Brand Marketing

By - November 5th, 2020

Have you ever wondered why companies do not focus more on managing their brands which is their main asset and ambassador?

By guest contributor, Nicolas Babin.

As I will be hosting two panels at Reuters Events: Strategic Marketing USA on November 5 and 6, let’s start looking at one of the panels. It will be with Evan Jones, Chief Marketing Officer at Fender. The subject will be “Remember the Human: Finding Meaningful Brand Connection in the Digital World”. I will share my advice on how to protect and promote your brand. After the event, we can discuss the points brought up by my guest. The world is made of brands. These may be brands we trust, dislike, or do not know. In any case we normally have an opinion about brands we interact with. Don’t you find it fascinating that no matter how you approach a brand (through a product, a service or a person representing the brand) you will always have a strong feeling about it? What is even more fascinating is that it can take one experience, comment or look at the brand and you will formulate a strong opinion about it. Moreover, once you have made up your mind it will take a lot for you to change your opinion. So, have you ever wondered why companies do not focus more on managing their brands which is their main asset and ambassador?

Brand Protection

A brand is what people see first when they are on the market for a product or a service or just when they are browsing. We know that the first 10 seconds are the most important in any relationship (human, marketing or commercial).  Once a consumer has established an opinion, it is challenging to change their minds. Therefore, it is very important to have a great logo with attractive colors, a fancy catch phrase and great font. But this is not enough. Any experience with a brand will need to fit customers/prospects needs. You want to create a customer personalized experience with the brand for each of your customers. Any brand consumers interact with needs to fulfill their requirements as a customer. Be it for customer support, marketing, sales, finance, or management.  All interaction with the company needs to be personalized. Brand managers sometimes say this is not possible. Protecting your brand will allow you to ensure anyone can become a brand ambassador. Your business needs to be transformed to integrate data from the beginning of the brand relationship with a client. The more data the brand will have, the more it will be able to personalize the experience. All tools and strategies you are using today (CRM, loyalty programs, newsletters, social networks…) will be very helpful in organizing your digital transformation and ensure your brand is protected. Consumer connection with brands is changing as we all migrate to more digital forms of client experience.

Brand Promotion

Once your brand has been protected and you feel the strategy in place is sound and working, then it is important to promote your brand. The next step is to focus on promoting your company values. You will need to follow your vison, mission and positioning to ensure efficient and optimized brand promotion. For example, you will not be able to promote your brand with a strong value of loyalty if you try to market an app that sells candy when you are a healthcare provider. Your brand promotion needs to be personalized because everyone is unique and behaves differently based on communication channels, brand approach and marketing campaigns. When you reach this step, your brand is protected, and you have managed to promote it in a personalized way. The power of promotion is that it can convert consumers into brand ambassadors. If you have promoted your brand efficiently, customers will feel a connection naturally and their experience and feedback can be used to your benefit.

Remember, it is always easier to keep a customer than to gain a new one. For brand management it is the same, once your customers have a good feeling about you, it’s best to keep it that way. It does not cost much to be efficient and to protect your main asset. Be professional at all levels of the company and ensure your personalized marketing is in place.

Strategic Marketing USA Virtual

Let’s enjoy Strategic Marketing USA on November 5^th and 6^th and then we can share our views on how to manage a brand in this ever changing environment.

About Nicolas Babin:

If you are looking for ideas to make a change and use new mind sets and technology to help you, feel free to contact me. I can be found on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolasbabin/ on Twitter https://twitter.com/Nicochan33.