Three Things Every Brand Should Be Doing

Brands evolve; or at least they should. Part of that evolution should be the continual up-keep, or maintenance if you will, of the brand tenants. If the last time you took a holistic look at your brand was more than five years ago, chances are there is work to be done.

Brand maintenance begins with research. Proper research takes on many forms, but since your customer base is always changing, so too should the review of why and how they buy. The processes listed here are for every business, in every industry and serve whether you sell to direct to consumers, business to business or pull-through via distribution.

1-The Brand Workshop

One research aspect is through a brand workshop. Typically with a research factor of two to four weeks, and an onsite component with key stakeholders of two days, brand workshops can set the strategy for the next three to five years. To get the most lift from such an event, research should be conducted by a third party firm. One cannot get honest answers about themselves, and too often employees set about asking questions of their customer base.  

A brand workshop typically includes:

·        Primary research on your customer base. This should survey current, loyal customers, customers who buy infrequently, as well as those that never buy, or have not purchased in a significant amount of time.

·        Stakeholder interviews. Your key personnel, from multiple company functions, offer the best insight to what works, and what doesn’t.

·        A complete competitive review. Understanding what your competition does best, and does not do well, helps to uncover hidden gems for your brand.

Your workshop activity should include a review of the above research, as well as a deep dive into what your brand stands for. Done well, a workshop will give you access to areas of opportunity that have been overlooked. In some cases, it may save you money on areas your customer no longer values.

2-Journey Mapping

Once reserved for only the largest of companies, journey mapping allows you to see all of the steps your customers take in their journey to product purchase; I guarantee you this will be eye-opening. Additionally, the mapping process identifies the long-term relationship you have with your customer (think brand advocacy). It’s there that the magic happens.

In a broad sense, Customer Journey mapping is the visual representation of the alignment of the organization to the customer’s needs to create relevant, engaging and rewarding experiences that connect the brand with the customer.

Journey mapping research includes some of the brand workshop inquiry process, and expands into other analytics such as website and social media usage, net promoter scores, etc. Essentially it identifies specific touch points where a customer might engage with your brand.  Once the front end work is completed, sophisticated software will illustrate the paths to purchase for multiple personas, channels, segments and products. Customer journey mapping often helps provide information necessary to solve many business problems, such as:

·        Declining revenue, retention, churn and competitive inroads

·        Economic challenges such as disruptive service models

·        Net promoter score or customer satisfaction declines as well as increases in complaints

·        C-level challenges to Sales, Marketing & Service continuums

Journey mapping benefits can also be beneficial to many business disciplines including strategic planning, innovation and NPI, tactical thrusts, UX, marketing and sales. Hardly any aspect of your business will be untouched by the output from a thorough customer mapping process.

Map Source-SuiteCX

3-Inbound Marketing

Once you know who your customer is, where they came from and what they really want, you can move toward making your website attractive to your users. This attraction should be strong enough to pull prospects in regardless of whether they were looking for your specific product or service. In other words, they shouldn’t have to search your company or product name; they should simply be looking to solve a problem for which you offer a solution.

Once attracted to your website, your mission should be to convert this prospect to a lead. Leads are needed in every business, regardless of whether you’re selling B2B or B2C. Conversion is the magical web process that allows you to market to the lead with their permission. Content marketing without a conversion plan is an exercise in futility.

Storytelling should be the foundation of your inbound process, without talking about yourself. A me, me, me approach will almost always turn off a prospect and lead to low conversion rates. Once the prospect finds you, converts for your higher level content and fills out a form, your marketing automation should take control. At this stage you have yourself a Marketing Qualified Lead.

Nurturing this MQL will allow you to score the lead, educate them on why you may be the best choice and convert them to a Sales Qualified Lead when they’re ready. Turning over a lead too soon almost always ends badly. And, after all, a lead is a terrible thing to waste.

Try on one or all of the techniques here to bring your brand, large or small, to the next level. You’d be surprised at the lift you can see from these critical investments!

Connect with me on LinkedIn (www.dhirubhai.net/in/nickritota/), or Twitter @nickritota or by email at [email protected]