3 Tips for Branding Success

Branding is a very hot topic.  It seems like everywhere you turn, marketing and communications media are talking about the importance of branding for companies and individuals.  Yet with all the emphasis on ways to build a strong, successful brand it’s amazing how a few common mistakes can quickly destroy your brand.  I was reminded of this fact while reading a recent article on Ragan.com, “25 ways to screw up your brand,” by Shanna Mallon.

Reading the many blunders she describes, several common threads emerge. A slip-up in any of these key areas can destroy your brand as easy as 1, 2, 3.  Here are the three major elements of branding success.

Be Distinctive

Branding is the way you define your company or product.  Creating the proper perception is critical, and is affected by everything from the brand’s name to what market segments you pursue.

Be Consistent

Once you’ve identified what makes your brand distinctive, communicate that message consistently to internal and external audiences.

Be Responsive

The rapid growth of social media has made it more important than ever to be responsive to customers.

For more details on how these elements affect your brand, see the Viewpoint article “Brand Destruction is Simple as 1, 2, 3.”

Does Your Brand Really Matter?

Many B2B companies or service businesses struggle with the concept of their brand.  Some organizations think of their brand only at the most rudimentary level – as a combination of logo, colors, design and taglines that they might use on their website or printed materials.  Others may have a deeper understanding that branding extends to the company’s personality, price, service and customer interactions. 

But however they consider their brand, many B2B organizations think that branding is something that’s only important for well-known, nationally advertised consumer products.  Granted, major consumer products companies can invest a lot of marketing dollars to reinforce their image.  But even without that advantage, companies should pay careful attention to their brand.

That’s because in one sense, perhaps the most important sense, a brand is a promise.  As Lois Geller explains in “Why A Brand Matters,” (Forbes.com, May 23) when you think of some top brands, such as McDonald’s Coca Cola or Apple, you immediately know what they promise.  The combination of a brand’s attributes creates an impression in the customer’s mind.  For instance, Geller says, when think of Volvo, your first thoughts are probably going to be something like “well built, comfortable, Swedish” and, most of all, “safety.”

The good news is that you don’t have to be a major company to create your own particular brand attributes.  In some respects, reinforcing a set of brand attributes for a B2B company is easier because you have a much more focused customer base. The other advantage is that you probably have more direct contact with customers, making the role of employees in reinforcing the brand vitally important. 

Employees should know what your brand stands for and what their roles are in supporting the brand. This is particularly true as social media and other communications methods have given customers methods to share their experiences – both good and bad – at light speed.  A failure to live up to a brand promise, whether through a poor sales experience or a faulty product, can quickly snowball into a full-fledged crisis of confidence among customers.  Studies by the U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs show that a dissatisfied customer may tell as many as 11 people about his or her experience,
and each of them will tell others.

If your company needs to work on defining your brand’s promise, here are some questions we use with NMMC clients:
• What is your company's mission?
• What are the benefits and features of your products or services?
• What do your customers and prospects already think of your company?
• What qualities do you want them to associate with your company?

Answering these questions about your brand will pay big dividends.

Turning the Tables on Global Competition

We often bemoan the rise of offshore competition, particularly from China. However, the typical mindset is to think of products that are manufactured in China but produced to the specifications and market needs of U. S. companies.

I never really thought about how few goods sold here are branded as Chinese products until I read the recent Wall Street Journal article, “Chinese Firm Meets Global Branding.” Among the handful of Chinese firms that have penetrated the U. S. market with their own products are computer maker Lenovo Group Ltd. and household-appliance giant Haier Group.

The article then goes on to describe the struggles of Chinese entrepreneur Jack Yang to sell a dashboard mount for GPS units under its Züuma brand in the U.S. Yang’s quest started in 2005 when he developed a GPS mounting device at the request of a Chinese GPS company. He continues to produce the mounting devices for companies that sell them under their own brands. In the meantime, he is working with two American partners who provide branding and distribution services, a strategy many Chinese businessmen reject. The payoff for selling his own brand is a far larger profit than the 40 cents he makes on each unit he produces for others.
"It's not that small- and medium-sized Chinese companies don't want to develop global brands," Yang explained in the WSJ article. "We don't know how. We don't understand the U.S. market, culture or business model."
While the early groundwork to establish the Züuma brand is promising, and some distributors have reacted positively, sales are not as robust as Yang would like. "Things haven't moved very quickly." But, he notes, "It's like digging a well. If you make superior preparations, you will have big returns."

Yang’s experience is a good lesson to anyone trying to build a successful brand. You need to understand your market and commit to an extended effort. And finally, you should seek out partnerships with professionals that have expertise you are lacking.

BRANDING -- It's All About the Emotional Business Connection

Entrepreneurs don't always take the time to find out what their customers truly want, which is to simply feel good about the product or service they're purchasing. It's one thing to provide a product that's in demand or a service that gets the job done. But it's an entirely different proposition to make someone feel good about committing to make a purchase.

How Emotional Branding Works

Emotional branding is the public relations art of making your customer feel good about doing business with you. If your business is an online store, for example, do you take the extra time to send a "thank you" email to your customers? Do you make your website easy for your customers to navigate? Is your website easy to follow -- from first hit to "check out?" Take the extra time to do the little things for your customers, and they'll be more likely to feel good about what you're selling to them.

Emotional branding has been around since the beginning of sales. It's about establishing an intimate relationship with your customers where you understand what your customers want and your customers understand you.

Three Questions To Ask Yourself About Branding

To best understand your customers and to best create an intimate emotional connection with them, you should ask yourself three questions about your business.

First, what's important to the people whom you want to attract to your business?

Second, what are the main concerns of the people you want your business to attract? If you sell car tires, your customers are concerned about their quality, how long they'll last, and that you'll install them properly. If you can reassure your customers that you can do these things, you will create an emotional branding connection with them and are more likely to make the sale.

Lastly, what do you do to address the concerns of the people you want your business to attract? Do you make sure you only buy tires from reputable suppliers? Do you only offer new tires? Do you only hire certified mechanics to install the tires on customers' cars? These are all things that you can do to calm customers' fears and create an emotional branding connection with them.

Keep Change In Mind

Customer needs change over time. To maintain an emotional connection with your customers, you must change with your customers' needs. Find out what is important to them, and offer those products and services. Prove you're a company that meets your customers' needs and you will connect intimately with them. Customers will keep your brand in mind and feel confident about buying from you. They'll be there for you as long as you're there for them.

Business Evolution or Extinction?

The website 24/7 Wall St., a financial news and opinion operation, recently ran their annual list of brands that will disappear in 2011. The list included Readers Digest, Dollar Thrifty, Blockbuster, BP plc and RadioShack.

While I can’t vouch for the accuracy of their predictions, the article served as a good reminder that businesses are constantly evolving. No doubt some of these names will disappear through mergers, bankruptcy or simply because the market has found new and better ways to provide what they offer. For example, Readers Digest was the original aggregator of stories and articles from different sources, a function now performed by a multitude of websites, RSS feeds and the like. On the other hand, the BP brand may disappear through bankruptcy, but that will more likely be a financial maneuver to protect assets in the wake of the Gulf oil spill rather than a discontinuation of the company’s main business.

Interestingly, the article also named some of the brands from previous lists that 24/7 Wall St. expected to disappear, but that are still around. One of these is Motorola, a proud and long-standing brand headquartered in the Chicago area. While Motorola has had its share of missteps in recent years, particularly in the fickle consumer mobile phone business, it seems positioned to survive by splitting the company into two parts: a consumer business focused on mobile phones and accessories, and a B2B segment concentrating on a variety of communications solutions, such as police and fire radio networks.

What’s especially notable about Motorola’s current re-invention of its business is that this isn’t the first time it’s gone through this sort of seismic shift. The company, started in 1928 by brothers Paul and Joseph Galvin as the Galvin Manufacturing Corporation, originally manufactured battery eliminators. These electronic devices enabled battery-powered home radios to operate on household electric current. But the 1929 stock market crash devastated the U.S. economy and the battery eliminator was becoming obsolete.

Needing a new product for their small business to survive, the Galvins partnered with a radio parts company located in the same factory and began experimenting with a radio that could be installed in automobiles. Overcoming a variety of technical hurdles, the team completed a working model just days before the Radio Manufacturers Association Convention in June 1930.

Even though Galvin wasn’t registered for the show, didn’t have a display booth or any appointments with prospective customers, he drove his Studebaker from Chicago to Atlantic City to demonstrate the new radio. In what may be one of the first examples of guerilla marketing, Galvin parked his car at the entrance to the Atlantic City pier and boosted the radio's volume with loudspeakers to attract attention. He encouraged show attendees to take a look, and when visitor traffic was slow, he went inside the hall to convince people to come outside for a demonstration. Galvin returned to Chicago with enough orders to ensure that the company would not only survive, but eventually change its name to Motorola and become one of the largest companies in America.

The lesson in all this is that companies with a good idea and a willingness to adapt can avoid extinction. But it takes perseverance and a dose of smart marketing.