All too often, marketing messages get lost because they are packed like sardines with other marketing messages. There is no place that is less forgiving of that than a logo. A successful logo captures the essence of a company with one quick mark. According to Paul Rand, here's what a good logo must do.
It should be timeless. It should be flexible so as the company evolves, the meaning behind the logo can evolve too.
It should be a mark that can be interpreted by anyone, almost anywhere.
It should send a clear message.
It should work in all media, in all colors and black/white combinations.
Above all else, it should be simple, recognizable and relevant.
How does your company's logo stack up?
If you're wondering who Paul Rand is, he's the man who designed some of the most recognized logos in our culture: UPS, Westinghouse and IBM.
On the surface, it makes sense. We want our customers to be satisfied. Measuring customer satisfaction has become an industry of its own, with recognizable names like JD Powers and other similar institutions in the forefront.
Tracking and understanding a customer’s attitude about a company or product can be very insightful. It gives the consumer a chance to vent or point out product performance issues or the opportunity to spotlight a good or not so good customer service system or employee. But what customer satisfaction does not indicate at all is what the consumer will do next time they’re faced with a buying opportunity.
Customer loyalty, on the other hand, is not based on opinion or attitude. It is a measure of commitment and is a much stronger indicator of future buying choices. It is also quantifiable. If one of your customers has been consistently buying a specific product or service every month for the past year and suddenly their buying pattern changes – their loyalty might well have been compromised.
Loyalty can be used for projecting future sales, what will be bought next and revenue estimates. For a small company, you probably just need to flip through your receivables to detect loyalty patterns. For larger companies, there are mathematical techniques that you can use with your accounting system to track, trend and nurture loyalty.
A good business wants to pay attention to both satisfaction and loyalty. Satisfaction will help you identify what is or isn’t working day to day. Loyalty can help you look ahead and more accurately know what your consumers will want and be able to devise strategies to hang onto those customers long term.
So of course, the question is….how do you create customer loyalty? Think of a business that you are absolutely loyal to. You'd rather fight than switch. What did they do/say to earn that depth of commitment from you?
If you have read this blog for any length of time, you know I believe Harry Beckwith to be a modern day prophet. Or at the very least, quite brilliant.
He does it in plain language that everyone can grasp and apply to their business.
In his most recent newsletter, Harry Beckwith's Invisible Ink (subscribe here) Harry talks about his fascination with what motivates people.
He goes on to say that he's come to 40 conclusions surround this question. I thought I'd share some of them with you. And maybe if you like them, I'll share a few more tomorrow.
Your biggest competitor is not a competitor; it's your prospect's indifference.
Your second-biggest competitor is not a competitor; it's your prospect's distrust.
Your biggest obstacle is whatever stereotype your prospect has formed about you and your industry.
Prospects decide in the first five seconds.
Prospects don't try to make the best choice. They try to make the most comfortable choice.
At heart, every prospect is risk-averse, and risks are always more vivid than rewards.
Beware of what you think you know or have experienced; memories fail people constantly.
For the same reason, beware of what others say they know or have experienced.
So what do you think? Ring true for you? Had you forgotten some of these truths?
As you no doubt remember by now, once a month I join some other branding experts to tackle a marketing/branding problem ala the BrandingWire collaboration.
This month's BrandingWire takes a slightly different twist. A Canadian IT company has asked for our help. So we wade into the B-to-B world.
Here's a quick peek at them:
Offerings (according to them):
They'll do just about anything from proactive maintenance to 24/7 trouble shooting to setting up new users, buying equipment or helping you with software decisions. They are also getting into Green IT – from managing energy costs to eliminating packaging waste.
They are (my words, not theirs) like an IT department who happens to office outside of your workspace.
The money part:
You can engage them in one of two ways. You can buy a maintenance contract or buy their hours ala carte. The contract gets you a discount on services rendered.
Target:
As you would guess, businesses who use IT but are too small to have their own internal department.
Conundrum (again, their words):
It's difficult to convince small businesses that our services are worth the amount we are charging – however, to draft a legal document, they're more than willing to a pay a top notch lawyer $500/hour. Customers view IT issues as a pain (i.e. my email is down again) instead of as a critical part of their business (ie. without IT, we can't function as a company).
Customers just don't always understand the value of IT services.
Drew's take:
Ahhh, there's the rub. We don't get to decide what our customers should value. It's annoying, but true. We have to figure out what they need/want. Once we serve up that…we provide value. We can provide it but we can't define it.
But there's a flip side to this truth as well. Our clients should provide value to us as well. For it to be a long-term relationship of value, both sides need to benefit and feel good about the value they both give and receive.
But let's look at the client's side of things first.
One of the most significant keys to smart branding is knowing the heart and mind of your customers. Once you really understand where they're coming from…you can talk to them from that place.
Without talking to them (which is dangerous at best) here's what I suspect the IT customers feel.
They're scared of IT. They know they can be crippled by a virus or something else they don't understand.
They hate being so dependent on someone outside of their walls.
They're embarrassed that they don't know more than they do.
They hate the down time when they do have a problem.
They don't understand it, so paying for it scares them. (Am I getting taken?)
They don't want to pay for something they don't need. That's why the contract scares them. Are they just spending money they shouldn't?
They're petrified that something catastrophic is going to happen and it's going to cost them an arm and a leg.
They've been taught that extended warranties and maintenance contracts are fool's gold and benefit the seller much more than the buyer.
So that's where they're at in terms of IT in general. But how are they feeling about the IT company?
One of the IT company's stated goals is (in their words) "help our clients understand why our services are worth the price tag."
That's a little worrisome to me. Again, we're doing this in an artificial vacuum. My guess is that they have a mixed clientele. Some who should be clients and some who should not. And it's the who should not's that are causing them trouble.
But, if we were sitting in the room with the client, I'd ask them to describe the clients who don't object to the price structure. I'm guessing they have some. Then, we'd profile those clients based on industry, size, type of work the IT company does for them, scope of the projects, clients that can make a fair and reasonable profit from, etc.
When we were done, we'd have built a profile of the types of businesses that are a good fit. Good from the IT company's perspective in terms of retention and fair profit. Good from the client's side…trusted advisor, a value, and someone who relieves their worries.
Then, we'd go through their client list and score each client against the profile. Anyone who got a C or worse should be weeded out. They're not a good fit.
Anyone who receives a B- or better should be cultivated and nurtured.
We'd do the same thing with their prospect list. There's no reason to waste time and money talking to prospects that are not a good fit.
Once you know who to talk to and how they're thinking and feeling, deciding what to say to them comes much easier.
I will leave those details to my BrandingWire compadres. Check out their posts and welcome our three guest bloggers as well!
Dan Schawbel is 23. He has a full-time job. A blog. And a personal brand (Rob Cuesta's take).
(In comparison, when I was 23, I had a dog.)
Dan has embraced personal branding an d has expended a significant amount of energy to mastering it. His blog is all about it. He's created a magazine focused on it. By the way, Donald Trump graces the cover of the first issue and thinker/doer Guy Kawasaki penned an article.
Oh yeah…and he's built his digital personal brand site. A site dedicated to 360 degrees of Dan. His professional life, personal life, ambitions and creations. All in one spot.
What do you think? Will everyone have one of these? What would you put on your personal branding site? Where would you draw the line? Or isn't there one any more?
P.S. If you didn't think owning yourname.com was important — ask Dan what he thinks about it.
Remember when we were kids and banks would offer toasters, clock radios and stadium blankets in exchange for opening a checking account?
Well baby, we have NOT come a long way.
All too often, when a company tries to bribe potential customers with incentives, they fail to really understand the math that's going on in the prospect's head.
The key to developing a good incentive offer is understanding the value of what you are offering versus the cost of what you want in return. Check out my post at IowaBiz.com as we explore the good and bad of incentives.
A recent article in the New York Times focused on how product packaging trends have changed over the last 10-20 years. The trend, as late as the 90's was that companies would retain a packaging design for 7+ years. Today, the trend is less than 2 years. (To the left, Kleenex is now available in oval shaped boxes.)
The article lists many reasons why a company might shift packaging more often today.
Shorter attention spans of the buying population
The movement from container to a 3-D on-shelf ad for the product
Harder to expose audiences to mass media messaging, so have to grab them at the venue
Turning the mundane (tissue boxes, cleaning bottles) into decor
Trying to reduce package size/cost
Functionality (Coors label turns blue when it is just the right temperature)
An extreme example — Mountain Dew is changing its packaging 12 times from May-October. Wow. (see examples to the right)
So what do you think? Are they messing with their brand? Is this sort of revolving door packaging a good thing? Does it matter what the product is?
A good brand sets up expectations. The more definitive the brand, the better we can anticipate the experience. We can almost sense what would be a "right or wrong fit" based on the brand values or behaviors.
For example…see how many of these you get right:
What shape is Disney Cruise line's most popular pool?
What rating would Disney's 7 pm live entertainment show earn?
How about their 9 pm show?
How late is the casino open?
The food that is consumed in the largest quantity on the ship is…
How many times a day do the cruise activities team have "age specific" kid activities planned?
What is the decor of the most popular on-board restaurant?
The phrase "a different perspective" is synonymous with Marcus Brown. He's one of the boldest, most daring marketing bloggers I've ever had the pleasure of getting to know. So it came as no surprise to me that he has crafted a completely new model for serving up ideas to clients.
The Ides of March works like this. In his own words…
All you have to do is get in touch and tell me what the problem is. It could be anything from developing a new kind of pizza, changing a process, launching or developing a new product, improving something, telling a story, repositioning something, finding staff, or getting your existing staff to smile. It could also be an idea for winning a piece of new business or finding the missing link in a brand thingy you’re trying to do for a client. It could be anything.
So you send me your problem and I’ll get back to you within 24 hours with any questions and tell you how long you have to wait for my idea. When I’ve come up with something I’ll send it through per email and you can have a look and a think and if you think you can use it then you pay me.
And you pay me what you think the idea is worth. It’s completely up to you. The absolute minimum per idea is 10 Euros. Once you’ve bought the idea it’s yours. You own it.
If you choose not to buy the idea it remains my property and I will post it on this blog.
I think anyone in the business has pondering this pricing model but we've got too much overhead and too little courage to try it. I can't wait to watch it take off and be ridiculously successful.
And I get a front row seat. One of the mechanics Marcus has added to his company is the creation of his Senate. A world-wide smattering of professionals that Marcus can call on as he needs them. I'm proud to be among the list. Here are my fellow Senators:
Marcus is boldly going to a completely new space within an age-old industry. Do you think he'll have any trouble differentiating his business from the pack? This is about actually doing something different, rather than just talking different about the same old thing.
That's branding at its core. You start by doing something different. What are you doing that's different?
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