Corporate Eye

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Susan Gunelius

Susan Gunelius

Go Mobile to Get Your Brand in Front of Mothers

New research from BabyCenter.com reveals that brands that want to connect with mothers, particularly new mothers, should go mobile. According to the survey, 68% of mothers user their smartphones while they’re shopping, which is much higher than the average smartphone user.

Furthermore, 46% of survey respondents said they want to get information about products and services while they are shopping — at the very moment that they’re making buying decisions. In fact, 46% of survey respondents claimed that they were moved to action after seeing an ad on their smartphone, tablet or other mobile device.

Among mothers who don’t have smartphones, they spend more time on the web via a computer than they spend using any other type of media (television, radio, magazines, and newspapers), so clearly brands need to be represented in digital media in order to connect with the buying power of the new mother audience who is actively looking for products, advice, and reviews.

The BabyCenter survey also revealed that 62% of respondents change brands when they have kids, so even if these women were your customers before they had babies, they’re not necessarily still going to be your customers after they have babies. Digital marketing is essential both to attract new customers and retain existing customers when it comes to the new mother demographic buying behaviors.

Once consumers, including new mothers, adopt mobile technology, it becomes an integral part of their lives. This trend isn’t going to end anytime soon. In fact, it’s going to keep growing. and more and more consumers will become more and more dependent on their mobile devices. If you don’t already have a mobile component to your marketing plan, you need one.

What do you think? Are new mothers one of your target customer segments for your brand? Are you connecting with them via mobile marketing already? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: stock.xchng

Make Customers Part of Your Logo to Build Brand Loyalty

The most powerful brands in the world are relationship brands like Apple and Harley Davidson. These are brands that people feel such a strong emotional connection with that they’re not only extremely loyal but they’re also extremely vocal about that loyalty.  Social media marketing and content marketing make it easier than ever for companies to build relationships with consumers that lead to brand loyalty and advocacy, but Strauss Food Group of Israel took the concept of connecting consumers to its brand a bit further in Israel.

Instead of just saying that consumer relationships are important to Strauss, the company showed it by making consumers part of its logo. Check out the picture below to see how Strauss did it.


There are 180,000 surnames in Israel, and Strauss (with its advertising agency, Shalmor Avnon Amichay/Y&R) made each and every one of those surnames part of its logo. Strauss markets itself as a family company, and the idea of sharing the logo with consumers was intended to make people feel like they’re part of the Strauss family, too.

The surname logos appeared in all marketing media, including billboards, print, online, and more. Importantly, Strauss didn’t forget the importance of building and retaining internal brand advocates. The company created posters using surnames of employees and displayed them around the Strauss offices and factories.

The campaign launched in March and Strauss reports already seeing an increase in the amount of time people spend on the company’s website, and the amount of interactivity on its site, particularly on what Strauss refers to as its online customer involvement platform, has also grown.

Of course, this type of promotion works best with a logo that is recognized by its icon without the company name attached to it. Without established brand identity recognition, the campaign wouldn’t attract the same level of attention and interest. In fact, it might go unnoticed entirely.

What do you think of the Strauss campaign? Could you do this with your logo? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Twitter Audience Is Fragmented and Led by a Small Group of Power Users

New research from Yahoo! about Twitter tells us a bit more about the evolution of Twitter usage and confirms some facts we already knew.

It’s not a surprise that a small number of Twitter users are responsible for the most consumed tweets. The Yahoo! study, “Who Says What to Whom on Twitter,” reports that 0.05% of Twitter users account for nearly 50% of all attention (meaning that almost half of the tweets that are published and actually read are published by just 0.05% of Twitter users). These power Twitter users are dubbed “elite users” and include primarily celebrities, people from the media, organizations, and bloggers.

One of the most interesting findings in the study reveals the trend in fragmenting the Twitter audience. In fact, Twitter use is reported to have “fragmented over a wider pool of content producers than classical models of mass media.” However, as the statistics in the preceding paragraph state, that fragmented attention is “highly concentrated” among the people that elite users reach through their tweets.

Another finding from the study that isn’t surprising is the fact that, “almost half the information that originates from the media passes to the masses indirectly via a diffuse intermediate layer of opinion leaders, who although classified as ordinary users [i.e., not elite users], are more connected and more exposed to the media than their followers.”

Finally, the report provides evidence that links to evergreen content like videos and music have longer lifespans thanks to continued sharing and discovery than other links shared on Twitter such as media-originated content links. Again, this is not a surprising finding, but it’s always good to have research to provide evidence to support what we already think.

So what can brand managers learn from this study? First, Twitter is an information sharing tool. It’s a content marketing tool that provides a social media element. However, it’s the publishing of original content and sharing of content that makes it so popular. The best brand Twitter feeds offer useful, meaningful information and links that the target audience actually wants to read, share, and engage with. Diversify your Twitter content to include original content, shared content, text, video, images, conversations, and so on. Be sure to include evergreen content in the mix and don’t be afraid to tweet  your best content again to ensure more people see it (Twitter streams move very quickly). Third, connect with online influencers and offer useful information that they are likely to want to share with their own audiences and are “more connected and more exposed to the media than their followers.”

Bottom-line, Twitter is just one tool in your marketing toolbox. Don’t expect it to drive a flood of business your way (although it can happen), but your brand should be represented and engaged. Take the time to understand how it works. This study offers great insight that you can use to better plan your own Twitter marketing strategy for your brand.

Image: deviantart.com

5 Steps for Greater Brand Focus and Long-term Growth

The strongest brands are highly focused. Consumers know exactly what the most focused brands promise to them the second they hear those brand names. These are the brands that offer a sense of security and stability to consumers which lead to brand loyalty and long-term brand growth. However, making sure your brand stays focused over time can be challenging as the world, consumers, and competitors change around you.

Following are five steps to continually test your brand strategy against to ensure you stay focused. They might seem rudimentary, but corporate executives forget them every day.

1. Know your target audience.

As time passes, your target audience is likely to evolve. You need to analyze these changes and determine when your brand needs to change as well. In other words, flexibility is key but don’t change for the sake of changing. Remember your brand focus and change only when it’s appropriate for the long-term success of your brand.

2. Test brand focus viability.

As the macro-environment changes, your brand focus might have to change in order to survive. Consider newspapers today. They’re a dying breed that didn’t change when technology and the widespread accessibility of digital information through the Internet exploded. Those brands stayed too rigid in their brand focus and ignored or denied the fact that the viability of that focus was coming to an end.  Today, many of those brands are struggling to stay relevant and stay alive.

3. Keep tabs on your competitors.

What differentiated your brand and gave you a competitive edge in the past, might not work in the future. You need to actively track your competitors’ activities to ensure your own focus continues to provide the differentiation you need for consumers to choose your brand over others. Competitive analysis doesn’t stop after your brand is launched.

4. Make sure your brand focus isn’t shortsighted.

Unless you want to reinvest a lot of money into launching a new brand or revamping your existing brand significantly in the future, you need to make sure that you’re always thinking in the long-term when it comes to your brand strategy. Strong brands can survive through far more obstacles than weak brands can. Therefore, make sure your brand is viable in the short-term, as you learned in #2 above, as well as for years to come.

5. Extend your brand carefully.

Brand extensions are the easiest way for a brand to lose focus. Don’t let the hope of entering a new market or expanding your product line in order to reach new customers and boost profits destroy your brand focus. Brand extensions should always appropriately reflect your focused brand promise. If you extend your brand in ways that confuse consumers, they’ll turn away from your brand in search of another that meets their expectations based on the brand promise. In other words, instead of making more money and getting more customers through a brand extension, you could lose money and customers.

No matter what you do, make sure you know what your brand’s focus and promise are and evaluate all marketing opportunities against that focus and promise to ensure they’re right for your brand in the long-term.

Image: stock.xchng

Turn Negative Reviews into Positive Word-of-Mouth Marketing

The Retail Consumer Report research conducted in January 2011 by Harris Interactive (commissioned by RightNow) revealed some interesting information about online shoppers’ experiences and thoughts. As you might expect, consumers who have bad experiences with online retailers won’t buy from those retailers again, and more and more of those dissatisfied consumers are sharing their negative reviews online.

However, the news isn’t all bad. Businesses have an opportunity to turn those negative reviews into positive word-of-mouth marketing by keeping track of online conversations about their businesses and responding to them.

The Harris Interactive study revealed that 68% of consumers who published a complaint or negative review about an online business on a social networking site or a review site were contacted by the businesses they complained about. 18% of those people were so satisfied with the responses they got from those businesses that they made additional purchases and became loyal customers.

Of course, the best case scenario is that your business only gets glowing reviews online, but when a negative comment about your brand and business makes its way online, respond to it. Reach out to the customer and make the situation right with them. As the Harris Interactive study reports, 33% of consumers who were contacted by businesses about their online complaints turned around and published a positive review about that business and 34% deleted their original negative reviews.

The opportunity to respond to negative reviews and fix problems is wide open. 61% of consumers surveyed by Harris Interactive who did not receive a response from a business about whom they published a negative review said they would be shocked if a retailer responded to a negative complaint or review that they published on the social web. Go ahead and shock them!

Keep in mind, the Harris Interactive study determined that 21% of consumers who had positive shopping experiences with an online retailer recommended that retailer to friends and 13% published positive reviews about that retailer online.  The study also reported that nearly 1 out of 3 surveyed consumers conducted their own online research on social networking and review sites while they were shopping online. You need to monitor your online reputation, respond to negativity, and make sure the information consumers find about your brand and business is positive and accurate. Online reviews are extremely important. It’s vital that you know what is being said about your brand and business online, so you can jump into conversations when it’s necessary and show your appreciation when it’s appropriate.

Image: stock.xchng

2 out of 3 Americans Use Social Networking Sites

New statistics from eMarketer reveal that in 2011, 63.7% of American Internet users (147.8 million people) are using social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn. By 2012, that number will increase to 66% and by 2013, it will hit 67%. According to these statistics, the days of double-digit user growth for social networking appear to be over.

Today, social networking reaches the vast majority of Internet users in the United States, and that number isn’t expected to decline anytime in the near future. That means your customers are using social networking, and your brand needs to be there, too. Of course, the most active users of social networking are still younger generations, but the days of social networking being a fad for young adults and teenagers are long gone. Today, users come from all generations and demographic groups.

In 2011, 90% of Internet users between the ages of 18-24 will use social networks, but older generations continue to become more active in their social networking use. The chart from eMarketer above provides a detailed age breakdown.

Not only do brands need to be present on social networking sites, but they also need to produce interesting and engaging content and conversations that are meaningful to their target audiences. As social networking users become more knowledgeable about the tools they’re using, their demands for useful content and experiences will also grow. If you’re not giving them a good reason to connect with, interact with, and talk about your brand, you won’t achieve the results you need from social networking.

Don’t just create a Facebook page and leave it at that. Instead, talk to your customers and learn what they’d like you to offer on that Facebook page. Create useful applications and content that is both interesting and helpful. You have to find ways to keep your target audience coming back for more.

Again, your customers are using social networks, so if you’re not trying to connect with them on those social networks where they’re already spending time, you’re missing a big opportunity to build relationships with them. If they were standing in front of you would you ignore them? No, you’d try to talk to them and connect with them. You should do the same thing via social networking.

Image: eMarketer