Over the weekend, my daughter wanted to update the look of her bedroom to reflect, as she told me on more than one occasion, …the “new her.” Well, as we finished painting and as she started moving the furniture around and bringing new stuff into the room as well, it occurred to me that she was just “refreshing” the look of the room and not “rebranding” who she was as a person. You see, while the color of her room had changed, a lot of other things remained the same because they spoke to who she is and what’s important to her. And the same thing holds true for companies…maybe yours, as well.
And herein lies the question: When the need arises, should you be rebranding or just refreshing your brand?
As we know, rebranding your business can be an intensive process that can literally redefine a company from the ground up. It’s more than just slapping on a new coat of colors. Instead, a rebrand is a complete redo of an already established brand because the brand has become somewhat stale, insignificant, or are just dated. This often happens when the brand has been around for a while, regardless of size or industry. Contributing factors include: aggressive competition, becoming “lost in time” with an aging customer base, or industry changes that begin to turn a company’s brand irrelevant.
However, rebranding a company from the ground up might not be the best bet for several reasons. For one, rebranding a company tends to erase history in the mind of the customer and you not only run the risk alienating current customers but confounding prospective customers. Oh, and don’t forget about the money that’s involved. Still, for many businesses, it’s necessary in order to stay competitive.
However, it is possible to take a small-scale approach by simply refreshing your brand. Think of it as remodeling your home. It’s still the same house that keeps you safe and warm; you’re just replacing the dark brown shag carpeting with hardwood floors and the yellow tile countertops with granite. It’s more of a remodel of your existing brand than a complete rebuild.
Ok, so why should you be considering this option? Well, if your company has been around for a while, maybe it’s time to revitalize your dated look, or make it more appealing to a contemporary audience, or target a new audience, or address current market conditions. This involves revising/reinvigorating a brand’s positioning and branding imagery to ensure that the messaging is not only strategically sound, but that the brand’s look is up-to-date while still keeping much of the brand’s equity. In short, it’s less of an overhaul, and more of a clarification. The brand name is left untouched, but there are changes in the logo design. Maybe it’s the sizing, placement and type of images and graphics to be used or additional shades of brand colors. It could be a new look to your website, packaging or a change in the tagline.
With this in mind, here are five things are worth considering:
Refreshing your brand is no walk in the park. It takes a lot of preparation and hard work to do it right, but it can help to ensure your brand stays fresh and continues to resonate with your customers. What better way to say “hey, we’re changing with the times” than to refresh your company image.
Businesses everywhere are searching with ever-increasing frenzy for the wonder drug that’s going to help their businesses do more sales. A few years ago it was search engine optimization. Today it’s social media marketing. My take on this is to do your company a favor and save your money because using social media as a pathway to sales is almost certainly not going to work to the degree you want. What? Heresy you say?
You see, while social media can be a valuable marketing tool, it’s not magic, it is not a miracle, and it cannot and won’t replace everything that came before it. By itself, social media doesn’t work well. I realize what I’m saying is not likely to be well-received, especially with the hundreds of people who have set themselves up as social media experts over the last year. I can understand why people think social media will cure everything, but I challenge anybody reading this to produce a real success story that has led to an actual increase in sales.
Just take a look at the top brands on Facebook (www.fanpagelist.com/category/brands) to see which brands people Like and Follow on Facebook and Twitter respectively. It’s hard not to be amazed. The #20 brand (Skittles) has more fans than there are people who live in Texas! Yup…Texas. Wow! Who needs paid media when you can reach a mass audience for free? Surely that’s an opportunity just too good to miss, right? Surely it makes sense to place a chunk of your limited and stretched marketing budget on a social media expert who promises to get your message out there so that the profits will roll in. Right?
Well, hold on for a reality check. One significant fact is that most of the top social brands continue to invest heavily in traditional media. Coke is near the top of the top brands on Facebook with more than 70 million followers. WalMart has over 30 million. The route to social media success, it seems, runs through traditional channels. Even the exceptions like YouTube and Starbucks are worth looking at. They obviously didn’t grow into superstar brands using Facebook and Twitter but rather use social media to capitalize on brand equity they have already built-up. In fact, when Google started getting serious competition, they started running TV ads. When there’s a product launch, a sale or just about any other occasion where you need to reach a mass audience quickly and effectively, there’s still no substitute for paid media…and the dot com’s know it.
Social media is a long, hard row to hoe. There’s no quick success and very few programs break through. Ask any company in the country and they’ll tell you they have some kind of social media program in place. Some of the more active companies write a few blog posts a week; reply to comments and questions on a daily basis; and update their Twitter and Facebook feeds repeatedly. A tiny, tiny proportion of them are having anything that resembles significant impact. Fact is, Coca-Cola says it can find no correlation between “buzz” on Twitter and actual unit sales. Auto manufacturer Nissan admits it has no idea if social media helps it shift cars. MasterCard can’t tie its social investment to revenues. In fact, there remains little evidence social media does anything to boost brands’ bottom lines.
Our firm’s experience has been pretty much the same. Although LinkedIn groups were helpful in the beginning, Facebook and Twitter were almost useless for the first year. It took awhile to build a following and learn how to develop it before we saw any benefits that justified the effort.
Oh, and let’s not forget about that group of mysterious online people out there that supposedly hold all the cards … the “Influentials.” Tap into them and they’ll disperse your message to the masses, or so some would have us believe. The fact is that in-depth research into the matter finds this whole idea completely baseless. Brands like Apple, Harley Davidson and Trader Joes, for instance, have been able to build an army of passionate followers without an “influencers” strategy.
That doesn’t mean that influence doesn’t exist. It does. TV show host Oprah Winfrey is very influential as doctors are when it comes to health issues, clergy for spiritual issues and so on. However, there’s nothing mysterious about them. Marketers have long used celebrity endorsements, trade marketing and community outreach where appropriate. The truth is that brands are not built by influential people, but by influential ideas. The problem is that so called “influencers” aren’t that much more influential than anybody else. Don’t take my word for this. Go online and do your own research and see for yourself.
Again, social media by itself is not a great way to build a brand. You’re just inserting yourself into an ocean of jumbled voices and are unlikely to stand out. Marketers like to complain about the clutter in traditional media, but in social media it’s so much more cluttered.
So then why use social media at all? The reason is that it is an impactful vehicle for empowering advocacy and we know that’s extremely important for brand health and profitability. Social media, if done right, can capitalize on what brand equity your company has already built up.
So when I hear social media “experts” who make outrageous claims, who state misleading research, who use everything from stories to rumors to masquerade as facts, whose bias renders them short of perspective, and who completely dismiss the power of ‘traditional’ advertising… they’re ONLY, ONLY, voicing their opinion and not “showing me the beef.”
While social media is a vitally important component of an overall effort, it’s no replacement for sound marketing principles.
A few weeks ago, I was faced with needing to find a new dentist. So, the search began and the more I looked around, the more it showed just how many touchpoints came into play prior to – and after – a selection being made.
As we know, customers experience your brand in numerous ways and each of these touchpoints molds the customer’s impression of your company’s brand. If the brand is a promise you make, then the customer experience is the fulfillment of that promise. The customer experience can’t be left to chance. It has to consistently reinforce the brand promise across every customer touchpoint or the value of the brand itself is at risk.
So, after thinking about what your brand stands for and what sets it apart, it’s time to look outward. After all, if a brand is built and nobody hears it, does it make a sound? In not-so-distant marketing past, reaching consumers meant connecting through just a few channels: a catalog, a radio spot, a store visit, a customer service line, a salesperson…You get the idea. However, the number of channels for reaching customers has exploded in recent years. Think about it: when was the last time you made a major (or even not-so-major) purchase decision, personal or for business, whether a product or service, through a single channel? In fact, it’s more likely that your purchasing decision was made after being reached through a variety of interconnected touchpoints, from social media, to word-of-mouth, to advertising messaging, to conducting research online, to comparison shopping in the store.
Despite the desire to “silo” marketing channels, they’re far more effectively used together than individually. In a Forrester’s research report, it was noted that 33% of new customers involve two or more “trackable touchpoints,” and nearly 50% of repeat customers visit three or more “trackable touchpoints.” And despite the fact that nearly a 50% of the surveyed people believed that social media channels are a great place to discover new products, less than 1% of sales resulted directly from a social media referral. Online search (i.e., Google) and email were much more effective at closing a sale.
That said, your ultimate goal is to have each touchpoint reinforce and fulfill your marketplace promise. The best way to do this effectively is to look at each of your marketing, selling, and servicing processes which then allows you to create a simple touchpoint chart or map that defines your customers’ experiences with your brand.
Keeping this in mind, let’s use the process in looking for a new dentist:
That said, all touchpoints are not created equal. Some will naturally play a larger role in determining your company’s overall customer experience. To determine the touchpoints driving your customers’ overall experience, your organization can use a wide array of techniques ranging from quantitative research to institutional knowledge.
Yes, it’s simple….almost absurdly simple. But stepping into consumers’ shoes is an exercise absolutely too many executives neglect when marketing. We forget to become our own customers–with real, day-to-day concerns–and in the process, we lose sight of the most valuable touchpoint opportunities. Each one is a chance to present your brand and what you stand for.
In other words, having a more refined sense of “touch” has a big impact on how your prospects feel.
Imagine if you had some magical warning sound that alerted you before you made a misjudgment or a social faux pas. You know, like you’re about to bet on a bad hand and, HONK!, so you pull back your bet just in time. Or you’re about to give a future employer one of those cool “street” handshakes and, HONK!”, you think better of it. There’s a clever commercial for the Nissan Altima that plays out this funny notion as it promotes a cool new feature on the car: a warning honk that alerts you before you over-inflate your tires.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9xFgyv8BJI]
Now admittedly, we’ve all managed this long without the benefit of an automatic over-inflation warning, but still, it’s pretty cool. And it dramatizes a point that as a marketer you should be asking yourself: What’s the cool feature you have to sell? What do you produce, offer or do that excites your audience and makes them think “Wow!”
This is a pretty ho-hum world we live in and we’ve all seen ads, commercials, websites and Facebook pages up the wazoo. So the challenge of breaking through today means finding the one or two out-of-the-ordinary things people don’t expect or don’t know about you that fascinates them. We all know that to be the all important “Wow Factor.”
In your specific industry, you already know what the baseline of expectations is (quality product, made from quality materials/ingredients, great customer service, affordable prices). That’s just the opening ante that anyone in your business must provide. But where is the Wow that you alone can talk about? That one thing, or series of things, that is not merely unique but deserves an exclamation point in the eyes of your customer.
In books such as Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service, or Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable, the authors write about the need to be remarkable or else become invisible. In your marketing, the same rule applies, that you must find the Wow Factor and express it in a fresh and unexpected manner so that it excites the audience and sets you in a league all your own. That way, it grabs people’s attention and has them focusing on the message and not thinking about the other stuff that might come into their minds. They’re engaged…captivated.
In doing so, you start connecting with your audience on a more intimate level, and that better allows you to persuade them, get them to trust you, get them to believe you, and get them to want to buy from you. So when your competitor tries to pull them away, they’ll stay loyal to you.
Back to the example of the Nissan Altima, the commercial demonstrates that promoting one small but really interesting feature is better than loads of features or bland generalities. That nugget of marketing gold for you might exist in one “small” aspect of your operation but demonstrates everything holographically about the way you do business. Whether it’s some unique characteristic about the what makes up the product (i.e., it doesn’t rust…even when submerged in salt water) or a particular service that you alone are offering (i.e., you’ll return every inquiry within 2 hours), it just needs to be a Wow. Anything short of Wow, whatever it is, will be background noise and nothing more. And if it’s a Wow, no matter how small it is, your marketing can make it big.
It’s time to do some corporate detective work and discover – or develop – your own Wow Factor.
And hey, did I mention the marketing director’s daughter who (HONK!!!!) … oh, never mind.
The life of a hummingbird rarely exceeds four years. The life expectancy of a Marketing Director (or CMO or VP of Sales & Marketing) at any given company is even less than that. The typical tenure these days is a little more than 3 years and this is up from about 26 months in 2004. In fact, as you stroll through the offices at many companies, it’s an easy bet which executive is a dead man (or woman) walking: the Marketing Director.
What are some of the reasons causing such a short tenure? What are some things a Marketing Director can do to be successful? How much of that is on the company and how much is brought on by the individual?
Ok, so how much of this is do you see or experience in the world that you live in? If you’re like the vast majority of Marketing Directors in this country, you see any of these issues popping up on a fairly regular basis. Here are a few things to consider in order to make sure you’re not having to call your executive recruiter anytime soon.
While the marketing landscape changes so quickly, the good news is that a Marketing Director can succeed in the face of headwinds no matter which way he/she faces. It may be more challenging than it should be, but stand true to your brand, be current and always in the know, and be bold enough to make a difference….otherwise, chances are, you might be dusting off that resume.
I had a phone call with a previous client last week and during our talk she told me more than once how she felt like the role of her marketing department was being marginalized. Apparently, over the course of the last few years, various internal departments who relied on the marketing team to support their activities are now more or less telling them what they want said and how they wanted it represented in the various forms and channels. They’re playing Copywriter and Art Director. The reason why this has happened was summed up by what more and more people in organizations think: “Anyone can do Marketing.”
Unfortunately, there are people in C-suites around this country, self appointed ‘marketing experts’ on the web (who are generally selling something), etc., who believe that to be the case. In fact, the marketing department is also occasionally to blame. How’s that? Well, have you noticed any of the job postings for marketing people? Some of the position descriptions are impressive and ask for proficiency in a number of specialties like SEO, CRM, social media, Photoshop, along with more traditional marketing areas. And then comes the kicker: 2-4 years experience required. What??? Obviously, marketing management who wrote the job spec doesn’t view its role as that complicated or requiring suitable experience to do the job correctly. No wonder respect is hard to come by.
As we know, businesses depend on professional attorneys to oversee their legal affairs and experienced accountants to manage their finances. But some executive level business people don’t think twice about turning over their revenue-producing marketing efforts to someone who doesn’t have a clue what the 5 P’s of Marketing are. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say “Troy, I know you’re a engineer by training but you took a class in junior college about law, didn’t you? Hey, would you mind doing some international patent registration for us?” Yet a very similar conversation happens with marketing.
Misguided companies everywhere assign the marketing role to anyone who they think is “creative” or can write. And people in your company know people outside of your organization who fit that bill. So why should they think that you’re different? What’s been done to offset that perception?
In the organization I mentioned, the marketing department first let some things go that they shouldn’t have and ultimately as a result they’ve abdicated their role as experts and brand stewards. They’re now seen as mere fulfillers. In their zeal to make people happy, they took the thoughts offered up by the internal stakeholders as the easy way out in order to get through the work in their queue. Having overseen a creative services team for a large financial services company, I know how this can happen and how tempting it can be when it “just needs to get done ASAP!” But you’re just opening up Pandora’s box when you go down that road. So what are a few ways for people to better understand the value that marketing offers? Here goes:
At the end of day, the value of your department or specifically, your job, is more at stake than you might imagine. A so-so marketing plan, a mediocre tradeshow booth or ad or collateral piece, a ho-hum status quo “integrated” campaign…they all make you look more like a fulfiller of marketing needs and less like the marketing professional that the company is counting on to drive revenue, awareness, brand preference, etc. In fact, not showing value is the quickest way to have the work you do be discounted as nothing special.
So if your organization believes that “Anyone can do Marketing,” consider whether or not you have a role to play in that notion.
Over the past 5 years or so, it’s it happen more times than we care to remember …maybe even at a company that we once worked at. (For me it was Countrywide Home Loans.) I’m talking about a company or brand that was once a familiar part of the business landscape which is now no longer around. Disappeared. Gone and forgotten. From Oldsmobile to Borders bookstores to more big city and community newspapers than one can count.
The fact that “going out of business” has become such a growth business, it got me thinking about a question I’ve posed time and again to the marketing leadership of companies during this “New Normal.”
The question is simple and insightful — and it’s worth taking seriously as you evaluate your approach to strategy, competition, and innovation. Here it is: If your company went out of business tomorrow, would anybody really miss you and why? Let that swim around in your brain for a bit.
If that question didn’t concern you…maybe it should. What’s being done in order to make your brand important enough and invaluable to your customer so that they feel they could not live without, or at worst not want to live without you? Here are 5 ways to help make your company or brand so meaningful that your various customers would notice if you went out of business.
First, you must provide a product or service so different that it can’t be provided nearly as well by any of your main competitors. Mercedes would certainly be one, maybe even Ritz-Carlton and Southwest Airlines as well. But really, how many products or services fall into this group? Do your customers see you as a “must” or a “they’ll do”? How many viable options are there to what you offer? Do they trust you to follow through on what you’re telling them? What makes you so special…really?
Second, meaningful brands are created by people with a vision and a passion, and destroyed by “caretakers.” Perhaps the founder of a company identified a niche or angle that was unique and pursued it with passion. But once the brand is relinquished into the hands of “caretakers” more focused on the financials and preserving the status quo, it can tend to be slowly destroyed. Marketing, and I mean the kind of marketing that moves people to act, is something seen getting smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror. Former President Reagan once said “Status quo is Latin for the ‘mess we’re in’.” Amen.
Third, make sure that the company continues to innovate and not stand still when the brand realizes some success. When something works, either because it was thought through or, more times than not, by other factors, the “don’t fix it if it is not broken” philosophy kicks in. The growth of the brand or company stalls, instead of constantly trying to evolve, improve and adapt to the changing world. One cannot win a race by standing still. Vanilla/mediocre advertising is a big contributor to — or perhaps the result of — standing still.
Fourth, your company must forge a uniquely emotional connection with your customers that other companies can’t copy. Apple is an obvious passion brand in the performance-obsessed technology world. HBO is a brand in the fussy media market that doesn’t just have viewers but devoted followers. But in a world of endless choices, how many companies and brands do you know that have achieved the status that inspires “loyalty beyond reason?” Is there a reason why your brand shouldn’t one? Can your company be an Apple, Starbucks or HBO to your customers? If your answer is “we can be a brand like that”… good for you!
Lastly, look at the marketplace and understand who you’re competing against. Many companies and brands define their business too narrowly just like stagecoach owners did. They focused on offering the best stagecoach service, the cheapest stagecoach service or the fastest stagecoach service. Eventually other forms of getting people from “A” to “B” came along, like when the jet plane destroyed the lucrative transatlantic ocean liner business. You need to define what business you’re in and who the competition really is. Food for thought: If Google’s the one ranking your business against your peers, then it makes sense to understand who they think you’re similar to, right? Type in your own URL in the search bar and see what comes up. You may be surprised.
The fact is, a very few companies meet any of these criteria — which may be why so many companies feel like they are on the verge of going out of business. So the next time someone at work urges you to think small and settle, ask them why they believe that playing it safe is playing it smart. That’s what they thought at Saturn, E.F. Hutton and House and Garden magazine — and look how it worked out for them! For, as they found, their customers could live without them.
At the end of the day, if your customers can live without you, eventually they will. If you do business the way everybody else does business, you’ll never do much better. If your answer to the question of whether anyone would notice if your company or brand went out of business is “no” or “not sure” – you need to focus on how to ensure it doesn’t happen. What is your marketing doing to make sure that doesn’t happen?
The most dangerous place to be in your marketing is in the middle of the road.
We had a client call last week telling us that she had received a letter from someone stating how much they were put off by an ad we were running. She was wondering if we should hold off running that ad and instead run another one we had produced. My response was “Heck no. I’m thrilled that someone felt that way. I hope we get a few more letters.” Why would I say that, right?
You see, your company, like 99.9% (there’s always that oddball out there) wants to be loved. You want adoring customers, enthusiastic vendors, committed partners, etc. Yet in reality, few companies are really appreciated. In fact, most companies and marketing messages are tolerated at best, and at worst, ignored. And do you know why? It’s because most company messaging is too forgettable and too dull to spark any type of reaction.
If you want your company to have passionate customers, dedicated partners, etc., you must first inspire strong responses. Only then can you convince people to love your company and become raving fans of your brand. But here’s the kicker: as you attract fans, you’re also bound to get the critics, or “Haters.” As we learned in physics: Every action creates an equal and opposite reaction. These Haters are the ones that write nasty letters or post negative comments on sites like Yelp or Angie’s list. That said, here’s something which might also cause you to recoil a bit. Experience has taught me that it’s OK to have some not like your brand (not a lot, of course). Yup, you heard me right. In fact, having a few critics is essential. The undeniable reality is that if you’re not eliciting a negative response from someone somewhere, then you’re probably not that fascinating to anyone. No one remembers lukewarm!
Fresh, imaginative, and original ideas come across as unfamiliar, even uncomfortable, which means that not everyone will like it. But unfortunately, most companies spend too much time worrying over damage control for the Haters that they never get up the nerve to be exceptional in the first place. In short, Haters are the price one pays for being special. Apple has Haters. Starbucks has Haters. Accept their presence but do not let them stop you from moving forward.
On the other hand you have the advocates, evangelists, loyalist…the Lovers. They don’t just buy your product or service, they also accept price increases and forgive occasional “issues.” When your product is sold out in one store, they’ll drive to another store to find it. When the competition tries to appeal to them with an incentive, they stay loyal. Lovers also do your marketing work for you — for free. They write nice things in online reviews, and even occasionally re-post your content online. In every aspect of your company, Lovers will reward you with new business and higher sales. They’re not just buying your products for price or utility.
So you now have the Lovers on the left and the Haters on the right and between them you have a set of customers who give you little loyalty or value. Let’s call this group the “Lukewarmers”. Maybe a good way of describing this group is like that friend of yours that would come over to watch a game but as soon as the beer ran out…so would he. Kind of like a friend…but not really. In the same way, these indifferent customers make a purchase here and there but don’t add much of anything else.
The Lukewarmers also have a really bad habit of not caring. They won’t buy your product unless it’s the cheapest or most convenient option which means they’re only buying you until a cheaper or more convenient alternative comes around. So in addition to not being loyal, they’re also expensive to maintain because you’re spending money to get them as customers and they never really pay out over multiple purchases.
In today’s marketplace, this middle ground is death!! Not caring is not buying. Not caring is inaction. The Lukewarmers leave for just the smallest of reasons. So how do you get people to quit being Lukewarmers and start actively choosing you and your brand?
Simply put, if your company wants to influence purchase decisions, you need to provoke strong and immediate emotional reactions so that people bond with your brand or company. The goal isn’t to create, or even stay away from controversy, but to avoid creating legions of people who simply don’t care.
The world is not changed by people who sort of care or don’t care at all. Stop focusing on the Lukewarmer. And don’t let the Haters keep you from your goals. Start accumulating the Lovers. And it all starts by having your marketing and advertising being original and captivating. There’s no middle ground here.
It happened to us again. We were working with a client, taking them five steps forward when without warning, they took six steps back. They went fleeing from the banks of the Promised Land back to where their advertising wasn’t producing maximum results, but at least it was “safe” and nobody in management would complain.
Holy smokes, they were almost there, with a new campaign that would cut through the clutter like a hot knife through butter. Instead, they opted for the same direction they’ve always followed. We don’t take it personally. We’ve worked with this client for a number of years, and we really like the people. But each year, we pray this time maybe they’ll take the path less traveled and finally move their brand from a me-too to a me-only! And then the bugle blows, “Retreat, retreat!”
There’s an old saying: “The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.” I hate that saying. I hate that is pardons marketers from being exceptional. It only contributes to the soggy, bland mess that fills 95.6% of the available ad space. It makes people hate advertising and love the fast-forward button on their DVRs.
I have a challenge for you if you’re the one responsible for advertising at your company. Pick up the next five magazines you encounter, go through each one and tear out the ads that really stop you, that speak to you on some gut level, that make you salivate for the product. I don’t care if they’re ads for panty hose, shaving cream or body bags, just as long as you love the ads. Tear out the ads and put them in a folder. Then the next time you have an ad to create for your company, pull out those ads and see if these don’t inspire you to do better. And the moment you feel the need to retreat, look at those ads again for inspiration to boldly stand apart and be noticed.
It may help you to remember that they’re the ones that caught your attention while you ignored the other 95.6% which lost their respective companies lots of money in production and media expense.
We say, again and again, Dare to be Different. Maybe it would be better if we said, Dare not to be invisible. Dare not to retreat into marketing nothingness. Dare not to do what everybody else does and blend into the background by your own choice.
We Dare ya.
As businesspeople, we want to be acknowledged for the work we do, for the value we provide. Can you image doing your work year after year and rarely being told “Great Job! We need a lot more people like you!”? We all want to be recognized for how we go about our business but also that we have worth as individuals. It’s just a part of how we’re hard-wired as human beings.
Well, the same thing holds true in having your company being praised by clients and customers. We all know how good it feels to be called out as a team or as a member of the team for making someone feel good about their association with your organization or department. Aside from personally feeling good about it, and depending on who is giving the “atta boy/girl”, people start walking around with a bounce in their step and overall team morale starts to increase. I know because last week our own firm received a couple of unanticipated and very flattering “great job” kudos from some clients that made us feel pretty darn good. Which got me to thinking, how might we want to let others know that our clients think we’re the “cat’s meow?” Because, probably like you, while we know it would be a good thing to do, we’re either sometimes to modest or we just don’t put the time into thinking how we could showcase these wonderful endorsements for the betterment of the firm.
In today’s world, the majority of prospective customers, both B2B and B2C, spend time researching online or through social media before they buy. They depend more than ever on word-of-mouth references from people who have used those brands or products – whether those references are in the form of anonymous reviews or client testimonials. (Think Angie’s List, Buzzillions or Yelp.) In fact, according to a the marketing group, ODM, about 90% of consumers trust the word of people they know and 70% of consumers trust the word of people they don’t know. Just look at how we shop online. We find what we’re looking for and one of the first things we do is check the customer rating number on the product. The second thing we typically do is read the actual customer reviews to see why someone gave that product 1 star and why others gave the same product 5. The point is, it wouldn’t hurt, regardless how large or small your organization, to make sure that people come across testimonials about your business to help establish trust and prove your credibility.
Ok, so if you’re running low on client testimonials, how do you get more? Well, here are a few thought starters:
Now, what to do with the client testimonials that you receive? Again, just some thoughts to get your marketing juices flowing:
If you have done your job well and earned satisfied customers, don’t let it end there. Let them speak up for you. Their words are worth their weight in gold. I know it. You know it. And your competitors know it. Oh, and before I forget “You’re doing a great job. We could use a lot more people like you.”