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Marketing DeMystified
Now it’s time to break down your branding effort into smaller, manageable steps. Let’s assume that everyone in your organization has agreed to work together toward a common vision. They are aligned with your company’s mission. You’ve worked through operational issues. To move forward, you’ll need to focus on tactics.
Integrate Visuals, Messages, and Experiences for Impact Branding is a key marketing strategy for every business. Your brand must influence—in a positive way—what people see, experience, say, and believe about you. Your branding will have a big impact on how quickly you get off first base, attract great employees, hear phones ring, crane your neck to watch products fly off your shelves, wow your investors, and deposit checks into the bank. (Remember the profit motive.) Integrate creative visuals with succinct messages and great customer experiences to consistently reinforce brand image.
The Impact of Perception What influences perceptions and beliefs also influences behavior. Inject your marketing fuel with strategic communication, and you will drive lasting connections. Start by crafting your message. The following thoughts and exercises will help you whip that message into shape quickly and with relatively little stress. A good first step is to think about what your customers need to see, hear, feel, and experience before they will get in sync with you. Planning, writing, speaking, and acting out your message will be beneficial for you. The more ways you process it, the more clarity you will gain.
Caution Marketing is less about products and geography or demographics than it is about people. Focus on people strategies and you will uncover what differentiates your product or services in the minds of customers.
Creating and Communicating Value Most customers don’t care too much about a list of capabilities or your product ingredients. What they really want to know is what you and your products can do for them. Your communications must focus on value! As a result of choosing your brand, will customers save time or money? Will your products bathe them in coveted cachet? Smooth out your customers’ wrinkles? Add years to their lives? Make them feel like they’ve just had a long vacation on a tropical island? Help them make money? Enable them to jump-start their own business productivity?