May 21

4 Ways to Strengthen Your Outdoor Digital Brand

The brand is the entire experience that a person has with your business’ purpose.

Most brands start with their product/service and sell based on their features and benefits—which is important—but in doing so, leaves them only to compete on the product’s understanding, not its why.

“Brands have become the global currency of success.”
– Brand Atlas

At each touch point, your brand must be integrated for maximum efficiency that drives your prospect to your goals that simultaneously solves their needs and wants along the way.

If you’re interested in building a strong brand rather than just a product-based company, here are four points to keep in mind when thinking through how to strengthen your brand in 2018.

1. Map your brand’s touchpoints

When thinking about what a brand is, you need to understand that it’s not just 2-3 pieces like your website, logo or catalog—but all the pieces. It’s your dealer sheet, the way your product feels, your customer service, your influencers, content, email signature, Facebook and Instagram page—everything.

Here is a simple representation of what brand looks like:

Each touchpoint is an opportunity to increase awareness and build loyalty.

2. Align your brand

Ask yourself and your key stakeholders (the people with invested interest) what your brand means and write it down. Then go ask your customers what your brand means to them and then 10 or so of your employees. If they all say the same thing—congrats, you have brand alignment! If they say something different, then you may want to rethink your brand and figure out why there are inconsistencies.

Brand inconsistencies take away from your marketing’s effectiveness and create confusion among your prospects.

Common problems that cause brands to be out of alignment is clarity of the mission, customer service, brand identity and broken promises.

Brand promise – If what you’re promising isn’t being delivered on, then your brand isn’t trustworthy. Today, trust is everything in the age of #fakenews. Make every effort to fix and make good on what your brand promises to its customers.
Brand identity – Does your brand’s look and feel (color, shape, format, type, imagery, texture etc.) accurately convey the it’s key emotional and visual attributes? If not, it may be time for a redesign or invest in lifestyle photography.
Customer-centered – Is your customer service receiving high-marks? Without strong brand alignment between your employer brand and corporate brand you will not be able to deliver customer-centered service.

3. Connect your brand to your customer

How do you connect your brand to your customer? In the past, most brand development processes solely focused on the product and what the marketer wanted the customer to think and feel. Today, every marketing brand strategy should start with the customer first. This can only be done by defining what is called a buyer persona.

Buyer personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers. They are based on real data about customer demographics and online behavior, along with educated speculation about their personal histories, motivations, and concerns.

By defining your buyer persona, you will be able to develop a strong brand foundation to help guide you when you get lost in the day to day activities of marketing and running your business. Keeping regular tabs on what your customer is feeling will help you build brand loyalty more quickly.

The fastest way to connect your brand is to communicate how you solve your customer’s problem. Track these data points through your online forms, Facebook insights, analytics and artificial intelligence programs. It doesn’t hurt to survey your customers every once and while either.

“Solve their problems and be empathetic.”
– Gary Vaynerchuk

4. Brand is built on consistent, helpful service

Are you using Facebook Messenger, Drift or Intercom on your website to answer customer questions? These new tools allow you to communicate in real-time that have become central in providing an excellent customer service experience online. One bad customer experience, late delivery or rude response can tarnish your brand—especially when the person on the receiving end posts what happened on Facebook for the whole world to know.

The hard truth about your customers today is:

They want to help themselves, not call you.
They learn from friends, not salespeople.
They trust your customers, not your marketing.

According to Harvard Business Review: Evidence shows that customers will no longer tolerate the rushed and inconvenient service that has become all too common. And now with voice chat, chatbots and AI hitting the web, customers are more empowered than ever and demand answers to their questions faster than before. For example, 61 percent of participating Baby Boomers say a potential chatbot benefit is “getting an instant response,” while just 51 percent of Millennials say the same. (Source: Convince and Convert) The total chat volume in 2016 nearly tripled that in 2015. Both statistics can back up the conclusion that the demand for live chat has been steadily growing. (Source: Comm100)

Our recent research demonstrates that when customers contact companies for service, they care most about two things:

Is the frontline employee knowledgeable?
And is the problem resolved on the first call or chat?

Yet these factors often aren’t even on customer service manager or business owners’ dashboards. Most service centers continue to measure time on hold, time to respond and minutes per call, as they have for decades. Such metrics encourage agents to hurry through calls—resulting in just the kind of experience customers dislike.

According to HubSpot, The key to growth in 2018 is:

Happy customers who recommend your company to their friends
Successful customers who share their results with the world
Modern customer support that matches how people communicate

More than half of the customers we surveyed across industries say they’ve had a bad service experience, and nearly the same fraction think many of the companies they interact with don’t understand or care about them. On average, 40% of customers who suffer through bad experiences stop doing business with the offending company. (SOURCE: HBR)

In conclusion, to strengthen your brand, you must map every touchpoint, align for consistency, connect with your customers problems by putting them center and focus on delivering helpful, consistent service. Once these touchpoints are built out and set, then you are able to provide a great experience built on the standards of today’s empowered consumer that will reward your company with future sales growth.

Mar 21

Do You Really Need A Firearm Brand Strategy?

By Joshua Claflin Firearms Marketing

Maybe you’ve just come out with some disruptive technology, game-changing accessory or new firearm platform.

Or maybe your business has been around for a while and you’ve realized that to compete in today’s environment, you need to focus more on your messaging and how your company and/or products are understood.

But, do you really need a brand strategy?

The truth is… a brand already exists, even if you’ve never taken the time to develop it.

Your customers, dealers, distributors, employees, and partners already have some kind of feeling, thought or understanding of you or your product—negative or positive.

What is the difference between branding and marketing? Marketing and branding is a two-sided coin. Branding is about feeling and emotion (fonts, colors, imagery, tone etc.). Firearms marketing is about generating activity in the marketplace (advertising, PR, email, trade show etc.).

Below are 10 surprising facts that you may not have considered in regards to your brand development strategy and why it’s important to have one—if you intend to leave your mark on the firearms industry.

1. Make it easier for the customer to buy
Customers make decisions on products they know and trust. If a customer is not familiar with your brand, they are less likely to buy it.

Think of the last time you were in the gun store and you had to pick up some ammo. Hornady—a ammunition category brand leader—was not on the shelf. Do you buy the “I’ve never heard of you” brand of ammo—or forgo the purchase altogether? Most likely, you’ll wait till the next trip or drive across town to another store. Brands help us make buying decisions.

Photo credit: Business Insider

2. Make it easier for the sales team (and dealers) to sell
Having a strong brand reputation in the marketplace will allow your dealers and sales team to close more sales based on brand performance alone. A reputation for service, quality and the ability to solve your customer’s problem will be more likely received and sought after.

3. Brand clarity and delivery spurs employee motivation
Brands give your employees purpose. Having a clear cultural direction, goal and mission based on your brand values will create higher performance and productivity. A strong brand will turn your employees into brand advocates versus people who just show up to collect a paycheck. It will also give you and your stakeholders a clear understanding of your vision, mission and purpose.

4. Increase the value of your company over time
Brands are line items on today’s most valued companies. The Coca-Cola brand alone accounts for 51 percent of the stock market value of the Coca-Cola Company (Source: Brandchannel). The same could be said for Ruger or Smith & Wesson.

By developing a strong firearm brand—especially for companies with/or seeking investors—brand development aids in building a successful exit strategy.

5. Brand definition brings clarity to your business goals and direction
If you have a good product that everyone is excited about, alot of times you just have to stay out of your own way.

A brand strategy will save you from making costly decisions.

A recent example is Vista Outdoors’ Black Hawk product line of silencers. Black Hawk a gear supplier for military and law enforcement agencies—ventured into the silencer market and after just eighteen months pulled out.

Photo credit: Recoil

In May of 2016, when the silencers were first announced, many were musing if this was too far a departure from Blackhawk’s bailiwick. When asked why the line was being dropped, a Vista representative put that musing to rest: “After completing a strategic review of our product lines, we determined that suppressors did not align with our core business. In order to streamline our products more efficiently, we felt it was best to eliminate suppressors from our current line-up.” (Source: Recoil)

Millions of dollars would have been saved if brand managers would have practiced “brand discipline.” Read more on The 5 Rules of Brand Extension.

6. The brand development exercise creates innovation
Most of us are so busy we sometimes just go through the motions in our businesses day after day with the mentality of “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it attitude.” By purposefully sitting down and thinking about your brand, product and business you will give yourself and your team time to create new processes, products, components and other ideas that will drive innovation. This is time well spent and the life blood of successful firearm brands.

7. Saves money on future design and advertising costs
Instead of reinventing the wheel every time that new ad needs to be placed, trade show booth or package redesigned—your brand standards will provide a guideline for consistency that creates visual recall and recognition.

8. A strong brand creates preference which, equals profit
By consistently delivering the same value, service and quality—along with the same visual identifiers—you begin to create preference and repeat customers. This is called “branding.” The goal of brand development is to create preference, branding is to create recall.

Photo credit: Guns.com

9. Attract talented employees
In today’s war for talent—companies are struggling to find talented and skilled workers. Those with strong employer brands coupled with a strong corporate brand will win.

10. Provides the foundation of all your marketing efforts
Without a brand strategy, it will be very difficult to focus your influencer or inbound marketing efforts. The absence of your customer’s buyer personas, key messaging and brand-centric visuals will make any marketing effort less effective.

So, do you need a brand strategy?

Well, if any of the above points appeal to you—I would say yes—brand development is a business necessity for business owners serious about growth and leaving their mark on the firearm industry. Even if competition is non-existent—you eventually will need to develop your brand to pre empt competition as Magpul has done, who by all measures dominates the magazine market.

Photo credit: Magpul

We have in any given category 10-20 of everything (ammo, handguards, holsters, ARs, shotguns etc.). By having a well-defined brand, you will be able to compete at a higher level than your competition, stand head and shoulders above the rest and build a valuable asset for the future.

One last thought to end on: “Brand is the last remaining business currency.”

Photo credit: F4 Defense, Jason Swarr, Straight 8

Mar 21

Daniel Defense: The 3-Legged Stool of an Effective Firearm Brand Journey

By Joshua Claflin Firearms Marketing, Brand Development, Branding

Your firearm brand is built by multiple touch points (advertising, customer service, product experience, etc.) repeated day after day, month after month, year after year to establish a collective understanding of what your brand stands for in the mind of your customers and the broader firearm industry.

According to an NSSF survey: Accuracy, Reliability, and Manufacturer Reputation are the most sought after qualities in a firearm—especially an MSR. How do you build a brand that conjures up these same feelings and opinions?

In this post, I’ll outline the journey your brand must take when looking at building an effective long-term brand strategy by using a three-legged stool analogy and the legendary story of Daniel Defense to help you think clearer about how to move your business forward and how to create a stronger brand reputation that increases your brand’s equity and ultimately your success.

Where to start?
Brand strategy is the business case for change at a brand level. It envisages the future position of a brand in the marketplace, based on the company’s wider business aspirations and its ability to deliver and market brands that align with that desired position. (Source: BSI)

When asking what your desired position is—where do you see your company in 5, 10 or 15 years? Do you want to be known as the brand with the most aesthetically pleasing platform? Or perhaps to be referred to as the lightest firearm? These aspirations must be guided by a strategy to get you to a place in the market that belongs only to you in the mind of your customers. Getting to your desired perception may involve taking several paths. It may be first to target and invest in the government sector to establish a reputation before entering the ups and downs of the consumer market. It may be to build your reputation as an OEM first before creating your consumer branded line of products. Whatever your goal is—it must be linked directly to the problem you’re out to solve coupled with a scalable business model that gives you sustainable growth.

Stool Leg 1: Solve the problem

Photo credit: Daniel Defense

Marty Daniel started in 2001 by creating the Big Hole Upper Receiver—which forever improved the way we mount sighting systems to ARs. This led to several other products like the M4 12.0 hand guard that was a direct replacement for the Army Marksmanship Unit. Marty’s product solved a problem in the industry that gave him the starting point of building the reputable brand Daniel Defense is today. His starting point was recognizing a problem and solving it. (Source: Guns & Ammo)

How to get there.
The purpose of brand strategy, is to identify how far the brand must “travel” perceptually in order to be competitive, the benefits of getting there for the business, the purpose and values that the brand culture will need to adhere to in order to make that journey and the competitive resistance that the brand may encounter getting to that end point. It’s the why and the where. (Source: BSI)

Stool Leg 2: Build respect

What aspects of your story must be created and perfected to get you to your ultimate brand destination? Is it an investment in talent? Is it infrastructure? Is it a reputation among law enforcement or the special operations community? Define how you can link your marketing efforts to strategy, product development, operations, and other areas to create unique value for your customers, so you have a compelling story to tell.

After the success of Marty’s upper, and a follow-up sling mount product—he designed the RIS II Rail System and was awarded a lucrative contract with SOCOM. And then won an additional contract with the UK Ministry of Defense’ which in essence proved his engineering prowess and design capabilities as a serious manufacturer. This created the second leg of his stool: Respect.

How to stay there once you arrive.
Staying on top is sometimes much harder to achieve than getting there. So you must ask: “What’s my next success?” What has your brand planned for next? How will you capitalize on what works? Why will that feel like a natural extension of the relationship that your customers already have with you? Your purpose should provide clear guidelines for future development. (Source: BSI)

Stool Leg 3: Scalability

By thinking of itself as a manufacturer of the world’s finest weapon systems—not just rails or rifles—Daniel Defense has extended its development license considerably. It can literally look for new ways to give people experiences they haven’t had and positions them to be one of the largest manufacturers in the industry.

To scale his business, Marty saw three components to add to the momentum of Daniel Defense: In-house equipment (hammer forge machining) that allowed him to control quality, output, and price. This all lead to increased customer service and his intuition to surround himself with competent staff and employees. Today, Daniel Defense is the epitome of an American success story and one of the most admired brands in the firearm industry.

You can build a brand around the three most coveted value propositions in the firearms industry: accuracy, reliability, and a strong reputation—by thinking critically about the journey it’s going to take to get you to your desired brand position. This path may be somewhat familiar of other firearm brands, but proving your product’s ability to fulfill a niche in the industry, proving that your product is reliable and scalable, you have the three legs to sustain your brand that will stand the test of time and win the hearts and minds of those who depend on what you create.

Feb 10

4 Simple Ways to Differentiate Your Brand’s Voice

By Joshua Claflin Firearms and Hunting

Brand voice is often misunderstood and encompasses a long list of steps to get it right. But it doesn’t have to be so exhaustive if you’re just starting out, or if you’re just looking to narrow the focus of your current brand to achieve greater differentiation in the marketplace.

Brand voice is not what you say in your copy, but how you say it. Just like your logo, imagery, font style, colors, booth design or the guy with the beard in your ad; brand voice helps your brand cut through the clutter and stand out against other competing hunting, firearms and outdoor brands.

This article assumes you’ve taken the time to research and create your buyer personas. If you don’t know what a buyer persona is or what that means, check out this article. In this post, I want to give you four simple steps to help you focus your brand voice.

“The art of marketing is the art of brand building. If you are not a brand you are a commodity. Then price is everything and the low-cost producer is the only winner.”
–Philip Kotler, Professor at the Kellogg School of Management

1. Go back to the beginning.
To figure out your brand voice, you need to go back to the beginning. Why was your company started? What problem does your products solve? What were the founder’s spark and reasons (besides making money) for going all in on their dream to bring your company to where it is today? This story, no matter how boring or exciting it is, creates the foundation for your brand’s voice which is a crucial starting point.

Action Item: Fill in the blank.

My brand’s products solve ________ in the marketplace.
I want my brand to make people feel _______.
I want people to _______ when they come into contact with my brand.
Three words that describe my brand are _______ , _______ , and _______.
I don’t want my brand to be like________.

(Source: Muse)

Your brand can’t be something you’re not. Be true to who you are. There’s no one like you or the people who make up your company’s history and story.

2. Define your values.
You most likely have a grasp on your company culture. (Or if you’re just starting out, what you might like it to be someday.) A company’s values are typically on full display in meetings, Friday night after work and how people act when things go wrong. How do people respond to emails? What are some of the things hanging up around the office? Do the people who work in your office use the same colloquialisms, slang, and buzzwords? By mere observation, you can begin to pull out some of the values you all collectively share by the way you work.

A tone of voice both embodies and expresses the brand’s personality and the set of values. It’s about the people that make up the brand – the things that drive them, their loves and hates, and what they want to share with the world. (Source: Distilled)

Action Item: Reference Duck Dynasty
An excellent example of how to understand brand values is to watch an episode of Duck Dynasty. I chose Duck Commander because it’s a hunting company we all get to have an inside look at. It doesn’t take long to figure out what values Willie, Jase, Martin, Jep, Phil, and Godwin live by—and how those values integrate and define their company’s brand voice.

Photo Credit: New York Times

Action Item:
Think about the values that define your company then boil them down to three to four words. See the examples below:

• Apple: innovate, inspire, dream.
• Duck Commander: faith, family, ducks.
• Red Bull: adventure, try, adrenaline.

3. What does your brand look, act, and sound like?
To start bringing it all together, it’s important to relate your brand voice to real-world archetypes you already know and trust and by adding in your brand’s unique twist. Answer the questions below.

If you could have a celebrity be your spokesperson for your company, who would it be?
If your brand was a car, what car would it be?
If your brand was a band? What would it sound like?

Example:

Our brand is Clint Eastwood, driving down the road in a ‘69 Camero Super Sport listening to AC/DC holding (enter your brand’s product).

By using this example, you can begin to shape your brand’s voice that creates real differentiation in the marketplace. Use this brand voice statement to inform your copywriters and designers to help them in their ideation and the creative direction of your brand.

4. Bring your brand to life in your copy and imagery.
Now that you know your company’s origins, the collective values of your people and have given it some real-world representation, it’s now time to integrate it into your copy and brand standards. Don’t get all hung up on doing this perfect right out of the gate. It will take time to perfect, but with a little practice, your brand’s voice will begin to take shape. It’s also helpful to think and identify other brands who have similar voices.

A word of caution. Always use correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Failure to do so will cause a piece of copy to come across as amateur and untrustworthy. Use a tool like Grammarly to perfect your writing.

Experiment and add in the below elements (if they align with your brand’s voice) after you’ve written a concise piece of copy.

Use (and commit) to humor
Sometimes swear words work (sparingly, of course)
Add in your company’s slang words
Use double negatives
Be bold and opinionated
Add in some creative or big vocabulary words
Bold statements
Descriptive analogies
Use the same words consistently
Use pronouns for style
Break some grammar rules

(Source: Distilled)

As marketers or business owners, it’s easy to get wrapped around the axle on what constitutes brand voice. By looking at your company’s origins, your company culture, and building some example archetypes, you’ll be able to shape your copy that gives it a real personality that connects with your target buyer personas.

Sep 15

5 Ways To Boost Your Hunting or Firearms Brand’s Experience

By Joshua Claflin Firearms and Hunting

With so much economic upheaval and pressure to stand out in today’s hunting, outdoor and firearms marketplace; business owners and marketers have been feeling the pressure to produce greater results.

One overlooked element is how you create better brand experiences for your customers. Brand experience goes beyond the basic function of the product or service and seeks to connect with your customer on an emotional level that makes your brand the preferred choice in your category by adding something extra.

How do top brands create great brand experiences? I took a closer look at a few brands inside and outside the industry and boiled it down to five things that stood out to me on how to go about building a great brand experience—and how you can begin implementing them into your own branding and marketing efforts.

1. Find your “one” thing
Most of the world’s best brands are known for “one” thing. It can be tough (Ford); it could be repeating arms (Winchester); it could be rugged (Marlboro) or status (Rolex)—it may even be duck hunting (Duck Commander). Whatever the case, the best brands are known for “one” thing that puts them head and shoulders above others—and in the process define an entire category. The first step in boosting your brand experience is to know and understand what your “one” thing is. Communicate your one thing over and over again in every piece of marketing until your name is associated with that one word that places your brand on the top shelf of your customers and prospects minds.

2. Rise above function to connect on an emotional level
Once you’ve drilled your prospective buyer with what your one thing is, you then must begin to connect your brand at an emotional level. Zig Zigler said it best; “People don’t buy for logical reasons, they buy for emotional reasons.” Your product or service should mean something more than what it appears to be. Can your brand make your customer feel better about themselves? Can it make them feel different when they put it on? Will it win the admiration of their friends? Take a look at some of the top brands for an example of how they connect at the emotional level:

Coke is Brown Sugar Water > Happiness in a Bottle.
SilencerCo. is a Suppressor > Fight the Noise.
Budweiser is Fermented Barley and Hops > King of Beers.
Matthews is a Bow Manufacturer > Supremely Accurate.

Great brands rise above the functional attributes of their product to connect to their customers emotionally.

3. Take your customers somewhere
Does your brand take your customer somewhere? It doesn’t have to be a physical place, it can be a state-of-mind. For example, when you turn on your truck—how does it make you feel? Do you feel like a bad ass or a grocery getter? How about when you put on your favorite football team’s jersey—do you feel like you’re part of the team? When you sip on a Corona, does it take you to the beach? Great brands take their customers somewhere.

4. Build a cult-like following
There is a company out there called Johnny Cupcakes. Ever heard of it? Neither did I till I was at a marketing conference this summer. Johnny Cupcakes founded by Johnny Earle, named America’s #1 Young Entrepreneur creates custom designed t-shirts that are then sold in a store that looks like a bakery—all over the world. At first glance you’re probably like “what?” But what makes the Johnny Cupcakes brand interesting is its cult-like following. So much so, that people tattoo Johnny’s logo on themselves and stand in line for hours to get his latest designs. Think Apple when they release their new iPhone. When his customers order a shirt from Johnny online and receive it in the mail; it’s better than Christmas. His packaging seeks to create an experience pre-primed by his brand’s irresistible appeal. Not only do they get the t-shirt they ordered, but there’s always something extra. Sometimes they get a sticker, maybe a book, a used candy wrapper or Johnny’s used sock. Sounds silly—but Johnny’s fans love it. What can you add to your customer experience that gives just that little extra touch? Doing so, may help you create a cult-like following that will give back to your business for years to come.

5. Give them a community
Another important aspect of great brand experiences is being a part of what Marketing expert Seth Godin calls a “tribe.” A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader and connected to an idea…. People want connection and growth and something new. I’m a member of the Professional Outdoor Media Association. I’m included in a community of other marketing professionals in the industry—giving me a network and a small sense of belonging. Think of the communities you belong to. How do they make you feel?

It should feel good. Can you do the same for your customers?

All marketing doesn’t have to be tradeshow, print or a TV sponsorship. Marketing can be an app, a community group or some random chachki in your packaging. Look at other ways to stand out from your competitors.

To sum up, to boost your brand’s customer experience, find your “one” thing that makes you different, be something more than just a function, take your customers somewhere and give them a sense of accomplishment and community.

Aug 10

How to Deal with Negative Customer Comments

By Joshua Claflin Firearms and Hunting

“This product sucks, I bought it and within five days it broke. I called the manufacturer and had to sit on hold for 15 minutes to figure out how to get my money back. And when I finally did get them on the line, I had to go through four different service reps to find out it wasn’t under warranty. I will never buy from this company again, and I’m going tell all my friends to stay away.” – John M. from Facebook

Sound familiar?

At some point if you’re a manufacturer and sell products online in the hunting, outdoor and firearms industry, negative feedback is not a matter of if, but when. We work in an industry where reputation is everything. People are highly passionate about the shooting, hunting and the outdoor sports—any negative experience like faulty products, bad customer service or false information will be met with a highly passionate response.

According to a new survey conducted by Dimensional Research, an overwhelming 90 percent of respondents who recalled reading online reviews claimed that positive online reviews influenced buying decisions, while 86 percent said buying decisions were influenced by negative online reviews. (Source: Marketing Land)

In this post, I’ll give you five ways on how to deal with negative customer comments to help you minimize damage to your brand and neutralize an angry customer.

1. Deal with the problem immediately
When a customer is unhappy, whatever the reason, it’s important to act quickly. A negative review or comment on your website or social media page has the potential to be seen by other potential customers. You don’t want the customer’s anger to fester. By acting quickly it shows you care about the customer and providing good customer service.

2. Be polite, apologetic and public
The old saying, “the customer is always right” is applicable here. You have to swallow your pride, be polite and apologetic. If the customer is unreasonable, others will see this on your feed and know you are doing all you can to remedy the situation. For example, if they sharpened their knife with a grinder and want their money back because it was milled to a toothpick, this obviously is not your fault. Be polite and explain to them that your product isn’t supposed to be sharpened in this manner. This makes you look better in the eyes of the people observing. If it gets too heated, take it offline. It’s not worth it to try and win an argument on social media for everyone to see.

3. Make it right, if possible
In all instances, whatever you can—within reason—try to make it right with the customer. If you have to send them a new product or refund their money—expedite their request. You’ll end up saving your brand’s reputation and cut off any negative reaction the angry customer might engage in. Like writing a blog or producing a video about their negative experience, posting a review on Google or filing with the Better Business Bureau. All of these are almost impossible to overcome and will affect your business’ bottom line.

4. Pick your battles
It seems like there are a lot of people who just like to kick up dust and cause trouble. We’ve all observed unwarranted attacks in forums from people who just want to attract attention or make someone else look stupid. If a person attacks your brand or product for no apparent reason, respond as politely and tactfully as possible. Use facts to back up your reply. Most of the time they are only trying to stir up controversy. Before responding, see how big of following they have on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and if others feel the same as they do. Sometimes, you may just have to ignore or delete their comment. Sometimes they may be right.

5. Hire the right people
By employing the right people for your organization you can drastically reduce the number of customer complaints from a customer service standpoint. 62% of B2B and 42% of B2C customers purchased more after a good customer service experience. If you get an angry customer who calls in demanding their money back, it’s going to be very important that the person who takes the call incorporates the above points. We’ve all experienced the grumpy customer service person. Make sure your customer service rep is trained correctly and can resolve the situation quickly. In the same survey, 72% blamed their bad customer service interaction on having to explain their problem to multiple people. (Source: Zendesk)

Working in the hunting, outdoor and firearms industry is highly rewarding work and sometimes not for the lighthearted. By dealing with negative customer feedback quickly, being polite, doing all you can to make it right, picking your battles and hiring the right people, you’ll be able to save and manage your brand’s reputation more effectively when dealing with negative customer comments and reviews.

Jun 27

How to Measure The Value of Your Hunting or Firearms Brand

By Joshua Claflin Firearms and Hunting

Most company’s in the hunting, outdoor and firearms industry today base brand value solely on sales volume, and sometimes even Facebook likes.

According to a recent survey of over 400 (non-industry) marketers, 80% of them believed building brand awareness is “extremely” or “very” important, 76% admitted that they don’t know what percentage of their target market is aware of their brand. And nearly 70% said they weren’t sure how to measure brand awareness. (Source: Survey Monkey).

I believe these numbers are even higher in our industry, because most brands still solely focus marketing spend on traditional methods like print, tradeshow and TV to boost sales that are hard to track and prove ROI.

In the past, figuring out brand value and brand equity, for the most part, were left to the academics and statisticians to figure out. Even today, there are still varying opinions from the experts about how to measure brand value and equity with not a lot of consensus or standardization to the process.

However, with the rise of email and web-based survey tools—hunting, outdoor and firearm companies that have invested in web-based ways to collect customer data, can now evaluate and understand their brand’s value without spending a fortune on complex traditional research. No longer are focus groups, mail-in reply cards, rebates, unsolicited emails and statisticians necessary.

The goal of brand development and branding (two separate disciplines) is to create awareness and preference of your products over your competitors.

“Preference cannot happen unless you know how your customers think and feel about your brand.”

If you’re interested in understanding how you can maximize your brand for increased sales, gain market share or increase customer satisfaction, there are four aspects you need to take into account to figure out your brand’s value to understand how it impacts your bottom line.

To begin, you want to start with non-customers and customers alike. By utilizing a web-based survey system and tapping into your customer database—you can incentivize your customers to take the survey or utilize a non-customer sample to acquire the data you need.

According to the BrandAsset Valuator model, your company’s brand health and future can be determined by collecting consumer insights in these four key areas:

1. Differentiation
How well does your brand stand out from your competition? You can measure this by asking questions about how often your customers come across your brand, if they recognize it and if it stands out from your competition.

Takeaway: When your brand is different, people are curious and want to know why.

Industry Example: By being bold and utilizing a strong visual with a unique brand position and product features, people will naturally be curious about your brand and will want to know more about it. One brand that comes to mind is Patriot Ordnance Factory. POF-USA was the first company to take the gas piston AR to market and has been leading the way with their revolutionary platform innovations ever since. I like their approach to using 18th Century subject matter, and how they intertwine Revolutionary War concepts with present day 2nd amendment rights.

2. Relevance
This area examines aspects of price, convenience, and if the products you produce are of use. You can determine this aspect by asking questions of the likelihood of them to purchase your product or whether they purchased it in the past.

Takeaway: If your product is more relevant than it is different, your brand may no longer be interesting which means you are competing on price and convenience alone. This will help you determine how to change your messaging and perhaps direct product development.

Industry Example: Your hunting product may have extensive distributorship in Cabella’s, Bass Pro or Walmart and other large retailers with high sales volume, but that doesn’t always means you’re the strongest brand customers prefer. Perhaps you’re just the cheapest and most convenient. If you’re the only product on the shelf, that the customer needs, you still may lose out to a competitor with a stronger brand when and if they come along. Don’t settle for second best.

Marketing experts like David Ogilvy believe that there’s more to a company’s success — or failure — than pricing, convenience, or location. Success is defined by brand equity or overall brand power, which is your brand’s value as determined by consumers’ positive or negative attitudes about your brand. (Source: Survey Monkey)

3. Esteem
How well regarded is your brand? Does it hold a high level of superiority and respect in your customers mind? Would they drive across town to purchase it? Are you on top of their list to visit at the upcoming trade show? By being able to answer these questions—you’ll be able to uncover how well respected and needed your product(s) are. This perhaps is one of the most important aspects of brand assessment.

Takeaway: When customers hold your brand in high-esteem, they want to buy it to know why.

Industry Example: When Colorado passed a law that limits ammunition magazine capacity to 15-rounds, Magpul, moved their entire operation out of Colorado—along with $80 million dollars in revenue and 200 employees and some other 400 supply chain jobs (Source: Washington Times). I assume it was a rough time internally for Magpul. But the industry stood next to them and the situation generated a great amount of positive press and a great deal of respect with their customer base.

Photo: Magpul

4. Knowledge
How well do your customers know your brand? Have you told the story correctly that they can tell it back to you? What makes you different and why? Is it positive or negative?

Takeaway: When customers have a knowledge about your brand, especially if it pertains to negative perceptions, they may think they don’t need to learn anything more and will begin to look at your competitors.

Industry Example: Heritage brands tend to suffer most from the knowledge aspect. For generations, your family may have used products or shot the same brand of gun, but one ammo or magazine malfunction or negative customer service experience may cause them to reevaluate their options. Beretta is an ideal example of how a 500 year old company continues to reinvent itself to remain relevant and attract a new generation of customers and brand advocates.

In conclusion, gathering data for data’s sake without implementation is a fool’s errand. Make sure before conducting a survey that evaluates your brand—that it is connected with a clear initiative and goal you can use to spur growth, sales, attract talent, increase workforce efficiency, communications or direct product development.

Once you see how high or low the above 4 factors stack up, you can begin to determine your brand equity based on brand stature and brand strength. This will allow you and your team to create a strategy on how to maintain your brand’s position, or how to improve it.

When customers have a chance to choose between your product or your competitors, and they choose you, that’s good for business.

Nov 20

3 Tips to Growing Your Brand in the Age of Inbound Marketing

By Joshua Claflin Brand Development, Inbound Marketing

The age of inbound marketing is here, and the rules have changed in regards to growing your company’s brand.

With so much content being created at break-neck speed, it’s important for your brand to have a clearly defined position so that your content is relevant, speaks to the right audience and achieves your business goals.

Marketers are shifting their budgets away from “interruption” advertising, and increasing their inbound marketing budgets (Source: HubSpot). Inbound marketing is changing how brands communicate.

Consider these statistics:

86% of people skip television ads. (source: Mashable)
Because 61% of consumers say they feel better about a company that delivers custom content, they are also more likely to buy from that company. (Source: Custom Content Council)
90% of consumers find custom content useful and 78% believe that organizations providing custom content are interested in building good relationships with them. (Source: McMurry/TMG)
4% more leads are generated by inbound than by outbound. (Source: HubSpot)

In the age of inbound marketing, here are 3 tips to help grow your brand.

Tip #1: Establish yourself as a visible expert.

What is a visible expert? A visible expert is someone within an industry who focuses on a particular niche that he/she is known for. Studies have shown that 62% of visible experts accrue brand building benefits for their companies. (Source: Hinge Research Institute) Through specialization, content marketing, speaking engagements and book publications—you can boost your visible expert profile and attract more clients and customers.

Examples of some visible experts include: Darmesh Shah (Inbound Marketing, HubSpot), Karl Rove (Political Consultant, American Crossroads), Gary Vaynerchuck (Social Media, Vayner Media) and Warren Buffet (Investing, Berkshire Hathaway).

By establishing yourself as a recognized visible expert within your industry—you are able to charge higher fees, attract more leads and grow your company faster.

LinkedIn is a highly effective channel to building visible expert status for the purpose of distributing your content and building your company’s brand.

Tip #2: Help. Don’t sell.

By creating relevant and valuable content that answers your customers most burning questions first—you build trust and credibility that earns you their interest, time and attention.

According to Marketo, 93% of B2B buyers begin their buying process using Internet search. By optimizing your blog articles, downloadable ebooks and whitepapers for search engines and social media networks, you pull customers to your brand through your content. 68% of consumers are likely to spend time reading content from a brand they are interested in. (Source: The CMA) By optimizing your content for search engines you have greater opportunities to attract customers, build your brand and promote your content through social media shares and likes that educates your prospects faster and can potentially shorten your sales cycle.

Tip #3: Perfect your messaging.

One of the greatest challenges in marketing is crafting the right messaging. How do you know if your messaging will resonate? Most companies don’t have large marketing budgets to test market. In the age of inbound marketing, you can dial in your brand messaging faster by conducting A/B testing—easier and cheaper—to find out what messages resonate with your target customers. By finding out what title or blog post gets the most traffic and social shares, you can begin to dial in your brand messaging that makes your marketing more effective.

In conclusion, by utilizing the above three tips of establishing yourself as a visible expert, helping—not selling, and utilizing A/B testing to dial in your messaging—you’ll have greater success in growing your brand more efficiently in the age of inbound marketing.

Interested in learning if Inbound Marketing is right for your business? Please contact us for a free inbound marketing assessment.

Sep 30

Do I Really Need A Brand Strategy?

By Joshua Claflin Brand Development

Maybe you’ve just come out with some disruptive technology or game-changing gadget.

Or maybe your business has been around for a while and you’ve realized that to compete in today’s environment, you need to focus more on your reputation or brand.

Do you really need a brand strategy?

Your customers, clients, employees, partners already have some kind of feeling, thought or understanding of you or your product/service—negative or positive.

The truth is… a brand already exists, even if you’ve never taken the time to develop your brand.

Below are 9 surprising facts that you may not have considered in regards to your brand development strategy.

1. Make it easier for the customer to buy 
Customers make decisions on products they know and trust. If a customer is not familiar with your brand, they are less likely to buy it.

 Think of the last time you were in the grocery store and you had to pick up some pickles. Vlasic—the pickle category leader—was not on the shelf. Do you buy the “I’ve never heard of you” brand of pickles—or forgo the pickles altogether? Most likely, you’ll wait till the next grocery trip or go to another store. Brands help us make buying decisions.

2. Make it easier for the sales team to sell
Having a strong brand reputation in the marketplace will allow your sales team to close more sales based on brand performance alone. A reputation for service, quality and the ability to solve your customer’s problem will be more likely received and sought after.

 3. Brand clarity and delivery spurs employee motivation 
Brands give your employees purpose. Having a clear cultural direction, goal and mission based on your brand values will create higher performance and productivity.

 4. Increase the value of your company over time
Brands are line items on today’s most valued companies. The Coca-Cola brand alone accounts for 51 percent of the stock market value of the Coca-Cola Company. (Source: Brandchannel)

5. Brand definition brings clarity to your business goals and direction
Having trouble getting along? The brand development process will get you and your key stakeholders on the same page that will align and foster greater cooperation.

6. The brand development exercise creates innovation 
Most of us are so busy we sometimes just go through the motions in our businesses day after day with the mentality of “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it attitude.” By purposefully sitting down and thinking about your brand and business you will give yourself and your team time to create new processes, products, services and other ideas that will drive innovation. This is time well spent.

7. Saves money on future design and advertising costs
Instead of reinventing the wheel every time that new ad needs to be placed or package redesigned, your brand standards will provide a guideline for consistency that creates visual recall and recognition.

8. A strong brand creates preference which, equals profit 
By consistently delivering the same value, service and quality—along with the same visual identifiers—you begin to create preference and repeat customers. This is called “branding.” The goal of brand development is to create preference.

9. Attract talented employees
In today’s war for talent—companies are struggling to find talented and skilled workers. Those with strong employer brands coupled with a strong corporate brand will win.

10. Provides the foundation of you marketing efforts
Without a brand strategy, it will be very difficult to focus your inbound marketing efforts. The absence of your customer’s buyer personas, key messaging and brand-centric visuals will make any marketing effort less effective.

So, do you need a brand strategy?

Well, if any of the above points appeal to you—I would say yes—brand development can help. Even if competition is non-existent—you eventually will need to develop your brand, if not direct it in some way. We have in any given category 10-20 of everything (toothpaste, cars, shoes, dishwashing soap, law firms, construction companies, healthcare providers etc.) by having a well-defined brand, you will be able to compete at a higher level than your competition and build a valuable asset for the future.

Sep 25

How To Create A Brand Development Interview Guide

By Joshua Claflin Brand Development

To discover what your brand stands for—you must start by asking your customers/clients the right questions.

By asking the wrong questions, you can completely miss the most important insights of how people view and feel about your brand.

As a marketer, you may have been tasked to rebrand your company or improve your brand’s performance. Within the brand development process one of the best ways to understand if your message and reputation is where you want it to be—is to interview your stakeholders and customers or clients.

In this article, I’ll share six points that will help you ask the right questions to accurately identify your customers/client’s perceptions, beliefs, feelings and motives. Your findings will give you a rich insight into how your brand is perceived and will equip you to build a more effective brand.

Brand interviews should consist of the following:

Basic demographic information
Brand experiences
Brand understanding
Frequented marketing channels
Feedback on how to improve the brand’s product or service.

The interview should only last about 30 minutes and consist of 10-15 questions (max). It may be necessary to create three different questionnaires depending on whom you’re interviewing. As an example, customer questions will be different than partner or internal stakeholder questions.

So let’s dig in…

1. Understand your industry’s challenges
To begin forming your questions, begin by looking at your industry. Every industry has some kind of challenge. Identify what those challenges or pain points are. Here are a few examples:

Healthcare — regulation
Medical Device — limited creative
Estate Planning — customer retention
Construction — antiquated processes
Retail — customer interest
Utilities — customer service

To get some background, start by doing some internet research to familiarize yourself with common industry obstacles and category imperatives. Twitter is a great place to start to locate industry news sources. This will give you a good foundation and help you in drafting your initial list of questions.

2. Interview your brand’s key stakeholders
The second step is to benchmark your investigation. Start with your company’s key stakeholders. This may include the CEO, COO, CTO and Sales Director. A lot of times, they will have insight that you may not have known or realized. Make sure to schedule your time via email well in advance. Try to pick a day where they are not too busy. Be aware and prepared to answer any potential skepticism. Their answers will give you a foundation of knowledge to test against.

[box type=”info” size=”large”]Interview Tip: Occasionally, you’ll encounter a cold facade that you’ll have to break through to get to the real truth. Don’t accept just any answer if you feel the answer given is too shallow, rephrase and ask it later on.[/box]

3. Interview your brand’s customers
To begin the customer survey, get buy-in from your stakeholders to conduct the interview and get feedback on the questions you want to ask. The best place to start is with your social media followers as they have already opted in to receive communication from you. Depending on how large of company you are, you may be able to personally email your customers to arrange the interviews.

Don’t rule out those passive-silent customers/clients. Their experiences with your brand are just as important to understand as those following you on social media. Make sure you have a variety of people to draw from. Interview your happiest customers as well as the ones who have constant complaints.

Interview Tip: You will encounter difficulty with scheduling. I suggest asking 2-3 interviewees at a time over the course of 2-3 days. Use a tool like Sidekick to ensure your emails are received.

Interview 15-20 people (or as many as you can as time allows) and make sure to follow the same format throughout. If you are a bigger company, you may want to hire a marketing research firm. Remember, the better the questions, the better your investigation will be.

It may be necessary to send out an online survey through Survey Monkey for larger samples.

Interview Tip: Don’t ask leading questions, focus your questions on getting a specific answer, don’t interrupt and try to transition naturally.

4. Analyze your answers
After you’ve completed each individual interview, write your responses on a whiteboard of what stood out to you and begin to look for potential trends.

5. Create your buyer personas
What is a buyer persona? Buyer personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers. They are based on real data about customer demographics and online behavior, along with educated speculation about their personal histories, motivations, and concerns.

Your brand is not what you say it is, it’s what your customers/clients say it is.

By creating buyer personas, you will be able to focus your brand’s messaging, content and visuals to your customers/clients more effectively.

6. Brand alignment
As your interviews come to conclusion—your brand should begin to rise to the top. You should begin to see differences between what your company says versus what your customers say about your brand.

The interviews will prepare you to conduct an educated and insightful brand discovery session where you will drill more into the internal side and business strategy of the brand. More to come on this later…

In conclusion, to begin the development of your brand, start by conducting industry research online, interview your key stakeholders, interview your customers, analyze your responses for misalignment and look for trends. Create your buyer personas to laser focus your messaging, visual and content.

May 23

Why Your Brand Rolled Out The Back Door And Down The Street – Part 2

By Joshua Claflin Brand Development

In my last post, I talked about 4 things to keep in mind to make the most of your brand development investment when rolling out your new brand to your employees and how to create lasting brand change. I discussed the importance of getting your employees’ buy-in early and introducing the brand correctly.

In this post, I’ll give you 4 things to remember when rolling out the brand externally to your customers. Depending on what kind of company you are, changing your brand can be minimal to very complex.

1. Release brand standards to employees, vendors and partners 
Instruct your branding agency to create brand standards and guidelines. This will contain rules on how to use the new brand’s visual elements for efficiency. Make sure to publish and deliver the guidelines to all brand ambassadors in the company—especially the sales and marketing folks. Make the brand standards accessible via a password protected website or a downloadable document. Announce the brand standards by email and who to contact for brand approvals.

2. Make it all about your customers
Unlike your employees who will typically push back on the new branding, your customers will typically welcome the change. Once again, make the external rollout all about them. Communicate why the change was made. Utilize social media, email and other channels to reach your customers. Invite your customers to visit the new website. Careful planning must be made so that there is no disconnect. If your brand includes product packaging, make sure to communicate the old and the new so no brand equity is lost in the transition.

3. Pick the right media mix
Larger companies will conduct million dollar multi-media campaigns to announce their new brands. They may hold special events or create a Q&A hotline. Create targeted messaging and repeat it over and over again for at least 9 to 14 months.

UPS Brand When UPS rebranded in 2007, their television ads showed their old logo changing from the drab 2-dimensional package icon to the more stylized 3-dimensional shield icon for at least a year. Their trucks seemed to be changed over the same amount of time. But who could forget their brilliant whiteboard commercials? They coupled their new branding with a new ad campaign communicating the company’s new positioning and tagline – What can brown do for you? (Which was later changed to We love logistics.)

For small to medium sizes companies—a typical press release will suffice that corresponds with the launch of your new website, email announcement. You may want to consider a soft launch of your website to work out any bugs before announcing it to the masses.

4. Pick the right time
Be sure to schedule plenty of time to conduct all the necessary activities. Think through the rollout by starting with the end in mind. What is the goal, who needs to know, how will they find out and where? Look at this as you would an advertising campaign, because that’s exactly what it is. Pick the right time to introduce your brand, either at a planned customer event or trade show. Time it to maximize your message and marketing dollars.

In conclusion, next to your people, your brand is your most valuable asset. Create and deliver the brand standards and guidelines, make the new brand all about your customers, pick the right media mix and time it with an upcoming customer event for maximum benefit.

For more information on how we can help you create real brand change within your organization, contact our agency for a complimentary brand assessment.

May 17

Why Your Brand Rolled Out The Back Door And Down The Street – Part 1

By Joshua Claflin Brand Development, Branding, Business

Completing the brand development process is a major milestone in any company’s history. After months of work it becomes time to introduce and roll it out to your employees and then your customers and the public in general. However after the party is over and the smoke has cleared, the brand is usually forgotten and your people return to status quo and it’s business as usual. Why?

In the first of two posts, here are 4 things to keep in mind to make the most of your brand development investment when rolling out your new brand internally and creating real brand change.

1. Get employee buy-in early
To make your brand rollout successful, get your employees involved early in the process. Identify the people in your company who are the centers of influence. Create a team of brand ambassadors. By getting your employees feedback and input—you will give them ownership of the new brand. Their feedback will provide the framework and direction of the changes that need to be made. When they see that the changes they suggested have been incorporated, they will be more likely to embrace the new brand. They will also act as advocates and defenders of the new brand when and if water cooler discussions turn negative about the coming changes.

2. Introduce the brand correctly
Also begin thinking about the brand rollout event early in the process. It can sometimes take months of planning depending on your budget. Each company is different, but you typically want to start by creating some buzz. Try to think of ways to get your employees excited about the new brand. Communicate some of the key benefits and changes coming and how they contributed to the new direction. Make the brand rollout party all about them. This will be your first chance to introduce the new brand and you’ll want to take some time to really think through how to best present it.

3. Leadership does the honors
The new brand should be introduced by the CEO or president. The brand development process is a top-down initiative and you’ll want to utilize the C-Suite’s influence. Take the steps needed to educate your employees on what a brand is and why it is important. After a little branding 101, go through the main communication points of the brand. Especially communicate what has changed and what will stay the same. Remember to communicate the purpose and the “why” behind the “what”. Seek to inspire through purpose.

4. Create “the change” through your employees 
Lets face it, change is hard. Most companies—after the brand is rolled out—return to status quo. To create real brand change, new standards must be communicated and implemented within your workforce. To move the culture, changes must be made at the people level. So for example, you may want to consider the following:

Through natural attrition, begin to replace the employees who leave with people who adhere and align with the brand’s new values.
Use assessments to accurately determine the “jobfit” and “brandfit” of each candidate.
Invest in employer branding to attract top talent.
Train tenured employees to adapt to the changes being made.
Pay employees to leave who are not adopting the change (See Zappos and Amazon examples)

The company with the best people wins. To create real brand change and to make the most of your brand development investment—start with your people early in the process and continue to build a culture based on your customers. Anything else is just pretty words and pictures.

In my next post, I’ll talk about the external rollout process.

For more information on how we can help you create real brand change within your organization, contact our agency for a complimentary brand assessment.

May 06

How To Write An Awesome Tagline

By Joshua Claflin Brand Development

Coming up with a tagline for your business can be a little difficult—but it isn’t as hard as you might think. A good tagline can influence customer behavior and give them an understanding of what your product, service or brand is about. Here are a couple ones you might recognize:

Just Do It.
Think Different.
The Ultimate Driving Machine.
Like No Other Place On Earth.
We Bring Good Things To Life.

Taglines influence consumers’ behavior by evoking an emotional response. A tagline is a short phrase that captures a company’s brand essence, personality, and positioning, and distinguishes the company from its competitors. (Source: Defining Brand Identity)

In this post, we are going to write a tagline for a fictitious pen company called Penly. We’ll go through 6 steps using Penly as an example that you can then use to craft your own tagline.

1. What makes your product or service unique?
To start, you first need to understand what makes your product or service unique. Does it contain some kind of unique material? Does it have some kind of competitive advantage? Is it shaped differently? Does it take a different approach than your competitors? Write down 1-3 things that makes your product or service unique.

For our pen company, it is 1. design, 2. ink color and, 3. balance. Our pen is slightly heavier in the middle so that it is perfectly balanced. Our pen slows the writer down that helps them to write better and clearer. Studies have shown penmanship is affected because people write too fast. Yet, it’s not too heavy to cramp the users’ wrist after long periods of note taking.

2. Write down 1-3 value propositions
A value proposition is a promise of value you intend to deliver or provide to your customer. It is the value or benefit they will receive from using your product or service.

For our pen, our value propositions are: 1. smoother writing, 2. classy design and, 3. darker more prestige looking inks.

3. Position your product or service
Positioning is a brand’s attempt to occupy a market niche, idea or a distinct impression in your customer’s mind. Positioning is one the most critical elements in the brand strategy development process.

It starts by understanding points 1 and 2 and your competitor’s positioning—because two competitors cannot occupy the same position. In our pen example, there are three main competitors in the category. Go Pen positions themselves as an everyday “get-the-job-done” kinda pen. They’ve been in the pen making business since the 1940s and hold most of the market share. Our second competitor, Big Pen positions their pens as the “industrial pen”—and is pitched towards the working man. It’s got a thicker grip and is used with metal casing to show its ruggedness. The third pen company—Lil’Pen positions their pens as a cheap, buy-in-bulk pen. Nothing fancy about Lil’Pen —a pen is a pen.

As a marketer or business owner you want to try to figure out where the “whitespace” is within your market and how to provide a better product to an audience who has a need. What niche or space are you going occupy? What makes your product different and viable? Typically, you’ll want to conduct some customer research, look at industry trends, conduct some test marketing and other activities to determine where the logical place is to position your pen.

After conducting our own research, we’ve found that there is a segment of the pen market that is vastly underserved. That segment is the professional segment: ages 35-50, male or female, typically college grads, holds an executive position or has a professional degree like an C.P.A., M.B.A., M.D., J.D. etc. and who tend to write a lot. For the most part it seems this segment may benefit from our pen’s unique characteristics.

We will define our positioning statement next, but first we need to take a look at our buyer persona and what makes our pen the “only”.

4. Define your buyer persona
Next, you must understand your customer—or buyer persona. You must know how to best talk to your customers and where best to reach them. You must seek to address their pain points and solve their problems. You must find a way to appeal to their aspirations, character qualities and understand what motivates them. For our pen, it’s about giving them a fine writing tool that makes them more productive, take better notes and feel a bit smarter when they are holding our pen. It may even lend them some status when they lay their pen down at the meeting table.

5. Define your only.
According to Marty Neumeier, the author of Zag, an onliness statement is something that no one else can say about you. Using our pen as an example, our onliness statement looks like this:

Penly is the only pen company that helps professionals take better notes, be more productive and write smarter.

Notice our onliness statement contains who our customer is, what the product is and how it is different in the marketplace. You can replace the words that are highlighted and add in your own company name, customer and value propositions.

6. Distill your tagline from your onliness statement
Now, we must cut the onliness statement down to its bare essence. Using some of the words above, try to distill the overarching theme into a few words. Play around and try to come up with something that is smooth, a bit clever and catchy. So for example:

Penly, The Professionals Pen
Penly, Better Notes
Penly, Write Smarter
Penly, Write Better
Penly, Now You’re Writing

Attach your tagline with your name to see it and hear how it sounds.

Those are a few off the cuff…but for this example, I think we’ll go with Write Smarter. It captures the essence of our pen, tells something about what our pen does and how it helps our buyer persona and how we want them to feel when they use our pen.

So you see, coming up with a tagline isn’t all that difficult—right? You just need to take the necessary steps to think through it by boiling down your product or service to its essence. By identifying what makes your product or service unique, what value it delivers to your customers, what position it holds in their mind, who your buyer persona is, what your only is, you can distill your message down to a simple mantra that connects your product to your customer succinctly and clearly that creates value.

Struggling to connect your brand to your customers or looking for a unique tagline?

Apr 16

The 7 Factors For Rebranding

By Joshua Claflin Brand Development

There are many factors to consider when evaluating the decision to rebrand your company. Typically you’re gripped with a sense of bewilderment as the word ‘rebrand’ typically means ‘change.’ This is always difficult, especially when you’re the one responsible for the success and longevity of your company.

Faced with undulating marketplace circumstances—a rebrand may be the only viable option you have to remain competitive. The entrance of new competitors, commoditization, internal changes and changing customer attitudes may have weakened your company’s ability to accurately articulate your unique value proposition. Perhaps you’ve been knocked off by faster, more agile competitors with more aggressive marketing tactics than your own or you let things get away on you by not keeping up to date on massive disruption that is taking place across various industries.

Whatever the case, re-branding can be a good thing. It signifies a stage in your business’ maturity and growth. It is an opportunity to more closely examine your mission, purpose and the betterment of your company.

Brand development can be a catalyst for innovation—an opportunity to develop your current processes. It can bring clarity and alignment to you and your stakeholders and spur employee motivation. In the end this tunes up your company’s internal engine where the end result is customer satisfaction and increased profitability.

To help you understand the main reasons most business owners choose to rebrand, we’ve listed 7 factors that will help you determine if now is the time to consider a rebrand.
 

Famous Corporate Rebrands

1. Name change
 Our name no longer fits who we are.

Naming is a long and difficult process. Most viable domain names have been taken or are listed as premium listings because of their necessity and acclaim. Be prepared to pay for a high-quality name or be prepared to make one up. Start at Name.com to check out the availability of your domain. Work with a branding agency to help you come up with a meaningful, memorable and viable choice. Your name is the most important branding element of your business. A recent example is when Anderson Consulting became Accenture. Anderson Consulting changed their name due to global market expansion. “On January 1, 2001 Andersen Consulting adopted its current name, “Accenture”. The word “Accenture” is supposedly derived from “Accent on the future”. The name “Accenture” was submitted by Kim Petersen, a Danish employee from the company’s Oslo, Norway office, as a result of an internal competition. Accenture felt that the name should represent its will to be a global consulting leader and high performer, and also intended that the name should not be offensive in any country in which Accenture operates. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

2. Revitalize a brand
 Our identity does not represent us any longer.

Due to the natural development, evolution and innovation of your products and services new vertical markets and channels will emerge that prove profitable changing the course of your company. You may have received feedback from your customers or have seen a decline in web traffic. Perhaps you were a packaged product company that has now evolved into a virtual product. The move to the virtual environment will need to communicate a different message then one sold in a brick-n-mortar. When in doubt, interview and survey your customers to understand if your brand is still connecting to deliver value.

3. Revitalize a brand identity
Our identity is outdated.

Brand identity is a mixture of the visual representation of the product and service you provide and about how that product/service relates to, characterizes and represents your customers. Have your customers changed? Once again when in doubt, interview and survey your customers to understand if the brand is still connecting to deliver value. Does it need a new look or a whole new service offering. In a recent example, Walgreens completely changed its course to remain relevant and to remain true to its brand values by completely eliminating tobacco from their stores and redesigning the customer experience and adding clinics due to the sweeping health care law.

Logo swooshes gone wild

4. Create an integrated system
Our visual materials do not look the same.

Over the years as marketing managers and designers have come and gone, they’ve left their own interpretations of your company’s brand on your materials. If standards were not put in place at the initial development of your brand—chances are your materials look inconsistent, scattered and unfocused.

BRANDING TIP: Still using swooshes and drop shadows? These were hot design trends in the late nineties and early 2000’s. Today, flat design is ‘in’ lead by top global brands like Apple, Windows and Google.

5. When companies merge
We need a new brand to represent the new company.

Perhaps the #1 reason to rebrand is when two companies merge. Think Disney and Pixar. Sirius and XM Radio. Exxon and Mobil. When two cultures collide, key staff members are let go, leadership styles and philosophies change, everything is turned upside down and inside out. This especially takes a mental toll on your employees. Not knowing what is happening in the C-Suite, guesses, estimations and imaginations run wild that result in anxiousness, worry and loss productivity. Communication is key in this time of transition. The brand development process will help you align and get your new team on the same page quicker.

6. When internal teams lack clarity
 Our employees lack direction, engagement and purpose.

One of the most important outcomes of the brand strategy process is employee clarity and understanding of the company’s mission and purpose. The brand development process will allow you to re-discover the purpose of your brand—the why behind the what—providing direction, increasing employee engagement and purpose.

7. Attract Talent 
We are not hiring the right people.

A strong corporate brand is helpful to attracting talent. However an employer brand must also be taken into consideration when rebranding. You must also define the values of your culture and why someone would want to work for you. This can only be fostered by the corporate brand’s values and how they relate to your customers. The key to delighting your customers is to delight your employees. Outside of the normal perks, you must also communicate the purpose through your employer branding to attract the right talent.

BRANDING TIP: Delight your employees and you will delight your customers.

In conclusion, when faced with the possibility of a rebrand, always start with your customers and employees. Their responses to your inquiries will give you the understanding you need to intelligently make the decision to rebrand. If your name needs changing, your brand image is outdated, your materials are scattered, you’ve merged with another company, your internal teams are off center or you are not attracting the necessary talent to meet customer demand, it may be time to rebrand.

Interested in learning more about rebranding and brand development process? Our proprietary brand development approach—Brand+People™ —believes your people are the key differentiator in a marketplace full of identical competitors. We focus on brand alignment through employee engagement, customer experience and brand perception to create authentic human connections for business growth and success. As a seamless extension of your marketing and sales team, we blend branding, inbound marketing and creative design (professional web design, brochure design, logo design, infographics, package design and advertising) to maximize your business goals. Contact us today to learn more.

Jan 18

5 Myths of Brand Development Debunked

By Joshua Claflin Brand Development

Push back to adopt brand development from the business owner can sometimes be very frustrating. You’re under fire to deliver quality leads to sales — recent tactics of PR, Ads and SEO just aren’t working. You struggle to find true marketplace differentiation but you are not sure exactly what that is. Your messaging is all over the place and the boss wants results.

Don’t give up! We’ve put together a few things to help you look more seriously at why it’s more important than ever to take the time to develop your brand and to help you start coming up with a pitch to turn things around.

In today’s economy, we have 10 to 20 of everything. People begin their purchases by going to the internet or by asking their friends. They block out nearly all advertising. 70% of the purchase decision is over before a customer even contacts a sales person or purchases something from you. Today, brands must go above and beyond to prove trust and authenticity to their customers. One bad experience — and it’s all over Facebook. Below are 5 myths debunked to help you answer your critics on the need to engage in brand development.

1. Your brand is your logo
Myth. Your logo is just one piece of your brand. Your brand consists of many things: what a customer thinks, feels, tastes, experiences, hears and sees, the good, bad and the ugly about your brand. A fresh, clean and clever logo is very important as it’s usually the first thing customers’ experience.

2. Brand development is expensive
Not a myth. It’s funny how many companies try to do brand development on their own because they’ve gone down the road of trying to hire a branding agency and have gotten back an estimate that curls their toes. But when trying to conduct it themselves they end up screwing up their brand further and spending more money than they would if they would’ve just hired the branding agency. The brand development process takes a lot of work and is priced accordingly. Many hours are spent on research, competitive analysis, communication audits, customer interviews and plenty of time thinking and thinking and thinking. Brand Development is an exhaustive process. To develop a successful brand, you must have a professional brand strategist to provide fresh perspective, insight and direction.

3. Brand development does not need input from your employees
Not a myth. An employee by definition is: a person working for another person or a business firm for pay. True, but in today’s economy, an employee is more like your brand ambassador. He or she may know more than you (Marketing Director or Owner) about your customer. Ask them questions about what customers think about your brand and nine times out of ten you’ll get ten different answers. Your employees are the people who are typically face to face with the customer every day. If they are not accurately communicating the brand values, then your brand is not working to its full potential.

4. Your brand is not your product
Myth. Your brand is your product! People buy what your brand offers them not what you sell them. Take Apple for example; they sell computers, but what they really sell is ideas and the ability to create and think differently. See this video by Simon Sinek for a further understanding.

5. The process is over at rollout
Myth. We have seen so many companies develop brands, throw a big roll out party for their employees, give them a t-shirt and a mouse pad with a new mission statement and within a month, nothing from a cultural standpoint has changed and customer satisfaction surveys remain stagnant. Why? Because the brand development process doesn’t end at rollout, it begins! Companies must shift their focus to the employer brand to begin drilling into the culture through their recruitment and talent management practices. Every new employee hired, must be what the brand personifies otherwise your brand development process is nothing more than a creative exercise — it must be implemented properly or all that hard work I mentioned above will be nothing in 6 months.

Companies and startups need to invest in brand development to help them understand who they are, how they can better the marketplace and how they are going to attract the talent necessary to grow and remain sustainable.

If you are looking for help in defining who you are, what makes you unique in a cluttered marketplace and how to build a foundation of sustainability, culture and best hiring practices for your brand. Contact us today!

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