To make a genuine, indelible impression on your audience, its important to consider the value your product/service can bring them, and how that value can affect them in an emotional way. Fully understanding how to “reach” them most effectively, you can then develop a range of tactics to help trigger those hot buttons. The result will be an audience who embraces your product/service on an affinity level where price/cost is of lesser priority.
User-generated content is powerful and pervasive. Studies show that consumers filter many of their decisions through their relationships with trusted – or otherwise endorsed – sources. If vehicles like blogs have the potential to reach everyone, and the messages communicated therein can be crafted to resonate strongly, how can marketers harness this potent power for our clients in a way that adds value, relevancy, and authenticity to the proposed relationship?
Just a quick note – as of Monday, July 28, 2008, this site (insightsandingenuity.com) became active as I migrated content from the WordPress site: http://insightsandingenuity.wordpress.com/.
So please visit this site again for your daily “bunny trail” fix!
Heather
Achieving a balance within the business place is critical. Tempering research, review, evaluation, test cases, focus groups, and various other litmus tests (all important, mind you) with a less formalized or regimented assembly of secondary or institutional knowledge, intuition, and aggressive growth strategy can help establish a zone where drivers and testers can reasonably cohabitate. But don’t wait too long!
How might subscription-based service companies (like newspapers) with deep traditional roots in print format develop a growth strategy that would leverage the Web as a channel for reaching targets, rather than deny the swell and interest? When resources are limited, how might a newspaper with two distinctly separate audience bases rise to the opportunity to better serve each of them in a relevant and authentic manner?
A recent article featuring agency Digitas Health caught my eye with their claim “We don’t work the way traditional agencies work.” Near the end was an innocuous quote “We build and manage a brand surface over time. . .” and I believe I had a lightbulb moment right then and there. The word “surface” in context with the entity brand really intrigues me, because I believe it implies a length and width, a continuous plane that can surround. The sheer scope lends itself to conforming to varying situations and needs, doesn’t it?
Rather than allowing a workplace Green-Eyed Monster create a communications barrier between you and another capable, talented team mate (you really don’t want 2nd stringers on your team, now do you?), embrace the strengths and skills they lend to the dynamic and accept that you don’t own the patent on superstardom.
Holy cripes, I thought it was only me who worried about falling flat on my face. Certainly not Mr. Accomplished. But his revelation made me think about innate fears and vulnerbilities we all have, and how glorious it would be if we could all just let it hang out.
Consumers are a unpredictable bunch (well, somewhat). Smart marketers have to invest in due diligence and due process to intelligently quantify prime segments and qualitatively ascertain the attributes and benefits that will resonate strongly enough for them to make a commitment.
Let the places you’ve been, the situations you’ve visited, and the people you’ve seen mold, shape, influence, and build you into someone best suited for the job. Channel the examples from the Best, and behaviors from the Worst into learnings that will affect what you have to offer and give.
When brands create experiences that create real value, the brand pulls customers into it, rather than pushing a message out at them. The natural entanglement deepens the relationship with existing customers, forms strong bonds with new ones, and helps generate favorable viral contagion.
Living in an era where it’s nearly impossible to escape the likelihood of being evaluated (which naturally opens the door to potential, and possibly public, criticism) gets to the heart of reputation management (if you ignore it, are you really managing it?). I think your reputation (which is symbiotic with your brand) is really all you have.
There are some companies – retailers and foodservice come to mind – that have figured out just who the VIP are (um, that would be ME, a woman). And they’re rolling out the red carpet and offering to slip my shoes off. Ahh, that feels better already. . .
A corporate site is important, and expected. And yet I believe consumers today yearn for more. More than a scripted Our Philosophy and sanitized News. A special place where like-minded people can go to learn, laugh, share, and swap. Even escape to and explore. A virtual playground may just be their utopia.
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to branding lately. More specifically, consumer affinity with brands and the impact the current economic climate might (does) have on their emotional connection, and ultimately, loyalty with brands.
Here’s a philosophical question – how original is your work, how unique can your concept be – if you use the sites of others for inspiration or reference? Is yours truly a new idea? Original? Or merely a permutation or variation of those ideas of others? WWPD (what would Picasso do?)?
What’s this about bunny trails, you might ask? It’s a simple but exciting concept about connecting seemingly separate, even disparate topics, ideas, events, or pieces of information and connecting them to arrive at greater value, stronger insights, and meaningful directions. Bunny trails. Who wouldaa thunk?
