David Young | Branding Blog - Marketing Advice and Advertising Strategy for Local Business Owners

Let's meet in Barrie, Ontario next week!

The next version of our Wizards On The Road event is next week in Barrie, Ontario, just a short hour's drive from the Toronto Airport.

Steve Rae is organizing the event and we've got 2 full days of Wizard of Ads teaching for you at the insanely low price of $145.

If you read Roy William's Monday Morning Memo this week, he mentions the Pendulum of Society. I'll be delivering the original presentation that we've been showing around the world for almost 7 years. If you haven't seen this unique view of society's generations, it's worth the trip. If you're scratching your head wondering about all the changes going on around you, this will make things clearer.

Check out all the details at www.WizardsonTheRoad.com or just go over to our signup page and we'll see you in Barrie!

Be a "Word of Mouth" Enabler

Sometimes delivering a great customer experience through amazing products, architecture or movement just isn't quite enough to trigger the chain reaction of effective Word of Mouth.

Think about the reasons that people might be hesitant to recommend. Perhaps I consider my experience too "private" to talk about...or don't want to share the "secret" of my success. Unless you ask someone for specific advice, you'll seldom hear them bragging about their top-notch dentist, plastic surgeon or medical specialist.

Loss of proximity is another reason Word of Mouth loses it's oomph. If I have an amazing experience on vacation, but don't have an opportunity to share it until I get home weeks later, the magic of the moment has already begun to fade.

If you are truly delivering the goods to your customers, you should work on techniques to help them share their experience in the moment or very soon after.

Even in the late 1800s, the big cruise lines knew how to enable Word of Mouth among the millions of immigrants tucked away in 3rd class. On White Star liners, where even the 3rd class guests were served food by waiters on tables set with linen, the menu cards doubled as postcards that could be sent home to friends and relatives.

I think back on some pretty amazing experiences I've had and not been able to share until well after the moment. A great example is the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb. The system in place is a well-oiled machine for getting people rigged up, trained up and moved out into the superstructure to begin the ascent. Before you are back down, the digital photographs of your group have been loaded on monitors in the gift shop waiting for you to purchase them...which we did. On a CD, which sat in our bags until we returned home. Then, it sat on our coffee table for weeks.

Since you are not allowed to bring your own camera, these are the only pictures you can get of your experience and I'm sure that loads of people purchase them. How could they be turned into an instant Word of Mouth marketing tool?

What if the operators made the photos available on a kiosk, where you could just email a lower resolution picture to anyone you wanted, BEFORE you left the building. Yes, they might lose a few CD sales, but they would be enabling their customers to tell others in the excitement of the moment.

In this day of social media, they could take it a few steps further. Since most of their tickets are sold online, they could ask for some sharing details BEFORE people arrive and be ready to post photos and video directly to their Facebook, Myspace or Twitter streams DURING the experience.

What about your business? How could you enable people to tell others while the experience is still fresh?

Prosound: On-Hold Messaging for Smart Business Owners

We launched a new client web site last week for ProsoundUSA.com, a company that specializes in improving the phone experience of your customers. Instead of just providing "on-hold messages" and those automated attendant systems that we've all come to hate, ProsoundUSA owner Chester Hull makes it his business to learn about yours BEFORE attempting to tell you what your message should be.

In fact, he takes it one step further and will evaluate how your living, breathing, real-life staff is doing on the phones. His phone evaluation service costs just $149 and if it saves just one sale, would be worth it to most businesses. Followups include not only his message writing and production, but customized phone etiquette training for your staff.

I don't normally gush like this about clients, but Chester is a kindred soul to those of us who believe that building a brand is more than just a cool logo and a funny ad. Chester knows that a brand is built only at that place where the customer's world intersects with the business's world. The phones are often the very first point of contact.

If delivering an outstanding experience to your callers is important to your business, Prosound is your first stop. Take a listen to his on-hold message samples and you'll understand how he's different. And, be sure to subscribe to Chester's on-hold marketing blog, he's got a lot to say about your phones.

About the web site...

Chester hired Wizard of Ads Partner Paul Boomer and I to re-design his old site from the ground up using our Persona-based approach. As Chester will tell you, the effort of putting up a site using this methodology is about 80% under water.

That is, we spent a great deal of time getting to understand Prosound's customers and their motivations...what points of information are important to them and in what order. Only after we understood his business, could we begin to map out pages, sketch out designs and get to the point where most web developers begin their process.

Kinda sounds like the same approach Chester takes, huh?

Here's the "after" shot of Chester's site:

 

And...here's what it looked like before:

Ok...let's roll the credits:

• Persona based web architecture...Dave Young
• Graphic design...Paul Boomer
• Copywriting...Dave Young, Paul Boomer and Chester Hull
• CMS platform...Wordpress MU installation by OM4

Web + Radio = Good Brand Strategy

For a local business, optimizing a web site to compete against your local, regional, national and international competitors can seem a bit daunting, to say the least.

Wouldn't it be great if your most valuable web traffic arrived at your site because they were looking for YOU and not your category? Trust me, it's great.

In your town, your name is your brand. It is built on only two variables:

Your reputation in the marketplace (built up by direct customer experience), and to a far lesser extent the anticipation of that experience that you PROMISED by your advertising. 

Those who think that a brand is built solely on advertising and marketing are fools. In fact, the quickest way to go out of business is to promise a lot and then deliver a lousy experience. Your reputation will tank and your advertising will accelerate this process by getting even more people to try you. All of these people will be happy to tell others how bad you are.

If your advertising does a good job of creating enough interest, people will seek you out when they need or want your product or service. They are no longer doing this in a dead-tree phone book. They are doing it on line. 

A new study released by the Radio Advertising Bureau has confirmed what I've been telling my clients for years; your best prospects will be those who search for you by name.

Simon Redican, managing director at the Radio Advertising Bureau, said: "The internet has become an incredibly important interface for customer marketing but the problem is that it also allows access to all your rival's brands which means the key challenge is to ensure that customers seek out your brand specifically - marketers are increasingly turning to offline media to direct consumers to their brands online."

The radio ads drove on average 34% of the total brand browsing for an average of 10% of the media budget which the research said means the radio spend was on average four times more effective.

Barber said the findings are highly significant for brands where the internet "provides the crucial final stage" of customer buying and radio advertising offers these brands the chance to "turbo charge" the marketing process.

Most of the Search Engine Optimization strategies have you believing that the only way to win is to dominate the keyword phrases of your industry or category. This is amazingly expensive for a small local business. And, the fight is never over because everyone is going after the same phrases.

On the other hand, moving your money out of print and yellow pages and into local radio, coupled with a convincing web site that is easily found on a search for your name offers a more lasting solution in the quest to establish your local brand. 

How does this work out in real life? I just got off the phone with a retail client of mine who has been using this strategy for about 6 years. In his informal check of his competitors, most of their December sales were down as much as 20% over 2008. Anyone who did as well in 2009 as 2008 is very pleased. My client had an 11% increase in his December gross sales along with an 18% gain in gross profit, meaning he didn't give away the store to make the sales numbers.  We are very pleased.

Create a Company Culture...Start Now!

I'm not big on year-end resolutions, big plans and the like. But, I have to share a post from my friend Rich Christiansen.

I've written about Rich before. He wrote "Bootstrap Business" and is an SEO and Adwords expert.

In his latest post on the Bootstrap blog, Rich talks about his relationship with Ray Noorda, founder of Novell. It's a cool story about how one man formed a strong company culture by his own leadership through story, connection and love.

This is a list of qualities that Rich took away from Noorda's funeral...

• Believe and trust in people.
• We all have a responsibility in life. Be faithful to it.
• Customers first, employees second, shareholders third.
• Be unassuming.
• Listen, especially with your heart.
• Practice integrity.
• Be loyal.
• Be true to your own core beliefs, but recognize the need to compromise within parameters that don’t violate those beliefs.
• Respect the individual, not the title.
• Marriage is ordained of God, and is your first priority in life.
• Practice fiscal responsibility.
• Take care of your health.
• Willingly forgive others’ mistakes and shortcomings.
• Retain your dignity, no matter the circumstances.
• Give something back.

Be sure to go read the entire story on the Bootstrap Business Blog.

Have a Happy New Year!

For REI, Felt Need = Shared Experience

One of the toughest challenges in creating an ad is uncovering the "felt need" of the customer. In other words, what is it that the customer is really looking for?

When we recall an adventure, the story is always about the hardship we endured, the humor along the way, the connections we made. It's always about the journey, seldom the arrival.

Outdoor giant REI's first venture into television, shows that their agency understands this concept. If you are into the outdoors, you're no doubt already aware of REI. The ads serve to make you feel good about them, and they connect that "felt need" with the company that can equip you to comfortably endure your adventure.

Branding is becoming the company people think of first and feel best about when the need for your product or service arises in the mind of the consumer.

See more at REI's Youtube channel.

Is Your Store Smiling?

As a postscript to Monday's post on Sniffing for Market Share, it occurred to me that one more thing you could do when you evaluate the look (sight) of your business is to watch for smiles.

That's right...smiles.

Rolex has always required dealers to display their watches with the hands showing 10:10 because it looks like a smiling face.

The current TV ad for American Express drives it home as well. The first half of the ad is a bunch of everyday shots that we interpret as unhappy faces. The second half is full of smiles.

Can you make your storefront smile? Are any of you competitors smiling brighter than you?

Want to see more? Check out the Faces in Places Facebook page, this search on Flickr, or just do your own search.

Evaluating the Two Signs for Business

Right in the middle of a 2-part series on the importance of your signage, I managed to bring my blog crashing down. Sorry for the technical difficulties. Let's recap.

So, having looked at a Bad Sign for Business and a Good Sign for Business, have you taken action?

Have you at least looked at your business from the outside in? Make sure you ask someone else to give you their opinion. Be sure to ask for brutal honesty.

What did you find that you could improve TODAY in YOUR business? (anyone? anyone? Bueller?)

Good Signs for Business

NOTE: This is basically the EXACT SAME STORY that I published yesterday. The only significant difference is the sign in the photo. Yet, it makes all the difference in the world!

The Personal Experience Factor (big lever #2 in the Advertising Performance Equation) begins before your customer walks through your door.

It actually begins the moment your store comes into view from whatever distance it can first be seen. In some cases, this can be miles away. For example, the local Cabela's store in my town has their colors and logo on a big water tower that can be seen from about 10 miles away. 

For most businesses, this will be a block or two at most. In a mall, unless you have some outside signage, it will be walking distance and line-of-sight. 

So, what's the first mental image (FMI) of your signage? Does it set the stage for the experience you plan to deliver once a customer crosses your threshold? Is it sending some unintended messages?

I snapped this picture on a recent trip to Canada. Let's talk about it. 

(click the picture for a full-size pop-up view)

This business is located in a mall on the edge of town. It's down at the end of the mall where they put all the medical businesses. 

Please note: The answers to the following questions are purely subjective. We know that it is wrong to judge a book by its cover. Yet, we proceed to do it. I don't know the owner of this store. Perhaps we can help give the owner an outsider's perspective of the message being sent to customers.

What do you think? What do you expect when you walk through the door? What will the experience be like? Given the workmanship of the sign, what can you expect from the rest of the shop? From the staff? What will the attitude of the owner be? How will you feel about yourself if you purchase here? Will you tell your friends that you purchased here? 

Bad Signs for Business

The Personal Experience Factor (big lever #2 in the Advertising Performance Equation) begins before your customer walks through your door.

It actually begins the moment your store comes into view from whatever distance it can first be seen. In some cases, this can be miles away. For example, the local Cabela's store in my town has their colors and logo on a big water tower that can be seen from about 10 miles away. 

For most businesses, this will be a block or two at most. In a mall, unless you have some outside signage, it will be walking distance and line-of-sight. 

So, what's the first mental image (FMI) of your signage? Does it set the stage for the experience you plan to deliver once a customer crosses your threshold? Is it sending some unintended messages?

I snapped this picture on a recent trip to Canada. Let's talk about it. 

(click the picture for a full-size pop-up view)

This business is located on a very busy feeder street 1 block from downtown. There is a sidewalk, but no appreciable setback from the street. 

Please note: The answers to the following questions are purely subjective. We know that it is wrong to judge a book by its cover. Yet, we proceed to do it. I don't know the owner of this store. Perhaps we can help give the owner an outsider's perspective of the message being sent to customers.

What do you think? What do you expect when you walk through the door? What will the experience be like? Given the workmanship of the sign, what can you expect from the rest of the shop? From the staff? What will the attitude of the owner be? How will you feel about yourself if you purchase here? Will you tell your friends that you purchased here?