If you’re buying a car, do you check Facebook or MySpace? Or do you read up on Kelley Blue Book values and Comparis reports and scour the company website for every spec, from horsepower to miles per gallon? What about music — do you check Top 40 radio charts or scope out what your Facebook friends are actually listening to on Spotify before making a purchasing decision?

Social media has infiltrated the purchasing funnel, helping consumers make informed decisions, from what to have for lunch to where to go on vacation. Depending on the decision, sometimes you turn to your social graph, and sometimes you turn to Google. So, as a brand marketer, you need to know what online channels you should be targeting in order to reach the ideal audience for your product.

But regardless of what kind of consumer you’re trying to reach or what you’re selling, your SEO better be top notch — search is still the most important influencer on the web.

The infographic below, featuring data from M Booth and Beyond, analyzes the differences between high and low sharers and various purchasing decisions, helping brands to understand how to target consumers more effectively.

What kind of consumer are you? Let us know in the comments below.

If you are into marketing and still using the standard (and boring) business card that contains all your phone numbers, fax numbers, email addresses and mailing addresses and you hand them out willy nilly to anyone with fingers… you may want to do something a bit different next year.

For example, when we meet people that want to learn more about transforming a printed publication into an immersive mobile App, then it is really likely that they are marketers who know something about QR codes. If they don’t know what a QR code is or how to read one, then they probably shouldn’t be on our radar.

Hey, while you’ve got time, why not try on a QR code for size? Getting one is very easy, just go to this site or even this one and enter the requisite information and voila, you will be presented with a fully functional QR code that points smartphones to content that you would like them to view (or process).

I like to send my contacts to a page that is all about me since, IMHO.. that is the reason they requested the business card in the first place. I also enjoy making it more of a challenge for people to get in touch with me directly, since, let’s face it, not many of us can process more than 400 emails each day without having some sort of negative impact on our social lives (or sleep patterns).

One more thing, since QR codes can be URLs, text, phone numbers, google map location, an event announcement, a paypal buy now link or even SMS text messages… you might consider using multiple QR codes depending on your objective. Here are what a few of mine look like.

There are a few interesting ways to personalize an advertising experience for reasonable cost and one of them is to ask the viewer for some basic information that can be integrated into a storyline and used in a video playback to generate more views and even viral distribution. Sure, this could easily go viral when you hit your target audience’s hot buttons and that’s what BOA was able to do with the Ad below a few years ago.

We spent many years answering letters, faxes, phone calls and emails and developed a philosophy regarding Customer Support that I’d like to share and encourage you to adopt.  Here is our take on Customer Service from the viewpoint of a marketer.

The purpose of a HelpDesk for a company like ours is to:

• Listen to our Client’s issues and respond in a timely manner with answers designed to resolve their issues.
• Delight our Clients and Users to such a degree that they recommend our products and services to others.
• Increase our own cycles of learning to improve our products and services faster than our competition is able to.

When you implement this in your business, the most likely end result is positive word of mouth marketing which brings in many more leads and that is something we really appreciate.

We are often asked about the definition of Marketing vs Sales.

I don’t know how the confusion started and you can look up the definitions in any dictionary if you are so inclined…  our preferred definition goes like this:

Good Marketing Is Like
Getting The Needle To Jump Out Of The Haystack
Sales Is The Fine Art Of Sewing

MARKETING CHALLENGE:
Increase sales of exam gloves and meet sales quotas
Launch a new product and create buzz to boost the brand image at the same time.

PRODUCT LINE:

Medical Examination Gloves
(yawn)

BACKGROUND:
Medline is the leading provider of healthcare supplies and equipment to the long term care market. One of their product lines is gloves. They had already delivered latex gloves to the market for 40+ years, added a strong and durable line to deal with high-risk and high-stress settings, expanded with vinyl for the low cost market and the latex intolerant and even added aloe to the inner coating to soothe and moisturize. Management was struggling to come up with an innovative product that could both enhance the line and draw more attention to their brand.

CONCEPT:
Support a charity.

Get one or more Customers to participate and produce a viral video.
The charity: The National Breast Cancer Foundation
The product: http://www.medline.com/breast-cancer-awareness/pink-glove.asp
The Customer: Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, OR USA
The video: (see below)

THE GIVING:
Medline has donated almost a half million dollars to the National Breast Cancer Foundation to provide education and free mammograms to those in need.

THE EARLY RESULTS:
The Charity: Thanks to the increased exposure and awareness, donations increased by 9% during the past  month period not including those donations made by Medline.

The product: According to internal sources, sales quotas have been exceeded for the quarter but exact numbers were not yet available.

The Customer: More than 200 employees of Providence St. Vincent Medical Center took part in the team building event which strengthened moral and brought many diverse groups together to support the project.

The Pink Glove Dance video has been viewed more than 8 million times on You Tube!

When you have a powerful brand, sales tilt in your favor. That’s not just a bold statement, it’s a fact.

In business school we learn that are two approaches when it comes to branding:
a) a manufacturer’s identifier
b) a promise of a Customer experience

I’d like to introduce a third which focuses on a single idea that your company owns that tilts sales in your favor.

That single idea can be described as the Sales Moment.

For example, if I were to say:
- “Family fast food” odds are that you would reply “McDonalds”
- “Family Entertainment” you’d be thinking “Disney”

There is just too much information available in the world today. If people can’t quickly understand what you stand for, then you will not break through the clutter. With so much competition, people gravitate to those that make things easier for them. If you want to create a powerful brand that increases your sales, you need to communicate one single idea and you have to keep it simple so that people can see how you fit into their world.

Think about the single idea that you need to own in order to tilt sales in your favor. If you think tactically, you will not succeed at this level because your focus will be on building a website, creating a brochure, buying some ads etc You need to think strategically and start at the beginning with the Sales Moment and your brand strategy.

To discover your Sales Moment you need to either triangulate your Customer’s Desires and your Strategic Advantages with your Competitor’s Exploitable Weaknesses or simply contact us using the form below and we’ll guide you through the process.

A powerful brand makes it easy for your target Customers to understand how the brand is relevant to them and this will increase your sales.

So, if you are prepared to consider rolling up your sleeves and working on your brand strategy, we can help you… If you insist that what you need now are tactics, then sorry but, this article is probably not what you’re looking for… on the other hand, it just might just change the way you think about branding forever.

A brand is a single mental image that tilts sales in your company’s favor and it is made up of 4 major elements:
1 the Name
2 the Logo
3 the Tagline
4 the Ad Campaign

From a potential Customer’s perspective the above are experienced simultaneously.

To create a powerful brand, all 4 elements MUST quickly communicate the Sales Moment.  If they don’t do this, the brand is weak and will confuse the target Customer. The Sales Moment is the one thing that can be said of your company’s products or services that actually makes the sale and converts a prospect into a paying Customer.

Businesses grow rapidly when the mental image from the four brand elements trigger the Sales Moment.

1 THE NAME
When you create a brand, the name MUST help to create a mental image based on verbal cues. There are six different types of names used by the most successful brands of all time. Each of the types helps the brand achieve a particular objective and at the same time communicate the Sales Moment.

Think about the idea that your company is trying to OWN…  and how you might be able to do it more effectively with the right name.

Creating a powerful brand name begins with understanding the different naming types:
- Functional
- Metaphor
- Energy
- Morpheme
- Historic
- Family

Functional:

• Liquid Plumber
• Toys R Us
• ThinkFun

If you select a functional name, be careful with the other brand elements (logo, tagline, ad image etc) so that  the company does not appear cheap or unsophisticated compared to other brands.
Functional names use a key product feature that you want to own.

Metaphor:

• TransparentValue (an asset mgmt company)
• Amazon (name conveys size)

The focus here is on creating strategic value using a word that suggests an important value of your brand.

Energy:

• Big Ass Fans (yes.. that is the company name)
• OshKosh B’Gosh (it’s just fun to say… esp for the target mkt of little girls)

Energy naming uses words that convey emotion, action or tone of the brand to achieve effect.

Morpheme:

• Microsoft
• Verizon
• FedEx

Morphemes use small syllables of a word or words to conveys essential meaning and can be combined to form a new word like FedEx from Federal Express and Microsoft.

Historic:

• Rembrandt toothpaste
• Baby Einstein
• Con Edison

Historic naming uses an historic event, character or location to embody a brand.

Family:

• McDonalds
• Ford
• Samsung

Family naming uses either real or fictional names usually from the founders to convey the sales moment effectively especially when one needs to differentiate from competition.

Once you have a clear brand idea to work with then develop names in all 6 areas… Then you can determine which type of naming works best to convey the sales moment and helps you to own your brand idea.  Then do trademark searches on the best names to see what is available. Choose the name that is the most memorable and best owns your strategic idea.

CAUTION:
Do NOT select a company name that you like best or one that others like best.  You may not like your company name at all… The results are in and after 50+ years of studying successful brands the ones that succeed are the memorable ones that best own their Sales Moment.  If you let your ego get in the way and you decide that you ‘don’t like it’ then you will be missing out on best practices and you will be making a decision based upon a limited perspective of what you, personally are comfortable with.  It is much better to make such a decision based upon your Customer’s perspective answering the question: What name communicates the sales moment to the Customer in a memorable way.

So we can not brand a company based upon what you or I or a bunch of friends think is cool nor can we brand the company for you, me or your friends using some inside meaning that is only relevant to us. Your Customer likely does not share the same perspective as you do… We can’t choose the company colors based upon what we like either. Instead we select each of the brand elements based on what performs. These elements create an ownable mental image. Whether we like it or not is irrelevant. What matters is that your brand makes it easy for your target Customer to understand how it is relevant to them. That will increase sales.

A few more tips:
Avoid names that are challenging to spell or difficult to pronounce easily. Do some research and drop names that have negative connotations in languages that are important to your market.

2 THE LOGO
Simplicity is the key to a great logo as long as it is memorable. Customers need to be able to construct the logo easily in their mind so that they have a clear an unique mental image of your brand.
The stronger your mental image, the more likely they are to remember you. The four main attributes of successful logos are that they are simple in a symbolic way, memorable, differentiated from the competition and that they tell a story. The story MUST be closely related to the Sales Moment. Does your logo tell a story that communicates the Sales Moment?

The logo must support the mental image of the brand in such a way that you own the strategic idea stemming from the company name and supported by the tagline. Be sure that your logo is different from those used by your competitors.

3 THE TAGLINE
Great taglines bring a brand to life. They should NOT include a description of your products or services. Great taglines communicate why your brand is relevant to your target Customers by calling up the Sales Moment. There are 3 types of taglines.
- Promises
- Calls to Action
- Memory taglines

Promises are based on a key brand attribute.
Calls to Action are invitations for a Prospect to join us because they share a similar philosophy.
Memory taglines play off the name or logo to help people remember the brand.

Examples:
Timex – it takes a licking and keeps on ticking (promise)
Apple – think different (call to action)
Army – be all you can be (call to action)
Maybelline – Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe it’s Maybelline? (memory)
Prudential – own a piece of the rock (memory)
Duracell – you can’t top the copper top (promise & memory)
Volvo – For Life

Here’s another angle on creating killer taglines that I think you will enjoy. The following taglines all have a few things in common. They focus on the user’s experience (the UX) in addition to that, each of them offers a comparison and lastly, each is a highly memorable brand that achieved fame in part due to a superb tagline.

ClubMed – The antidote for civilization
GLAD – Don’t get mad, Get GLAD
Memorex – Is it live or is it Memorex?
Outback Steakhouse – No rules Just right
Secret Deodorant – Strong enough for a man, but made for a woman
Target – Expect more. Pay less
United Negro College Fund – The mind is a terrible thing to waste
US Marines – We’re looking for a few good men
MasterCard – There are some things that money can’t buy. For everything else there’s MasterCard.

If you’re in the United States, and over 30, there’s a good chance you recognize them all. What’s more, I’ll bet you can even envision how the advertising looked and sounded once you read the tag line…

Below are a few more. These companies have powerful ad agencies and multi million dollar brand creating budgets yet, how many of the following brands’ taglines do you remember from your UX? Each of the following taglines relates to their product or service… not the UX.

Ernst & Young – Quality in everything we do
Fancy Feast – Good taste is easy to recognize
Ford – Bold Moves
Honda – The power of dreams
Pepsi – For those who think young
Wells Fargo – The next stage
Aflac – Ask about it at work
Bank of America – Higher standards
Cheez-It – Get your own box
CNET – The source for computing and technology

Does your tagline quickly explain why your brand is relevant to your target Customer and, at the same time, differentiate you from your competitors?
tip: wrap your tagline around the desired UX and compare / contrast it with something that your target Customers want / don’t want to experience.

4 THE AD CAMPAIGN
In the history of the world. there have been only 4 types of advertising campaigns that build brands and drive sales. If you’d like to learn about them, enter your contact details below and we will share a few more of our best practice secrets with you shortly.

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PS.

If you are not using one of these four types of advertising campaigns to build your brand and drive sales, your marketing is simply not working.