Lois Brayfield, CEO
Join Lois Brayfield to learn what a brand campaign can do for your multichannel marketing efforts to create customer engagement and advocacy.
Hosted by McKay Allen, LogMyCalls.com
Presented by Lois Brayfield, J.Schmid CEO
Note: What follows is a quick synopsis of the webinar. However, make sure to watch the video for in-depth explanations of the concepts discussed here, examples of brand campaigns in action, and a Q & A session.
Just like in war or politics, a campaign is created to affect attitudes and ultimately change. In today’s competitive marketplace, brands should consider a brand campaign of their own; a strategy that not only captures the heart of your target audience but solidifies your differentiation in the marketplace. In this example-packed session, learn what a brand campaign is and see how others have used them to move the needle. You’ll learn how to take advantage of your “higher order benefit” in all of your messaging in order to create brand stickiness.
Because the world has changed so much, consumer loyalty has dramatically decreased over the years; it’s much harder to gain customers and to keep them. It’s very important that you stand out in a meaningful way, and a brand campaign will help you do that.
The session answers three questions:
- What is a brand campaign and why bother?
- What is your rally cry?
- How do you position your campaign for success?
First, a brand campaign is a strategic and methodical series of events delivered across multiple tactics that expresses your brand in a meaningful way. It’s the perfect opportunity to create awareness, gain traction for a new product launch, or draw attention to a special event like an anniversary.
The goal is to engage and excite customers and prospects alike, ultimately creating Brand Stickiness.
Are your offers just bribes that will create a short-term bump in sales, but no long term loyalty? A lot of offers (satisfaction guaranteed, free shipping, great customer service) are “cost of entry benefits”, meaning they are expected, rather than perceived as special. A brand campaign will move the needle and create customer value if you truly surprise, thrill and captivate.
Second, what is your rally cry? It’s something your entire company can get behind, and it’s the reason you’re going to “war:” to gain back market share or customers. It really requires strategic thinking, and it has to come from a 10,000 foot high view.
It starts with understanding your brand on a deeper level: Who are you as a brand? What do you do? Why does it matter? Most brands can easily answer the first question, about half can answer the second, but the vast majority utterly lacks an understanding of why their customer buys from them.
Successful brands understand what they offer is an emotional connection, as opposed to product. It’s the brand essence, or the higher-order benefit. It’s why your customers do business with you.
Third: Positioning Your Campaign for Success. Understand all the players involved, including your competition, and most importantly, your customers. A deep understanding of your customer can only come through research; we recommend that a psychographic research project is undertaken every year. Who are your customers? How do they spend their time? Do they spend time on Pinterest? What motivates them? What do they find humorous?
Once you have an understanding of the customer, and what they find compelling, you can start to craft messages that are ICEE (Tony Schieh, Zappos), which stands for Interesting, Compelling, Educational and Entertaining. Be bold, be irreverent. If it’s not one of these, it’s not worth doing.
And the ONLY way to know what is ICEE to your customer is through research. There’s lots of different ways to make this happen though online surveys, focus groups, customer advocates, one-on-one interviews, online forums, review websites and third-party psychographic overlays.
A brand campaign requires intense coordination across all levels – even a year of planning is appropriate to make sure all the bits and pieces are in place. But the rewards can be enormous, leading to customer excitement and engagement that generates long-term loyalty and advocacy.
Watch the full webinar and Q & A session here.
Tags: Brand Campaign, Lois Brayfield, Strategy