BrandToTheBone_BIZPDA

8/14/2019 BrandToTheBone_BIZPDA

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Brand to the Bone Page 2

The Big Idea

A successful marketing consultant and branding specialist shares his expertiseand experience on ways to develop and grow a small business into a big brand.This is a must read book for those who want their products or services tobecome the brand leader in their category. The author gives easy-to-do pointersthat serve as keys to improving the companys bottom line, thus creating brandequity and incremental shareholder value in the long term.

Embracing the philosophy that customer is the heart of any business, the authortalks about building relationship and partnership with customers for a lifetime byapplying his own version of CRM (Customers Really Matter), and in the process,experience tremendous and lasting growth.

How do you want to grow your sales from a $2.5M to $30M? This is notfiction, this is a real story! Ask Durasol Awning, a retractableawningmanufacturer, and they will tell you that marketing and branding are significantreasons for its growth and success. It is really about developing a brand and abrand name, and a point of difference to set the brand apart that counts. Thereare so many brands in the market, how will your brand be noticed if you are in ame too category?

What is Branding?

Defining branding is like defining love. One can define it in his mind, but it maynot match other peoples idea of what it is. Branding may mean different thingsto different people. Branding should be done with a passion. There are no otherrules.

What does brand to the bone mean?It means that your brand is not just the logo at the top of your letterhead or yourpackaging. It is much deeper than that. Its what your product stands for and thefeeling it imparts to everyone who touches the product. Your brand identityshould go all the way through everything that your company touches, everyperson who works in the company, and right on down to the consumer and your

suppliers. Everyone who works with you, and everyone they talk to, they allrepresent the brand - they are the brand!

Why should you want to build your brand?The most relevant reason is the positive effect on the companys bottom line,thus increasing the shareholder value. The second important thing is the valueof brand equity. In the U.K., brand equity is looked in a much favorable light thanin the U.S. Companies in the U.K. have even gone to include brand equity as an

www.bizsum.com 2001 - 2003 Copyright BusinessSummaries.com


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asset on their books. In the U.S., the brand equity in the form of goodwill isaddressed only when the company is being sold.

A strong brand can protect a business against competitive attacks, marketfluctuations, and price wars. A brand leader has an edge over its competition in

terms of premium price positioning.

Do you have Brand Commitment Statement?Brand commitment statement is just putting into words what you want your brandto mean to your company, the people in it, and the people who buy yourproducts. Everyone in the organization should know what the company standsfor. It is very important that everyone gets involved in the process of developingthe winning statement.

Having the right people in the organization is very important in bringing the brandmessage across consistently. Make sure that you hire talented people who will

enhance and grow your company.

The Branding Wheel Concept

Sspassion

Brand

Share of Mind

Promise

Share of Wallet

passion people

placement

productpromotion

Expectation



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Brand to the Bone Page 59. Conduct research to ensure that the creative approach achieves the

image with the target audience.10. Develop a marketing plan that will achieve the brand objectives. Start with

the idea. Get to know the product. Craft a Vision Statement. Look aroundand see who else is offering the product or service, do competitive

analysis. Talk to as many people as you can consumers, retailers,analysts, and manufacturers listen to what they say. Develop a BusinessStrategy. Determine the real size of the market by doing Market Analysis.

Outline of a Business Plana. What is the business conceptb. Assumptions used in business planc. Objective of the businessd. Organizational objectivese. Outline the current condition: Market size and growth

projections.

f. Target marketg. Product or service strategyh. Operationsi. Resources required to provide the product or service

j. Promotions strategyk. Partnership strategyl. Sales strategym. Retail: when do you expect to be in retail? How many accounts?

How many counters? Pricing and margins? Retail developmentstrategy?

n. Cost of sales assumptionso. Financials: profit and loss, balance sheet, monthly sales

forecast, monthly retail account build, expenses

11. Decide on outside sources for advertising, promotion, public relations,packaging, product design, direct agencies then make sure they are allteam players, clearly understanding that the brand must be the star!

12. Create the advertising, communication, and promotional plans for all of thelinks in the sales chain.

13. Create a look that will be consistent across all communications and last alifetime.

14. Produce all of the materials, including packaging, advertising, promotions,public relations, direct mail, and the rest, to support the individualcommunication plans.

15. Get support from all the people who touch your brand your sales andinternal personnel as well as your customers.

16. Develop a customer-centric organization. The customers are the singlemost important part of your company, and everyone has to get on boardthe customer first concept.



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Identifying Your Target Audience

How well do you know your customers? Do you really know who they are?

There is a need to do research to find out who the best business prospects foryour brand are and how you can reach them.

In most industries, there are accepted demographics of the target audience, andpromotions are designed based on these information. But, now-a-days, youshould do something deeper than this. You have to know who the individualcustomer is, and certainly what their traits are.

Start by looking at the biggest group of potential customers and analyze theprofile of each customer. Get down to the LCD (lowest commondenominator): the individual customer.

Do market segmentation. This process is used to sort who the target audiencemight be. It helps to identify the target audience down to a segment of one theindividual. Take Amazon.com, who aims to identify every single visitor.

How to improve performance of the brand?

Think like a customer. Always put yourself in the consumers situation. Its notwhat you want, but what the customers want that matters. This philosophy willsurely help in making your advertising and marketing efforts work marvels foryou.

Talk to consumers in small groups if possible, on a one-on-one basis.This will give you more and better information as to the things that drive acustomer to choose and purchase your brand.

Remember to put every bit of research available into use . Talking tocustomers and listening to them helps substantially in developing marketingplans that will impact the customers and consequently increase business withthem.

How do you know if your brand is on track?

Questions to ask yourself to evaluate if your brand is on track; answer on a scaleof 1 to 10. Keep your answers, then revisit the same test 6 months from now andcompare the answers to assess whether there is improvement.

1. Can you describe your brand in a few words?2. How many in your potential target audience have any awareness of yourproduct category and your brand specifically?



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Brand to the Bone Page 73. When consumers shop the category, is your brand the brand purchased mostoften?4. Are your brands claims defensible, or can they be challenged?5. Can your customers easily identify your brand from the competition in yourmarketplace?

6. Will customers pay what you think your product is worth? Will they pay apremium price for your brand?7. Is your brand timeless? Are there claims or time-specific elements in yourbrand name that could affect the longevity?8. Does the brand really deliver the benefits your customers are looking for?9. Is your product or service relevant in todays marketplace; is the category in agrowth or declining phase?10. Are you communicating your brands image with consistent and multiplequality impressions?11. Does your brand have a better position (e.g., premium) in consumers mindsthan your competitors brands do?

12. Is your brand delivering a consistent image across all communications?13. Are you making sure that the brand is being featured in all of the media thatis effective in reaching your target audience?14. How well do you know who your customers are? Do you know what they likeand dont like? Do you know what they look like and what motivates them?15. Do you audit your marketing programs to ensure their efficiency?

Grow your brand sensibly!Visual medium is not the only way to understand about brand, there are 4 othersenses to maximize touch, sound, taste, and smell.

16 Branding Musts1. The brand identity is how you would like the brand to be perceived, but

only the customers image of your brand is real, and thats the only onethat counts.

2. Keep your brand focused; dont try to be all things to all people.3. Shoemaker, stick to your last.4. Dollar-cost average your brand.5. When youre starting out, think street smart.6. When you have a big ad budget, follow the advice in #5.7. Write a set of brand guidelines.

8. Appoint a guardian of the brand.9. Make your logo easy to read.10. Stick with your advertising. Youll get tired of it before 10% of your

customers have seen it.11. Make a claim you can own.12. If you are #1, then say so!13. Sell quality.14. Use borrowed equity wisely.



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Brand to the Bone Page 815. Monitor your brand.16. Spend an inordinate amount of time with your customers.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

CUSTOMERS REALLY MATTER

CRM is about building relationship and partnership with customers to keep themfor life through a transfer of trust between the customer and the supplier.

The 4 Ps of CRM1. Planning. It is a must to know where you want to go, so develop short and

long term plans.2. People. CRM requires teamwork, thus, everyone in the organization shouldbe involved and committed to making it work.3. Process. Take time and effort to identify your CRM process. This includesthe steps of how your customers contract your company, the way you processinformation you collect and how it is used to revisit customers repeatedly.4. Platform. This is the choice of technology you are going to use including thesoftware and Web integration that works both for you and your customers.

CUSTOMERS FIRST! This should be your mantra. One thing you can simplycannot do without are your customers!

Interesting Statistics1. It takes 7 times as much time, effort and money to get a new customer as

it would to retain the old one.2. For every customer who complains about your company, there are about

8 to 10 people who didnt tell you their real feelings.

The first steps to consider in growing your customer numbers anddeveloping the relationships that will positively affect the bottom line.Step 1. Produce a list of all of your customers and rank them in order of sales,the largest customer ranking at #1 down to the smallest. This is your customer

base. There are several available computer programs that you can use.

Step 2. Segment these customers into 4 groups or blocks: A, B, C, and D,where A customers are the best ones as they buy from you most frequently.

Isnt it nice to make all your customers in the A group? The good news is this:CRM is about making all your customers into As.



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Build a profile of youre A customers highlighting their attributes and lifestyles.This can be done through spending time with them, like eating out and going to aball game with them. Once the lowest common denominator (LCD), then you canwrite down what makes an A customer. It is easier now to focus on the Acustomers as your target.

The 4 Basic Customer BlocksBlock A customers: The best and largest customers in terms of sales, they buymore frequently than other groups. You have an intimate working relationshipwith these customers and, these customers are usually your friends. This blockrepresents about 1% to 2% of the total customers.

Block B customers: They buy products regularly although not as frequently asthe A block. Their purchases are not as large, but there is potential to movesome of them to A customers when given some extra efforts and attention.These are people who believed you have helped grow their businesses, as

opposed to just trying to sell them more. This group represents about 4% to 5%of the customer base.

Block C customers: This is a mixed group. Some of them may be new andsome may have been with you for a long time and may be just jogging along.They are good clients, but make no real move to become B customers. They arearound 15% of the customer base. Being a relatively big part of the entirecustomer base makes them an important group.

Block D customers: This represents about 80% of the customer base andconstitutes the largest group. They do only small business with you, but they takea big amount of your time, efforts, money and other resources to serve. They arestill customers. This block has to be handled in special way; you may have tomake hard decisions about them. You should take a look at their upsidepotential. What will take them to become C, B, or even A customers?

Compare each building blocks proportional profit. By using a customer-basedaccounting technique, get factual information of how the customers areperforming. It may be shocking to know that only the top 20% of the totalcustomer base provides 100% profits of the company, while a lot of customersare actually costing money to do business with.

THE SAD NEWS IS THAT YOU MAY HAVE TO FIRE SOME CUSTOMERS.

Should you fire all D customers? Of course not! Some of them may have thepotential of becoming C customers. Or they may be A customers of yourcompetitors, wouldnt you want them to be your A customers instead? Producean analysis of each and every D customer to determine what the upside potentialis. Then, decide if you want to continue doing business with that particularcompany.



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The objective of CRM is to move customers up the building blocks. If you canmove only 1% of your total customers up the building blocks, you can look forperformance improvement of around 15% to the bottom line.

The 4 building blocks can be extended up to 3 more: Block E will be for ex-customers, block F for future customers and identified as potential patrons. ThenBlock G as the greater majority, simply the rest of the category your products aremarketed in. These blocks may well fit into one or all 4 of the building blocks A,B, C, or D.

Put the maximum amount of effort to get new A customers. You surely cant getall customers to become A customers, but you should try to get them to be yourB customers, at least.

All customers are not equal. Another benefit of a CRM program is that it will

make you put a value on the lifetime value of your customers. Estimate theaverage lifetime that your customers stay with your company.

Assume normal average stay of customer: 7 years

Group Category Assumed AnnualSpending, $

7-year SpendingEstimate, $

A 100,000 700,000B 60,000 420,000C 20,000 140,000D 2,000 14,000

Now, who said that all customers are equal? Getting the lifetime value of thecustomers helps you to make an informed decision on what direction to go.Make sure that you are building relationship with your customers who can remainas your partners in business for a lifetime. Work with these customers to helpthem grow their businesses. You got to want your customers to grow, make moremoney and buy more from you.

Are your customers satisfied? Find out from your customers if they are happywith your company, the quality of the product, its level of service, attitude ofemployees, etc. This is how you can move your customers up the building

blocks.

Creating a Promotion that Will Grow Your BrandThe Nestle Butterfinger brand had gained 51% of sales during the promotionalperiod and managed to get featured in 47 trade and consumer magazines. Howwas it done?



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Promotion Development Process1. The Brief. Development of every program starts with a well written brief.

The brief provides background information about the product, thecompetition, market dynamics, and retail class of trade. The brief helps to

assess whether a promotion is needed to address the current issues oropportunities.2. Brainstorm Brief. The brief is distributed prior to brainstorm to allow the

participants an opportunity to come with ideas.3. The Brainstorm. The best brainstorm happens when people with

differences are put together. THERE ARE NO BAD IDEAS IN ABRAINSTORM!

4. Concept Development. Dont look for the big idea at the brainstorm. Asmaller group usually reviews and selects the ideas for furtherdevelopment.

5. The Creative Execution. This should provide the creative team (usuallyconsists of a writer and art director) with the specifics for all the elementsneeded to bring the promotion to life.

6. Production. Get a good production manager or a printer who can betrusted. This is the phase where most problems can occur.

7. The Sell-in to the trade. Excite the sales force, who in turn must excitethe retailer.

8. Execution. Take control of the promotion yourself. Do your own spotchecks. Visit the stores and participate as a consumer. Fix any flaws atonce.

9. Evaluation. Get as much feedback as you can to evaluate its effect onmeeting the objectives set during the planning stage. Revise the programas necessary.


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