September 20th, 2009
While it may be your brand you do not actually own it. Your public owns it. Your customers decide what your brand means to them. Once you put your company out there it is now in the hands of the public.
The fact that your audience has final say in whether your product thrives or dies doesn’t change the fact that you still have the last say in the decisions implemented. If a majority of people purchasing your product decide decide they don’t like something either you must change it, change their opinion or become a victim of change.
Changing your brand based on feedback alone is shortsighted. Although there is wisdom in the crowd you ultimately are the professional. Your years of experience coupled with thorough knowledge of the category definitely weights your opinion. Just remember, you don’t pay your bills; they do.
So what do you do?
• Survey your customers with key questions
• List all potential pros and cons at hand
• Compare with competitors and other businesses who may have had the same issue
• Create a mindmap of your business / product / situation landscape
• Map out the best possibility to completion
• Implement your plan in timely phases
• Gauge for feedback
• Adjust accordingly
Not all situations are created equal and neither are your customers. By being aware of your capabilities, your customer’s savviness and the clarity of mind to know the difference between the two, you should be positioned to dominate in any situation you encounter.
Tags: advice, attributes, audience, benefit, brand, branding, business, business product, capabilities, clarity of mind, communicating, communication, communications, consumer, consumers, conversation, core values, corporate message, cradle to grave, cross country race, crowd, customer relationships, decisions, endurance, feelings, foster innovation, gauge, goals, interaction, interactions, landscape, life, lifeblood, lists, long term relationship, map, marketing, mindmap, network, networking, passion, person smile, productivity, pros and cons, purchase decisions, retention rate, savviness, selling, social, sprint, term rewards, Value, wisdom
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September 19th, 2009
Social media isn’t just one thing to everyone- it’s everything to everyone. Social media is marketing, PR, advertising, customer relations, branding, influence building and most of all, social. To focus only one area for your brand is extremely short-sighted yet ultimately it may be your best move.
Admittedly as a brand you should be proficient and well represented in all of these aspects of social media. That IS what should be happening but let’s face it- most brands are really great at one thing & need help at all the rest. So what does one do?
You could do a couple of things:
• Be a Jack of all trades, master of none by continuing to spread your valuable resources and energy over many areas.
• Hire a competent professional (employee or agency) to head up the areas that your brand isn’t so savvy in.
• Focus on the area your brand is amazing in and just kill it. Be the number one at what you and over time your other areas will pick up because of how great you are in that niche.
The first solution is never the answer because all of the areas suffer when you just half-ass it. The area that your brand naturally shines in is losing out because you have to take away from it to give to the others. You can only split up 100% so many ways.
Tags: advice, attributes, benefit, brand, branding, business, communicating, communication, communications, consumer, consumers, conversation, core values, corporate message, cradle to grave, cross country race, customer relations, customer relationships, endurance, feelings, first solution, foster innovation, goals, interaction, interactions, jack of all trades, jack of all trades master of none, life, lifeblood, lists, long term relationship, marketing, network, networking, niche, passion, person smile, productivity, professional employee, purchase decisions, retention rate, selling, social, sprint, term rewards, valuable resources, Value, wisdom
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September 18th, 2009
I know we’d all like to think our brands are original, given to us by divine inspiration – but they’re not. Regardless if youre just starting out or have been in business for many years, we all are influenced on a day to day basis.
All of your past experiences, biases, likes, dislikes and predispositions all affect your decision making process. You also must account for anyone else who influences the brand. This includes key internal players in messaging, imaging and managing among others as well as external influencers of customers, competitors and partners. Add all of this to the influence of pop culture and media consumed and you have a tremendous amount of influence.
With all the forces vying for dominancy what can you do?
• HUMANIZE: Start thinking about your brand as a human. Each and every human has a personality with likes and dislikes.
• PERSONIFY: Create categories where you can list your brand’s preferences in music, art, literature, movies etc. The sky’s the limit here.
• SPECIFY: Give your brand specific attributes. If it were a human what would it’s demographics be? Gender, age, race, income etc
• ANALYZE: Analyze all of these attributes and figure out what feeling your brand conveys. Is your brand a posh upper east sider that comes from money and summers in the Hamptons?
• ATTRIBUTE: Based on your brand personality analysis what clothes should your brand wear aka what are it’s coloring, styling & imaging attributes.
• SYNC: How do others regard your brand? How do you want your brand to be received? Now that you know how your brand looks & who your brand is you need to make sure that the words coming out of your brand’s mouth syncs up with your image.
We as humans are always changing. New influences come into out lives daily and must be acted upon. Your brand functions in the same way. It’ll always be the same “person” at the core but it must be flexible adaptable and aware of decisions to change on a concious level. Remember, you are what you “eat”.
Tags: advice, attributes, benefit, biases, brand, brand personality, branding, business, communicating, communication, communications, consumer, consumers, conversation, core values, corporate message, cradle to grave, cross country race, customer relationships, decision making process, decisions, demographics, divine inspiration, endurance, experiences, feelings, foster innovation, gender age, goals, influencers, interaction, interactions, life, lifeblood, lists, long term relationship, marketing, network, networking, passion, person smile, personality analysis, pop culture, productivity, purchase decisions, retention rate, selling, social, sprint, sync, term rewards, Value, wisdom
Posted in branding, business, featured | 1 Comment »
September 17th, 2009
Go look at something. What’s your first impression? That’s what counts. When people say first impressions are the most important this needs to be paid attention to, especially for your brand.
Your potential customer takes in everything about your brand at the point of contact. Your colors, fonts, wording and text shapes, and graphics all affect their purchase decision. What message is your brand conciously and subconsciously conveying?
Is your target market accurately receiving your message visually? What is the feeling your are looking to convey? Designing a brand that communicates your message effectively is so much more than colors text and image.
The most powerful brands know how to strike a balance between all of these elements. Any designer worth their salt knows that there’s a limit to the amount of colors, fonts, graphics and the scale and placement of all of these elements. The Golden Ratio is a good guideline to test this crucial balance.
People are generally intuitive. If you want to know how it feels to your custom er put yourself in their shoes. Envision yourself AS them, down to the precise specifics of their demographics. Are you a stay at home mom with 3 young kids concerned with family values and on a budget? Well now you are.
Separate your head from your heart then bring them back together. How does your brand feel to you? Now how does it seem to you logically? This is exactly what your potential customer is going through.
Take the time to account for your brand’s intangible qualities and you’ll see tangible reults in your bottom line.
Tags: advice, attributes, benefit, bottom line, brand, brand messages, branding, business, communicating, communication, communications, conciously, consumer, consumers, conversation, core values, corporate message, cradle to grave, cross country race, customer relationships, demographics, endurance, family values, feelings, first impression, first impressions, foster innovation, goals, golden ratio, intangible qualities, interaction, interactions, life, lifeblood, lists, long term relationship, marketing, network, networking, passion, person smile, point of contact, productivity, purchase decision, purchase decisions, retention rate, selling, social, specifics, sprint, target market, term rewards, Value, wisdom
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September 15th, 2009
Passion and romance do NOT make a relationship. They’re not sustainable in the long run. Ask anyone who’s been in a long-term relationship. They are key attributes but not essential. This goes for brand-customer relationships especially.
What’s mutually sustainable over time is love, respect, common interests and the ability to make the other person smile. Passion and romance are a sprint. Love and the above mentioned attributes are a cross country race. A burst of passion is needed every now and then to invigorate the relationship but what is truly needed in the long run is endurance.
A brand’s ultimate goal is to have a customer from cradle to grave. This also plays true for the customer. A customer doesn’t want to have to change brands often. The less thinking a customer has to do about their purchase decisions the better.
People are bombarded with tons of decisions they have to make every day. Make their lives simpler and they’ll thank you for it by purchasing often. Some things you can do to make their decision easier:
- Keep a consistent brand imaging and messaging on all fronts
- Give a personality and life to your brand. Make them smile in your own way
- Be honest and open with all communications
- Encourage discussion especially feedback. Your customers are your lifeblood. You should know if they’re unhappy even before they’re dissatisfied. Got that?
- Make interacting fun and interesting. There’s nothing worse than having the same corporate message drilled into your head over & over again.
- Foster innovation internally and externally. Some of the best ideas come from customers and workers from different departments. Remember the wisdom of the crowd.
- Reward for short and long term. By giving people short term rewards you satisfy their need for the now. Giving them long term rewards allows them to strive for something greater thus having a better retention rate all around.
Remember, you’re in this relationship for the long haul. Your customer is that hot blonde at the bar that everyone is eyeing and making moves on. Why should she stay with you? Give your customer enough of an incentive not to go anywhere and you’ll be the one reaping the rewards.
Tags: advice, attributes, benefit, brand, branding, burst, business, common interests, communicating, communication, communications, consumer, consumers, conversation, core values, corporate message, cradle to grave, cross country race, customer relationships, endurance, feelings, foster innovation, goals, interaction, interactions, life, lifeblood, lists, long term relationship, marketing, network, networking, passion, person smile, productivity, purchase decisions, retention rate, selling, social, sprint, term rewards, Value, wisdom
Posted in branding, business, featured | 1 Comment »
May 22nd, 2009
Is the web 2.0 bubble balloon slowly deflating?
Recently Meg Pickard released an updated version of the now infamous Web 2.0 image map. This new map breaks down who is dead, acquired and alive (X, O, and no mark, respectively)
Kevin Eklund’s statistical analysis of the chart:
Web 2.0: Project or Business?
Mashable touted all those on the list (survivors included) as a testament to those willing to do rather than watch. While I tend to agree with Mashable and others concerning the survival/success rate of Web 2.0 businesses, no one is asking the important question. Only Doug Martin begins to touch upon it:
I created one of the projects Xed out on the first chart. Looking back it was a project and not a business – I got coverage on all the hot tech blogs and the associated huge spike in traffic but there really was not a business there. It did help me get my next job though and it was a fun ride.
Many Web 2.0 companies start out with a great idea, ambition and a rush to get it first to market. The problem with that is when you think like a designer or a developer you get those results. A businessman thinks of the bottom line: money.
Amazing ideas are all well and good but if you don’t have a proper monetization model in place before you launch you are setting yourself up for disaster. You also need short & long term road maps and an exit strategy. Core values and belief systems MUST be set up before you can start doing business. Crawl, walk, run, fly.
I’m not interested in a failure rate or what that means for a new web industry. What I am interested in is why. Why did these companies fold? Why are some still around? Why did some get acquired? Rates mean nothing without reason behind them.
Web You.0
Meg Pickard is at least asking one question, a question about creating a new roadmap:
“If anyone would like to make a new collage of startups in this genre for 2009, I’d be very interested to see it – please post the link in the comments. Here’s the collage above, but with all the defunct companies removed. There are plenty of healthy and exciting companies around these days which could fill those empty spaces. Who’ll take on the task of filling the gaps?”
I propose not just a new update to the Web 2.0 map but a new way to organize it as well.
- Create a maximum uniform height and width for logos.
- Separate into color groups according to what their primary service is (sharing, storage etc).
- Make each logo into an actual clickable image map that links out to each service.
- Show how the social networking services are linked together i.e. Twitter > Facebook > Friendfeed <->Twitter
- Repeat for a Web 3.0 (aka Semantic Web) map
- Tie both the Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 map together in parallel linked maps
Just remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Also, Rome is just a city now instead of an empire. Think about that.
Tags: ambition, belief systems, beliefs, blog, brand, branding, business, businessman, chart web, collage, colors, commenters, communications, core values, design, designers, doug martin, eklund, excitement, exit strategy, experiment, Facebook, failure, failure rate, Friendfeed, fun ride, functionality, grouping, image map, interactions, lists, marketing, mashable, models, network, networked, networking, one question, organization, road maps, roadmap, social, social media, startups, statistical analysis, statistics, strategy, success rate, tech, technology, twitter, update, Value, web industry
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May 16th, 2009
I’m simplifying my life. In order to focus on what matters I am getting rid of what does not. It was really timely when I came across Clear Your Clutter, Find Your Life. The article makes a major point under the sub-head ‘Chip away at what isn’t you’:
Go through each shelf and drawer and remove absolutely everything that detracts from your brand or drags you back to some old idea of yourself.
An article focused SOLELY on cleaning out the clutter in your personal life and space refers to YOUR BRAND.
This should NOT be forgotten. You are what you surround yourself with. Does everything in your life reflect who you truly are? If not get rid of it. Less IS more.
This brings me to another resource I came across while I was doing a little digital cleaning: John Maeda’s Laws of Simplicity. To live holistically, apply the Laws of Simplicity to optimize your brand.
Here’s a video someone made that showcases the Laws:
The Laws of Simplicity listed below can be read in fuller depth here
John Maeda talking about the Laws of Simplicity at a TED talk
If you’d like to buy the Laws of Simplicity in a physical copy:
What you focus on is what you will get more of. You have to decide for yourself what truly matters.
Clear the clutter in your life by applying the laws of simplicity. Your brand will be better for it.
GET IT?
ADDENDUM:
[this was posted on Twitter right after I finished this article]
@donforan: RT @db: “If you don’t know what you want,” the doorman said, “you end up with a lot you don’t.” ~Fight Club
Tags: brand, branding, clear the clutter, john maeda, life, lists, optimization, optimize, personal life, personalities, personality, reading, reflection, showcases, simplicity, ted, video
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April 30th, 2009
© Leo Reynolds
We’ve all heard the term “life is simple but it’s not easy”.
We often possess knowledge that far surpasses our demonstration in many areas of our lives. We know more about energy conservation than our fuel consumption and recycling habits show. We know more about the basics of great time and money management than our project lists and bank accounts reveal.
Then there’s my personal favorite, we know more about how to maintain a healthy body weight and lifestyle than our eating and exercise habits (and waistlines) expose.
And so it is with branding. There is Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: bank accounts, bloggers, brand, brand strategy, branding, business, communicating, communication, communications, different products, distinctions, energy, energy conservation, exercise habits, facets, fuel consumption, great time, habit, how to maintain a healthy body, integrity, inventory list, knowledge, life, lifestyle, lists, market share, marketing, money management, niche, niches, personalities, personality, plans, productivity, profitability, reviews, selling, single thing, strategy, tag line, term life, time and money, website logo
Posted in branding, featured | 1 Comment »
April 23rd, 2009
I’m not one for distinctions. Personally I think that awards can be meaningless, self-congratulatory and ego-boosting- especially in a sea of endless accolades. However, this one is different. Not because of who is behind it but because of the company we now keep by being included on Branding.Alltop. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: about, alltop, badges, blog, bloggers, brand, branding, collaborative effort, commenters, distinctions, ego, high quality, lists, mensa, Peers, quality content, thought leaders
Posted in featured, life | No Comments »
Has the Web 2.0 bubble burst?
Is the web 2.0 bubble balloon slowly deflating?
Recently Meg Pickard released an updated version of the now infamous Web 2.0 image map. This new map breaks down who is dead, acquired and alive (X, O, and no mark, respectively)
Kevin Eklund’s statistical analysis of the chart:
Web 2.0: Project or Business?
Mashable touted all those on the list (survivors included) as a testament to those willing to do rather than watch. While I tend to agree with Mashable and others concerning the survival/success rate of Web 2.0 businesses, no one is asking the important question. Only Doug Martin begins to touch upon it:
I created one of the projects Xed out on the first chart. Looking back it was a project and not a business – I got coverage on all the hot tech blogs and the associated huge spike in traffic but there really was not a business there. It did help me get my next job though and it was a fun ride.
Many Web 2.0 companies start out with a great idea, ambition and a rush to get it first to market. The problem with that is when you think like a designer or a developer you get those results. A businessman thinks of the bottom line: money.
Amazing ideas are all well and good but if you don’t have a proper monetization model in place before you launch you are setting yourself up for disaster. You also need short & long term road maps and an exit strategy. Core values and belief systems MUST be set up before you can start doing business. Crawl, walk, run, fly.
I’m not interested in a failure rate or what that means for a new web industry. What I am interested in is why. Why did these companies fold? Why are some still around? Why did some get acquired? Rates mean nothing without reason behind them.
Web You.0
Meg Pickard is at least asking one question, a question about creating a new roadmap:
“If anyone would like to make a new collage of startups in this genre for 2009, I’d be very interested to see it – please post the link in the comments. Here’s the collage above, but with all the defunct companies removed. There are plenty of healthy and exciting companies around these days which could fill those empty spaces. Who’ll take on the task of filling the gaps?”
I propose not just a new update to the Web 2.0 map but a new way to organize it as well.
Just remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Also, Rome is just a city now instead of an empire. Think about that.
Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Tags: ambition, belief systems, beliefs, blog, brand, branding, business, businessman, chart web, collage, colors, commenters, communications, core values, design, designers, doug martin, eklund, excitement, exit strategy, experiment, Facebook, failure, failure rate, Friendfeed, fun ride, functionality, grouping, image map, interactions, lists, marketing, mashable, models, network, networked, networking, one question, organization, road maps, roadmap, social, social media, startups, statistical analysis, statistics, strategy, success rate, tech, technology, twitter, update, Value, web industry
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