Brand New Buzz » Branding

Reaching Out to Customers

Alicia — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 11:45:22 +0000

Building a brand is about two things: creating an identity for a company, product, service or person and then communicating that identity to the public until the association is automatic. Marketing departments throughout corporate America know that getting the word out to the media and the public in general is a great way to establish and maintain a brand identity . What many newer and smaller companies forget is that it is just as important to communicate with new and returning customers.

The instant a consumer becomes a customer — or even during the process when they are shopping a company’s store or website — their view and experience of a brand changes. They are no longer simply being informed or entertained. They expect to receive value and whatever tangible or intangible benefit is promised by said brand. Failure to deliver during every step of the purchase, delivery, and use process is the fastest way to ensure that the customer never returns. It’s also a good way to generate bad word of mouth about the brand. Something that should be avoided at all costs. Therefore it is vital that companies of any size make sure that they have quality products, service, shipping — in short, that they deliver what they promise. And this applies doubly to companies that rely on outsource firms like Marlabs to handle billing, customer service, IT, or other work. Every employee is a brand representative.

Assuming a company has put sufficient time into developing all their services, products, and trained their employees to excel, there are other things they can do to keep customers engaged with and excited about their brand. Continual engagement is the key to not only repeat business, but to turning a returning customer into a loyal advocate for the brand who spreads the word about the product or service and recruits new customers to the fold.

One of the best ways to maintain communication with customers is by sharing company news on a regular basis. This news may be announcements of sales, new products, or special events. It may offer a look “behind the scenes” of the company or profiles of corporate officers or activities. Depending on the medium, it could include tips and information about using products or getting the most from specific services or it could be sharing fun and funny stories and factoids.

Company information like this was traditionally limited to press releases and mailed newsletters or fliers. In the digital age, companies can make use of websites, blogs , podcasts, and online video and photo sharing. They may maintain a twitter account or facebook page that allows fans and followers to contribute to the conversation or set up their own forum or wiki. Other companies are exploring the use of special apps that serve a multitude of functions. The key is figuring out what technology will work best for both the message and for reaching the desired customers.

photo courtesy narcosislabs with Creative Commons License.

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Reaching Out to Customers

Blumenthal’s Vietnam Service Record

Alicia — Sun, 23 May 2010 15:58:37 +0000

It turns out that there has been a major misconception about Blumenthal and his Vietnam service record. He has often said in speeches and at events lines that seem to imply and sometimes even outright state that he was in Vietnam serving in the war. There is evidence to conclude otherwise however. He does have a service record, that is true, but his group never left the home shore. He mostly was in his home state fixing camp sites and organizing charity events. While this is noble work, it is hardly the work he likes to imply that he was doing at this time. The New York Times has a longer story on this.

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Blumenthal’s Vietnam Service Record

Ipads for Education?

Alicia — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 21:22:48 +0000

We have all seen the videos of the opening day, if you haven’t I suggest you find one, it looked like it was pretty crazy. As for the rest of us who couldn’t afford one, or weren’t willing to wait in line all that long in a line, it looks like we missed out. However, if you didn’t get one because you are a college student and couldn’t afford one, there may be good news for you. You may want to check out this story, because if colleges start giving these to their students this really will be the new wave of the future.

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Ipads for Education?

Exciting Education in Honolulu

What is online reputation management?

Alicia — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:13:52 +0000

Everyone has more than one reputation these days. There is the reputation that you maintain in public with your friends, family and co-workers. And now there is another reputation that businesses and even individuals are looking to manage in today’s world of e-commerce. And that is their online reputation.

Online reputation management is becoming a more popular business and there are businesses out there that specialize in the practice.

Most firms offer this along with traditional PR and marketing practices, along with search engine optimization services. With more social media and blogs out there in the internet space, it’s easy to have a bad reputation online if people are putting your name on the internet with unfavorable search terms.

For example, if a Chicago web design firm does not maintain their online reputation and someone decided to take a personal vendetta against them and start blogging solely about them, they could rank high with search terms in search engines like Google or yahoo with terms that may associate them with bad business, even if they do not conduct bad business.

What online reputation management does is that it gives you more hits on Google or other search engines so that your official sites rank higher than ones that are unofficial. That way, you control your own business image on the internet, instead of the other way around.

So why is this kind of brand recognition important? Because consumers are now more able than ever to do some backgrounds research on any business that they are looking to patronize. Whether it is Wal-Mart or Apple. The internet has created a space where anyone can knock you down on a search engine and your company’s image is controlled by others and not by the company.

It’s just like old fashioned PR, except it’s online and something every company should think about.

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What is online reputation management?

The Starbucks Brand is Struggling

Alicia — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:32:59 +0000

OK, This has nothing to do with the bad experience I had in Starbucks yesterday – or indeed should I say things I have observed pretty regularly lately. I have noticed a definate decline in their customer service levels. Yesterday I had to wait 10 minutes for a drink – after having to remind them. I was then offered a free coupon – and after the staff searched high and low they could not find them. It reminded me of how Starbucks staff would bend over backwards for you 10 years ago.

Well this personal experience aside I read today that they are closing 61 of 87 stores in Australia. This came after the news that they are closing 600 stores in the US.

Perhaps this is an effort to get their affairs in order after a period of expansion that seemed excessive. Time will tell as to how successful they will be.

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The Starbucks Brand is Struggling

Customer Service at a Starbucks

Company Builds Brands via Digital Networking

Alicia — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 08:21:07 +0000

Russ Blaesing’s online personal and family menu planning business is growing, but not as fast as he would like. So the CEO of More Thyme turned to Ingenex Digital Marketing to draw more customers to his mealmixer.com Web site.

Successful branding abroad

james — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 23:45:59 +0000

Adweek had an interesting piece a few days ago regarding American companies that have to tweak their branding strategies when advertising abroad. Las Vegas’ branding campaign is a good example (“what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas’).

“Based on the success of our ‘What happens here’ marketing in the U.S., we shifted our global strategy from a purely product-education philosophy to a focus on emotional brand building,” says Rossi Ralenkotter, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Global travel is expanding even as foreign travel to the U.S. is decreasing, he adds, “so we must have our brand out there to attract international travelers who are going elsewhere.”

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Successful branding abroad

The fall of Saturn

james — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 00:14:40 +0000

How Saturn has fallen. Laura Ries has an interesting post about the rise and fall of Saturn from the automobile ranks. Read more about it here.

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The fall of Saturn

This Week In Branding ….

CBS finally decides to take credit for it’s sports brand

james — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 23:26:08 +0000

I’ve been using sportsline consistently in the past for fantasy leagues and as an alternative to ESPN, and have always wondered why CBS never properly utilized this asset. It is clearly the #2 online sports property (still miles behind ESPN though) and CBS seemed reluctant to take any credit for ownership. That is until now. Read more about how Sportsline.com has been rebranded cbssports.com.

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CBS finally decides to take credit for it’s sports brand

Have you driven a Ford lately?

james — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 22:50:48 +0000

Ford CEO Alan Mulally has stated that he wants to revive the ‘Have you driven a ford lately’ tag line as part of a new branding and marketing campaign. He believes that car names are changing too often and right when consumers begin to connect with a certain type of car they change the name and lose any brand equity that had been established. You can read more about it here.

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Have you driven a Ford lately?