Do your customers love you?
Do you know why they would love you?
Can you think of a more important question you need to ask related to your brand?
Have a look at today’s newsletter, Why would they love you, and then ask yourself this question. Do you know why your customers would love you?
Read the newsletter: Why would they love you?
Yes. I am telling you to ignore your mission statement! You read it correctly.
I have an alternative for you … read today’s newsletter, Ignore Your Mission Statement, and see how you can ignore your mission statement and feel good about it!
In 1997 my mentor/guru/client Tom Peters published a ground-breaking article in Fast Company titled The Brand Called You. Let’s take a new look at the concept of personal branding with today’s newsletter, Your Powerful Personal Brand.
What are you doing to reinvent, reinvigorate and renew your personal brand?
How do I answer the question, “So Steve, what is marketing?”
Read today’s newsletter, “Definition of Marketing,” to find out … and then please share your comments here.
Why is there such a wide gap between what people say they believe about marketing, and the actual marketing they do?
Why do companies allocate their marketing dollars in ways that they know are counterproductive?
Why do I sometimes feel like much of marketing is stuck in 1973, looking at direct marketing and the online world through an advertising-based lens?
Have a look at today’s newsletter, Do as you say, not as you do, and then please come back here to leave a comment.
And … if you see your competitors marketing in the way I’ve described above, smile. And then go after their customers.
As we were helping a client on a marketing plan, Amanda said, “I really don’t like the word ‘collateral’.” Collateral, as most of you know, has traditionally referred to all of those ‘other’ marketing activities, such as brochures, flyers, posters, etc. that act ‘in collateral’ to all-important advertising.
“So,” I asked, “what should it be called?” We decided, for the sake of our own amusement, to think of a word that made sense from a Brand Harmony perspective. We came up with ‘complementaral.”
I am not, of course, suggesting anyone use that term. (It really sounds silly!) The point is that the purpose of these kinds of marketing efforts is not to act as something that is collateral, or parallel, to advertising, but to act in complement of all other touchpoints the customer has with the company.
If we think of all of our marketing efforts has acting in a parallel, but non-integrated, fashion, they will fizzle into the ether. If we want our marketing efforts to be effective, they need to complement each other, and blend in Brand Harmony.
In today’s newsletter, I focus on Question 3 of the 6 questions I use when I begin to evaluate a company’s marketing efforts.
Question 3 asks, “Are you clear about the rich story you want your customers to understand?“ Many companies look at their brands in a very cursory way, while their customers are willing to create rich brand stories in their minds. One step to great marketing: Create a rich brand story that encourages customers to think, “I get it, I want it and I can’t get it anywhere else.”
There is a direct connection between what your customers believe about you and how much money you make.
What your customers believe about you – consciously or sub-consciously – influences your customers’ actions. If customers’ beliefs about you are clear, compelling, powerful, motivating and differentiating, they will act in ways that improve your business results. If, on the other hand, their beliefs about you are not clear, compelling, powerful, motivating and differentiating, their actions will not improve your business results as much as is possible.
Advertising, PR, customer service, product development … everything you do … is secondary. What you do only matters if it helps customers do things. And what influences customers to do things? What they believe.
In our current marketplace, trust is not enough to win you customers. You have many trustworthy competitors.
However, the slightest chink in your “trust-armour” can lose you customers. Here’s an example:
I have been a loyal customer of Orbitz for a number of years, creating a near-reflexive habit of going to orbitz.com when I need to book travel. Each time I use Orbitz I am offered the chance to click a box and purchase travel insurance, which I never do.
I noticed three travel insurance charges on my credit card bill, related to three international reservations I had booked. When I called Orbitz they said it was too late to remove these charges since the travel dates had passed. “But I never selected travel insurance” did not seem to be a plausible objection to them.
With the agent on the phone I walked through a couple of “mock” reservations, and learned that for international reservations travel insurance is pre-selected, and you need to opt-out if you don’t want it.
What a bait and switch. For years I’ve been given the choice on Orbitz whether I want travel insurance, and then they sneak it in when I book international tickets. My brand impression of Orbitz changed immeditately. It went from “hassle-free/always-works/I-can-count-on-them” to “I better keep my eyes open from now on because they will try to take money from me when I am not looking.” We went from a We relationship to a definite Us & Them relationship.
Don’t ever be tempted to sneak something by your valuable customers. For about $100 Orbitz lost most of the trust I had in them. Making money in this way is a great example of “bad profits.”
“So, what are your scarce maketing resources?” I have asked many people.
“Time, money and people,” are the most likely answers.
True.
But there is a fourth scarce resource: Customer attention.
You need to view customer attention as a finite resource. It is a rationed good, and you must use it frugally and wisely.
In the old days of brute force branding, it made sense to focus on exposing your customer to your marketing messages as many times as possible. After all, the working paradigms were “cut through the clutter” and “capture eyeballs.”
Now, things are different. If you waste your scarce ration of customer attention on merely invading your customer’s field of vision or sound, you will quickly wear out your welcome, and the customer will elect to ignore you. (“Capturing eyeballs” is so old-school) On the other hand, if you focus not on just invading your customer’s senses as often as possible but on fewer, richer interactions, your customer will appreciate you, notice you and, more likely, be moved by your message.
Your customer’s attention is as valuable to him as your time, money and people are to you. Use this fourth scarce resource wisely.
"When Steve Yastrow writes, I pay close attention"
- Tom Peters
"I had to buy two copies. The first one is so dog-eared and underlined I couldn't read it any longer."
- Seth Godin
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In addition to writing, I spend most of my work time helping companies unleash their potential by creating better connections with their customers. This happens through my speaking events and through Yastrow & Company consulting engagements, where my team and I help companies figure out who they intend to be in the future, and then engage the entire company in creating that future through strong "We" customer relationships.
Before starting Yastrow & Company in the mid-90s I was vice-president of resort marketing for Hyatt Hotels. My experiences in the hotel business showed me clearly that most marketing doesn’t happen in the marketing department. Customers are paying attention to all interactions with a company, not just the promises made in traditional "marketing communications."
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