Define yourself. When beginning, this is the first step in branding yourself. You need to realize that you are very good, even an expert, at what you do. You surround yourself, either in your job or in your circle of friends, with others who are experts in what you know. Then, you begin to believe that everybody knows what you know and you see yourself as average and begin making mental statements such as “What do I have to offér that is different or unique? Everybody knows what I know.”

WRONG.

You have friends, neighbors, and associates that come to you asking for your help and advice. Or perhaps asking, “can you teach me how to do that?” What kinds of questions do they ask you? Ask yourself this powerful question:

“What sort of things are people asking me when they ask ‘Can I pick your brain for a minute?’”

Fire Your Financial Advisor suggests the following to stimulate ideas on who you are and how you can stand out:

“Do you have a certain skill where someone said ‘Can you teach me that?’ Or, have you overcome a certain experience, such as death of a loved one, divorce, financial ruin, raising children, passed a training, etc? Sometimes, we discredit our own uniqueness because ‘it’s just our life.’ However, there are others that have questions or problems that want answers that YOU can offer.” They go on to suggest you ask yourself the following questions:

“What was I being asked to teach or do when someone asked ‘Can I pick your brain for a minute?’ What skill/hobby did a person ask me to teach them? What difficult experiences did I overcome? What do I constantly get compliments on that I downplay? What ‘quirky’ things do I do?”

Be known as the expert in one thing – stand for something! Find your niche, something you are passionate about.

Create a signature look. Something people will recognize immediately. I’ve often told people if you were to find a piece of product literature on the ground and the brand or logo had been torn off, would you know who created the piece? If it came from Apple Computer you would. They have their signature look to everything they create. You can too.

This could be your unique name or a unique nick name. A buddy of mine has a very common name and has become an expert in social media. He created a signature and calls himself “SocialSam.” Laurie Pehar Borsh from Laurie Pehar Borsh Personal PR Productions has a simple logo she always associates with her name.

Maybe your signature look is a tagline. My son has a tagline or mantra of “No food, only music the doctor says!” Yes, he is a musician. For others, their signature look is their attire or hair. For others it is a greeting. An Irishman I know always answers the phone or greets people in the morning with “Top of the mornin!” This is his signature.

Maybe it is as simple as a unique business card. A good buddy of mine just handed me his new business card that looked and felt like a circuit board! What is unique about what I do, what I love, what I know?

Step back from yourself and ask yourself, how do others see me?

Become well known for one thing – you’ve got to stand for something or you stand for nothing. Find your niche. This is NOT the time to play it safe. Doing just enough to blend in to the crowd will get you just that, you’ll blend in and when someone needs your advice or expertise they will not be able to find you. Creating a personal elevator pitch with your “who” and “do what” statement followed by your “why” statement will keep you on track and focused on your goals. Without clearly understanding your personal brand, it will be difficult to stand out and be found when someone is looking for you. Your “who” and “do what” statement is a very simple thought about yourself. Keep it simple and easy to understand. It answers the question “who are you and what do you do?” concisely and in a fashion that is memorable.

For example, which says more and has more impact:

“My name is Jack and I am a business consultant.”

Or

“I’m Jack. I help business owners and sales professionals grow their clientèle.”

Simple, yet powerful. You answer the question of whom you help and what you help them get or do. Depending on what type of professional you are, your “who” and “do what” statement should include the following elements:

– As a business owner this statement should express who your target market is and what problems you solve for that market.

– As an employee this statement should express what problems and obstacles you tackle for your managers and bosses.

– As a salesperson this statement should express who your target customers are and what problems you solve for them. It should also express what goals you are helping your boss achieve through your sales expertise.

Here is another example. “Telecom Senior Executive who took a startup to $120MM annual sales with $28MM EBITDA in less than three years.” This directly speaks to a potential client or employer and says who you are and what you can do for them backed up by a history of success.

Now tell me, why do you do it anyway? Why do you get up every day to help them get what they want? My favorite interview question is “What gets you out of bed every morning?” An alarm clock is the wrong answer! I’m not looking for a specific answer but rather to discover the passion driving someone’s life. Your “why” not only drives the choices you make, but it also affects how others connect emotionally to what you do for them. The why is reflected in everything you do. It completes your personal brand.

Michael Port, Entrepreneur Magazine has this why statement: “Because I want to help people think bigger about who they are and what they offer the world.” He goes on to say, “I can go one step further and turn my why statement into a tag line to spread my personal brand and grow my sales potential, ‘The guy to call when you are tired of thinking small.’ This expresses the most fundamental, deepest part of my character.” Michael Port, Entrepreneur Magazine – January 2010.

Guy Kawasaki, The Art of the Start, inspired by John Doerr, says,

“The best reason to start an organization is to make meaning – to create a product or service that makes the world a better place.

Does the product or service you are pursuing change lives for the better? Change the world we live in for the better? Provide something incredible previously out of reach of the average person?”

If what you are doing provides one of these benefits or similar benefits and fits your personal “why” you are on the road to success. Your brand is beginning to take shape. Your personal brand is built on a solid foundation. With your “who”, “do what”, and “why” statements in hand and in your heart go forth and “make meaning.”

article by Brad Hess

Soft-sell marketing is a subtle yet persuasive, low-pressure method of selling your products or services. The basic premise of soft selling is that your focus is on developing relationships instead of aggressively pitching your wares from the moment (or even before) you’re introduced to your prospect.

Once you have started to create a real relationship, and you have learned about what he/she needs AND it jives with what you’re selling, you can suggest your solution. It’s less forced, more natural and conversational. It can also be more effective because you’ve taken the time to form a connection before giving a sales pitch.

Here are some tips to help you soft sell for improved results.

Believe In It – Make sure you are trying to sell something you truly care about. Passion can be infectious, especially when it comes to soft selling.

Relaxed Networking – Try to network with the main purpose of forming relationships, nothing else. This is also a great way to remove some of the “networking pressure.”

Build Relationships – Make relationship marketing the foundation of your marketing activities, so your relationship focus goes through all elements of your business.

Open Networking – Be open to networking with everyone, even those outside of your defined target. If your focus is on relationships first, you never know when a connection will turn into a business relationship.

White Glove Treatment – Treat your existing clients like gold to set the stage for referrals that support your soft selling approach.

Make It Emotional – Try storytelling to appeal to your prospect’s emotions, make yourself more memorable and share a personal anecdote.

Give It Away – Share valuable information for free, no strings attached. Try sponsoring teleconferences, webinars and other open-to-the-public events that teach first, sell later (if at all).

A Quiet Approach – Use a gentle call to action when you do make a pitch that’s passive, non-aggressive and conversational.

Subliminal Branding – Create meaningful customer touchpoints that are effective without being “in your face”.

Do Your Research – Get to know as much as you can about the prospect and their needs. This will not only strengthen your relationship, but it will help you determine if your product/service is appropriate for him/her.

Join Forces – Be open to collaborating for the networking and learning benefits, even if there is not a guaranteed financial gain.

Open the Door – Provide access to your marketing information but let your prospects digest it on their own.

If you struggle with the marketing side of business and feel uncomfortable when it comes to sales, soft-sell marketing can be a great way for you to overcome that hurdle and adopt a sales technique that’s within your comfort zone.

Do you use soft selling in your marketing activities?

How do you deliver a marketing message to a Web-audience that hates advertising? A few years back I proposed a solution based on short-form television-style programs: the “120 Second Solution,” two minute brand-story commercials formatted in a mini three act Web-video presentation. Today this concept is called Branded Entertainment: a two to seven minute commercial that combines content, advertising, and entertainment in a brand story format designed to attract and hold an audience’s attention while delivering a memorable core marketing message.

The concept has been a hard sell as it flies in the face of a lot of conventional wisdom about advertising formats, attention spans, and content credibility. Like most good ideas it seems that branded entertainment’s time has finally come. Various marketing blogs are all a twitter about Orbit Gum’s new campaign called “Dirty Shorts” featuring its first branded entertainment effort, a 5:17 minute branded video from Jason Bateman and Will Arnett. It seems these well-known actors have enough faith in this advertising format that they’ve formed DumbDumb, a branded video production company. Their first effort, “The Prom Date” was viewed 110,000 times in just three days.

Commitment To A Core Message

Of course not everybody has the deep pockets required to hire Jason Bateman, but with proper planning and implementation a branded entertainment video campaign is within reach of most successful small and medium sized companies.

The single biggest obstacle in implementing this kind of campaign is not the cost, but rather, the commitment to a style and format most business owners find hard to swallow: the need to focus on a single core reason why customers should purchase your product or service and to deliver that message in some bold or offbeat manner.

All too often entrepreneurs think of advertising in conventional terms like display, banner, and classified (e.g. Adwords). Even Web video has been pushed, prodded and crammed into pre-roll and post-roll television style spots. The Web isn’t television; it requires a whole new way of thinking when it comes to marketing presentations.

The Web is by nature an unconventional arena that demands bold content. You can say and do a lot of things on the Web, but the one thing that won’t be tolerated is boring your audience. Add to that the fact that we live in a product placement world where the line between advertising and content has been permanently erased and you have an advertising environment that demands something different.

You must stop thinking of your website as a digital brochure and start thinking of it as a total immersive multimedia advertising environment that connects to a target audience using standout, break-through communication techniques. The goal is quality engagements not shotgun traffic.

The Goal Is Quality Engagement NOT Traffic

For the average Web business it is important to remember that huge viral numbers don’t come from clever campaigns alone, but rather, are the result of great campaigns plus advertising support, extensive PR, and paid-blog placement. That is not to say that small and medium-sized companies shouldn’t pursue this approach but rather, the goal of these campaigns should be quality engagement not quantity traffic – a far more affordable and productive objective.

How To Deliver Break-Through Advertising

There are various ways to achieve what ad agencies call break-through advertising, but in every case those methods call for content that stands out from the crowd, be it humorous, offbeat, alarming or just plain entertaining, if it doesn’t standout it won’t make a connection, and your website presentation will be instantly forgotten.

The best and most complete example of branded entertainment that I have seen was the brilliant Shredded Wheat “The Palace of Light” campaign. It was very funny while delivering a powerful marketing message. Unfortunately the campaign is no longer running, but if you can find some of the videos on the Web, they are definitely worth seeing. They are great examples of how to turn advertising into content, and content into a memorable experience.

In a speech about break-through advertising, Chuck Porter, co-founder of Crispin Porter + Bogusky states the average person sees conservatively 1600 to 3000 marketing messages a day. That’s a lot of advertising. If your marketing communication doesn’t standout in some way, you are probably wasting your advertising budget.

Two Kinds of Advertising

In response to a question asking whether advertising was technology and data driven, or creatively driven, Porter explained that there are basically two types of advertising.

The tech-data driven ad is all about finding that person who needs what you sell at a time when he or she wants to purchase it and then delivering the message to them. This is the reason why so much of what you see, hear, and read in marketing journals and blogs is filled with statistics and analysis of who is doing what and where. All of which is perfectly fine if the only customer you want is the one that needs what you sell instantly or who is motivated by impulse.

This kind of advertising is all about immediacy; the customer needs or impulsively wants what you provide right now. The key is immediate access. If customers don’t have instant accéss, chances are the impulse to purchase will fade, or the prospect will find it more convenient to get the product elsewhere. In this type of advertising, timing and immediacy is paramount. The downside is no long-term relationship is established.

Digital products that can be downloaded instantly seem to be most appropriate for this approach, however that must be qualified by the level of cost and sophistication associated with the product or service: the higher the cost and the more complex or advanced the offering, the less impulsive the decision, and the more a client must be wooed. Advertising theory commonly suggests it takes seven engagements in order to win over a client.

The other kind of advertising is creative-based; it’s advertising built around brand awareness and identity. This is the kind of advertising that creates customers, and establishes long-term loyalty. This is the kind of advertising that can benefit from implementing a branded entertainment campaign.

Why Branded Entertainment Works

If branded entertainment is done right, it engages an audience, it informs and enlightens, it entertains and amuses, it’s meaningful and memorable and potentially viral. Branded entertainment is more than advertising, it’s marketing, and it is designed to influence attitudes, change perceptions, and prompt action.

Creating a “buzz” around products, services, businesses or an event is a requirement from all clients. There is no social media marketing wand that someone will wave and a target audience will automatically start coming to your site. And what works for one brand may not work for another.

The process of creating buzz doesn’t start from creating a Blog or creating a video, it’s a social media strategy that encompasses social media and word-of-mouth marketing. We have compiled a list of social media tools that companies use to build their social media marketing mixes.

1. Blogs

Blogs have become a great tool for social media marketing. First because, if optimized correctly, they can be used to drive traffic to a website. A good blog will help in creating internal links, fresh content, active community, or non-search engine traffic.

Examples of popular blogs where you can create your account are: WordPress, Blog.com, Bloggers.com, Typepad, etc.

2. Microblogging

Like blogs, microblogs propose huge opportunities for business endorsement. That is both through content consistency and good optimization. Two of the most used are Posterous and Twitter.

3. Online Video

The importance of online videos has rapidly increased during the last few years. To read more on this topic, have a look at our blog on The Growing Importance of Online Video. Popular video sharing websites include YouTube and Vimeo.

4. Photosharing

Social media is all about sharing! Therefore, there are numerous platforms that allow photo sharing with your friends. Some of them are: Flickr.com, Memeo.com, and Photobucket.com.

5. Podcasting

Podcasting is part of the new media tools that are offered to both promote your brand and your products/services. Check out Blip.fm or RadioPodcast.fr.

6. Presentation Sharing

Another great way to put your brand’s name in the spotlight is by offering presentations on topics of interest for your audience on presentation sharing websites. They are increasingly gaining in popularity nowadays. Some of them are: SlideShare.net, MyPlick.com, Scribd.com, or AuthorSTREAM.com.

7. Social Networks: Applications, Fan Pages, Groups, and Personalities

Social networks are the place to present and promote yourself as well as to keep in touch with your targeted audience. You can read a list of the most popular on our blog on our blog on Top Social Media Network Sites!

8. Crowd Sourcing/Voting

Crowdsourcing is an effective model because it can be used for developing programs, marketing efforts, research, and education. For example Dell has used Crowdsourcing as a distributed problem-solving and production model and has reduced costs and increased their efficiency. Also look at the Grand Challenge for FNIH to see a crowd sourcing campaign.

9. Bookmarking/Tagging

Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to share, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web resources. Examples of popular social bookmarking websites: delicious.com, Digg, Diigo, Fark, Mixx, MyBlogLog, Newsvine, Propeller, Reddit, Slashdot.org, StumbleUpon, Yahoo!, and Buzz.

10. Discussion Boards and Forums

Online forums are a great way to market your products/services and interact with other professionals or your audience. Engaging your audience in your niche forum can bring high value to your site and brand too.

11. Content Aggregation

Content aggregation offers you the chance to bring all news and feeds around your online community accounts in one place. Some say this is the future of social media. Emerging content aggregation websites: Bloglines, FriendFeed, Lifestream.fm, Lijit.

12. Brand Monitoring

Social media is also offering a variety of tools that help businesses understand the positioning of their brand. Popular examples are: Buzzlogic, Radian6, or ReputationDefender.

13. Ratings and Reviews

The best way to find out where your website stands or how your brand is perceived by others is through ratings and reviews. See Yelp, or GetSatisfaction.

14. Widgets

For those who are trying to promote their own brands, they can create personalized badges, using interesting widgets on Facebook, Twitter, and other networks or by simply using WidgetBox or SpringWidgets.

15. Wikis

Wikis are our online encyclopedia. A short list of wikis: Wikipedia.org, Citizendium.org, AboutUs.org, Pbwiki(PBworks.com), or Wetpaint.com.

Along with all the new ways of publishing your content on networking sites, it is important to publish your articles on publishing sites like EzineArticles, eHow, Google Docs (docs.google.com), IdeaMarketers, Yahoo Articles Group (groups.yahoo.com) and submit your press releases on important specialized sites like i-Newswire, PR.com, PressReleasePoint, and PRLog.org.

Social Media Marketing can be very confusing at times. There are lots of networks and channels to choose from. Creating a presence on all the channels is very time consuming and randomly choosing a network is not a good social media strategy. Companies are struggling to understand what social media marketing mix they should use to make their brand successful in the online world.

We suggest it is important to identify which channels are suitable for your business depending on your target audience. Businesses must plan a step-by-step onlíne marketing strategy and brainstorm ideas with their onlíne marketing agency that will work for their products/service.

The Web is full of information, articles, videos, white papers, e-books and all matter of research and information. Some of it is very, very good, and some of it is misleading and irrelevant. Somewhere in the middle, falling squarely in the category of spectacularly mediocre, is the vast majority of the rest of it.

If you’re like me, always trying to improve, learn, and grow your business, then you’ve probably been frustrated in your search for truly useful information that you can actually use to improve your marketing, branding, and sales efforts.

There seems to be a wide choice of articles dedicated to surefire courses on do-it-yourself marketing that will make you a Web-Media-Mogul overnight (usually available for a mere three payments of twenty-nine, ninety-five) and of course, there’s always lots of stuff on how you just got to get on board with the next big social networking fad. Excuse me while I delete another email about an absolutely fabulous linking strategy I just can’t live without.

It’s all too familiar and for the most part, a waste of time. If this nonsense were really the answer to growing your business, then you’d already be rich, sitting on some Bora Bora beach sipping pina coladas, and not hunched over your computer trying to find something useful that will actually help.

In One Word Or Less

When it comes to marketing, it really doesn’t matter what venue, method, or media you employ; marketing is simply a matter of effective ‘communication,’ easy to say, not so easy to do.

Your ability to communicate is the key to marketing success, or conversely, your inability to communicate effectively is what is holding you back. So the time has come to grapple with the real problem, and that is, how do you communicate your marketing message in the most effective manner to your audience; how do you tell your brand story so people pay attention, and care.

The first thing to understand about marketing communication is that text messaging, Twitter and all other limited, one dimensional solutions, stifle the very thing that’s necessary to implement effective marketing communication: the nuance, depth of understanding, and emotional value inherent in what you provide – the very thing your audience needs to know about what you sell. The key being ‘why they need what you offer’ not ‘what.’

Communication Is A Complex Process

The second thing to understand about marketing communication is that it involves five critical elements in order to be effective: the Message, the Method, the Messenger, the Audience, and the Venue.

Ask yourself, why are you on the Web at all? If it’s because everybody else is on the Web, then you’re not ever going to have the marketing breakthrough you crave; but if it’s because you have something to say, a story to tell, a reason for people to say, “I need some of that!” then it’s time to get serious about developing the right message, delivered by the right messenger, sent to the right audience, and employing the Web venue’s best method of multidimensional communication – Video.

This is nothing new. Web Video is now accepted as the most effective communication tool available to Web businesses, so what is the difference between Web Videos that are an utter waste of time, and worse, counter productive, and Web Videos that turn companies into marketing phenoms?

Unlike one-dimensional forms of communication, Web Video delivers your message by accessing multiple senses using visual and auditory techniques. Just by adding a human being as presenter goes a long way to making an impact.

Because video communicates by accessing multiple senses on both a subliminal and direct level, it demands knowledge and expertise in concept creation, writing, casting, graphic and motion design, video production and editing, audio, music and sound design, as well as the ability to get it all to work together in an effective presentation delivered on time and for an affordable investment.

But all of this expertise and skill can be wasted if your video campaign lacks an identifiable emotionally relevant conceptual design. One of the hardest marketing concepts for bottom-line oriented business executives to accept is that the value of their offering is found in the emotional satisfaction their product or service provides. Telling people what a company does alone is not marketing, telling them why they need what you do is. Companies that focus on ‘the what’ turn their products and services into commodities and products that are indistinguishable from the competition, but companies that focus on the emotional value they provide, deliver the answer to the question, why people purchase from one company and not from another.

Effective Marketing Communication is Concept Based

All good marketing is based on an emotionally based concept. This is especially true on the Web, where content and attention span go hand-in-hand. If your Web marketing is not interesting, informative, and entertaining, it won’t ever be memorable; it won’t ever have the lasting impact you need to meet your sales and marketing objectives. Effective marketing communication starts with an emotionally charged concept, one that can be spun-out into a long-term presentation strategy, a concept with legs.

Coming up with an appropriate concept that will work for your product or service takes a bit of creative thinking, but it really isn’t as hard as you think. One caveat that often escapes clients, when they come to us with their ideas is that the concept must be executable for the available budget. Anybody can come up with fantastic ideas that are impossible to implement or cost prohibitive. The trick is to develop a concept that can be implemented on time and on budget.

Executable Brand Video Campaign Concepts

One method we use to develop affordable brand video campaign concepts for clients is to combine the emotional value proposition the client offers with a recognizable presentation trope.

Tropes are metaphorical expressions, or in this case, storytelling-scenarios that audiences recognize and accept in terms of their implied expectations and implications. Used properly within the context of a Web Video presentation, tropes can simplify and shorten a complex message, and provide cover for what would otherwise be a boring, blatant sales pitch, or desperate plea for business.

Human beings are all programmed for pattern recognition, it is a basic skill needed for survival, and it’s been hardwired into our DNA. Our very survival as a species is dependent on our ability to recognize danger and opportunity. Business and marketing is no different. And that is what makes communication tropes effective. This intrinsic aspect of our nature allows professional video marketing experts to tap into the motivational triggers that govern our subliminal decision-making responses, the kind of responses that get people to purchase what you sell.

Facebook gave the web a lot to chew on with the announcements it made at its F8 developer conference this week. Essentially, it comes down to Facebook consuming/connecting more of the web. For more about the announcements, read this. Now it’s time to think about what it all means for businesses, and fortunately, it probably means good things. Mike Lazerow, CEO of BuddyMedia, a social marketing company that helps develop Facebook pages for about 200 brands, such as ABC, American Express, J. Crew, NHL, Playboy, Mattel, Geico, Samsung, and many more big names, shared some commentary about Facebook’s news with WebProNews.

When you look at just the announcement of Facebook’s social plugins, you can already see some obvious benefits. Facebook has over 400 million users (probably well over that by now), and by including these plugins on your site, you’re providing a direct link for them to share your content with their friends, or simply to share their fondness of your brand, and this information will not not only go to Facebook itself, but has the potential to appear in other places on the web that are part of Facebook’s “Open Graph” (see this Yelp/UrbanSpoon example). Facebook has also changed the “become a fan” button on Pages to “like”. Now consider Lazerow’s points:

- “The shift from ‘Become a Fan’ to ‘Like’ will decrease the friction and perceived user commitment to connecting with a brand as a fan. Every time a consumer will click ‘Like’ on a third-party website, that information will be published back to the user’s Facebook news feed and profile and will appear in search results.”

- “The common Facebook user has an average of 150 friends and each ‘Like’ will increase a brand’s exposure to the friends of that user, ultimately increasing the number of connections the brand has.”

- “The social plug-ins Facebook launched will infuse third-party websites with the personalized social context and social functionality of Facebook, such as commenting, liking, sharing and posting. For the first time, news feeds of social activity will live not just on Facebook, but will be extended to third-party websites.”

- “Facebook and Zynga [the company behind Farmville and Mafia Wars] have shown us that users like to see what their friends are doing. By surfacing the ‘friend’ information on their own websites, brands will be able to make their properties more engaging and increase usage.”

A representative for Appssavvy, a direct sales team for the social media space, tells WebProNews Facebook’s announcement “changes everything,” and that “change is good.”

“Facebook isn’t just a destination or platform moving forward, it truly is becoming a provider of social communication tools for the entire Web,” the company says. “Facebook is going to make the entire Web social, thus a social Web means an entirely different way of thinking about advertising and marketing.”

As of right now, Facebook has 8 Social Plugins to choose from, but Facebook says the “like” button is the most important.

The average Facebook user is going to be incredibly used to seeing these like buttons all over the web, and they’re not going to be shy about clicking them for items and brand that they actually do like. Non Facebook users are going to see them and get accustomed to seeing them on a lot of their favorite sites, and this may lead some of them to eventually join Facebook. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in his keynote, though laughing as he said it,the people who aren’t on Facebook “probably will be soon.”

There have already been tremendous opportunities for businesses with Facebook, but now that much of the web, for all intents and purposes, is becoming part of Facebook. As Scribd CEO Trip Adler told me during a phone call this week, people are likely going to begin sharing things passively, as opposed to actively in many cases. People are not going to think twice about “liking” a piece of content that they genuinely like. Then all of their friends can see it, possibly check it out, and possibly “like” it themselves, and pass it on to their friends. It not only provides a means for word-of-mouth, it will drive it. That will in turn drive traffic.

It’s worth noting that there is only a “like” button and not a “dislike” button. That means all word-of-mouth that spreads from it will be positive. It’s also worth noting that you will have to give people something actually worth liking for any of this to be effective.

People who are Facebook fans and Twitter followers of a brand are more likely to buy the brand’s product or recommend it to a friend, according to a new study by Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies.

The study of 1,500 consumers found that 60 percent of Facebook fans and 79 percent of Twitter followers are more likely to recommend those brands since becoming a fan or follower.

More than half (51%) of Facebook fans and 67 percent of Twitter followers are more likely to buy the brands they follow or are a fan of.

http://images.ientrymail.com/webpronews/article_pics/Twitter-Facebook-Brands.jpg

“While social media is not the silver bullet that some pundits claim it to be, it is an extremely important and relatively low cost touch point that has a direct impact on sales and positive word of mouth,” said Josh Mendelsohn a vice president at Chadwick Martin Bailey.

“Companies not actively engaging are missing a huge opportunity and are saying something to consumers – intentionally or unintentionally- about how willing they are to engage on consumers’ terms.”

The study also found that people view brands not engaging in social media as out of touch.

When asked the question “What does it say about a brand if they are not involved with sites like Facebook or Twitter?” they said the following:

* “It’s EXPECTED that a company have some digital face – whether it’s on FB or Twitter I don’t know – but they need a strong electronic presence or you doubt their relevance in today’s marketplace.” Female 50-54

* “Either they are not interested in the demographic that frequents Facebook and Twitter or they are unaware of the opportunity to get more exposure in a more interactive method.” Male 35-39

* “It shows they are not really with it or in tune with the new ways to communicate with customers.” Female 18-24.

* “If they’re not on Facebook or Twitter, then they aren’t in touch with the “electronic” people.” Female 55-59
Apart from the digital face these brands give an impression of being more open and approachable in their communication.

This surely goes a long way in proving the credibility of the company. The prospective customers want information about the product which every company readily gives but they also want a platform for discussion or asking queries after the product is bought.

The brands with a digital face atleast give an impression of being available for comment in case of such a situation. As phone calls can be avoided but social media compels the companies to answer in order to keep up to their brand reputation.

It helps both the brand as well as the buyer as both get a platform express themselves

Brand identity is probably the most critical element of retail and business design. As a packaging designer you must be able to offer branding services as part of your design services package. Brand identity is the overall graphic representation that people will associate with a company or product.

In todays market, competition for customers is fierce, so you can see why a strong brand identity is crucial for companies.

Business owners rely on design professionals to invest time into researching, defining, and ultimately building a brand that people can trust. One could say that branding is the foundation of your design and marketing campaign.

For graphic designers who are new to building brand recognition this article will highlight the research process that experienced designers who are successful at building brands will implement in their graphic approach before offering up any directions. When building brands it’s not simply a matter of creativity it’s a matter of doing the right research.

Whether you’re branding a product or a company you will need to put in a good amount of time doing research.

Ask yourself some key questions such as:

* What kind of company are you trying to establish a graphic representation for?
* Who are their clients?
* What is the company’s target demographic?
* What services do they provide, etc.?

The same applies to product branding.

* What kind of product is it?
* Is the product targeted at males or females and what age group?
* How should the product be associated with the company that is selling the product?

Once you’ve collected your preliminary data from your initial questions, filter through and analyze your information to really hone in on your target audience. The ultimate goal of branding is to speak directly to your target audience in order to motivate them to action. In order to do this you better be sure that your target market is clearly defined.

Establishing your target market means identifying who your audience is specifically. To help you find out who your target audience is exactly ask questions like:

* Where is my audience located geographically?
* What colors should be associated with the product or company?
* Who is my brands direct competition?
* What elements have made my competition successful?
* Who are my competitors targeting?

You can do a large amount of this investigating on line. The more accurately you can assess your target market the more effective your brand will be.

If you spend enough time properly researching answers to your questions you will find that you have provided yourself with a guide to direct your creativity in the design process.

Remember, every element of your design is something that will be associated with the business or product you are branding. These elements should evoke emotion, create a reaction, and will not only define the company but be a part of it for as long as it exists.

These may seem like very simple questions, but the trick is making sure that you spend the time to answer them properly.

Many designers throw the term branding around without a true understanding of what that term means or how effective branding is accomplished.

A strong brand builds relevance, credibility and establishes trust. A strong brand speaks to your target market – it motivates customers to act. When done correctly it establishes the company or product as an industry leader.

By answering a few core questions you will be provided with a system of guides to help direct you when it comes to the actual design process. This is your map to an effective brand.

Author: Chris London

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you had the power to convince people that your product or service was exactly what they needed, and as a consequence your in-box was filled with inquiries and your e-commerce site was stuffed with orders. Wouldn’t that be great? And isn’t that exactly what you want to achieve with your website?

The problem is you are part of a giant online bazaar called The Web; and just like your local weekend flea market The Web is filled with crap, conmen, and contraband. Without understanding some of the underlying psychological principles involved in shaping audience preference you are in danger of being regarded as just another mangy flea market hustler, even if what you offer is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

The subject of shaping public perception, or in our case Web audience preference, is complex and convoluted but there are basic principles that if followed will help you achieve your business objectives, no matter how you define them.

The Four E-Essentials of Website Presentation

All the Google ads, search engine optimization, linking strategies, social networking, and Twitter twirping will be for naught if you don’t implement four essential marketing communication techniques: engage, enlighten, embed, and re-enforce.

These four website presentation elements are easy to grasp but not always easy to implement. If you’ve read any of our other articles you will know that we think Web-video is the most effective way to implement these elements on your website and in your Web marketing. But just because you use video on your website, doesn’t mean it’s going to be effective unless you understand the psychology behind the e-essentials.

Perhaps the best way to illustrate how these elements work is to rent or find on YouTube a clip from the 1947 movie “The Hucksters” starring Clark Gable and Sydney Greenstreet. Now I haven’t seen this movie in twenty years and I remember almost nothing about it except for one scene, a scene that illustrates better than anything, the four e-essentials of marketing and branding communication.

Engage, Enlighten, Embed, and Re-Enforce

Picture an old style boardroom, you know the ones with wood paneling, high-backed deeply padded chairs all filled with a bunch of executive flunkies and sycophants. At one end is Clark Gable, and his dapper boss Adolphe Menjou, and at the other end is an empty, ornate leather chair, almost like a throne.

An older heavy-set gentlemen, played by Sydney Greenstreet, walks in wearing a dark suit, light colored vest, and a matching pork-pie hat. He is the client, the owner of a large soap manufacturing company, ‘Beauty Soap,’ that has hired Gable’s agency to help sell his product.

He proceeds to sit down at the head of the table, throws back his head, and expectorates (spits) onto the middle of the table. He then dramatically takes out a handkerchief from his breast pocket, wipes up the mess, and carelessly tosses the hankie on the floor, after which he tells the assembled ad men…

“You’ve just seen me do a disgusting thing, but you’ll always remember what I just did. You see if nobody remembers your brand, you aren’t going to sell any soap. …I’ll tell you a secret about the soap business. There’s absolutely no difference between soaps, absolutely none, except for perfume and color… soap is soap… oh… maybe we have a few manufacturing tricks, but the public don’t give a hoot about that…”

Embed The Brand

You may not like to hear it, but the truth is, most products and services are pretty much the same as their competitors. Sure some have a little more this, and others have a little more that, but for all intensive purposes, they’re the same, the same except for one major thing, The Brand!

This sixty second clip from “The Hucksters” illustrates the need to engage your audience with a dramatic gesture, enlighten them with what they need to know, and do it all in a entertaining manner that embeds the brand, and what it stands for, in the audience’s mind.

The Repetition Caveat

The last twenty seconds of the scene are a bit more controversial in my mind and if taken at face value can lead to a misunderstanding of the re-enforcing principle.

Greenstreet continues his rant by banging his fist on the table over-and-over again while saying,

“Beauty Soap, Beauty Soap, Beauty Soap, repeat it until it comes out of their ears, repeat it until they say it in their sleep, irritate them Mr. Norman [a reference to Gable], irritate, irritate, irritate them, never forget, knock them dead, until they never forget.”

All the while Greenstreet emphatically bangs his fist on the table to emphasize his point. When he finally finishes his rant, he sweeps his hand dramatically across the table knocking a glass of water halfway across the room. He finishes by saying calmly, “See what I mean?”

Web Videos Shouldn’t Be TV Commercials

Television advertisers seem to have taken the “irritation” part to heart, but I think the basic principle is dramatic repetition not irritation. Irritation may generate name recognition but with the wrong mental and emotional associations, while dramatic repetition shapes audience opinion and establishes brand preference. Not understanding the psychology behind the four e-essentials can lead to unsatisfactory results.

This scene from “The Hucksters” was satire and commentary on the nature of advertising, and its point-of-view was decidedly cynical, and with good cause. Television commercials drive the public up a wall with irritating repeated interruptions of the same hackneyed commercials over and over again, until the viewing audience goes numb.

As well, pointless user-generated videos may bemuse but without any targeted psychological influence or directed commercial purpose beyond attracting a lot of viewers.

Even expensive commercially produced viral videos that are clever, entertaining, and technically superb often forget to enlighten the audience and embed the brand. The recent viral Evian baby video maybe a brilliant technical achievement and superb filmmaking but does it sell more bottled water, or even distinguish Evian from its competitors. The problem is the brand gets lost in the technique, and the baby images over-power the product.

Gaining Competitive Advantage

It is human nature to want easy answers to complex questions, but people are frustratingly complex, and cannot be “pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered” like Patrick McGoohan’s ‘The Prisoner’.

Search engine optimization, social networking, user-generated videos, and viral-for-viral’s sake are nothing more then marketing ‘Pablum’ that takes advantage of naive marketing newbies; they are trendy technical answers with the appearance of sophistication but with only the slightest understanding of subconscious human desire.

Technical answers to human questions ultimately won’t work, or will only work with limited success because they ignore the need to understand the human condition, what makes you and everybody else want, what they want.

Gerald Zaltman, Professor Emeritus of Harvard Business School calls it understanding the “mind of the market.” To quote Professor Zaltman from his book ‘How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market,’

“…the ability to grasp or understand the mind of the market and creatively leverage this understanding represents the next source of competitive advantage for marketers.”

The Choice Is Yours

The average website business will continue to follow whatever trendy technical solution shows up on the blogs. But your competitor’s willingness to follow the herd leaves the way wide open for you to take advantage of their failure; their misreading of what works.

Recognize the best way to communicate your offering to your Web audience is with a presentation delivered by a real human being, a presentation that engages, enlightens, and embeds in that audience’s collective memory.

And when you’re done, do it all over again in an even more memorable, dramatically entertaining manner.

If websites have one overarching goal it is to create confidence in whatever the website is promoting and who’s promoting it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a product, a service, a sales campaign, or an idea, if the presentation is not minimally credible or optimally motivational, then it fails as a means of marketing communication.

Communicate to the Subconscious Mind

Branding is often thought of as a marketing strategy reserved for major consumer product companies, but the fact is all businesses are brands that are either cultivated so they blossom, or let go-to-seed like a garden full of weeds.

Marketing neophytes often think of branding only in terms of some physical manifestation, like a logo, but a brand is the full complement of residual impressions resulting from all the experiences associated with a product, service or company. And today, the online experience is a vital venue for creating those experiences.

By using video, the marketer has the opportunity to tap into the audiences’ subconscious mind, the buried remnants of both remembered and forgotten experiences; the kind of experiences that form attitudes, prejudices, and preferences that inform our decisions, most importantly our buying decisions.

Where Businesses Go Wrong

Where businesses go wrong is settling for only the obvious, the logical, and the rational. Brands are formed in the subconscious, so if your marketing communication doesn’t reach the subconscious mind then it is not establishing or enhancing the brand in any meaningful effective long-term way.

What video does, when done right, is communicate on both the obvious and subconscious levels, making it the ideal Web-communication vehicle for creating a powerful brand experience, but only if you understand how to use the presentation and performance elements available.

Considering how powerful a tool Web-video can be, it amazes me how so many normally intelligent business people can opt for second-rate presentations. The do-it-yourself and user-generated efforts compete for the booby prize with the mindless corporate drivel – they all miss the point: a persuasive motivating presentation must communicate on multiple levels.

How To Deliver A Brand Story

We like to refer to developing, delivering, enhancing, and managing a Web-based brand, as The Brand Story Process. By thinking of your brand in terms of a story rather than just some graphical image, or nebulous mission statement, you avoid many of the pitfalls associated with ineffective branding.

A story, any story, has certain fundamental elements:
A storyline, plot or arc that moves the audience from skeptical Web-surfers to loyal customers;
A hero, who vicariously represents the audience and their dilemma in satisfying their subconscious needs or desires;
A villain, who represents the problems, obstacles, or challenges that confront the audience in satisfying those subconscious needs;
An agent of change that represents your company’s ability to resolve the dilemma by providing a solution to satisfying those needs;
And a format that structures the presentation in a series of procedural or serial video episodes, that establishes and enhances the brand image, all while delivering literal and subliminal benefits.

Storyline – The Arc of Transformation

At the heart of your brand story is your marketing message and that message must invoke change: a transformation from dissatisfaction to satisfaction, and not just a presentation of features and benefits.

Your brand storyline puts what you offer into context, and illustrates the achievable results through onscreen surrogates acting out the audience’s hidden agendas. A competitor can always cut your price or add new features, but neither tactic can overcome brand loyalty based on satisfying subconscious emotional needs.

Hero As Brand Messenger

It’s not just the message; it’s the messenger. There is no substitute for the human being. No avatar, cartoon character, or computer-generated equivalent will provide the subtlety and nuance required to communicate on the verbal, visible, and subconscious levels.

The one caveat is that real people can be ‘too real’ for their own good. We rarely recommend using company executives in front of the camera because the camera picks up all kinds of signals that the unpracticed performer is not aware of, resulting in an impression often contrary to the intended message. An uptight senior executive, no matter how well meaning, delivering a reassuring message to the public over some product liability problem can actually hurt the company’s rehabilitation efforts if that onscreen presenter is deemed untrustworthy or deceptive.

He’ll Always Be Tricky Dick

There are many examples of this sort of marketing faux pas, with Richard Nixon’s 1960 television debate with John Kennedy being one of the most famous. On the radio many people thought Nixon, the veteran campaigner, won the debate, but under the penetrating scrutiny of the television camera, Nixon’s true self came through. It was not just the five o’clock shadow; it was his buried true-self delivering a negative impression to the audience’s subconscious mind. The negative Nixon brand was established forever, one that never fully recovered.

A Brand Should Never Get Old, Ill, or Fat

Even positive reaction to a real personality can turn out to be negative. Take the example of Steve Jobs. His keynote addresses are treated like rock star performances, but when not available to perform for whatever reason, rumors start, and even major corporations like Apple feel the effect.

What you really want to create is a brand character, a spokesperson that can be managed, cultivated, and grown into a long-term brand representative, one who can deliver your marketing message and brand story in consistent, effective, and controlled campaigns.

Every Brand Story Needs A Villain

When we speak of the brand villain we are not necessarily referring to another character although that can certainly be one way of illustrating the issue at hand. As an alternative, situations or scenarios can be used to represent the problem or dilemma.

Psychological issues are most often not so cut-and-dried as to be presented by the black-hat villain and white-hat hero. Engaging heroes are often tainted or damaged in a way the audience can relate to, and effective villains are not so much evil as they are representative of an alternative agenda.

Take for example the recent commercial campaign for ‘Oatmeal Crisps’ that is currently running in the Canadian market. The series of spots features a father who is trying to protect his favorite cereal from being consumed by his teenage son in one commercial, and by his elderly father in another. This extremely clever campaign digs deep into the emotional resentments and psychological issues involved in the family dynamic, but it does it in a humorous, lighthearted manner, where the audience can relate to the situation, and accept the underlying message. Here’s a case of protagonist and antagonist, a more sophisticated approach to the hero-villain relationship.

You Are The Agent of Change

By adopting the Brand Story approach to marketing, you need to accept the notion that your brand is an agent of change. All stories are about change: transformation from one state (dissatisfaction) to another (satisfaction). You construct your brand story based on the idea that your brand will transform the audience somehow.

Take the ‘Multi Grain Cheerios’ commercial featuring a husband and wife discussing the ingredients listed on the cereal box: while the overt message is buy this product because it tastes good, the underlying message is that it helps control your weight thus making you more attractive to your spouse, not a subject that any sensitive spouse would suggest. The cereal is presented as the agent of change: overweight and unattractive, to slim and beautiful, while at the same time removing the stigma of dieting by providing the taste excuse to justify the purchase.

This commercial like the previously mentioned ‘Oatmeal Crisps’ commercial creates a conflict that delivers multiple messages through the familiar husband-wife scenario; one that is familiar to anyone who has ever dared suggest their significant other should lose some weight.

Are You “Law and Order” or “Prison Break”?

Format: Procedural or Serial

The two most commonly used presentation formats are Procedural, think “Law and Order”, or Serial, think “Prison Break”. Procedurals follow a strict formula that continuously replays the basic story arc with the context of each episode emphasizing the consistent attitudes, perspective, and point-of-view of the franchise or brand. On the other hand, Serials move the plot along from episode to episode keeping the audience in suspense as to what is going to happen next and whether the brand hero will win the day.

One of the best Serial advertising campaigns every implemented was the Nescafe Gold Blend coffee campaign that ran from 1987-1992. You can watch the whole campaign from beginning to end on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igi9u6X4y-s).

One of my favorite Procedural style campaigns is the recent Kleenex (Let It Out) campaign that was brilliantly executed. It played upon the audience’s emotions, memories, and experiences, while associating those deep-seated feelings with their brand of facial tissue that is normally regarded and sold as a strictly commoditized product.

Doing Something, Isn’t Necessarily Doing It Well

Far from being restrictive, these formats provide familiar structure within which the company can establish and enhance their brand, but failure to grasp the underlying emotional element inherent in your offering will lead to failure. A current Canadian advertiser tried to copy the Kleenex format without understanding what made the Kleenex campaign effective; they copied the physical presentation but without any emotional subtext, relying totally on a cost-to-performance benefit, and the result is a second rate effort rather than an effectively clever slipstreamed homage.

It’s About People, By People, For People

Unlike television advertising that is restricted to only those that can afford it, the Web is available to all. The problem is easy and affordable access to the tools and venues to deliver your brand story does not mean that you are telling it effectively. Marketing communication is not about research, technology, or statistics; it’s about people and the underlying emotional needs your brand satisfies – therein lies the basis upon which you build your brand story.