Guest Editorial

by Jack Sims, Author, Entrepreneur & Keynote Speaker for 2007 VDTA Show

Brand & deliver!

A big statement, but it may well be the case for a lot of companies, particularly in today’s electronic age. Branding has always been a factor in the growth of companies, products and services. But smaller- to medium-sized companies have not really understood the magnitude of the opportunities that a successful branding program can gain them. They tend to think that branding or brand-building is only for the “big boys.” My answer to that is; if you don’t act like a big boy, then you can’t possibly become one.

The biggest mistake I see from companies is the lack of consistency in their marketing communications. They simply produce an ad, a flyer, a mailing, brochure, etc., without any consideration as to what any one piece has to do with the other. All of your pieces MUST look like they come from the same place or person; otherwise you can’t possibly expect consumers to get a feeling for what “essence” your brand really represents. The second big mistake is using the wrong people to develop your company’s marketing or creative look.

The consistency problem can be easily overcome – “just be consistent.” The marketing and creative development is not quite so easy, but I would ask you to think of this; the creative development of your image or essence is going to cost X-amount of money to create and produce. This look and feel will deliver millions of impressions to your target audience over its lifetime. The biggest investment is the production of these pieces, and regardless of the information, the production will cost the same.

Again, you will invest X-amount in the creative, whether it’s effective or not! So by investing a little more, the “difference” is costs between poor design and creative, and great design and creative is minimal. Especially when those costs are amortized over the millions of impressions it will be making.

So far we have come up with two key words, “Consistency” and “Difference.” The third word is “Target,” meaning target your audience correctly. Most of us tend to look at our marketing data and assume that we know who our target audience is, right?

Frankly, this is just not good enough. You have really got to find out who your real target audience is. And the only way to do this is to ask them. I don’t mean read the latest research document; I mean go out and ask them. Call your customers up, make an appointment and go see them face-to-face. Ask them all about themselves and then build a complete profile that you can share with everyone in your company.

Once you have all of the information, then you should create a “Profile” that all of your communication pieces are targeted toward. I have gone to the extent of actually naming the profile, and I have even gone so far as to have a large cut-out of our ideal customer created. The most recent was for a client in the electronic communications industry – we called our ideal customer Mildred. No matter if we were producing a TV spot, a print ad, a direct-mail piece or the Internet site, the measurement of success was not what we thought, but what would Mildred think. It’s what your customer thinks about your product or service that counts. It really is irrelevant what you think.

If you just do these few things, you will be well on your way to growing your business into a brand and delivering additional profits to the bottom line for the long haul.

Reprinted from SQE Professional January 2007