing was consistent with my personal brand and so they were willing to enter into a dialog with me.

By the way, I understand that my numbers are tiny and likely don't meet empirical standards for statistical significance. Still, isn't it just a little interesting that what happened in my tiny little campaign fits known principles? Maybe that means that even if you're a sole proprietor that the principles you think only fit "the big boys" really do apply to you, too. What do you think?



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Monday
27Jul2009

Understand. Be On Brand. Build Trust.

DateMonday, July 27, 2009 at 01:55PM

While Internet-based marketing tactics might be way cooler than some boring old print ad, that coolness factor doesn’t relieve you from doing basic branding work. All touchpoints are prime opportunities to increase your brand love with your target audiences.

  1. Understand how the person on the other side of the conversation is using that digital technology. At what level is she open to engaging with you at this touchpoint? If she’s busy checking her email during the course of the business day before she rushes into three back-to-back meetings, does she really want you breathing down her neck with some obnoxious offer? Would useful information, something you know she wants, be more appropriate? Maybe. Maybe not. Seek to understand. And then use your understanding to craft the message and more effectively use the media.
  2. Always behave in a way that is consistent with your brand’s promise and personality. Brand management isn’t just about making sure your logo shows up in the right place and using the right colors all the time. Those things can help. More importantly, every touchpoint is an opportunity to demonstrate your brand and establish or reinforce trust. Is that obnoxious offer discussed above actually consistent with your brand? If obnoxious and disruptive is part of your brand (good luck with that), then offer away. But, if your audience knows you as something different, rework your communication. Whatever you do, know who you are and what you stand for and then deliver on that brand to build trust.
  3. Understand how the audience is interacting with the media and messages you deliver. The work is certainly not done just because you pushed go. Use the data, the dialog, or any other feedback you get to understand your audience’s behavior and then adjust your strategies, plans and execution.

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