July 2012 : Persona Design

How to Achieve Greater Profitability With Superior Brand Customer Relations

July 24, 2012/0 Comments/in Brand Champions, Brand Reputation, Brand Risk Management, Brand Strategy, Branding, Business, Communication, Customer Engagement, Customer Service, Social Engagement /by Lorraine Carter

In the current operating environment perceived brand ‘value’ is now one of the key influencers on purchasing behaviour. Customers want and expect to get the most out of their investment. Indeed in today’s market customers have more information, choice, market access and as a result have higher expectations than ever before.

Consequently the ability to satisfy customers and convince them of your brand’s superior value has become a much more significant challenge for many companies. Those that achieve that level of perceived higher brand value through more meaningful, personalized and lasting brand experiences can drive growing sales that are both more profitable and sustainable.

Why Retaining Customers is Key to Profitability & Growth

The majority of marketing budgets are primarily focused on attracting new customers. This could be viewed as a significant error when you consider that it costs 6 times more to sell something to a new prospect than to sell that same thing (product or service) to an existing customer.

For all the new business you have attracted over the last few years how much business have you ‘left on the table’ or lost by not ‘working on’ or enhancing your brand relationships with your existing customers?

Not only do repeat customers spend 33% more than new customers, but referrals amongst repeat customers are statistically 107% greater than non-customers. So, developing superior customer relations not only helps maintain profitability but it also drives growth.

What Went Wrong?

Customers stop doing business with you for any number of reasons. One of the biggest is if they have a complaint that goes unresolved or is badly handled. They can also leave you simply because they feel unappreciated and not valued by your company.

9 Ways to Generate Superior Brand Value and Increased Profits by Nurturing Customer Relations

1. Put Customers At The Heart Of What You Do

Developing superior brand value requires aligning your brand strategy with the needs of your customers. Customer perspectives should inform and shape your brand identity, your customer value proposition and ultimately translate into a compelling and consistent customer experience.

If all departments within the organization understand their role in developing and delivering first class customer relations then developing superior brand value becomes a cohesive organizational goal.

2. Value Your Customers

Customers should also be viewed as strategic assets with the acquisition cost factors fully understood and recognized to achieve equitable customer lifetime valuation. Companies typically invest considerable effort in locating, acquiring and keeping potentially loyal customers so understanding brand loyalty and retention are key to ensuring growth with the right customers.

3. Think of Employees as Brand Value Creating Assets

Customer relations should be nurtured at all touch points, but none has a greater influence on brand value than the face-to-face interactions between employees and customers.

Employees are the face of the brand and need to represent the brand and align themselves with the brand values when they interact with customers. An employee who understands the customers needs and ensures customer satisfaction will both deepen the customer brand relationship but also further generate superior perceived value for the brand.

4. Encourage Customer Feedback

Developing superior customer relations is not all about what you give to your customers. It’s also about allowing your customers to provide feedback and ensuring they feel that their opinions are of value to your company.

Conduct regular surveys and polls with your customers to ensure you understand their current challenges and needs. Customers feel valued by your brand when they think their opinions are appreciated and you get very valuable customer insights.

5. Implement Appropriate Online Brand Social Media Policy

Customer relations are fostered at each touch point both on and offline. Incorporating a corporate social media policy in your company congruent with your brand will provide employees with the guidelines they need to engage appropriately with your customers.

6. Provide Regular Training

Informed employees are effective employees. Your employees are the face of your brand and they must reflect the brand accordingly.

Train your team to understand your brand, the importance of their role and their responsibilities as representatives of the brand. If they believe in the brand then this will translate into their customer interactions. An effective brand must be authentically lived from the inside out to the market place to become a powerful brand.

7. Adapt to Stay Relevant

Adapt and develop your products and services based on customer needs. An offering that is aligned with, and driven by, customer needs is much more sustainable in the long term. If your brand strategy has a flexible, responsive and listening customer focus then implementing new technologies has a higher success rate because it’s finely tuned to meet ongoing and changing customer preferences.

8. Develop A Customer Brand Risk Management Strategy

Every brand needs a brand risk management strategy which also includes clear guidelines for how customer relations should be managed in the event of an untoward issue arising. This should include all interactions on and offline, together with proactive, prompt and high integrity responsiveness from the top, down the chain of command.

9. Reach Out and WOW

The ability of your employees to wow your customers with the level of service they provide can create a compelling level of perceived superior brand value that develops loyal customer brand champions.

Empowering your employees to offer a level of service beyond what would be expected (within brand guidelines) can create a highly targeted branding experience and greatly enhance the customer’s perceived brand value.

Listen, monitor, record and evaluate your customer opinions. Brand value is based on perceptions. In-depth understanding about how your brand is viewed by your customers equips you with the information you need to satisfy and exceed customer expectations.

If you want to develop a profitable business that enjoys sustainable growth then your brand must go beyond simply satisfying minimum basic needs. It must develop more in depth relationships with your target market to create an enhanced level of perceived brand value.

A brand that listens, understands and responds to the needs of their customers creates first class brand value for the customer and thereby increased profitability for the business.

• Is your brand strategy truly customer-focused?

• Does your brand undertake customer feedback exercises?

7 Steps to Branding Your Way Out of Recession and Into Profitable Growth

July 10, 2012/0 Comments/in Brand Health Check, Brand Relevance, Brand Revitalisation, Brand Strategy, Branding, Business, Return On Investment, Revitalized Design /by Lorraine Carter

There are few companies in existence that have not felt the affects of the current recession impacting on their business and profit margins. As many of us know, uneasiness in the market fostered by fears of job losses and reduction in wages has consumer spending at an all time low.

Many business leaders feeling the pressure on their profit margins often react by applying cuts to their budgets, with marketing spend often first on the chopping block.

However, as history has shown us, savvy business leaders can recognize that cuts to budget spend alone are not the answer and that changes in the market demand adaptation to current marketing practices.

Recessions create huge challenges to businesses but why try and weather the storm when the opportunity exists to capitalize on your brand equity to strengthen your market position, and even develop profitable growth.

7 Steps to Brand your Way out of Recession

1. Adapt Your Brand to Customer Needs and Wants

How have consumers lives been changed by the recession? How have their needs changed? Your brand needs to be managed in a way that adjusts its marketing strategy to meet these changing consumer patterns. Revamp your brand packaging to be more relevant or user friendly, develop and up-sell new service products; analyze the new needs of the market and adjust your brand accordingly.

2. Brand Your Way to Market Growth

“You can’t save your way out of a recession – you have to invest your way out. You can’t just invest in the good times and then forget about them in the bad times and hope to get any results” Craig Barrett. Chairperson Intel

A reduction in branding investment will have a knock on effect on the entire business. Reduced visibility or weakened brand equity leads to a reduction in demand leading to negative effects on profitability.

History has shown us that brands that increased or even maintained their investment in the brand during a recession actually saw an increase in marketing share. If your competitors are making cuts to their marketing budget than by maintaining your spend you are gaining an instant competitive edge.

3. Review and Remove

Review and analyze your current brand activity. Cuts to marketing budgets without focused brand strategy have detrimental effects on the overall profitably of a company.

However, removing any lower value marketing costs can actually improve efficiency and effectiveness of your brand strategy. Being more selective in where and how you market your brand can actually bolster profitability. Track the ROI of brand investment and re-allocated funds to marketing activities to monitor what results in increased revenue for your business.

4. Maintain Consumer Brand Relationships

During a recession remember your current customers. Experts agree there is no better time to focus on clients who are brand advocates. It is far cheaper to keep current customers than to attract new ones. Your current customers understand your brand. They have an affinity with it.

5. Increase Consumer Confidence

Reduction in sales corresponds to increases in consumer wariness. With cuts to wages and uncertainty in their future, consumers have become increasingly cautious in their spending habits.

Now is the time to use the strength of your brand to reassure customers. Convince your customers that they are making the right decision by purchasing your brand. Investing in building strong brand equity can lead to increased sales with customers developing a clear understanding as to the value of your brand. This information gives them the confidence they need to make the decision to purchase.

6. Remember Your Brand Values

Focusing on brand values can refocus the business itself and reignite the passion that drove the business in its early years. In a time where the negatives of the recession weigh heavy on consumer’s minds, being faced with a brand that is driven by passion, determination, inspiration, with clear values and purpose will stand out in the market and can inspire sales.

7. Customer Added Value

Consumer needs change in a recession. Purchasing decisions are often based less on convenience and more on price and value. Adding perceived value to a customer is far easier and has less of a direct affect on profitability than changing pricing structures.

Wow your clients at the various brand touch points and they feel they are getting more for their money than competing brands. Contribute good will, service during hard times and develop customer loyalty that will be stronger than ever when recession ends.

Abraham Lincoln once said “Give me six hours to cut down a three and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe”. Business leaders need to start sharpening their marketing practices, not cut them.

• Have you analyzed the changes to your market?

• How have you adapted your brand strategy to changing consumer needs?

• Can you streamline your branding to get a better return on investment?

What have you been doing to brand your way out of the recession? Leave a comment or drop us a line. We’d love to hear your success stories.

5 Ways to Improve Online Brand Risk Management

July 2, 2012/0 Comments/in Brand Reputation, Brand Risk Management, Brand Strategy, Social Engagement, Social Media /by Lorraine Carter

Strong brands are built by fostering relationships built on trust with your target audience. This process takes a great deal of time and effort on the part of the brand custodian or company. If something happens to break this trust, the fall out and subsequent impact on your customer’s perceptions of your brand can happen at an alarming rate and potentially be devastating.

The potential positive impact of social networking on increasing brand awareness and building brand equity is indisputable. Research shows 94% of corporates use social media and 85% say that it’s given their business more exposure (source MBA programmes). Brands strive for increased interaction with their target audience as they build relationships with their customers and customers look to online channels to extend their brand experience. While online touch points offer huge benefits to brand development they do so while adding considerable complexity to brand risk management.

Managing Brand Risk Online

The essence of successful brand risk management lies in taking a proactive approach to preempting potential threats or compromise to the brand and putting in place contingency plans to mitigate any problems that may arise. Online brand activities are far more challenging to control because so much of the communication taking place about the brand is done by external stakeholders; consumers, commenter’s, competitors etc.

While companies cannot control what others say about their brand online, steps can be taken to monitor, manage, reduce potential risks and positively influence the online activities that shape the brand’s reputation.

1. Internal Management Platform

The integration of an effective internal management platform is important to ensure that those managing company online brand accounts do so in a structured, focused and controlled manner, one that fits into the overall brand strategy.

Cadbury’s Crème Egg Facebook page is accessed by an audience of 2.3m which is as much made up of a younger audience as it is by adults. The brand has a responsibility to ensure its younger audience is protected. Those who manage Cadbury’s social media accounts encourage user-generated content and monitor activity in a way that posts and Tweets are always kept appropriate, engaging, and brand relevant

2. Streamline Multiple Profiles

The greater the number of online profiles a brand has e.g YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Linkedin and Google+ etc. the greater the level of potential risk to brands. When conversations are spread out across multiple social channels, it is easy for companies to quickly loose track of what is being said about their brand. It’s also often difficult to keep track of which profiles have been updated and if videos and content have uploaded correctly. Brands should be selective in their use of social media applications and focus on the platforms which best suit the needs of their target audience and fit within the brand’s communication strategy.

3. Social Media Monitoring Platform

Social media’s most damaging potential impact is on reputation. The wider the brand’s social media reach, the higher the need to balance the benefits and risks of social media engagement in order to effectively protect the social media perception and reputation of the brand. Software and online programmes, can be employed which not only enable users to effectively monitor and manage the conversations and engagement taking place around their brand but also allows them to co-ordinate social media strategy and activity across multiple platforms. Lack of structure and monitoring of conversations in this way leaves companies particularly open to the greatest of risks.

4. Be Proactive: Respond Quickly & Effectively When Issues Arise

The potential to rapidly spread negative word of mouth online can be hugely threatening to a brand if issues arise. The lightning speed at which things happen in the social space is something that all companies need to be fully aware of when putting their social media strategies in place. The team or individual responsible, in a company, for interacting on the brand’s social media profiles needs to be capable of quickly monitoring and effectively dealing with any issues that arise.

5. Employee Training

While you may be risk averse in your general business strategy does the same apply to how you and your employees engage in social media? Social media activity needs to be considered when outlining acceptable behaviour expected of employees. If they are perceived as representatives of your brand or somehow connected to your brand then how they interact online can be viewed as a reflection of your brand. Educating your employees on the potential repercussions of their online behaviour on the brand, empowering them to be positive brand ambassadors online and training them in how to be vigilant about social media both personally and for your business can reduce risks to your brand.

[Tweet issued by Chrysler after the following tweet sent by an employee: “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f***ing drive,” read the tweet of a Chrysler employee though the F-word was uncensored]

Online Risk Assessment

As with offline brand risk assessment, the various risks associated with social media use need to be identified and quantified before contingency plans can be put in place. Your brand risk assessment strategy needs to take into account the likelihood and potential damage resulting from negative online occurrences such as employee defamation, negative consumer feedback, as well as any other risks to which social media use exposes a brand. Risk assessment also involves identifying the controls that are already in place, together with those which should be introduced to reduce any other jeopardizing elements.

It is critical that brands expand current risk management policies to include social media. Once risks have been identified, it should be apparent whether, and where, the brands risk management strategy needs to be expanded in order to better address the risks associated with communicating online.

• Does your brand have a strategy specific to its online activity?

• Do you have a contingency plan in place to deal with the potential repercussions of negative online brand communications?

• Have you assessed the current risks affecting your brand’s social media activity?

• Are your employees training in business-specific social media management?