Lunch & Learn: Branding Essentials
Presenter: Date: Location:
Jen Barth June 13th, 2012 Formic Media
About Formic Media
• Launched in 2008 to service small business & partners
• Specializes in search, social and website development
• 100% of Account Team Google AdWords & Google Analytics Certified
• 7 employees & 45+ clients • Strategic partnerships (SEMA, AlphaGraphics,
etc.) • Focus on education via monthly Seminar Series
MARKETING THAT
MATTERS….
Branding Essentials for Growing Businesses
June 13, 2012
Formic Media
What We’ll Be Exploring Today…
• Knowing your audience, identity and brand voice is key to succeeding in today's marketplace.
• Before you begin the marketing process, do you know who you are — and aren't?
Introductions
• Who are you, and what’s your business/target audience?
• Top branding issue/question on your mind today?
• Favorite PDX food cart????
First Things First:
What Is “Branding”, Anyway?
A Bit About Branding….
• 31,500 results on Google: Yikes!
• One I like…
“Who you are, what you promise, and your ability and
willingness to deliver on that promise.”
– Joe Callaway, “Becoming a Category of One”
• Branding is the discipline that guides your thinking,
your actions, and your behavior.
• It is the personality that identifies your product or
service, and how you relate to your audiences
Your Brand Is A Filter: Get Clear
Before You Create
• Your brand is the lens through which all communications, actions, and resource decisions (time, money, energy) should be filtered
6 Questions to Know…Before You Go
1. What Are Your Goals?
2. Who Are Your Targets?
3. Where/How Are You Engaging Successfully Now? Where Else Are They Listening?
4. Quick Reality Check: How Much Time and Interest Do You Have to Invest? (Be honest!)
5. What Can You Delegate or Outsource?
6. How Will You Measure & Evolve Your Efforts?
Where To Begin…6 Key Steps!
Tips For Brilliant Branders-To-Be
1. Sweat the Small Stuff
2. Listen & Look Before You Leap
3. Tell a Story
4. Create Connections
5. Make a (Marketing) Plan
6. Measure, Assess, Evolve. Repeat.
1. Sweat The Small Stuff (or…clean up your room before company comes!)
Your Brand: The Sum of Many Parts…
Your name
Your logo
The colors you use in your visual system
Your slogan/tagline
Your words, tone, mood, and personality (―voice‖)
The types, & frequency of your communications
Your tactical touch points: your voicemail, email signature, invoices, contracts, agreements, forms…
How you address customer service issues (or don’t)
Your partnerships and connections
Unexpected interactions – every moment of every day (because people ―stop by‖ unexpectedly…are you ready?)
AND DON’T
FORGET:
Naming Approaches to Consider
• Acronym
• Descriptive
• Alliterative
• Evocative
• Founder / Heritage
• Geographical
• Personification
• Mythic
• Neologism (make it up!)
A Few Logos That Tell Stories
The Psychology of Color
The Role of Color in Branding
The Psychology of Color
As with other aspects of branding, we differ in our perceptions of color based on gender, geography, and other factors…
• Red: exciting, energizing, draws attention
• Orange: fun, warm – but strong love/hate reactions
• Yellow: optimistic, evokes creativity
• Greens: tranquil, refreshing, natural
• Blue: constant, dependable, often calming
• Indigo: mystical, spiritual, insightful
• Black: authoritative, powerful, sophisticated
• Gray: intellectual, refined, neutral
• White: clean, pure, safe
– sixrevisions.com, ―What Your Web Design Says About You‖
Tips On Color Choices…
• If you have a logo or identity system in place, do the current colors support your message?
• Does your identity reflect your values and vision?
• Is your identity clear and easy to read?
• Collect imagery with the look and feel you want to create.
Time to Give Some Thought:
A Few Questions
Don’t make users work top hard to understand, and engage with, your website, which is often the first — and most universal — brand touchpoint.
Different audience groups have different needs. Do you know what they are?
A Few Website Pointers:
It’s An Onion…Not Grape!
Learn from this (tough, & expensive!)
Lesson
Time to Give Some Thought:
A Few Questions
• What website(s) do you feel most connected to and engaged with?
• Can you identify what aspects of the experience help you feel that way?
• Do you know how your target audience looks for and consumes information? How could your website reflect that experience?
2. Listen & Look
Before You Leap
Do Your Homework…
Secondary Research = What’s out there already?
• Website analytics
• 3rd party research studies
• Web/Social media sleuthing
Primary Research = Connect directly with targets
• Qualitative methods
• Quantitative methods
Qualitative
Interviews, focus groups, panels, advisory groups, ―ethnographies,‖ web usability testing
Use It To Understand:
• Reasons behind behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, motivations, etc.
• How these reactions play out in individual behavior
Key Uses:
Generate ideas & gauge reactions
Understand behaviors, perceptions, and motivations, attitudes, beliefs of individuals
Understand language, nuances, & trends
Prepare for quantitative research
Quantitative
Surveys, online survey tools, Omnibus research (statistical significance is the key!)
Use It To Understand:
• How many people hold the same behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, etc.
• Their common characteristics
Key Uses:
• Determining demographics/user segments
• Pricing Studies/Sales Projections
• Defining/predicting behavior
Many Ways To Cut The Cloth…
Some Research Tools to Consider
• Survey Tools:
– SurveyMonkey, Zoomerang, SurveyGizmo, PollDaddy
– LinkedIn & Facebook Surveys
• Panels
– AYTM.com, ZoomPanel
– Omnibus Studies
Key Steps:
1. Create ―screener‖
2. Recruit participants
3. Develop discussion/activity guide
4. Conduct study
5. Analyze results
6. Take action (please!)
Time to Give Some Thought:
A Few Questions • Who is your ideal client?
– Key facts/identity (demographics)
– Values/motivators (psychographics)
• Do you have primary and secondary audience(s)? If so how do their needs differ?
• If you were your audience, what would you want to hear? (if you don’t know…do some research!)
• Are your communications framed to address these specific interests and desires?
3. Tell A Story
Why Story… And Why Now?
“The balance of power has shifted. It’s gone from advertisers with deep pockets, throwing money at one-way media, into the hands of the audience members. The age of interruptive media is over, and that’s where brand storytelling
begins.”
— Jon Thomas, “The Power of Brand Storytelling”
Storytelling Tip #1: Share.
85% of people will take a chance on you in business… if they know something about you personally.
The Power of Story
Stories help us:
• Establish our humanity: strengths, values, friendships, enemies
• Connect through common experiences
• Give emotional context through a tangible and familiar framework
What Makes a Story?
4 Key Elements
Character Conflict Plot Message
Sound Familiar?
But Wait…There’s More.
Story Drives Retention Storytelling
stands alone
Statistics with some storytelling
Solely statistics 65-70%
25-30%
5-10%
— London School of Business
Elements To A Good Story • Context – do audiences see their
own story in yours?
• Simplicity –make your point & move on!
• Interest – A boring story won’t promote understanding or inspire action. Will your audience register it, remember it, and tell it again?
• Trust – is your story true (factually, and to the audience’s experience?)
• Meaning – Does your story support a deeper message or inspire your audience to rethink something?
-
• Connectedness – Show empathy and connect.
• Magic –Violate listener’s expectations with a surprise.
• Relevance – Do listeners feel that this is their story, too?
• Immediacy –A story helps people take the leap of faith necessary to be inspired to take action‖
-
-from Jon Winsor, “Developing
a Story”
Not Exactly A New Idea…
• ―Life it too short for a long story‖
— Lady Mary Wortly Montagu
―Your tale, sir, could cure deafness‖
— Sir William Shakespeare
• ―Tell me a fact and I’ll learn. Tell me a truth and I’ll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.‖
- — Indian proverb
Story Telling Tip #2:
• Never underestimate the power of a picture and connecting content through visual elements:
• Colors / Bolding
• Images
• Infographics
Storytelling Through Imagery
Personal Storytelling: Infographics
Story Telling Tip #3:
• Don’t travel solo!
• What hero’s journey have you taken?
• Who is/are your trusty sidekicks?
• Are you even the hero in the story, after all?
Consider Your Brand Voice…
Before…
After
Brand Voice: Authenticity Matters
Brand Voice The right ―voice‖ can help demystify, create relevance, and forge an emotional connection (with even the most un-emotional of topics!)
Storytelling Through Imagery
Personal Storytelling: Infographics
Time to Give Some Thought:
A Few Questions
Ask yourself…
• Are you currently speaking in an authentic and credible voice?
• Are you making promises you can keep?
• Is what you are saying relevant, valuable, and motivating to your audience?
• Take the ―Business Obituary‖ test: Pass or Fail?
4. Create Connections
Growing Your Network
“Stories make our messages easier to remember and have been used
throughout history to explain concepts
more effectively.”- Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind
• Deepening Your Existing Connections
- Who do you know?
- How can you help them?
- How can they help you?
- Segmenting/Prioritizing Your Networking
• Making New Connections
- Networking Events
- Volunteer/Community Work
• Broaden the Dialogue & Deepen the Engagement
- E-mail Newsletters
- Social Media
Small Biz Goes Social
US small businesses saw the following benefits from social media in 2011:
• Staying engaged with current customers 69%
• Create more loyal customers through more direct engagements 63%
• Increasing brand awareness 61%
• Identifying/attracting new customers 59%
• Collaborate more effectively with external partners, suppliers, and colleagues 44% & internal teams 31%
• Correct problems before they escalate 30%
• Defend against negative publicity 18%
– 2011 State of Small Business Report
Many Channels, Many Options
But…Some Food For Thought
• 56% of small businesses in 2011 state that social media used up more time than they expected
• 40% experienced having their business criticized
• 36% feel that social media usage has fallen short of expectations
• 5% felt it hurt their brand’s image, versus helping it
What’s Your Social “Score?”
“Stories make our messages easier to remember and have been used
throughout history to explain concepts
more effectively.”- Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind
5. Make A (Marketing) Plan
Elements of the Marketing Plan
Think About…. Who’s your audience?
• Who do you serve?
• What needs do they have?
• What unmet needs exist?
• Who are their key influencers (social, professional, media, community, etc.)
• Where do they work, live, eat, shop, play?
From here, create...
• Brand vision
• Brand values
• Brand ―voice‖
• Communication tools:
– Tagline
– Elevator pitch
– Media kits
– Marketing content
– etc.
Who are you?
• How can you meet these needs?
• Who are you today?
• What do you want to stand for in the future?
• What is your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)?
• What will your brand and/or product architecture be?
6. Measure, Assess, Evolve.
Repeat.
Measure, Assess & Evolve
• Create track-able data points
• Establish frequent reviews
• Enlist a trusted, honest, and unbiased resource to help keep you honest in evaluation and ongoing optimization planning
Back to our Questions…
1. What Are Your Goals?
2. Who Are Your Targets?
3. Where/How Are You Engaging Successfully Now? Where Else Are They Listening?
4. Quick Reality Check: How Much Time and Interest Do You Have to Invest? (Be honest!)
5. What Can You Delegate or Outsource?
6. How Will You Measure & Evolve Your Efforts?
OK Now…Time to Think of 3 Things:
Based on your thoughts and notes, Make the “Three Things” list:
• 1 thing keep doing
• 1 thing to stop doing
• 1 thing to start doing next month, quarter, or year
Questions / Open Discussion
JEN BARTH
503.732.0203
@JenUnplugged
