Before long this year will be over and hopefully we will be welcoming an upturn in the economy. Whether the economic malaise ends in February or October of next year, it will end and businesses need to ask themselves….are we in shape to compete in the future?
Steps taken to improve the bottom line may have proved financially successful, but may have negatively affected the company brand. Lack of focus, smaller budgets, and low employee morale all contribute to poor brand differentiation, relevancy and execution.
The solution is to redouble efforts to understand what customers need today, their perceptions about your company, product or service, and the communication channels each customer segment uses to learn about you.
‘Real’ customer engagement is gained by
• Building an emotional connection by personalizing your brand
• Closing the gaps between internal assumptions and external perceptions to establish relevancy
• Clarifying communication messages so your brand is perceived as distinctive
• Choosing the appropriate communication channels for each customer segment
• Executing your brand promise with excellence
Good marketing companies use the availability of customer information to their advantage. They reinforce their basic brand messages and keep these messages up-to-date and relevant. They may alter communication channels to keep up with evolving communication tools, but they don’t change their basic communication objectives.
Customers use certain products or services because they trust that brand to deliver what they are looking for, consistently. They form brand opinions from the messages they see and hear. When the promises made and inferred in these messages, both functionally and emotionally, are satisfactorily delivered, loyal customers are born and reinforced. Great brands have been built over time by using strong, relevant and consistent communication messages.
Whether the economic malaise ends sooner or later, smart companies will begin evaluating the relevancy of their brand and their ability to successfully compete now.
