Great marketing quote...

"Authentic marketing is not the art of selling what you make but knowing what to make. It is the art of identifying and understanding customer needs and creating solutions that deliver satisfaction to the customers, profits to the producers and benefits for the stakeholders."

- Philip Kotler

Meaningful Marketing lesson

I'm working my way through a new book (to me), "Meaningful Marketing". This book is already looking like one of the best pragmatic marketing books I've read in recent years even though I'm only on page 50. I already uncovered a gem that I must share with you that goes to the heart of branding.

"To get customers to listen, you must give them a dramatic reason. A study of over 901 marketing messages for new products found that when the sales messages specifically stated the product's point of difference, those brands were 52% more likely to survive for 5 years or more than those that were less overt."

Great lesson. Create a point of singular distinction and communicate it clearly.

Amen.

The awareness question revisited

Well, I recently got "the question" again. Yet another reader of my e-book, "How to Build and Manage Your Brand (in sickness and in health)" emailed me a question about my stance on brand awareness. I get some iteration of this question every few months.

The question?

Always some variation of,

"I'm very interested to know what's behind your statement, 'Brand awareness is not everything. Brand awareness is vitally important for all brands but high brand awareness without an understanding of what sets you apart from the competition does you virtually no good. Many marketers experience confusion on this point.'"

What do I mean?

Brand awareness is vitally important for all brands but high brand awareness without an understanding of what sets you apart from the competition does you no good in-and-of itself.

Just because somebody is aware of your brand does not mean they understand why it is unique or why they should believe it represents superior value. Heck, there are a lot of brands with high awareness but also high notoriety. This is not desirable.

It is only once people understand what is different and unique about your brand that they can start to consider it as the superior choice in its category and start to develop brand preference toward it. Awareness means they are simply aware. Strategically aware means they are aware and understand what makes your brand different from every other one in the category...and just because they understand the differences doesn't necessarily mean those differences are favorable in their eyes.

Positive strategic awareness occurs when not only does the person recognize your brand, but they also understand the distinctive qualities that make it better in their eyes than the competition. This leads to brand preference.

Simply creating awareness for your brand is not even half the battle. Give me enough money for advertising and I can raise awareness for just about any brand...but that doesn't mean I'll drive any sales for it.

So remember, powerhouse, sales-driving branding is all about creating a point of singular distinction, creating positive strategic awareness and building brand preference in the mind of the target market.

SEE ALSO:
http://www.dolakblog.com/2006/08/brand-awareness-whats-deal.html

CRM: Can't Really Manage

An interesting article at Brandweek reports the results from a recent study involving CRM (customer relationship marketing). It appears that while much resource has been put into CRM systems and efforts to capture and aggregate customer information over recent years, few organizations are fully capitalizing on the efforts.

Only 16% of reporting companies report themselves effective or extremely good when it comes to CRM and a full 31% say they do not do any data mining at all.

It is much easier and much more cost-effective to keep loyal customers than it is to find and get new customers so why do marketers fail at focusing on the customer part of CRM?

Do marketers not realize that their responsibility does not end once a sale is made?

Pantene ad almost hits the mark

Quick! Which of the two ads above makes the greater impact?

Pantene's (P&G) agency of record, Grey New York, apparently created an almost great ad.

Their original ad is on the left and my slightly edited version is on the right. The text is identical in the two ads except I added the URL to the one on the right to at least add some semblance of a call to action.

Why did Grey New York not use a large, bold headline that's easy to read? Heck, it's only three words. The reader would almost not be able to not read the headline if it were big and bold. Why rely on the photo to stop the page flipper and make them work to find any sort of message? Knock 'em over the head with it. Just three words.

..and the logo? Make it bigger. Don't be ashamed of your client's brand. You've got an ad with 6 words here, folks. Why in the world did you try to hide those 6 words?

I just don't understand art directors who try to hide the message in tiny, gray print. Do they believe the gap is so wide between creatives and copy writers that they simply don't think words have any impact?

Yes, cool picture but your client is paying you to deliver a message. Deliver it effectively without making the reader work. As soon as you make the reader work...

Flip. Next page.