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

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

9 Ways to Improve Your Facebook Engagement and ROI

If you are a B2C company, at this point, you most likely have a Facebook page.  A question many ask after launching a Facebook page is “how active do we need to be and what should we do on Facebook to turn our activity into ROI?”  Some companies are more active than others on Facebook.  Your level of activity likely depends on:

·         Your budget for social media

·         Your staffing to support social media

·         Your belief that you can effectively reach and engage target customers and prospects using Facebook.

If Facebook is part of your marketing plan (and it should be for B2C companies with loyal shoppers), here are 9 ways you can boost your effectiveness.  You are likely doing some of these already.  These recommendations are different ways to help build a robust community of loyal followers who want to stay connected to your brand on a daily basis.  Building a strong Facebook community helps you cost effectively share news on your brand, promote your product or services and get consumer feedback about issues that are important to your customers.  It can also help your followers to stay brand loyal and in return buy more of your product. 

The following list is intended to give you reminders of what you should be doing on Facebook and perhaps some new ideas to try.  These tactics work because they focus on engaging and delivering information and value to your followers.

1.       Leverage Facebook’s capabilities to build a strong online community.  There is big difference between having a Facebook page and building a strong community on Facebook.  Having a community manager who adds relevant content and provides stimulus for followers to interact daily helps build a community that fans want to join.

2.       Engage your community by asking them questions about what is important to them.  In any conversation, it is powerful to listen.  Ask relevant questions and listen to your follower’s answers.  Thank them for their input.

3.       Let followers ask questions on Facebook to be answered by your company’s experts.  It is likely that many consumers will have the same question, by providing answers, you educate the entire community.  Over time, you may see other consumers serving as experts to answer questions from others in the community.

4.       Ask followers to give product feedback on Facebook.  Most followers are likely users and fans of your products.  They are likely to share positive feedback for others to see.  Provide them opportunities to talk about your products.  Reward them when they share great information – See #8.

5.       Take negative consumers offline to resolve their problems quickly.  Unhappy customers can be noisy and disruptive to a community if they are left unresolved.  Contact them and ask to talk offline so you can quickly understand and resolve their issues.  Once you have, ask them to talk about what you did on Facebook.  If handled well, many detractors become advocates for your brand.

6.       Use Facebook to communicate your new news and introduce new products.  Your followers are more interested than most consumers in news about your products and brand.  They will likely be early adopters and advocates that can help build word of mouth BUZZ about your new products.  Share news on Facebook – it keeps fans engaged and rewards them for following you.  If budgets allow, regularly add new video of your products and other news.

7.       Crosslink your Facebook page with other relevant web and social media pages.  You can add value by communicating links to relevant web content including upcoming brand events and promotions.  Links to promotion partners or brand charity partners also add information and interest.

8.       Create “Random Acts of Kindness.”   Give away your product to followers on random days without condition.  Surprising selected followers with a gift for a good answer to a question or helping another fan with an issue will delight your fans.  Giving away samples of your new products gets your fans talking and helps create early vocal advocates for the new product on Facebook.

9.       Leverage your offline and online marketing to build your Facebook community.  Communicate your Facebook page and give consumers reasons to go there.  Consistently communicating your Facebook page in your consumer communication will help drive traffic and build your community.

If some of these approaches are new to you, test them for your brand.  Executing these tactics can enlarge membership your Facebook community, strengthen the frequency and level of interaction with your brand, and boost sales in stores and online.

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