Optimizing your marketing spend to leverage the Empowered Consumer
The internet has forever changed consumer behavior and the resulting paradigm shift on marketing strategy is both daunting and liberating. There's an explosion of places consumers can assess your brand, compare products and pricing versus your competitors, rate responsiveness to your customer service or judge you by your company's values or actions. The internet also gives brands an incredible number of touch-points and tools to reach out and engage the consumer in very real and meaningful ways. The key for marketers today is to ensure the optimal investment is made at each of the four key touch-points along the consumer purchase decision cycle.
Get your brand into the consideration set - building brand awareness
Get "found" during the consumer research stage - SEO/SEM, product reviews, blogs, etc
Close the sale at the purchase point - conversion online or in the store
I came across this video on the Geary Interactive blog (produced by Twenty-two Squared). It's a great demonstration of the new purchase decision cycle and today's empowered consumer. The savvy marketer will ask: has my marketing mix changed to adapt to the new consumer purchase decision journey? Am I engaging current and potential customers at the right moments to influence their purchase decisions? Are all my customer facing activities integrated - marketing, PR, CRM? Do I know what drives loyalty and have I harnessed it with word of mouth programs? This shift in consumer behavior provides a great opportunity for marketers to be smarter about their investments by giving the consumer the information he or she needs to make a purchase decision, at the right place and at the right time.
So how does a company establish that they've got a brand in the first place? Certainly just having a corporate website with the ability to splash 'n flash any assortment of widgets doesn't make that blank a brand.
It's often hard to tell what product or service a company is offering [as a brand] when the greeting of "hey, thanks for stopping by - here's what we do and here's what we can offer you!" is absent in any meaningful way. Funny how some companies just don't know what they've got until their competitor defines that for themselves.
The Essential Orange is a blog about brands and marketing. My goal is to examine how companies connect their brand to consumers and differentiate themselves in the crowded marketplace; how they build brand affinity and brand loyalty in new and different ways.
I have 20 years experience building brands and marketing strategy for both Fortune 500 and start-up companies including Unilever, Labatt/Interbrew and Starbucks. I joined Starbucks in 1996 where we pioneered new ways to build brands, breaking new ground as a responsible company, committed to environmental and social change. Instead of relying on huge advertising budgets, we developed innovative advertising and marketing programs that sparked conversations and built social networks. I held progressive marketing positions in the U.S. and Canada, joining the international team as VP marketing in 2004.
In 2008 I branched out on my own with a desire to work with companies who wanted to make a difference. I’ve had the privilege to contribute to their success by developing strategies and plans to build a following and effectively communicate their story leveraging both traditional and social media marketing tools.
The internet has forever changed consumer behavior and the resulting paradigm shift on marketing strategy is both daunting and liberating. There's an explosion of places consumers can assess your brand, compare products and pricing versus your competitors, rate responsiveness to your customer service or judge you by your company's values or actions. The internet also gives brands an incredible number of touch-points and tools to reach out and engage the consumer in very real and meaningful ways. The key for marketers today is to ensure the optimal investment is made at each of the four key touch-points along the consumer purchase decision cycle. 
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So how does a company establish that they've got a brand in the first place? Certainly just having a corporate website with the ability to splash 'n flash any assortment of widgets doesn't make that blank a brand.
ReplyDeleteIt's often hard to tell what product or service a company is offering [as a brand] when the greeting of "hey, thanks for stopping by - here's what we do and here's what we can offer you!" is absent in any meaningful way. Funny how some companies just don't know what they've got until their competitor defines that for themselves.