Logos and brand names can be fun to create, but having too many may be confusing to your customers. Logos and brands help create associations with certain attributes or features within customers’ minds. Using different names or images for the same brand can make it difficult for customers to know what associations they should have. The same may be true if you’re using different profile names and identities with social media.
[Read more...]
Mar
11
2010
Vanity Searches Should Be an Important Part of Your Routine
Wondering what people are saying about you or your brand? One of the most powerful tools to keep up what people think is to do a vanity search from time to time. A vanity search is a search (usually on Google) for your name, company name or brand name (really should be doing all of them). Ideally you should own the first page of results – meaning you’ve written or posted everything there. But when a results from someone else shows up, it’s an opportunity for you to take action.
[Read more...]
Dec
22
2009
Best of 2009: Advantages & Disadvantages of Different Branding Strategies
It’s the end of another year and we’re highlighting the best posts of 2009…(originally posted March 25, 2009)
On Monday, we talked a bit about various branding strategies and why you should consider picking one to help your business and marketing strategies. With each branding strategy comes both advantages and disadvantages that you should be aware of.
Oct
06
2009
Stop and Think Before Sending that Mafia Request. What’s the Effect on Your Brand?
Social networks are growing. Even your Mom knows what Twitter is. The time people spend online is growing and increasingly they also interact there as well. You may have clients and customers which have never interacted with your company in person, only through a website or social network. All this means that your online reputation can have an effect on your brand and company.
Jul
17
2009
Be Careful What You Say – It May Affect Your Permanent Record
While I was teaching a Blogging for Business class out at Insights Group in Brighton yesterday, I mentioned that you need to be careful what you say online because it lasts for eternity (or you should consider that it does). People were pretty shocked to know that just because you delete something, it may still be available on the Internet somewhere.
Mar
25
2009
Advantages & Disadvantages of Different Branding Strategies
On Monday, we talked a bit about various branding strategies and why you should consider picking one to help your business and marketing strategies. With each branding strategy comes both advantages and disadvantages that you should be aware of.
- Corporate Brand – For companies that only offer one benefit to a customer, they usually use a corporate brand (unless they have an overall holding company).
- Advantages: Everything the company does is attributed to its brand.
- Disadvantages: Everything the company does is attributed to its brand.
- Distinct Brand – Some companies choose to release each product or service as its own brand (ex. Proctor & Gamble).
- Advantages: Each product stands alone so failures do not affect the entire company or other products. Distinct benefits for each product can be directly attributed to a specific brand.
- Disadvantages: Each product will require its own marketing strategy and budget, with no synergy possible between products. Successes will not be directly attributed to the company’s brand.
- Hybrid Brand – When a product extends the benefit of an overall brand or company, some companies use a hybrid branding strategy.
- Advantages: Marketing and branding can take advantage of the overall brand for budgets and reputation.
- Disadvantages: Any problems or negative press for either the product or the overall brand will affect both brands.
- Umbrella Brand – If a company offers different products with different benefits, but they all extend the same value to the customer, sometimes they are all offered under an overall brand (ex. Nike – athletic gear).
- Advantages: Each product contributes to the shared value offered to the customer. Marketing and branding strategies can be at the shared value level, touting all the specific benefits.
- Disadvantages: Any product can negatively affect the overall brand and specific benefits may be muddled in the overall shared value.
Whichever branding strategy you choose, once you are aware of the advantages and disadvantages of each, you can take those into account when preparing your marketing strategies.
If you found this post helpful, please consider signing up for our free newsletter or subscribing to Sazbean.com through our RSS feed or email.
(photo by Sarah Jane @ Flickr CC)
Technorati tags: brand, branding, branding strategy, business, marketing strategy, marketing
Dec
09
2008
Online Customer Engagement Findings
As a followup to yesterday’s post on online customer engagement, reader Sarah Woodbridge suggested taking a look at cScape’s report on Customer Engagement. The report is well worth a look (and it’s free!). They’ve been producing a report for 3 years so they have a bit of historical data as well.
Customer engagement is widely seen as a way of deepening and enriching a product or service offering and a method for gaining customer insight. – The cScape Online Customer Engagement Survey Report 2009
Here are some of the key findings:
- Only 42% of organizations surveyed have a defined customer engagement strategy in place
- 41% of respondents said that deteriorating economic climate has resulted in a greater focus on customer engagement
- There’s interest in creating relationships with customers to increase the long-term customer value and also to increase the value delivered to the customer.
- Most organizations feel that sensitivity to price is a key customer behavior that will have to be addressed in the next 12 months (48%).
- Email newsletters are the most likely tactic to improve customer engagement (59%).
- Web 2.0 and social media such as user ratings & feedback (41%), user-generated content (37%), blogging (36%) and social networks (36%) will also be used to engage customers.
- Very few companies (5%) have a strategy that uses mobile channels.
- Lack of resources continues to be a barrier to successful customer engagement.
- About a third of companies site problems with technology as a significant barrier to cultivating better customer engagement.
Technorati Tags: online customer engagement, customer-centric,brand, branding, internet marketing, brand management, brand strategy, internet business strategy
Dec
08
2008
Online Customer Engagement
Customer engagement is the interaction of customers with each other, a company or a brand. Online customer engagement often combines all three of those at once, enabled the ability of customers to connect with each other and share opinions much more easily and to more people than before the Internet. You’ll often hear marketers speak of the importance of online customer engagement, but why is it important and what does it mean exactly?
Due to the development of blogging software, forums, boards, chat, Twitter, etc. customers can very easily post opinions about your company and products in places where others can see and respond to them. This means that is much easier for customers to connect and share information about you than ever before. People are also much more likely to listen to feedback from their peers over marketing information from a company.
These same technologies make it much easier for companies to see what their customers are saying and to respond to it. Think of the feedback as free market research and the Internet gives you the opportunity to interact directly with the market research panel.
Online customer engagement is happening whether companies participate or not and without participation customers are shaping company’s brand reputations.
(photo by daisybush @ Flickr CC)
Technorati Tags: online customer engagement, brand, branding, internet marketing, brand management, brand strategy, internet business strategy
Oct
15
2008
Tips for Creating a Memorable Brand
When customers see your logo or hear your name, what do they think and feel? If there isn’t any emotion or attachment to your brand, you’re missing out on an opportunity to connect on an emotional level with your customers. Here’s some tips on how to create a memorable brand:
- Figure out what traits you want your brand to be known for.
- Create unique images, sounds, looks, etc. that represent your brand traits.
- Be consistent.
- Provide excellent customer experiences.
- Deal fairly with others.
- Handle failures transparently.
- Connect with your customers.
- Listen to your customers.
- Be true to yourself.
- Have fun.
What’s worked for your brand? Have ideas to add to the list? Please share in the comments below.
(photo by OiMax @ Flickr CC)
Technorati Tags: branding, brand, brand management, social media, social media strategy, internet marketing, online marketing
Digital Marketing & Strategy
Connect with Sazbean