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5 Tips for Branding Success

blocksBuilding a successful brand takes time.  There are no easy routes to success or shortcuts to save time.  You might get lucky and garner widespread awareness and attention for your brand, but successful brands depend on customer loyalty.  There are no shortcuts to developing relationships with consumers, creating expectations for your brand, and meeting those expectations through every customer touch point.

With that in mind, following are five factors that should always be on your mind when you’re building a brand.  They should permeate through all of your brand-building and marketing initiatives.

1. Be specific

Strong brands are focused brands.  Define your brand promise in specific terms so it stands out from the broad and vague promises of other brands.  Then make sure your brand lives up to those specific promises.

2. Be authoritative

Define your brand promise and shout it confidently to the world.  Make everyone else believe in your brand promise, too.

3. Be consistent

Define your brand promise and how you want to communicate that message to consumers (i.e., your brand message and brand image) and don’t waiver.  Conflicting messages confuse consumers causing them to turn away from your brand in search of one that makes them feel secure.  Consistency is vital to brand building success.

4. Be honest

Consumers are not naive, and they appreciate straightforward, transparent messaging.  Don’t promise the world and not live up to those promises.  Honesty trumps pie-in-the-sky claims any day of the week.

5. Be relentless

Persistence will be rewarded.  Get your brand messages out there and then get them out again and again.  Consumers see and hear a myriad of messages everyday, and it’s easy for yours to get lost in the clutter.  Don’t give up too soon.

Image: Stock.xchng

Mobile Apps are Hot – Does Your Brand Have One?

A recent study by DM2PRO and Quattro Wireless reports that mobile apps are going to skyrocket in popularity in 2010, so while less than 50% of companies surveyed for the study invested in mobile apps in 2009, the majority plan to do so in 2010.  That’s a significant shift in investment strategy.

Most companies surveyed in the study claimed that they invest in mobile apps to increase customer engagement, connect with targeted audiences, expand their marketing reach, and keeping their brands in front of consumers.

Where are all those dollars being invested?  Check out the chart from eMarketer below to get an idea of where marketers in North America used mobile/social apps in 2009 to get an idea.

mobile_apps_sites

Facebook and iPhone apps clearly lead the pack in terms of where investments in branded apps are channeled, and I don’t suspect that will shift much in 2010.  However, it’s expected that more companies will invest in mobile apps than social media apps in 2010.

What is particularly interesting in this trend is the fact that there is more standardization in apps today, so investment costs are actually decreasing in many ways.  Hopefully, that will lead to more advancements in terms of capabilities and functionality.  ‘Plain Jane’ apps could be usurped very quickly as the world of mobile apps morphs before our eyes.

This is a fast paced environment, and the truth of the matter is that many brands may have trouble keeping up and staying relevant, particularly brands backed by large companies that have to wade through corporate bureaucracy to make decisions and move to action.  This could actually be a good thing for consumers though, as smaller companies that can move faster jump in and seize opportunities, but will those smaller companies stand a chance in the long run?  Or will we have a fast rise and faster plunge similar to the dotcom bust in the 1990s?

Regardless, it’s an exciting time to be a marketer!  Does your brand have an app yet?

Top Online Ad Networks Ranking Shows Big Growth for Microsoft

comScore released its December 2009 ranking of the top online ad networks, and the results might surprise you.  While Google dominates online search, the story is a bit different for online ad networks.

AOL Advertising ranks at the top of the list of online ad networks in December 2009 followed by Yahoo! Network and then Google Ad Network, mirroring the top three rankings in December 2008.  Note that the ranking measures the overall reach of each ad network.  Detailed results from the comScore press release are included in the chart below:

comscore_top_ad_networks_december_2009

Perhaps the more interesting statistic to review is the percent change in unique visitors that each of these ad networks reached from December 2008 to December 2009.  When you look at that data, you’ll notice that Microsoft Media Network US had a very good year in 2009 growing by 31%.  One can assume that the successful launch of Bing helped Microsoft in a lot of ways in 2009, including in growing the reach of its online ad network.

Another interesting piece of growth data is Google’s increase of 13% from December 2008 to December 2009 in comparison to the 8% growth by AOL Advertising and the 9% growth of Yahoo! Network.  Clearly, Google is continuing to grow its online ad network at a faster rate than its closest competitors.  Considering that the total Internet audience grew by 8% from December 2008 to December 2009 (according to the comScore report), Google, Microsoft, and several other ad networks are outpacing the organic growth of the overall Web audience.  That’s a good sign for the future for those ad networks.

The story to learn here is this: Google might seem to be the dominant brand and player online, but that’s not always the case when you look a little bit closer.  Furthermore, there is not one online ad network that is the go-to place for your online advertising dollars.  In reality, there are a number of choices that offer broad reach to help you spread the word about your brand.  Do your research and don’t be afraid to decide that the most well-known option might not be the best solution for your brand.  And never put all your eggs in one basket.

What’s What in E-Recruitment Software

After an extended detour through posts on the best of 2009, the possibilities of 2010, and a couple of hot topics—it’s time for the next installment of the Gartner Magic Quadrant tour.  As promised!

Gartner notes several significant factors influencing the e-recruitment market space:

  • Software as a Service (SaaS) dominates the space, with only 23% of study respondents using installed software—and that portion made up almost entirely of Oracle and SAP
  • Vertical markets are getting increasing attention—good example, software with specific workflows that help schools avoid discrimination claims
  • Holistic talent acquisition—i.e., mixing e-recruitment with “contingent workforce management”–is gaining ground, but less than Gartner expected
  • Vendor consolidation is a noteworthy trend, especially among the leaders—but new vendors (and new ideas) continue to enter the e-recruitment space

BIG number: “At least 400 vendors offer some form of e-recruitment capability.”

The Gartner Report (have a look, compliments of Peopleclick)  includes a handy outline of major e-recruitment functionalities; a helpful overview of Magic Quadrant definitions and criteria; and an explanation of what’s changed in the Quadrant since 2008.  Most interesting note:  “In this edition of the Magic Quadrant, we have broadened coverage to include more vendors from outside the U.S., and we have also strengthened our weighting for global features and support.”

Following up on that point, I’m going through all the vendor evaluations to see which ones are strongest in global implementation, and what that tells us.  So it looks like there will be a Part 3 focusing on this important topic.  But in the meantime, I’ll focus on the Quadrant group that always interests me most:  the “Visionaries.”

For those new to Q-land, the vendors are organized in four groups:  Leaders, Challengers, Niche Players, and Visionaries.  Visionaries inhabit the quarter that does well on “Completeness of Vision” (the horizontal axis) and less well on “Ability to Execute.”  These vendors generally have something innovative to offer, and it’s not surprising that their one-fourth of the Quadrant is often sparsely populated.

Of the four Visionaries in this report, Kronos is so near being a Leader that I’m not counting it.  And that leaves Mr. Ted, Neogov, and Jobpartners.  Neogov turns out to do just one thing really well (it’s the “dominant player in the U.S. public sector market”) and both Jobpartners and MrTed are UK-based, with strength in the European markets.  Of these two, MrTed obviously wins my personal award for Most Whimsical Name, so let’s drill down:

According to Gartner, MrTed has “deep and broad functionality, with a strong and innovative product vision, especially in the area of social software.”  MrTed has actually just launched its latest product upgrade, which is called MrTedTalentLink v9 (aka, Cloud 9–yes, really).  The product apparently focuses on easy customization.  According to MrTed:  “It features a configurable candidate database that can easily integrate data from any source, an independent business logic layer exposed through web services, and an on-demand user interface so recruiters can customize their own workspaces. This open architecture makes it fast and easy to connect with other talent management and HR applications, so users get the full benefit of cloud computing on their desktop.”

That’s definitely getting close to a description of e-recruitment heaven.  But as for MrTed’s strength in social software, noted by Gartner—I can’t track down what they have in mind.  Part of the problem is that the search capability at MrTed’s website doesn’t exactly work.  (Results list appears, individual items listed mostly don’t.)  But it turns out that MrTed offers SmartRecruiters, a pretty cool and completely free SaaS product that seems to be very social-savvy.

Stay tuned for the Global installment.

Tweet for Points – How Clever Brands Tie Social Media to Loyalty Programs

tasti_d-liteHow to effectively use Twitter and other social media tools to boost sales and brand loyalty?

That’s the million dollar question that has companies investing large sums of money on social media marketing efforts.  The recipe to success is still unknown, but while we wait for someone to crack the secret code, we’re able to experiment with a lot of really interesting social media marketing ideas.  One of the most interesting I’ve heard about recently is actually very simple, but it could prove to be very successful.

Tasti D-Lite is a frozen dessert chain.  In an attempt to boost both brand loyalty and brand awareness, Tasti D-Lite is running a program where members of the Tasti D-Lite rewards program can earn additional rewards points by connecting their rewards cards to their Twitter profiles.  Each time a participating customer makes a purchase with his rewards card, a tweet about Tasti D-Lite (along with a link to the brand’s Web site) is automatically published in his Twitter stream.  The program also works with the mobile social networking tool Foursquare.  Members can also post their own updates to their Twitter or Foursquare profiles (separate from the automated updates that occur when they make purchases) to earn additional rewards points.

I think this is a great social media marketing effort that integrates well with offline marketing activities for Tasti D-Lite, and it could work for a wide variety of brands and businesses (both large and small).  I like that the effort works to raise both brand awareness and loyalty at the same time.  It’s this type of creative thinking that reminds us that social media marketing is about more than just talking at people.  You have to engage them and give them something useful and meaningful to want to share and discuss further with multiple audiences.

This social media marketing effort by Tasti D-Lite could integrate seamlessly with ads in various media, special discounts, contests, and other promotions, event marketing, point-of-sale collateral, and more.  It’s a perfect example of creating a simple marketing effort that can grow to surround consumers with your brand messages.

Could you create a similar social media marketing effort for your brand?  It might not be that difficult to do, and the ‘rewards’ could be significant.

What do you think?

Source: BrandWeek; Image: Flickr

100 Social Media and Content Marketing Predictions for 2010

crystal ballSeveral weeks ago, content marketing expert Joe Pulizzi of Junta42.com asked top social media and content marketing professionals from around the world, including well-known names in the marketing field like Seth Godin, John Jantsch, and David Meerman Scott (and me!) to answer one question:

What is your prediction for how brand marketers will create and distribute their own content in 2010?

Joe received 100 social media and content marketing predictions from the professionals he sent his question to, and the answers are enlightening, varied, and very telling.  Here is the prediction I contributed to the list:

My prediction is that online video will continue to grow as more marketers recognize its growth potential and attempt to leverage it.  With that said, the success of those efforts is questionable.  Until marketers embrace engagement marketing rather than interruption marketing and truly add value and build relationships by speaking with consumers rather than speaking at them, social media and content marketing efforts will continue to be popular but not deliver the big returns companies hope for.  Furthermore, the success of social media and content marketing comes from transparency and a willingness to give up control — two things that executives have yet to buy into.  I expect 2010 to be filled with more of the same conversations and struggles between marketers and the individuals in the C-suites.  We can’t give up trying to bring those execs over to our side though!

Creating amazing content online represents one of the biggest opportunities for brands to raise awareness, purchases, and loyalty.  It’s an opportunity that didn’t exist a decade ago or even 5 years ago.  Remember, Twitter only debuted in 2007!  The social Web offers a way to build relationships, interact with customers, and create a band of vocal brand advocates and brand guardians that can catapult a brand to superstardom (think Harry Potter — if you’re not familiar with the story of how the social Web helped that brand, check out my book, Harry Potter: The Story of a Global Business Phenomenon for all the details).

Are you leveraging the social media and content marketing opportunity?  Check out the 100 Social Media and Content Marketing Predictions for 2010 compiled by Joe Pulizzi.  Can 100 experts be wrong?

Image: Flickr