Are Your Customers Passionate About Your Brand?

It’s every marketing leader’s dream that the brand they represent is adopted by customers as their own.  The former CEO of Harley-Davidson®, Richard Teerlink summed up branding and loyalty marketing best when he said “There are very few products that are so exciting that people will tattoo your logo on their body.”  How does a brand create a passionate almost cult-like following?  I’m going to share with you some famous brands and what I believe is the secret to this phenomenon.

Harley-Davidson has successfully created a community of loyal customers.  They come from every walk of life, but have one thing in common – they love Harley-Davidson motorcycles.  Not only do H-D customers tattoo the logo on their bodies, they have H-D logoed leather jackets, pants, helmets, gloves, boots, wallets, jewelry and the list goes on.  H-D customers more than relate to the brand.  They are the brand.

Starbucks® has successfully transformed the way we think about buying a cup of coffee.  Starbucks is more than coffee, it has become meeting place with friends and a status symbol.   I believe that it’s not the coffee that makes Starbucks special, it’s the experience that they created with their brand. They have even transformed our language.  What ever happened to ordering a small, medium and large coffee?  The sizes at Starbucks are Tall, Grande and Venti.  You will commonly hear people order a Venti Caramel Brulée Crème Frappuccino® Blended Crème with extra whipped cream instead of a large black coffee.  By transforming the Starbucks brand into an experience, they can charge a premium for a cup of coffee and customers gladly pay it.  Customers walk around with their Starbucks logoed coffee cups like a badge of honor.  The café is more like your family room than a coffee shop. Starbucks has created a community.

Starbucks took their successful model into the tea market by purchasing Teavana®.  They replicated the Starbucks model with Teavana, which allows them to charge a premium.  Teavana customers will pay it because they love the brand and the experience when you go into a Teavana store.  You can taste tea samples and smell the different aromas.  Is Teavana the best tea brand in the world? Some may think so but Twinings™, Celestial Seasonings®, Lipton® and Bigelow® might disagree. Teavana has made the experience the brand.

Another example of a brand becoming an experience is Jeep®.  In 1954 when Jeep was owned by Willys Motors, they started an off-road tradition called the Jeep Jamboree.  Jeep 4×4 owners have the opportunity to join off-road adventures in various locations across the US. It is more than just owning a Jeep.  It’s a community of owners who love the Jeep brand and want new experiences with like-minded owners.

Building brand communities are what these successful companies have done.  It’s more than just a product, it’s an experience. When your brand becomes part of your customer’s identity, you have a customer for life.

If you want to learn more about me, visit my LinkedIn profile, my Twitter account, my website and my blog.

Photo credit: Daniel Y. Go via Foter.com / CC BY-NC

Be Thankful For Your Competitors

Why should you be thankful for your competitors?  That’s easier to answer than you might think.  Competitors make you better because you are challenged all the time to up your game.  You can’t lose your edge when you are the hunter or the hunted.

The Chess Game

If you have ever played the game of chess, it’s a strategy game where you have to out-think your opponent.  They make a move and you have to make a counter move.  You have to always be one step ahead of your competitor.  One wrong move can dramatically affect the outcome of the game.

Knowing your competitor’s next logical move can help you beat them.  You have to get into their head.  Think the way they think.  Understanding your competitor’s strategy is only part of the game.  You also have to understand what your customer’s needs are.  That too can affect the game.  If you are focused too much on what your competitor might do, you might lose sight of what your customer’s needs are.  Too often I got caught in a pricing war with competitors.  If they dropped a product’s price by 10%, we would drop it by 15%.  We found that didn’t dramatically impact our sales.  When talking with our B2B customers, they were more interested in finding the products they needed as quickly as possible versus saving a few dollars.  Their time was more valuable than the potential savings sifting through promotions.  To the competitors, it was all about promotional pricing.  However, to our customers, it was all about saving time.

Be Aware of Your Surroundings

When you have strong competitors, it makes you much more aware of everything that is going around you.  You become more sensitive to your competitor’s messaging in emails, print and online.  Your competitors are fighting for the same customers that you are.  What is your differential advantage?  Do you offer better customer service?  Are your hours of operation the same or better than your competitors?  Is your website search engine optimized and easy to use?  Find your weaknesses and fix them to make them strengths.  If you don’t know what your weaknesses are, ask your customers.  Your competitors probably already know your weaknesses.

Keep your eyes open for new competitors.  The competitive landscape is always dynamic.  If you are profitable in your market, rest assured someone else is going to figure that out.  IBM owned the computer market for years.  Dell, Gateway and Compaq went hard after that market and upset the balance of power.  Today, Apple, Lenovo, Acer, Asus and HP to name a few are in the ring.  It is difficult in today’s marketplace to stay on top of the mountain.  Look around.  You’re not alone and don’t be surprised if companies that you never thought would ever be competitors are now.

Competition Can Make You Stronger

Look at the constant battle for market share between Coke and Pepsi.  They are always taking swipes at each other and try to “one up” the other in their marketing and advertising.  Coke introduced “Share A Coke” using personalized cans and bottles.  Customers were looking for soda cans with the names of their spouses and friends to share.  This was a very successful branding campaign.  Pepsi did a counter television ad where two women are standing in front of Pepsi and Coke vending machines one holding a bottle of Pepsi and the other a bottle of Coke.  The voice over announcer tells the women that this summer they can win tickets to the concert of their choice every hour, but only with Pepsi.  The happy woman holding the Pepsi bottle says to the other woman “At least your name’s on the bottle” and the women holding the Coke bottle says “Do I look like a Larry to you?”  Punch…counter punch.

The battle between Coke and Pepsi has made both companies stronger because they are constantly reinforcing their brand and introducing new products.  Sometimes it is very successful and sometimes it is not.  Take “New Coke” for example.  Coca-Cola decided to introduce a new recipe that tasted more like Pepsi and retire the original Coke on April 23, 1985.  It was a huge marketing disaster.  Loyal customers revolted against Coke.  Doing damage control, Coke reintroduced the original Coke as “Coke Classic” on July 11, 1985, but the damage was done.  Despite the focus groups and 200,000 taste testers of New Coke, Coca-Cola didn’t realize how attached their customers were to their brand and the original Coke. Pepsi took advantage of Coke’s marketing blunder and launched a new commercial “Why did Coke change?” using a teenage girl questioning why Coke changed  She then drinks her first Pepsi, smiles looking into the camera and says “Now I know why.”  Competition has made both companies stronger and better.  The ultimate winner is the customer who gets a better product often at a better price.

Although many companies don’t want to admit it, competition makes you better. They make you much more aware of your strengths and weaknesses so you can improve and keep your eyes open for new competitors.  Your products and services are constantly being compared by customers and competitors, so you need to be the best you can be.  Isn’t that what we all want?  Thank you competitors.

If you want to learn more about me, please visit my LinkedIn profile, my website and my blog.

Photo credit: La Shola y EL Gringo? / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

What Are Your Customers Saying About Your Company?

When your customers call your company or go to your website, what is their experience?  Do they get their questions answered by friendly, helpful customer service representatives?  Do they feel that your customer service representatives are smiling over the phone?  Can they easily find the products they are looking for on your website?  What about their experience when they are disputing an invoice with your accounting department?

In our digital world with instant information and social media that can make or break your company by negative posts about your company, the customer experience is extremely important.  Here are some key things you can look for to give your customers the best experience they can possibly have and more importantly, they will tell other prospects about their stellar interaction with your company.

Positive – Was every customer touchpoint with your company a positive experience?  Whether they called your customer service or accounting department, looked for products on your website, emailed an inquiry to your company or opened their order once they received it, you need to make sure every time you touch the customer, they have a positive experience.

Memorable – What has your company done to make the customer’s experience memorable?  You want them to remember their positive interaction with you over your competitors.  Customers are busy and don’t want to deal with bad customer service.  There are too many competitors that can take your place. Make every time you touch your customers a memorable one.

Friendly and Helpful – Customers need to feel that you want to make their lives easier.  There is nothing better than talking with customer service reps who love what they do and you can feel that they are smiling while they are talking with you.  Everyone to talks to customers need to be professional, friendly and helpful.  Do your customers feel better about their experience with your company after they talk with your customer service reps?

Elevating Customer Experience  – Is everyone in your company committed to making the customer experience the best it can be?  Attitude is a very powerful ally. In several places where I have worked, getting everyone in the company on board with customer service that is “over the top” is mandatory.

How Likely Will Your Customers Recommend Your Company – Do your customers recommend your company to others based on their positive experience?  If you don’t know, ask them.  Customers normally have no problem telling you and anyone else who will listen about a bad experience they had with you.  Find out how satisfied they really are and fix what isn’t working right.  Social media is a great place to listen to your customers.  They are talking about your company, your products and how they were treated.  Listen to the conversation.

Relationships Build Lifetime Customers –  One of the keys to building lifetime customers is to create relationships with your customers.  People buy from people they know.  The more they know you, the more they trust you.  Ensure that your company is committed to having the best customer experience and the relationships will come.

If you want to learn more about me, please visit my LinkedIn profile, my website and my blog.

Photo credit: ytang3 / Foter / CC BY-SA