REmember the Basics

1|12|2010

It is easy these days to feel overwhelmed. The digital age in which we now live and the changes that have occurred in the marketing and communications world have had a profound effect on how marketers will deliver messages. Social networking. Brandstorming. Apps. Crowdsourcing. SEO. Viral marketing. For marketers trying to make connections with their customers, it’s a challenge just trying to keep up with the buzzwords.

If that alone weren’t enough, layer on the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression. Marketing budgets have been drastically reduced, consolidations and acquisitions have seen the disappearance of some iconic brands and the emergence of new ones, and the media world has been turned upside down.

While it is important to understand how these changes will impact your brand, it is also critical not to get distracted and lose focus on the basic tenets of brand marketing. As we experience an economic upswing this year, planning the support for your brand and remembering the basics has never been more important. Here is my list of some of the basics to remember:

• Do your research. Learn the needs, habits and desires of your current and prospective customers. And don’t rely on what you think they think. Know what they think.
• Promote benefits rather than features. A benefit is the emotional satisfaction your product or service delivers or a tangible performance characteristic.
• Create a “voice” that reflects your brand. The voice should be applied to all written communication and incorporated into the visual imagery of all materials, online and off.
• Establish the uniqueness of your brand. It is important to prove your product or service is “x-times faster, better, cleaner or more cost-effective” than your competitor’s brand or industry standard.
• Source and use testimonials. All other things being equal, endorsements from customers as brand ambassadors is one of the strongest ways to enhance the credibility of your brand.
• Make an emotional connection. Whether you tug at their heartstrings, shock them, surprise them or make them laugh, your audience will tune in and remember your message better if their emotions are in play.
• Create an “ah-hah” moment. Learning something new or discovering an eye-opening fact can really make a message stick.
• Always be honest and truthful. Authenticity is especially important in a recessionary market as customers are more discretionary with their spending decisions, and they gravitate to those brands they know they can trust.
• Write copy that communicates. The copy in your ads and other communications should have the same tone used in speaking to that audience, delivering messages that are meaningful to them.
• Know your competitors. Knowing everything about your competitors is just as important as knowing everything about your own business.
• Repetition is the golden rule of advertising. One shot ads seldom work. In fact, research indicates that the average consumer ignores two out of three ads and requires nine exposures before they readily remember an ad. This means that you have to run your ad several dozen times to make an impact.
• Improve your creative through testing. Don’t rely only on your gut to tell you which campaign will work best. Ask your target audience what they think, feel, believe and what they will respond to.

This list is a just a start and some of the basics that serve as a good reminder for supporting your brand.

What are some of the important reminders that, based on your experience, you can add to the list? Send me your ideas and I will share them next month in our LS POV blog.

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