As a follow up to my post earlier this week about how emotional involvement in a brand drives brand loyalty, today I will provide three steps to generate emotional involvement in your brand. I call these three steps the 3 S’s of Customer Loyalty. It’s a concept I first introduced in my book that was just released in the U.K. (coming to the U.S. in August), Harry Potter: The Story of a Global Business Phenomenon. By ensuring your brand offers customers the 3 S’s of customer loyalty, customers will become emotionally involved in your brand. Let’s take a closer look. [Read more…] about 3 Steps to Generate Emotional Involvement in Your Brand
Driving Customer Loyalty Through Emotional Involvement
Perhaps the single most important aspect of developing customer loyalty is emotional involvement in your brand. Customers who feel an emotional connection and response to your brand are inherently loyal to it. Let’s look at a few examples.
Star Trek
The Star Trek brand is one that fans are deeply loyal to. In fact, Star Trek fans are borderline obsessive. Loyal fans attend conventions, buy products, dress in costumes, play games, and learn languages related to the Star Trek brand and corresponding universe that has grown around it. Now, that’s loyalty! [Read more…] about Driving Customer Loyalty Through Emotional Involvement
State of Digital Coupons in 2014
The State of Digital Coupons report from RetailMeNot and Forrester Consulting reveals that digital coupons are still a critical method of building brand loyalty and generating sales.
In fact, coupons are the most effective method of influencing customer purchase decisions with survey respondents ranking coupons twice as effective as sales (59% vs. 28%) and more than six times more effective than daily deal vouchers (9%).
Furthermore, more than two out of three consumers believe that coupons effectively build brand awareness and generate loyalty (68% each).
Nearly one in two consumers are more likely to try a new brand when they receive a coupon for it on their smartphone while shopping in a store (47%), and more than one in three consumers are likely to switch brands when they receive a digital coupon on their smartphones while shopping in a store (36%).
Not only are digital coupons effective in driving brand loyalty and sales, they’re also extremely effective at motivating people to visit brick-and-mortar stores. In total, 50% of consumers are more likely to visit a store if they’ve received a digital coupon from that store.
Digital coupons are one of the few marketing messages that consumers truly want to receive from brands. The research found that 60% of consumers love to receive digital coupons. The majority of consumers find digital coupons in email messages that they receive from brands, online searches, coupon mobile apps, and emails sent to them from coupon companies.
It’s important to keep in mind that just because consumers want to receive digital coupons doesn’t mean that all coupons will be successful in generating sales and brand loyalty. The research study found that nine out of 10 consumers use digital coupons within several days of receiving them. In fact, approximately one in three consumers use digital coupons immediately after they receive them, and another one in three uses them within several hours of receiving them.
For brand marketers, digital coupons should be a core component of your retail marketing strategy, but remember, the lifespan of a digital coupon is very short! You need to test and balance your frequency of sending coupon messages with that brief digital coupon lifespan to find the best distribution schedule and method for your brand’s target audience.
Image: mrceviz
Is Microsoft’s Brand Strategy Poised to Fail Again?
Last month, I wrote a post called Microsoft – A Case Study in Failing to Meet Customer Expectations where I discussed three of the main reasons that Windows Vista failed and Microsoft’s brand reputation has been less than stellar in recent years. Each reason related to failing to meet customer expectations, one of the most important things successful brands must do. Today, I read an article on The Register demonstrating that Microsoft still hasn’t seen the light.
At Microsoft’s worldwide partner conference this week, Microsoft’s vice president of Windows consumer product marketing, Brad Brooks, blamed much of the tarnished reputation of the Microsoft and Windows Vista brands on Apple and the “lies” told in the popular Mac vs. PC Guy commercials. According to The Register, Brooks said during his speech at the conference, “Today we are making a statement and drawing a line right here that we are going to do things differently. That we are going to tell our story.” Notice there was no mention of failing to meet customer expectations with Windows Vista. Instead, he simply stated that, “WindowsVista is a good product.” [Read more…] about Is Microsoft’s Brand Strategy Poised to Fail Again?
5 Factors of Brand Positioning
Last week, I wrote about how to break through branding clutter by defining your brand’s unique value proposition then owning it in the the marketplace thereby establishing your brand’s position. Today, let’s take a look at the 5 main factors that go into defining a brand position.
1. Brand Attributes
What the brand delivers through features and benefits to consumers.
2. Consumer Expectations
What consumers expect to receive from the brand.
3. Competitor attributes
What the other brands in the market offer through features and benefits to consumers.
4. Price
An easily quantifiable factor – Your prices vs. your competitors’ prices.
5. Consumer perceptions
The perceived quality and value of your brand in consumer’s minds (i.e., does your brand offer the cheap solution, the good value for the money solution, the high-end, high-price tag solution, etc.?).
Take some time to create a thorough picture of the current market and how your brand fits in that market to determine your brand’s current position. If that’s not the position you want for your brand, take the necessary steps to change it based on the gaps defined when you analyzed the five factors above.
Do you use any other factors in your brand positioning definition process?
Image: Flickr
Branding from Within – The Importance of Internal Brand Building
Do your employees know your brand promise? Do they know your primary brand message and what your brand’s image is? Do they know how your brand is positioned relative to similar brands on the market?
If you answered ‘no’ to any of these questions, then you need to spend time building your brand from within your organization. Employees are the strongest brand advocates, but they can’t advocate your brand effectively if they don’t understand it or buy into it.
Following are ten suggestions to help you build your brand internally:
- Create a Twitter account using CoTweet.com where multiple employees can get involved with external branding efforts and other employees can learn more about the brand. You can also create private Twitter groups that your employees can join and you can share branding messages using a tool like GroupTweet.com.
- Get a Flip video camera (or hire a video producer) and interview employees about your brand. Share stories on an internal Web page.
- Create private social networking groups for employees and communicate branding messages.
- Create printed materials that teach employees about your brand in an entertaining fashion rather than like a training guide.
- Interview customers and share their feelings about your brand with employees.
- Explain how your brand is different from competitors.
- Create branded experiences for employees where they can share the brand just like consumers do.
- Encourage employees to join social networking groups, join Twitter, and write blogs where they can advocate your brand. Just be sure to create social media guidelines for employees. There are hundreds of Google employee blogs. If Google can do it, so can you.
- Make sure your employees are motivated to use your branded products and services. How would it look if a Starbucks employee drank Dunkin’ Donuts coffee? You don’t want a similar faux pas to happen with your employees.
- Hire a Chief Brand Officer to lead the initiative.
Don’t be afraid to get creative with internal branding efforts. If your employees don’t believe in your brand, why should consumers?
Image: Flickr