by Scott JeffreySep 08, 2010
Here are five more reasons to focus on your Brand Lovers:
1. In The Loyalty Effect, Frederick Reichheld explains how a 5% increase in customer loyalty can increase a company’s profitability by 40 to 95%.
2. Think about what would happen if you turned just 10% of your occasional customers into Brand Lovers. For large enterprises, this shift represents billions in additional revenue and radically higher profit margins.
3. By focusing on your Brand Lovers, your cost of acquiring a new customer decreases.
4. Your marketing effectiveness soars as a result of building a stronger brand presence focused around the needs of your best customers.
5. By focusing on your Brand Lovers you can build a powerful brand that stands for something meaningful to your special customers. This gives you clear differentiation and helps you organically attract more of your most profitable customers.
The bottom line is that serving your best customers is the surest way to grow a profitable business—in any economic climate. To serve your best customers, you must understand them first. To identify and understand your best customers, you need an effective brand model.
by Aaron ShieldsSep 01, 2010
In the October 2009 issue of Fast Company, Dan and Chip Heath, authors of Made to Stick, highlight a tactic that is quickly becoming the go-to strategy in the business world: Selling products with emotion.
But, as the Heaths recognize, emotional tactics often fail to measure up to anything other than a sticker put on a bottle.
The companies that will really shine and last will be those that don’t just say it, but also mean it. Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty could have easily been just another marketing campaign aimed at selling soap. But, Dove chose to back up its claim by supporting self-esteem programs for girls and launch a Web site dedicated to helping parents instill self-worth in their daughters.
Emotional appeal isn’t something inherent in a product; every product can be clothed in a wide range of emotional fabrics—figuring out an emotional match to your brand is only the first step.
But, rather than making your brand the emperor without clothes shouting false claims to the public, mean what you say and show it with your actions.
by Jenny LeeAug 17, 2010
Jim Collins in Good to Great, clearly spelled out the attributes of great leaders. Level 5 leaders, as Collins calls them, exemplify a seemingly incongruous mix of personal humility and professional will.
Humility + Will = Level 5
“Level 5 Leaders are a study in duality: modest and willful, humble and fearless,” Collins explains. They don’t allow their egos to interfere with their primary focus on the larger goal of building a great company. Collins clarifies that Level 5 leaders are usually highly ambitious, but their ambition is directed for the good of the institution, not themselves.
At Zappos, you won’t find any sacrosanct corner offices reserved for the higher ups. Zappos executives are fondly referred to as “Monkeys” and sit in what is aptly named “Monkey Row.” Here, CEO Tony Hsieh sits in an open cubicle among other executives, and encourages his employees to throw peanut shells on the floor of his workspace. Hsieh sends a subtle yet clear message that he’s not more important than anyone else in the company.
Collins further explains, “The good-to-great leaders never wanted to become larger-than-life heroes. They never aspired to be put on a pedestal or become unreachable icons. They were seemingly ordinary people quietly producing extraordinary results.” Aligned with this core principle, Hsieh openly advertises his email address and encourages people to drop him a message. You might be skeptical, thinking that your message would go unanswered, lost in a flood of emails. Hsieh, however, means what he says and stands by his word.
How can a CEO of a billion dollar company be so responsive? According to Collins, it’s because Level 5 leaders have a “ferocious resolve” to do whatever it takes to make the company great. And by his very nature, Hsieh embodies the perfect balance between personal humility and professional will, leading Zappos’s transformation into the great company it is today.
by Scott JeffreyAug 10, 2010
Your best customers are your Brand Lovers. Understanding the needs of your Brand Lovers and serving them better than anyone else is critical if you want to outmaneuver the competition and grow a long-term sustainable business.
Here are five reasons why your Brand Lovers are so important:
1. Your Brand Lovers choose you more often than your competitors. To most Mac users, there’s no alternative competitor to choose from.
2. Your Brand Lovers spread the word about your brand and create new customers for you. Basically, your best customers are the source of your word-of-mouth stream.
3. Your Brand Lovers are by nature loyal customers. Customer loyalty is a better determinant of profitability than mass appeal. (Again, just ask Apple.)
4. Focusing on your Brand Lovers and cultivating customer loyalty can help you double your return on assets (ROA).
5. Similarly, serving your best customers can lead to explosive return on investment (ROI). Example: When Apple opened their retail stores they expected to generate $1,000/square foot. They actually generated $4,000/square foot.
Ultimately, your Brand Lovers drive the profitability of your business. A Brand Model helps you attract more profitable customers.
by BJ BuenoAug 03, 2010
“Brand Jordan exists because of what Phil Knight created
before I ever came along.” – Michael Jordan
The year was 1984, and Michael hesitantly took a flight to Portland, Oregon. It was the day that he would meet Nike Founder Phil Knight for the first time. Neither of them could imagine what the next 20+ years would bring.
Realizing that nothing of value comes without hard work, the partnership between Jordan and Nike was born. The idea was so big that it created something no one could have envisioned. By committing to their shared values, Nike and Jordan created an amazing brand that has endured.
Starting Conditions:LOVE for the game. LOVE for Innovation. LOVE for the customer.
The end is determined by the starting conditions. The outcome of our plans follows its own design and patterns. What vision do you see emerging for your Brand?
by Scott JeffreyJul 27, 2010
What drives your business? Most executives and entrepreneurs would say sales or revenue.
But where do those sales come from? Customers, right?
Now, are all customers created equal? Of course not. Most customers will remain indifferent to your brand. They will buy from you on occasion—when it’s most convenient—and shop elsewhere when it’s not.
Amazingly, most businesses cater to these nomadic customers. Most executives think mass appeal and believe an untargeted marketing plan that casts the widest net will generate the most sales.
In the short run, they might be right. The fickle, nomadic customer might jump at a great promotion. But they will jump at your competitor’s great promotion just as quickly.
If you try to build your business around these fickle customers, the only way you can show increased profits on your balance sheet is to increase your growth curve. For retailers, this means continually opening more stores. Ultimately, this is not a sustainable model and profits erode over time as your market gets saturated.
The key to growing a profitable business is to build it around the needs and wants of your best customers. We call this special breed of customers Brand Lovers. Focus on serving your Brand Lovers and you’ll naturally attract more of them.
All great businesses—big and small—have Brand Lovers. All great brands learn to cater to and serve their Brand Lovers better than anyone else.
If your Brand Lovers represent your most profitable customers, why would you try to serve anyone else?
Focus on your Brand Lovers as the core of your business. Talk to them. Listen to them. Learn from them. Try to understand them. Co-create your business around their needs. The rewards for doing so will translate to the bottom line. Guaranteed.
by BJ BuenoJul 22, 2010
Today brands are faced with a new challenge, mainly that of clutter. In a cluttered marketplace of indistinguishable brands, developing a strong position in the heart of the customer is extremely challenging. Brands that don’t actively work to differentiate are generally defined and controlled by their competition.
In the world of Branding, you either grow or die—branding, category leadership, market share, relevance, there’s no in-between.
In most cases, the winner of this game for the customer’s heart takes all, leaving the rest of the competition struggling for minor market share. In order to develop a strong position in the marketplace, CMO’s have to understand three key ingredients for developing brand dominance:
- Relevance
- Growth Potential
- Category Leadership
by Aaron ShieldsJul 15, 2010
The subtleties of fine food preparation and service suffer from bigness and the all-seeing eye of the proprietor.
- Stanley Marcus
Dining at Trader Vic’s, Stanley Marcus was presented with wet towels by a waiter exclaiming, “Hot towels!” But, they weren’t hot, they were cold.
Trader Vic’s was a pioneer in the American restaurant industry and one of the first to offer the Japanese oshibori (the hot towels) at the end of the meal.
But, expansion without attention to detail reduced the quality of the service and food. It became more important to go through the motions than make sure the original purpose was behind them. As long as the waiter exclaimed, “Hot towels,” his manager was happy.
Settling for going through the motions will dilute the brand and can even kill it.
Is there something your company is doing that lost touch with its original purpose?
by Jenny LeeJul 13, 2010
Jobs are everywhere. We clock in and clock out, putting in the bare minimum just to get the work done. Sometimes though, we find a career where we have a deeper vested interest in our work, motivated by achievement and advancement. Yet if we’re lucky, we’ll eventually find our calling where work becomes our life mission, and our life mission becomes work.
Online retailer Zappos is on a mission to inspire their family of employees to a higher calling. Since the beginning, they weren’t satisfied hiring people just looking for a job to pay the bills. Under their visionary leader Tony Hsieh, the company made a bold organizational move in 1994, relocating their headquarters from San Francisco to Las Vegas, to align themselves with people looking for a career.
Hsieh wrote in Inc. Magazine, “We were having a hard time finding good customer service people in San Francisco. Las Vegas has a lot of call centers and lots of people who want to do customer service as a career.”
Zappos embraces a singular vision—to provide the best customer service—and attracts people who share this passion. But the folks at Zappos aren’t satisfied knowing that their employees are committed to a career in customer service. They constantly strive to inspire their employees to find their true calling—to find personal meaning in their work guided by a higher purpose.
To achieve this, Zappos employs a full-time on-site personal coach, Dr. Vik, who invites employees to take a seat on the royal “throne” for a one-on-one consultation. He regularly tells his guests, “You are worth a billion dollars. Come have a seat and take your life to the next level!” With Dr. Vik’s guidance, employees are empowered to reach their full potential across their work and personal lives.
How many companies employ a full-time personal coach? Most businesses would view this as an unnecessary expense and immediately reject the idea.
Yet Zappos understands that a company’s employees—their people—are a reflection of the brand itself. When employees find their true calling, work is greatly satisfying and meaningful. Their enthusiasm and passion is infectious. And the customers are first to take notice.
by Scott JeffreyJul 08, 2010
When was the last time you heard someone say, Did you see Random House’s latest book release? Or, That CD by Sony Music really rocks!
Most breeds of publishers—book, music and film—have little brand equity with their customers. Why? These companies don’t stand for anything; they haven’t made any clear declaration or pledge to their customers.
Without a clear brand promise that’s meaningful to us, why would we care about them?
Marketers are hesitant to clearly define what their brand represents. They don’t want to risk alienating potential customers who don’t like their brand.
But with clear differentiation you also attract a special breed of customers who love you.
All customers are NOT created equal. Your Brand Lovers generate more positive word of mouth and stay loyal to you. They are your most profitable customers. Why would you want to cater to less profitable customers?
Businesses that stand for something generally have a balance sheet to prove it. We know what to expect from a Disney film, for example—family fun with a dose of magic and limited violence.
Most publishers, however, are in a precarious position, lingering in No Brand Land.
What happens when the Long Tail fully catches up with publishers and product distribution becomes ubiquitous? Why would an author—any author—publish with a major house when they can just as easily self-publish through Amazon and other digital channels without losing distribution advantages and keeping the lion share of book sales?
The lesson is clear: Make sure your brand stands for something meaningful to your customers and serve them better than anyone else.
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