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Intrigue Design asked:



Marketing 101: Develop a powerful and compelling core message.

“Say something, say it well, say it often.”? Why should customers buy from you? Why should they even take a second glance? You need to build a powerful message that gets key points across without clutter … because clutter is what leads to abandonment. Although this is the essence of a successful branding and marketing campaign, you’d be surprised how many companies fail to grasp this concept.

Make sure your core message is “benefit oriented.”?

People don’t buy services or products, they buy the benefits of those services or products. In all your communications, make sure your message translates into specific benefits.

Make sure your initial message directs prospects toward a specific action.

Your customers want to be told where to go to find the solutions they seek. This should be abundantly clear to all four major personality groups (Amiables, Drivers, Expressives, and Analyticals). When you invite customers to go somewhere to learn how to interact with your site and find out more about your company, you can greatly increase your potential for conversions.

Develop imagery that enhances your message and intrigues your target audience.

The images on your site should enhance your message by being visually stimulating. Sometimes this may only be an aesthetic; other times it may involve “timelining”? imagery and content together to use space more effectively and get across a message in a more distinctive fashion.

Develop a unique value proposition (UVP).

Sit down with a branding or marketing expert and define a UVP for your company as a reminder of your competitive advantages. Make sure these advantages are customer-centric, not business-centric.

Incorporate your UVP into all online and off-line media for brand consistency and saturation.

Make sure your message constantly reiterates your competitive benefits and your UVP. You never know which aspect of your brand a prospect might respond to, so make sure the message is consistently broadcast in whatever media you use.

Tell customers what they want to hear, not what you want to tell them.

We call this inside-out marketing. Too often, companies unknowingly focus on what they want to say, rather than what customers want to hear. An outside-in perspective with a true 360° view of your company from the customer’s viewpoint is best accomplished with the help of a qualified branding and marketing firm that can determine customers’ attitudes, expectations, and requirements.

Build value … not boredom.

I leave this one to Napoleon Hill: “It is as useless to try to sell a man something until you have first made him want to listen as it would be to command the earth to stop rotating”? (Think and Grow Rich

Lead with a header and close with a call to action.

Readers are much more likely to read your message, white papers, case studies, etc., if you pique their interest or curiosity through well-written headers, transition headers, body content, and calls to action that lead to the next step in a sales cycle.

“SCAN I AM.”?

Today’s readers don’t read, they scan. They scan for areas of interest, offers, links to relevant information, etc. So it is important to set up your text so that it can be quickly scanned. Online text is not linear like a book; it’s interactive to follow users’ nonlinear demands.

Develop a branding “blueprint”? that …

shows clearly how you expect prospects to interact with your messages. This blueprint should start with an outline and show all paths from all forms of communication and how they lead to firm sales. Again, marketing and branding professionals can help develop a plan.

Evaluate your plan. Have others evaluate your plan. Re-evaluate and adjust.

No plan is perfect, and any plan should be constantly adjusted to maximize its effectiveness. It is critical to continually audit your branding plan and all your marketing media.

Re-evaluate again.

Adjust your blueprint …

to adapt to the market, trends, technologies, customer demands, etc. Review quarterly. Every successful brand in the world is optimized regularly. Branding is an ongoing effort, not a one-time occurrence.

Use measurable tools to track prospect response.

Use online forms and phone logs to track responses from prospects. Capturing information via legitimate means allows you to re-market to this customer base and to see which forms, programs, tools, and salespeople are getting the best results.

Build a list.

Use online forms and phone logs to build an opt-in prospect list to serve as a powerful conversion tool. (See below.)

Re-market, re-market, re-market.

A customer may need to see a message more than five times to even notice it once! Keep your marketing efforts going … and going …

Don’t forget referrals!

Build a specific program to track, manage, and solicit referral business. We like e-mail campaigns and direct mail for this.

Up-selling!

Your existing customer base is your best source of more business. Develop a formidable plan to make sure your customers know what services you provide and that you keep your core and other related messages in front of your customers as often as possible. (It may take up to 10 forms of contact for a customer to identify with your brand) Remember, sell the benefits…not the service!

Use programs and tools to generate interest.

People like simplicity and packages, offers, and deals that are easy to understand and evaluate. By creating various packages or free tools for prospects to interact with, you can stimulate interest that may have waned otherwise.

Hit them from all angles!

It’s called shotgun marketing. A shotgun shell contains hundreds of tiny lead balls, increasing your chance of hitting a target. Marketing is much the same … the more media you use effectively, the better the chance that your message will be seen and remembered. There is no secret solution to marketing; it’s all about creating a total user experience across all platforms that projects your brand.

Use technologies and trends; they are your friends!

Using various technologies such as online bookings, reservations, response forms, PDF downloads, Blogging, Wikis, internal search engines, and newsfeeds can have a dramatic effect on your overall brand identity and on your marketing strategy in general.

Calls to action.

Calls to action are perhaps the most important aspect of marketing and advertising. After all, what good is any message or image if it doesn’t initiate an action that leads to a conversion? When developing a call to action, remember the four personality types and make use of available technologies to make compelling, interactive offers. You should have a unique call to action for each type of person who represents your customer base. For example … Visit www.intrigue-design.com to learn more about successful branding and to request a free evaluation of the effectiveness of your home pages.



Kansieo.com

Marcia Hoeck asked:


What is it that makes some brands connect so well with their audiences? We could learn something about building brands for organizations by also asking,

What is it that makes some people connect so well with other people?

In many ways, organizations are like individuals. Each has its own specific “fingerprint” — strengths, character, and personality — that makes it unique and recognizable. It’s how we get to know our friends and understand what it is about them that we like.

In a world where no one has time to carefully weigh all available brand options, this fingerprint acts as shorthand to help us sort through the maze, a very real point of value at a time when it is increasingly difficult to tell one product or service from another.

When an organization’s brand fingerprint is clearly defined and articulated so that customers, shareholders, distributors, employees, and partners consistently feel they “know” the organization and know what to expect from it, magic happens.

This is when high emotional engagement occurs. This is when “raving fans” and customer loyalty are created. This is when organizations gain sustainable competitive advantage.

Discovering and communicating this brand fingerprint helps organizations bring strategic focus to the power of their brand — giving brands a meaningful and recognizable shorthand that helps cut through the noise and clutter to connect with people.

Brand fingerprint process

Following a process to help uncover the organization’s brand fingerprint will ensure that the intangible attributes assigned to the brand — assets like integrity and innovation — are translated into a visual, tangible representation to which audiences can relate.

The process has two phases, strategy and visual translation. It works like this:

Phase I. Strategy

Step 1. Finding your brand values, character, and personality

Step 2. Understanding the competitive landscape

Step 3. Determining your position in the marketplace

Step 4. Developing your value proposition

Phase II. Visual Translation

Step 1. Developing the brand mood

Step 2. Determining the key brand elements

Step 3. Developing the brand roadmap

Phase I. Strategy

The strategy phase can be compared to traditional methods of brand development and is based on core values. The difference here is that the exercises used in the facilitated sessions with company decision makers are designed not only to uncover brand values and attributes, but to gather information in a way that it will be useful for development of the visual translation of the brand. Pairing the creative team with decision makers at the very beginning of brand strategy development is essential in gathering input that will be critical to visual translation. This is important since experts say that 80% of what we learn comes to us visually, and customers will most likely see brands long before they understand the strategy.

There are many benefits of considering how the brand will be communicated visually at the strategy stage. Some of these benefits include:

> translation of intangible company assets and attributes into tangible representations that truly reflect the company’s core values

> avoidance of possible disconnects when logos, websites, and print materials are developed

> development of marketing materials that really communicate key messages

> deeper understanding and long-term recall of brand messages by customer audiences

> consistency of brand messages over time

Phase II: Visual Translation

The visual translation phase takes all of the information gathered in the strategy phase and translates it into a visual form that people can see and relate to — the visible brand fingerprint. A clear and accurate brand fingerprint can communicate assets like integrity, zero defects, and innovation and make them palpable. Visible. Understandable. Audiences will know at a glance “who” the organization is, what it is saying to them, and why they should buy, react, or be moved. And it will be real, it will be authentic, and it will stand the test of time — because what people see represents the synthesis of the brand strategy.

The benefits of developing the visual components of the brand directly from strategy exercises include:

> a brand mood that will communicate to customers on an emotional level, because the design is based on authentic aspects of the brand’s character and personality

> because the mood is a direct translation of strategy jointly developed by company decision makers and creative team, there are no unpleasant surprises at the design stage

> the main visual components of the brand will look and feel “real” and will become the pillars upon which other marketing materials will be built

> there will be no need for new themes, visual approaches, or deviations from the established visual translation. Brand equity builds with consistency. This is a cost-effective benefit.

Brand communication

Being true to the organization’s authentic brand is how trust, loyalty, and sustainable relationships are developed between the organization and its audiences. Great graphics and cool animation aren’t effective if they don’t accurately communicate the company’s character or brand. Something’s amiss if the organization is not clear and consistent about how it is presenting itself in front of its publics. If the organization’s brand and its image are not aligned, “brand schizophrenia” occurs, which significantly affects the quality of the relationship and level of trust with valued audiences, including customers and employees. Both lose trust in companies when they don’t know what to expect.

With brand strategy and visuals clearly articulated in a unique brand “fingerprint,” organizations can make a real connection with their audiences. Once established, this connection enables them to communicate compelling value, promote long-term recall of brand messages, and foster the trust, loyalty, and emotional attachment that sustain relationships.



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