Your brand is your promise to your customer. It delivers a story to your customers on who you are, who you want to be and who people perceive you to be. To achieve that, one should never overlook the importance of establishing effective brand strategies that will give you a competitive advantage to thrive in your business.
The ground rules for branding are
rapidly evolving. Creating and sustaining customer trust and loyalty is more
difficult than ever before. Building relationships with consumers
has never been more challenging, with so much competition for their attention.
Look at the constant barrage of pop-up and video ads that flash before our eyes
every time we use our phones, turn on our laptops or tabs.
Being an on-trend, relevant,
inspiring, purposeful, innovative and community-centric brand – these are the
things that will make people pause, listen and pay attention. Customers
want to identify with a brand they can grow with, that earns their trust and
makes them feel valued. People want to evolve with a brand whose
products and services help give their business or life meaning and
significance. End-to-end, a brand must become a consumer’s best
friend.
In an article from Forbes.com, Glenn
Llopis shares six (6) brand strategies that all chief marketing officers (CMOs)
from Fortune 500 company, business owner or entrepreneur must not ignore:
See Consumer Engagement That
Others Don’t
Stop doing what everyone else is doing and be creative about how your brand engages with consumers. For example, Beyoncé launched her most recent album in a unique way that would fully leverage her relationship with her fans and advance the image she sought to create for her brand. Instead of releasing a new single (as advance promotion of the album), she released the entire album on iTunes with a full library of supporting music videos.
The
drip-system is a good tactic, but everything is relative to the maturity of
your brand and the engagement experience you want to ultimately create
with your target audience. People like surprises and want variety.
Don’t be too predictable. Mix it up. Don’t grow
complacent. Stretch your thinking. Every brand is
vulnerable. Don’t take your audience for granted.
This is
why it’s so important to give your brand a refresh every year (not every 3 – 5
years). Remember that consumers are re-evaluating their needs more often
than you might think. Instead of being reactive to your audience
needs, be on the front end and help guide them as they reinvent themselves. Manage
your consumer engagement strategy or someone else will do it better.
Establish an Identity that is
Easily Relatable
Too often brands complicate their
unique value proposition (UVP) to get attention. In their efforts
to reinvent and renew, they complicate things that frustrate their consumers
and shareholders. JCPenney is a perfect example. Consumers used to know what to
expect from JCPenney, but in an effort to reposition the brand, they lost their
strategic focus and their identity along the way.
A brand
identity is most powerful when it evolves and its value proposition strengthens
in alignment with the changing lifestyle demands of its
audience. Make things simple. People don’t have the
time to figure out what your brand is trying to solve. Consumers
want brands to be deliberate with their identity – straightforward while at the
same time forward-thinking.
When I launched my first
entrepreneurial venture, I sought to reinvent the old-school processed gourmet
vegetables category. My brand – Luna Rossa – was an attempt to introduce a fresh
produce identity to a traditionally processed category. Our brand
identity was easy and relatable: Hand-cut and packaged within eight hours
of harvest. Within a year of launch, we found ourselves in grocery
and club stores throughout the country. As our brand matured and we began
to understand our consumer better, we slightly modified the logo and added our
new tagline that read: Romance You Can Taste. It was our way of saying
that our products would deliver a better experience when used as a
complementary ingredient and/or side dish with your favorite entrees.
A Lifestyle Platform that
Inspires People and Communicates Hope
Brands influence lifestyle and one’s
state of mind. If your brand is not a lifestyle platform that inspires
people and communicates hope, the impact and influence of your brand message
will quickly begin to wane. Brand platforms like Target (A Bullseye View) and Coca-Cola (Coca-Cola Journey) recognize that stimulating a new or
existing consumer relationship requires the ability to educate, communicate and
inspire your audience about the totality of your brand – what it represents and
what it stands for.
Today’s consumer expects more from
your brand – not only the message it communicates – but how it is
delivered. That is why content marketing is so important and must
be flawlessly executed to be effective.
Consumers
want your brand’s value proposition to come to life and impact their lifestyle
with messaging that is educational and applicable. A holistic approach
to branding that gives people hope will accelerate your ability to earn
consumer trust and loyalty — and create more transparent dialogue and feedback to
keep your brand in continuous innovation mode.
Continuous Innovation with
Flawless Timing and Execution
Innovation may seem to be an obvious
strategy, yet many companies still fall short (or are too late) in their
efforts. Just ask Blackberry, Blockbuster, JCPenney, Volvo, etc.
It’s no longer just about introducing new products, line extensions and/or
technological advances to strengthen your UVP. Today’s marketplace demands
perfect timing and flawless execution with each new strategy you implement. Consumers
want to know that you are ready when they are. That means your timing must be
in perfect sync with your audience demands. Don’t launch a new product,
service or packaging/logo strategy if your brand’s audience isn’t ready and/or
you are not prepared to execute the requirements for sustainable success – all
the way through to the end. Short-cuts are slow death in a marketplace where
consumers expect brands to over-deliver before they actually commit to
purchase. Once you have established your reputation for excellence, your
innovation efforts become a public relations strategy that pre-sells your
consumers well before any new product event.
Just ask Apple.
Promote the Genuine Spirit of
Giving
Brands that “share the harvest” of their success – with their audience – are the ones that sustain the best momentum. The spirit of giving must be a central part of every brand’s DNA. Unfortunately, many brands forget to “give-back” to those who supported their growth. Being a great brand is not just about market share gains and profitability; it’s about genuinely sharing the success of your brand with others (whether they have purchased your product/service or not).
Whether you have a few thousands,
millions, or billions of dollars in sales, make it a point to show your respect
and gratitude to the people and communities your brand is serving.
Take the time to interact in ways that go well beyond the obvious.
Provide sponsorships (only if you are genuinely interested in supporting
the cause), be consistent with your community outreach efforts, and actively
participate in and support charitable events and organizations.
Fully deploy your corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy (if you have
one). A great example is what PepsiCo is doing with its environmental sustainability project.
If you
have limited resources and/or just want to keep it simple, be sure to at least
say thank you and show your gratitude. Brands today have a much deeper
responsibility to society and the more your brand touches the needs of the
world and helps to make it a better place, the more abundant you will find the
opportunities before you.
Serve Others to Leave a Legacy
Much like leaders must lead with a
legacy-driven mindset, so should their brands. As you develop your brand, what
is the legacy that you are mindfully attempting to leave behind? What is
your brand known for? According to Wikipedia, brand
legacy begins from a point of origin (core
idea) and considers historic message layering to derive a current perception as
it pertains to the target audience. A core idea is a word or thought that
encompasses all facets of the brand. For example, IBM’s core idea is
computers, while Cadbury is chocolate.
What is the experience and / or
product association you are attempting to leave behind for your brand and what
will your audience remember most about how it impacted their business or
lifestyle?
The most successful brands never fall victim to an identity
crisis. They know who they are and the responsibility they have to those
whom they are serving. Their innovations are consistently delivered,
genuine and true. They are focused on what matters most to their consumer
and on continuously making the experience better. Sometimes they
may fall flat on the excitement scale, but their customers remain extremely
satisfied. You know that you are building a solid brand legacy when
your customer loyalty is so strong that they are not fazed by your competition.
When your core idea becomes synonymous with your brand,
expectations rise and so do your strategic responsibilities. This
is when you must begin to allow your customers to play a more hands-on role in
your brand’s evolution. This is when you begin to witness the convergence
of your brand’s growing community (intimate followers) with the advancement of
commerce (growth in the business). Allow your customers to play a more
significant role. Align your brand’s identity closer to their own.
Each one of these brand strategies is equally important and
they build upon one another to create and sustain the ultimate customer
experience. You must be ready to take on such an ambitious commitment,
and then stick to it until you know your audience inside and out. Always
be accountable to their needs and take responsibility to keep the momentum of
the relationship moving forward. Implement these six brand strategies,
and you will build a power brand for the 21st century consumer.
Inspiration: Six Brand Strategies that Most CMOs Fail to Execute
Image Source:
(1) 3degreez.com
(2) atlantatribune.com
(3) blog.proqc.com
Inspiration: Six Brand Strategies that Most CMOs Fail to Execute
Image Source:
(1) 3degreez.com
(2) atlantatribune.com
(3) blog.proqc.com
Chia Yi Jing | Bubbling with enthusiasm, bright ideas, and confidence, Yi Jing set foot in the PR world with Orchan Consulting, where she was offered permanent employment after a successful internship. She is determined to make her mark in the industry, and her bosses know that she will.
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