Posts Tagged ‘ branding ’

A Different Approach to the Marketing Plan

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When a business owner creates a business plan, oftentimes he or she is also creating the marketing plan – all in one document. A big part of starting any business is the marketing plan because financial backers want to know how you’re planning on getting customers in your door.

The usual marketing plan begins with a description of the product or service being offered and then the marketing strategies that will be implemented to get that product or service to market. This has been referred to as “hope marketing.” You plan and then hope for the best.

Not exactly something ground in science, but at least it’s a plan, right?

How about writing a marketing plan where the product or service comes last? If that sounds a little crazy, hear me out (or read me out, I guess I should say!). Internet marketing maven Ed Dale has created a different approach to creating a marketing plan by thinking of the product specs last. Here’s a brief overview of his approach, which contains four parts.

Part 1: Market research. Before you introduce a new product to the market, you have to find out if there’s a need for it. In this first stage, or part, you identify a niche market and get to know the market, understanding what they need and what their problems are. Also, this lets you know how much competition you have. If the market is already saturated with doohickeys, adding one more doohickey to the market may not be your winning strategy.

Part 2: Dale refers to this as “traffic.” This part is when you figure out how you will communicate to your market. Will you get to them online, offline or with integrated strategy of both? If you can’t reach your target market effectively and affordably, you’ll want to rethink your approach. Don’t rely on your product to sell itself – you need to choose the right marketing channels for it.

Part 3: Conversion. This is the selling part. Once you figure out how your “traffic” will flow – online or off? – you can start thinking about how you will “sell” your product or service to people. What are your product’s main selling points? Dale makes a point here of saying you might “test the water” by trying to sell a competitors’ product. If it’s hard to make sales, you may need to reconsider your original plan.

Part 4: Your product or service. Finally, we get to the good part! Now that you’ve figured out all the info that answered the first three parts, you can intelligently present your product. You’ve figured out the marketplace and where you fit in; you’ve decided how to communicate to your market; and you know your product’s selling points.

Now with this marketing plan, you’ve thought of a lot of the potential roadblocks (saturated marketplace) ahead of time and can plow right through them (tweak your product). This plan should help you be more relaxed so you can focus on implementation instead of planning.

How Branding Reflects More Than The Product

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In response to http://www.graphicdefine.org/issue4/whatruselling

Brands are customer perceptions of your product or company. You can create a logo, a tag line and create a look and feel in your marketing materials that gives off your business’s personality (a business’s personality is another definition of a brand), but it’s the way your customers interpret your branding that really gives your brand meaning.  Try as you might, your customers decide what your brand is, not you.

And why do we need brands, anyway?
The obvious answer is to differentiate one company from another. To let consumers know what we think of ourselves and how we would like them to think of us. These days consumers have so much info at their fingertips through the Internet that they need our brands to tell the companies apart.

A customer’s brand experience will help them decide whether to ever buy from that brand again. A brand can also help a customer feel more at ease with their purchases – a brand is partly based on reputation. A consistent brand, like McDonald’s, lets people know that no matter what state they’re in they can get a Big-Mac and French fries that will taste the same as the ones from a McDonald’s the next state over. People know they can get quick, tasty food at cheap prices from any McDonald’s.

Brands help people achieve their desired identity
People buy $200 jeans that are made of the same material as a $50 pair of jeans simply for the label, the brand. Why? It makes them feel good. People desire to be in a class or status that is higher than where they currently are and buying a brand name can give them a little piece of that desired identity. When someone walks around with a $200 pair of jeans on, other people will know what that person paid for the jeans and most will have a different opinion of him.

Why else would people spend so much money on brand-name items when they could have the exact same thing for generic items? It all has to do with consumer perception. People perceive brand names to have a higher quality than generics. You can read the ingredient list on the back of a bottle of generic ibuprofen and compare it to all the same ingredients in a bottle of Advil, but you’ll feel the urge to pay the extra 50 cents or dollar for the Advil.

Brands create associations. The Advil and the generic have the exact same ingredients, but you’ve seen Advil commercials. You’ve seen how those people’s aches and pains went away from using a trusted brand of medicine that’s been around a long time. Besides, you can afford it, right? You don’t want the cashier to think that you have to stoop to buying generic pain medication.

That’s what brands do – they identify a company, but they also identify their consumers. Brands help distinguish companies from one another, and to an extent, they help distinguish people from one another.

The Lost Art of Branding

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Every company knows that branding is an important part of promoting their products or services. Yet, not all realize how important. In today’s motto of more is better, companies seem to be turning to megabranding to solve their revenue problems. When sales are down, most companies begin scrambling to introduce yet another item or line of products. At first, this strategy might work, at least for a little while. Eventually, though, sales will drop again and, once again, out comes another product; hence, the term megabranding – developing new lines of products each with its own brand.

The problem is that megabranding creates a vicious cycle, one that cannot be stopped. What many companies are facing today is lower sales with no hope of returning to the original high. That is, unless they return to the simple brand message that gave them so much success in the first place.

Effective branding should follow the rule of KISS – keep it simple, silly. Branding is a process that can take years to develop through waves of marketing strategies. Within these waves is a single message. For instance, the Nike Swoosh logo today is still an inspiration for the amazing abilities of the human body in sports. Nike began with shoes only, and now, in spite of clothing and sports equipment, shoes are still the product for which the company is known. So, instead of generating new dairy products every time sales drop, try promoting the item for which you are known, ice cream. Develop a marketing campaign to put your message at the forefront using several different marketing tools, such as the following:

Flyers – The bonus of flyers is that they can be used as both direct mail and posters. Craft the headline to promote your message and make sure that the font size is readable from a distance.

Brochures – Take these to events or hand them out in the office. Brochures have a lot of room for information. Be sure to simplify with subheaders, short sentences, and information that supports your brand.

Postcards – These are an excellent direct mail piece because the message is out in the open for consumers to see when shuffling through their mail.

Media Ads – Develop ads for the internet, television, newspapers, and possibly even billboards. Enlist the creativity of graphic designers for developing a different twist on each advertisement.

Don’t forget about other valuable branding tools such as business cards, presentation folders, and giveaways such as calendars, magnets, or keychains. Anything that consumers can use in their everyday life that will promote your brand is a plus.

Next time you are searching for a way to bring sales up again, avoid the temptation to introduce a new product line. Instead, get consumers excited again about your company. Remind them of why you’re the best. So, roll up your sleeves, pull out the archives, and re-discover the lost art of simple branding.

Branding vs. Marketing

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Many people have the misguided impression that branding and marketing can be considered two separate entities. They could not be more incorrect. Both aspects are essential to an effective marketing plan, as one definitely drives the other. Try doing only one facet, however, and you’ll discover it makes the task of marketing your company more difficult than necessary. Like peanut butter without jelly or green eggs without ham. Determine your brand identity from the onset and it will serve as the guidepost in developing the remainder of your marketing strategies.

The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines a brand as a “name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers”. However, your brand is more than just your logo; your brand is the integration of your visual presence, employee representation, customer interaction . . . specifically, your brand is the way you want your customers to think of your company. Additionally, you want your customers to think of your company as the only one out there who can provide the solutions they seek.

In order to achieve a successful brand, you must first understand what your current and prospective customers want and need. Who better to give you that information than the employees who work with your customers each day? Start your brand identity from within your own organization. If your employees don’t deliver your intended brand, the remainder of your marketing plan will be for naught.

Need proof? Visit a travel website, for instance – TripAdvisor.com, Travelocity.com, Expedia.com – and you are likely to find several negative reviews with “poor customer service” as the main downfall. Those employees did not represent their company’s brand successfully, resulting in an unfavorable experience to the customer. On the other hand, employees who consistently uphold the brand can facilitate enormous company growth.

Once you have established your brand identity to your employees, it’s important to back it up. Lead by example; be consistent with your brand guidelines – everything from how your logo is used to your company’s core values. When your customers consistently receive service that mirrors your brand, the next step of your marketing plan will practically write itself.

The purpose of a brand is to differentiate one company from another. Used correctly, a well thought out brand will shape everything from the color combination on your color business cards, to the photos that should be used when printing catalogs, to the type of language you should use when printing booklets for your employees. Strengthen your brand and the strength of your marketing will soon follow suit.