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 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 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.
What drives your business? Most executives and entrepreneurs would say sales or revenue.
