How to build lasting brand relationships in a digital-connection culture

Digital communication continues to change relationships – with people and brands.  

How people engage with communication differs for Millennials, Generation X, and Baby Boomers.  Do you use your phone to tweet, Snapchat, text, post, email, or call?  Communication is now less face-to-face; it is more device-to-device. If person-to-person communication has become this diverse, how is your brand communicating?  How is it engaging people?  How are you developing lasting brand relationships?

The world is moving to a digital-connection culture.  People connect with more online friends, followers, colleagues and contacts than they connect with people they know in person.  We know far more about the likes and beliefs of online friends than we do with the people we work with each day.  Friends of friends may want to add you as their friend, or they may follow you, but they may never meet you in person.  More and more, we are moving from live, personal relationships to a digital-connection culture. 

In a world where the number of digital relationships increases faster than live ones, brand referrals are changing. Seeing that a friend “likes” a brand is less likely to influence you than spending time together talking about a brand.  Multiple research studies show that people trust friends and family for brand referrals much more than brand advertising.  How consumers learn about brands from digital friends will continue to evolve.  As communication evolves, brands will need to identify new ways to connect, gain trust and build relationships.  Brand teams must find new ways to engage consumers directly.

Beyond digital advertising and story telling

The advertising world continues to evolve.  The world of digital has continued to fragment advertising options.  You can buy digital ads any number of ways, but often the click through and conversion rates can be very low.  If you are a big company, with big budgets, you can afford to analyze “big data” to find the big trends and targeting data.  For organizations that are not as “big”, a different approach is needed. 

This is one reason many organizations are moving from an advertising strategy to a story telling or content strategy.  People do not want to be “talked at” by brands.  They value brands that understand them.  They value brands that:

• Are authentic
• Listen to me
• Understand me
• Make my life better
• Share information that is helpful to me
• Develop a valued relationship with me

Brands developing a content or story telling strategy are off to a great start.  But how we develop that content or stories can make a difference.  Telling stories is not enough.  Telling stories alone is one-way communication. We need to communicate our stories and content in an interactive way that builds brand relationships. 

Developing lasting interpersonal relationships takes both listening and sharing of stories and experiences.  If we want to develop relationships with consumers, it is helpful to

• Understand what your consumers want and need
• Ask for and listen to their feedback
• Share stories of how your brand has delighted others like them
• Share stories on how the brand could help them
• Ensure your content is relevant and helpful so consumers will take time to engage

How can your brand develop relationships in this connection culture?

Let me suggest a different way to think about communicating with your target consumer.  We know that to be an effective marketer, you have to know who your target consumer is and what do they want/need from you.  If you want to be effective in developing relationships in the digital world, you will need to connect in a way that will develop experience and trust with your target consumers.  Consumers are using Match.com and other services to find an ideal mate.  Help them find their brand match by sharing with them the right things about your brand.

If you want to start a relationship with someone you meet, there are steps to do that.  I believe these same steps can be applied to build a dating relationship between your brand and your target consumers.  So…if you were to approach new consumers as you would a dating relationship, what might that look like?

Be prepared to answer these questions

Here are some of the questions that your target consumer will go through in any new brand relationship – either consciously or not.  If you prepare to provide relevant content and stories for the early interactions (or “dates”) in your relationship, you will be more successful in creating brand connections and relationships.  The following questions are familiar in any new relationship.  How and where does your brand provide the answers to these questions today?

• Who are you? Who is your brand, what does it stand for, what does it offer, why is it unique?
• Do you understand me? Does your communication to current and target consumers show that you understand who they are, what they want and need and what is important to them?
• Why are you the right one for me? In a world of many choices, why should your brand come into their life? What do you have to offer that others do not? Do you satisfy their wants and needs? Is your brand worth the time and money a consumer invests in you?
• Why should I trust you? Give them reasons to believe and trust you.  Is your communication and content believable?  Do you consistently deliver what you promise?
• Do I want to be seen with you? Do they feel good when others see them use your brand or are they embarrassed?
• Does being with you truly make my life better? After time together, does your brand truly make an ongoing or lasting difference in your consumer’s life?  Do you at least make their a little better?  Can you become a brand they do not want to live without?
• Am I ready to have a long-term relationship with you?  Do you provide a solution that fits well into your consumers’ lives?  Can they stop searching for a solution and bring you into their life for years.  Answering the questions above will help answer this question.

This approach may seem silly, but if you can get consumers to engage in your brand and believe that you deliver well against all of these questions, it is likely that you will develop loyal customers.

Enhance current customer relationships and create new ones

Start with making sure you have the right target consumer.  Just as some people are a better fit for a relationship with another.  Your brand will be the right fit for the right target.  No brand is the perfect fit for everyone.  Know who you fit with and why.  Strengthen your relationship with customers who fit and reach out to new consumers who fit your “ideal consumer” profile. 

Create and distribute your communication and content in places that your target consumer is likely to frequent.  You don’t hang out in a bar if the type of person you want to date does not go to bars. Don’t spend a lot of time and money to advertise or distribute content in places where your target is not.

Ensure your communication and online content strategy is relevant by addressing the relationship questions above.  You will start to attract and engage new consumers.  Over time you will build lasting relationships with your current customers, target consumers and perhaps event their followers, friends and fans.

This blog was originally posted by GrowthSpring Group on the MENG Blend website.

GrowthSpring Group is a unique strategic growth and marketing innovation firm that helps clients accelerate sales and profit growth. We help you identify and implement new business insights, opportunities, winning strategies and plans.  www.GrowthSpringGroup.com

Connect the Dots…Align Your Metrics and Boost Your Marketing ROI

As marketers, we are increasingly focused on measuring marketing initiatives to guide our efforts and assess our Marketing ROI.  We are reading about Big Data and how we need to embrace it.  We read blogs, articles, and research data to catch the next big trend.  And often, we can miss the important data on our laptops that shows how and where we are limiting our own marketing effectiveness.

While many marketing departments are now measuring their programs, they are often too busy to make sure their digital marketing initiatives are aligned and their metrics are set up to report progress toward top strategic goals.

Measuring Campaigns Is Not Enough

I have worked with companies that have long lists of metrics that they measure month after month.  “If you do not measure it, you cannot improve it” is their mantra.  Many companies may be good at measuring their actions, but the can miss the insights in the data if they do not look at the right data in combination.  Many know their click-through rates for individual email, Google AdWords, or digital ad campaigns, but they do not know the sales conversion rates that came from those efforts.

In my last blog, I shared how many marketing funnels are leaking.  This often occurs when marketing initiatives and their corresponding metrics are not aligned strategically to top objectives.  Many companies place marketing campaigns in market and feel good about generating activity, but do not stop to understand if they also produced achievement.

Marketers need to shift from measuring to results at the top of their funnel to measuring effectiveness from top to bottom.  For a B2B campaign, we not only need to know how many total leads a campaign generates, but also how many qualified leads and active prospects as well as how many prospects become customers and their size of purchase.  By aligning our data, we shift from measuring productivity of an individual initiative to managing and optimizing our portfolio of marketing investments – and boosting our marketing ROI.

Manage One Funnel, Not Two

One of the reasons many companies do not truly understand their marketing effectiveness is that the top and bottom of their funnel are managed in two different departments.  Marketing manages awareness generation and engagement at the top of the funnel.  Sales is responsible for converting prospects into buyers at the bottom of the funnel.  Marketing measures results in terms of how many prospects they produce, and all prospects are counted as having equal value in some companies.  The Sales department is then measured on how many prospects it converts to buyers—regardless of where the prospects came from or how ready they are to buy. 

By measuring the same prospect with different objectives, two funnels are created.  The Marketing funnel drops prospects into the Sales funnel.  Insight, alignment, and productivity are often lost.  By aligning your metrics measurement and connecting the dots throughout one integrated funnel, you will be able to understand the quality of each prospect and the results produced by different marketing efforts.  This results in better insights, and allows you to better manage your marketing portfolio.

Make Your Data More Productive – Leverage Your Analytics Tool Set

Many companies use their top-line analytics reporting to only look at topline conversions—click through rates and resulting web traffic. 

Those in ecommerce are often skilled in leveraging web analytics.  They not only know which campaign drove sales, they are customizing email messaging and landing page design via A/B testing to optimize the impact of their efforts.  Not every company has reached this level of sophistication.  They often have been “too busy” to fully learn the tools available to them. 

If you use Google Analytics or other tracking tools to track visits and time on site, invest time to learn how these tools can also be used to set campaign goals and evaluate multi-channel funnels (which elements of your integrated marketing efforts produces the most sales).  You will be able to track and evaluate the effectiveness of different marketing initiatives to produce the most valuable prospects.

Make sure your own data is used powerfully.  Often, you can create greater short-term sales growth by improving your targeting and retaining your best prospects than by investing to launch an incremental marketing campaign.

Once your marketing and sales metrics and analysis are more fully aligned, your next big sales trend could be come from a highly functioning marketing and sales funnel.  With a robust funnel in place, the marketing ROI of all of your programs will improve.

“The ability to take data – to be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualize it, to communicate it is going to be a hugely important skill in the next decades.”

– Hal Varian, Chief Economist, Google

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This blog was originally posted by GrowthSpring Group on the MENG Blend website.

GrowthSpring Group is a unique strategic growth and marketing innovation firm that helps clients accelerate sales and profit growth. We help you identify and implement new business insights, opportunities, winning strategies and plans. 

www.GrowthSpringGroup.com

Do You Know Where Your Marketing Funnel Is Leaking – And How To Stop It?

Your sales and marketing funnel can be like a pair of pants with a hole in the pocket.  You don’t notice the hole at first.  You notice it, however, when you start losing things out the hole, like small coins.  While you hate to lose any money, it gets really frustrating (and more costly) when the hole grows large enough that you lose your keys or something else really valuable.

Putting your budget dollars into a leaky sales and marketing funnel is very much like putting money in a pocket with a hole in it.  You will inevitably lose some of your money, but you may not know how much.

Finding Those Sales and Marketing Funnel Leaks

The problem is all sales and marketing funnels leak.  Whether you are marketing for B2B sales leads, selling consumer products in store or online, driving diners to a restaurant, or recruiting new students to your university, your marketing and sales funnel is leaking.  The leaks in your marketing funnel cost you money—and potential customers.  The good news is that if you know where it’s leaking, you can take appropriate steps to help stop the leaks or at least minimize their impact.

A thorough analysis of your marketing and sales analytics can reveal where your funnel is leaking.  The first challenge is to find and understand the leaks.  The next challenge is to identify how to stop or reduce the leaks.  How many people who see your ads and read your emails actually visit your store or website?  How many of those who reach your website ask for information or make a purchase?  How many people leave a store without buying what they came in to buy?  It’s critically important to know what is and is not working within each step of your marketing and selling funnel.  More importantly, you need to understand how your customers are making decisions at each step in their purchase decision journey.

It is critical to understand your sales and marketing funnel and your customers’ purchase decision process in order to optimize your market effectiveness and marketing ROI. 

• You need to identify your Points of Loss (POL)—where you are losing people at each step in your funnel.

• You also need to understand your Points of Influence (POI)—the key points in the decision process where you can win or lose the engagement of your potential customers as they move towards making a purchase decision.  These are the points in the decision process where your potential customers seek information on what they want to buy.  You need to understand what these POI’s are and who/what is influencing them at each one. 

POL’s and POI’s are your key leverage points in making your marketing and sales process much more productive. 

Adding More Sales Productivity to Your Marketing Funnel

There are three key ways to build sales productivity in your current marketing and selling funnel:

• Put more total people in the funnel.  Your funnel still leaks, but more people in should mean more people out.  If only 1-5% of the people at the top of your funnel actually buy from you or sign up for your services, you need to first focus on improving your funnel rather than putting more people into it.

• Put more of the right people in the funnel.  You hope to attract and sell more of your target audience.  But, if you don’t clearly understand why they are choosing you, this approach will not be fully effective.

• Retain more of the right people in the funnel.  By slowing or stopping the leaks in your funnel, you will optimize your efforts to attract and retain more target customers.  This is usually a much more productive near-term effort versus just spending more on ads or offering promotions.

Our work with clients shows that the leaks in a funnel can happen for very different reasons.  Some can be as simple as the wrong web link was attached to an ad or email, sending the right person to the wrong place on your website.  They don’t find what they want, get frustrated, and leave your website.

Other leaks come from only communicating the features of a product or service but not the most relevant benefits.  Often, a leak comes from not providing the key information a target customer wants to learn prior to deciding where to shop and what to buy.  While these leaks sound like marketing fundamentals, they happen frequently in different stages of marketing funnels.

Shoppers stay in the funnels that best fit their shopping process and POI’s.  Companies who best understand how their customers shop and make purchase decisions and can align their marketing funnel with customer information needs will boost their funnel productivity, sales, and marketing ROI.  If your competition understands your customers’ shopping and decision process better than you do, your marketing funnel will become less effective and you will lose share to your competitors.

Unfortunately, today’s lean marketing and very busy staffs often don’t have enough time to invest in understanding their Points of Loss and Points of Influence.  Whether your internal team does this work or you get outside help, your marketing will be much more productive if you take time to understand why each of your key marketing initiatives may or may not be working effectively in your marketing funnel process.

Are programs ineffective because your funnel process is leaking or are you just not effectively engaging your target customers?  Once you better understand your Points of Loss (POL) and your Points of Influence (POI), you can more effectively focus your efforts and marketing investments in the right place.  Once your sales and marketing funnel works well and you know how to best engage and sell your target customer, you will accelerate your market success!

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This blog was originally posted by GrowthSpring Group on the MENG Blend website.

GrowthSpring Group is a unique strategic growth and marketing innovation firm that helps clients accelerate sales and profit growth. We help you identify and implement new business insights, opportunities, winning strategies and plans. 

www.GrowthSpringGroup.com

Is your brand speaking with one voice?

Building a strong brand is demanding work.  Brand teams are tasked with growing businesses with limited staff and small budgets.  In a world of multichannel communication and multichannel points of purchase, creating and maintaining a consistent brand experience can be challenging.

Building and maintaining a strong brand can be even harder when there are many people involved in brand communication.  Think about 5 or 10 different people reporting on the news story for different news media.  They will all tell the story a little differently.  When it comes to communicating your brand message, the more people you have writing copy or posting on social media, the risk of creating different versions of your brand message increases.  Each consumer touch point becomes an opportunity for brand building…or brand confusion.

From just observing the brand communications of many leading brands, you can tell when there are too many authors speaking for a brand without good control over the brand message.  I have also observed brands with poor control over their iconography with up to six different versions of their brand logo in the market across packaging and marketing materials.

Many of the most effective brands have simple, consistent messages that are delivered across all mediums.  Consumers trust brands that consistently deliver against their brand promise.  Part of the strength of brand building is keeping your brand promise and messaging consistent.  It becomes harder to connect with a brand that has a different voice in different consumer touch points.

When there is not good control over your brand voice, your brand may suffer from one of these symptoms:

• Multiple personality disorder—your brand communication has several distinctive different messages and/or author styles in the market.  While each author works to add their own individual value-added touch, they inject a different spin into the messaging.  This split personality can sometimes be seen in the communication prepared by your agency vs. your brand team. 
• Committee speak / designed by committee—it has been said that “a camel is a horse designed by a committee.”  You can recognize brand communication that had too many inputs and crams too many different message points into an ad – the final result often does not match the creative brief.
• Communication of the week/weak—some brand leaders just lack the discipline to define and remain loyal to a chosen brand communication platform.  Their messaging is constantly changing, making it difficult to know and connect with the brand value proposition.
• Communication of the novice—some brand work is delegated to younger members of the brand team and is not reviewed before going to market.  This group is less likely to be trained in the brand character and brand standards and may communicate in a less formal way that does not fit the brand.  This is often observed on Facebook and other social media.  Brand leaders that give their intern responsibility for Facebook communication because they actively use social media, can risk introducing a new, very casual voice to their brand.

The addition of social media to the marketing mix can often lead to multiple voice communication if there is not a clear strategy and a limited group that is trained to speak for the brand.If your team has multiple people creating multiple messages, consider:

• Setting guidelines such as a brand standards manual and communications platform for how to communicate imagery and message points for the brand.
• Limiting the number of people creating communication on your behalf
• Having one person who reviews and approves all brand communication

When your marketing plan includes a multi-channel media approach, the need for consistent, integrated brand communication increases.  Review your current communications and identify the steps needed to have the same message, imagery and branding in market at the same time.  This includes product packaging, point of purchase communication, advertising, PR, B2B sales collateral, social media, website, event banners and more.

Often with a tight budget, it is tempting to continue use of some materials while new brand communication is introduced in different channels.  This may be cheaper, but it is much more effective to achieve the impact and alignment of integrated brand marketing by introducing a new campaign across all touch points.  The big challenge is to avoid having remnants of several campaigns as you launch new ones.  A regular audit to identify and update out of date materials can help you stay current and aligned. 

In the time pressured world of trying to do more with smaller budgets and fewer people, it can be easy to let brand consistency slip as communication is rushed to market.  Don’t let your brand become the victim of rushing work to market without the appropriate brand review.  It is better to have fewer points of communication that are consistently on brand than a mass of content that speaks with many voices.  While this can appear to add work at first, over time your entire team will be more aligned and your brand communication will be more effective in the marketplace.

This blog was originally posted by GrowthSpring Group on the MENG Blend website.

GrowthSpring Group is a marketing strategy, market research, and innovation firm focused on accelerating your sales and profit growth. We help you identify new business growth insights & opportunities and execute winning strategies & plans. www.GrowthSpringGroup.com