Axxis Buzz

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Cost
Customer Service Institute – It costs 5X more to get new clients than to keep an existing one

Longevity
¨National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) – 3-Year study proved that
businesses that focused on service were more likely to survive than those who emphasized
price or product

It All Comes Down To…

Customer Expectations

Meeting (Exceeding!) those Expectations

Totally satisfied customers are 6X more likely to repurchase than satisfied customers (Xerox
Corporation study)

Message/Vision

Every great company starts with a vision of how they will serve the market DIFFERENTLY
and BETTER than existing options

THEN THEY COMMUNICATE IT!

Once Communicated to the Prospect…

A Lead is generated
In person
Telephone
¨Internet
¨Other
Sales/Conversion
Service/Delivery

The real focus of this article is the next area: service and delivery.

Businesses Fill Needs (Service)

People trade dollars for solutions
People buy for two reasons:
Decrease Pain
Increase Pleasure

That’s it – nothing else. Generally, people will move a bit quicker to decrease a pain than to increase a pleasure, but both principles apply. Can you think of any product or service that this does not apply to?

If not then:
Find a way to decrease the pain or to increase the pleasure in your industry and your chance of success soars

Slideshare presentation by Andrew Chiodo.

• President at Value Positioning Development ®

Past

• Senior Lecturer - Adjunct at Otterbein College
• Adjunct Professor at Franklin University
• Independent consultant at Chiodo Consulting

Brand image is a multi-channel process:

• Sensory Cues:
  Visual Cues. This is the logo, the look and feel of your marketing materials, including your website and collateral, and if you have a product, the packaging and the product itself. Brands can be heard too! How about the type of music played in your store or on your phone’s hold message? Though visual cues are what we think of most when describing a brand or planning marketing materials, all the senses affect what your customers perceive. Try walking past the Starbucks in the mall. Doesn’t the smell make you want a cup of coffee…or am I that weak?
• Messaging:
  What you say and how you say it. If you talk about the longevity of your product (and you back it up), your audience will get the message and see you that way. You’ll have the best success if you use the language your audience speaks. If you have more than one market segment, you may use different messaging to reach each segment. Messaging is delivered in many ways;  taglines, brochures, websites,  product descriptions, and social media–today’s word on the street.
• Product & Services:
  Take away the message, take away the visual cues, the cool logos, the awesome packaging, and you are left with your actual product or service. Think about what you offer, how you offer it, the consistency, the durability, the way it’s delivered. Is it consistent with what you want your customers to think of when they think of you? Do your products deliver on their promise?
• People:
  Are your employees providing services representing you in the way you want? Take a job with a retail clothing store, and you’ll find that many have guidelines requiring their staff to wear their apparel. Abercrombie and Fitch targets teens and very young adults. Have you ever seen a fat, balding man on their sales staff? If you show neatly dressed employees on the brochure for your cleaning company and the person who shows up is sloppy, dirty, and rude, your brand wil be perceived differently than you intend. Think of your people as your frontline brand ambassadors.

Even for the smallest of companies, the perception of your brand is important. Conceive and create it carefully. Reinforce that image in everything you do. Consistency counts.

In a word, yes. In a few more words, I’ll tell you why. 

A good marketing plan…

• Will affect your business plan (and vice versa).
• Will help you see where you stack up to your competition and aid you in positioning your company.
• Will analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your company, products, and services.
• Will give you a more realistic view of what you really need to do to succeed.
• Will help you obtain financing to run your business.
• Will help you plan activities and spending.
• Will save you money.
• Will give you a roadmap to follow when you’re up to your eyeballs in the business of running your business.
• Will give you benchmarks to measure results, so you can continually improve efforts and results.

What is a Brand?

First it may be helpful to define what a brand is not. A brand is not a name, though certainly many companies have “brand names.” A brand is not a logo or a trademark, though they can be an important visual part of your brand.

Probably the simplest way to describe a brand is…what your customers thinks, perceives, and experiences when they use your company, products, or services. A company may have many brands; think Proctor and Gamble and the multitude of brand products that make up their offerings.

Wait. It’s what the customer thinks it is? Yes, and your brand may mean different things to different people. Think Nike. To you, the Nike brand may mean quality sportswear that lasts a long time. To someone else, it may conjure up images of famous sports figures, and have an element of authority, capability, or (as I suspect Nike hopes) a “cool factor.”

One of the major pursuits of the marketing process isn’t to define the brand, it’s to try to influence collectively, what people think of it in a way that will spur them to action and buy.

It’s called brand image.