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Story Tellers: Part I
Who is talking about you? Are your products reviewed on people’s blogs? Have there been any newspaper articles about your newest ad campaign? Do you overhear casual conversation about your brand in the coffee shop? There is someone out there telling your story that is not on your payroll. It’s time you figure out who that person is and exactly what you are saying. Remember our conversation about the perfect customer? I argued that the perfect customer is your un-hired advertising force. This is the person you have zero control over, but on whom your reputation rests. Now that we…
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Mirror, Mirror …
Every once in a while a company needs to take a close, critical look at itself. Brand managers invest countless hours in developing an honest image to represent their product or company. Stamping the brand all over company correspondence and product launches at this stage, however, is an indicator of mediocrity. A good manager will take a moment to test their work before releasing it. Pull yourself back from your work – or find someone completely unaffiliated with it. Take a walk in your customers’ shoes and look at not just the brand, but the product or business it represents.…
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Who are you?
The next step to building a powerful brand is self-evaluation. We have determined the customers, but who is the company? Every company has an internal culture, the way it conducts business and views itself. Understanding who you are is the first step in communicating with others. Branding is a way of simplifying communication. Rather than illustrate every feature of a calorie-free, caramel-colored, caffeinated, carbonated beverage we just call it “Diet Coke.” Managers worked hard to define what “Coke” is and where it fits in the market; the diet version requires less energy because it builds on the existing Coke brand.…
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Differentiation
Having segmented the market with the aid of psychographics, we have a truly differentiated product offering. But what if this is not enough? If a product stays in the market long enough, imitators are sure to follow. Here are three ways to continue differentiating your product from the competition: Leverage your company’s background – Is your firm located in an out-of-the-way area that makes it unique? Use that as a product attribute – Coors distinguishes its beer as using Rocky Mountain water. Use a new market category – When you segmented the market, did you create a new product or…
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Segmentation
Everyone in marketing talks about segmentation, I just wanted to join the club. However, I think of segmentation very differently than most people. You create segments in the market by identifying demographics (age, sex, race) and geographic norms (population density) and how they relate to one another. This gives you a good idea about how and how not to market to your customer. Trying to advertise a $900 video game system in a low-income area of town would not be very successful. There is a third dimension of segmentation that is increasingly coming into play in today’s market: psychographics. Knowing…
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The Perfect Customer
It is difficult to envision a “perfect” customer. Are they the one who spends more than 10% of their annual income on your products? The person who frequents your store without hearing a single word of advertising? Is it the person who buys little but visits every day? The perfect customer could be any or all of these things, depending on your product and your business. A broad definition of the perfect customer is an un-hired advertising force – the man or woman who encourages friends, family, and strangers to patronize your brand without any compensation for their efforts. The…
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Open for Business
Everything has a purpose. Cars were invented to replace horses as a more convenient and, arguably, cheaper means of transportation. Sports drinks are efficient ways to hydrate athletes than water alone. This blog exists to further my establishment within the marketing community. Everything has a purpose, a reason for being – this extends to companies. Eliyahu Goldratt claims the goal of a company is to make money, but that is not its purpose. Starbucks, for example, exists to deliver an experience to its customers and establish a unique culture all its own. Starbucks does, however, make a good deal of…
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Axe by Unilever
Axe is a very popular brand of men’s deodorant and shower products owned by Unilever. I guarantee that you have seen their television advertisements at some point in time. I choose to look at Axe because I think their marketing, however controversial, is absolutely genius. Picture two men in a bar. Man A is tall, dark, and handsome – the stereotypical “player” who can have any woman he wants. Man B is skinny, untanned, and socially awkward – but in Axe commercials, he is the man who actually does get any woman he wants. Man B is shown using Axe…
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How well is your Internet working?
“How well is your Internet working?” This is a question I often ask my colleagues. Many of them have both personal and professional websites. Several have blogs. Others have accounts on Myspace. Until I get into the meat of the question, they all assume their web presence is fairly well-defined. “If my clients can find me, then the Internet is working in my favor.” This statement, although seemingly innocuous, is a very dangerous state of mind to have. When you put my name in Google, you get several results. There are a few activists, loan officers, and lawyers. There is…
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Vocabulary
A lot of people have been looking at my new business card and have been asking what a “perfect customer” is. I figured I should take a moment to explain exactly what I mean and what the tag-line of my card and website, “Who is your perfect customer?” actually means. In marketing, a lot of people just flood information channels with data about their products and various promotion events. The problem is they trade off content for volume and saturate the market with one or two messages that are meant to touch millions of customers at once. Market segmentation can…