The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines a brand as a "name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended

to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers. Therefore it makes sense to understand that branding is not about getting your target market to choose you over the competition, but it is about getting your prospects to see you as the only one that provides a solution to their problem. The objectives that a good brand will achieve include:

Delivers the message clearly Confirms your credibility Connects your target prospects emotionally Motivates the buyer Concretes User Loyalty

To succeed in branding you must understand the needs and wants of your customers and prospects. You do this by integrating your brand strategies through your company at every point of public contact. Your brand resides within the hearts and minds of customers, clients, and prospects. It is the sum total of their experiences and perceptions, some of which you can influence, and some that you cannot. A strong brand is invaluable as the battle for customers intensifies day by day. It's important to spend time investing in researching, defining, and building your brand. After all your brand is the source of a promise to your consumer. It's a foundational piece in your marketing communication and one you do not want to be without. What does branding mean to your company's marketing strategy? Post Questions, Comments, and Answers to this Question in the Marketing Forum.

When I speak about branding it's not uncommon for people to mistake their logo as their "branding". Your logo is only one piece of your branding strategy. Your logo is a symbol that can provide consumers with instant and powerful brand recognitionof your business and the services or products that you offer. Before beginning the process of logo creation be sure that you have developed your brand strategy. Why? Your logo is like a small ad for your company, without the strategy behind it a logo can put across the wrong message and in return weaken your strategy. You want to keep your brand message consistent to help increase consumer recognition.

How do you know when you are ready to move to the process of having your logo created?

The mission of your logo is to portray the values and goals of your company. Make sure that these are clearly established before venturing out to find a logo designer. Be clear about the message you want your brand to convey so that your logo can clearly reflect that message. You must have a strong association between your brand and your logo. Remember it is only one piece of your branding strategy. Your logo should reflect professionalism and growth no matter how small your company is. If you are designing your logo in-house to save money be sure to market-test your efforts. Make sure that the logo you select is not dated but can be used effectively year after year. Keep in mind it is how consumers will recognize your company.

The conclusion of the role your logo plays in your branding strategy can be summed up in the following statement. Confident branding and a strong branding strategy uses design to communicate a message that attracts the target audience that you want to attract - a message that creates confidence in your brand while differentiating between you and your competitors. Does your logo fulfill this mission? If your answer is no it may be time to consider strengthening your brand strategy and looking at a new logo to re-position your company.

Branding and Marketing Trends for 2010

Niels Bohr once noted that "prediction is very difficult, especially about the future," but then he didn't have access to predictive loyalty metrics. Happily, we do. And, as they measure the direction and velocity of consumer values 12 to 18 months in advance of the marketplace and consumer articulations of category needs and expectations, they identify future trends with uncanny accuracy. Having examined these measures, we offer 10 trends for marketers for 2010 that will have direct consequences to the success - or failure of next year's branding and marketing efforts. 1) Value is the new black Consumer spending, even on sale items, will continue to be replaced by a reason-to-buy at all. This spells trouble for brands with no authentic meaning, whether high-end or low. 2) Brands increasingly a surrogate for "value" What makes goods and services valuable will increasingly be what's wrapped up in the brand and what it stands for. Why J Crew instead of The Gap? J Crew stands for a new era in careful chic -being smart and stylish. The first family's support of the brand doesn't hurt either.

3) Brand differentiation is Brand Value The unique meaning of a brand will increase in importance as generic features continue to plague the brand landscape. Awareness as a meaningful market force has long been obsolete, and differentiation will be critical for success --meaning sales and profitability. 4) "Because I Said So" is so over Brand values can be established as a brand identity, but they must believably exist in the mind of the consumer. A brand can't just say it stands for something and make it so. The consumer will decide, making it more important than ever for a brand to have measures of authenticity that will aid in brand differentiation and consumer engagement. 5) Consumer expectations are growing Brands are barely keeping up with consumer expectations now. Every day consumers adopt and devour the latest technologies and innovations, and hunger for more. Smarter marketers will identify and capitalize on unmet expectations. Those brands that understand where the strongest expectations exist will be the brands that survive - and prosper. 6) Old tricks don't work/won't work anymore In case your brand didn't get the memo here it is -consumers are on to brands trying to play their emotions for profit. In the wake of the financial debacle of this past year, people are more aware then ever of the hollowness of bank ads that claim "we're all in this together" when those same banks have rescinded their credit and turned their retirement plan into case studies. The same is true for insincere celebrity pairings: think Seinfeld & Microsoft or Tiger Woods & Buick. Celebrity values and brand values need to be in concert, like Tiger Woods & Accenture. That's authenticity. 7) They won't need to know you to love you As the buying space becomes even more online-driven and international (and uncontrolled by brands and corporations), front-end awareness will become less important. A brand with the right street cred can go viral in days, with awareness following, not leading, the conversation. After all, everybody knows GM, but nobody's buying their cars. 8) It's not just buzz Conversation and community is all; ebay thrives based on consumer feedback. If consumers trust the community, they will extend trust to the brand. Not just word of mouth, but the right word of mouth within the community. This means the coming of a new era of customer care. 9) They're talking to each other before talking to the brand Social Networking and exchange of information outside of the brand space will increase. Look

for more websites using Facebook Connect to share information with the friends from those sites. More companies will become members of Linkedin. Twitter users will spend more money on the Internet than those who don't tweet. 10) Engagement is not a fad; It's the way today's consumers do business Marketers will come to accept that there are four engagement methods including Platform (TV; online), Context (Program; webpage), Message (Ad or Communication), and Experience (Store/Event). But there is only one objective for the future: Brand Engagement. Marketers will continue to realize that attaining real brand engagement is impossible using out-dated attitudinal models. Accommodating these trends will require a paradigm change on the parts of some companies. But whether a brand does something about it or not, the future is where it's going to spend the rest of its life. How long that life lasts is up to the brand, determined by how it responds to today's reality. Contributed by: Robert Passikoff, President, Brand Keys Sponsored By: The Brand Position

Custumer targets

Defining the Target Customer

Organizations exist for one purpose to meet human needs. Thriving organizations do that exceedingly well. Venerated organizations have managed to meet evolving human needs over a long period of time. All of an organizations revenues and profits result from one thing customers who are willing to pay money for products and services that meet their needs. Any brand management initiative, any marketing initiative, and indeed any business or organizational initiative must start with a solid understanding of the customer. Focus is an important part of a brands success. Brands focus on a target customer and often narrow their focus to a particular customer need segment. As I've mentioned here before on BSI, customer targeting is the first step in brand design. Everything else emanates from that. So let's start with how to identify your brands target customers. Look for customers that meet the following criteria: They have an important need and your brand meets that need. Your brand has the potential to be preferred by them. There is something about your brand that they admire. They have the potential to provide your organization with the ample revenues and profits over the long run. Your organization can grow by building a long-term relationship with and increasingly fulfilling the evolving needs of these customers. At a minimum, you should identify and understand the following target customer attributes: Demographics Lifestyle Needs/desires Hopes/aspirations Fears/concerns Product purchase behavior Product usage behavior

In case you missed it, earlier in the week I wrote about customer insight techniques. I'll touch on market segmentation in the days ahead. Sponsored By: Brand Aid

How to Target Your Perfect Customer

The most important part of your copy is not your headline, not your offer and certainly not your benefits. The most important part is your customer. In the last few weeks, Ive been critiquing some pretty good copy. Very well-written and compelling. But if the conversion rate is low (hence, the reason why I was hired to conduct a critique consultation), its because these salesletters do not target the right audience for the offer, or the author and the copy fail to connect with their readers. Researching your customer in depth is vital to the success of your copy. Its not only an important component of targeting and qualifying the best prospect for your offer, but also an effective way to discover new ideas, different angles, captivating storylines, unsought benefits, and appropriate length and language of your copy that will convert more. If you have done enough research to know your product is viable, then targeting and connecting with your market as much as possible should be the obvious next step. However, this is where many marketers fail, for they are trying to be all things to all people and attempt to market their product to everyone. Instead, try to discover the qualities, characteristics and behavioral patterns of your specific (or greatest) market. Your niche. Then market to that audience more than any other and as often as possible. These usually fall into four main categories. The best copywriters in the world who have written multi-million dollar salesletters and ads are usually those who have spent a great many hours interviewing clients, spending time learning about them (maybe even to be with them), asking a lot of questions, and spending a lot of time learning about:

Geographics Demographics Psychographics Technographics

Empathy Starts With Discovery

It was Ken Blanchard, in the One-Minute Sales Manager, who said: Before I walk a mile in your shoes, I must first take off my own. Brian Keith Voiles, in an interview I gave him regarding the power of empathy in copy, said it best: The first thing I do is try to live a day in the life of my prospect. What keeps him up at night? What are his biggest concerns or his biggest joys? Whats the first thing he does in the morning as he wakes up? Does he read the paper? What kind of paper? What sections? Does he hurt? Is

he frustrated? About what? In all, I try to put myself in my prospects shoes as much as possible and really try to see what he sees, thinks what he thinks, feels what he feels. The more I do, the more empathetic I am in my copy and the more I sell. Demographics are the basic qualities and characteristics of your market. They include age, gender, culture, employment, industry, income level, marital status, and so on. Does your product cater uniquely to women? Is it more appealing to a specific industry? Does your product complement another type of product? Geographics are the countries, locations and establishments in which your target market resides or works, or those it frequents or to which it travels. Is your market made up of French Canadians? Does your product cater to a market from a certain state that is predominantly of a certain religious or political persuasion? Are they urbanites or rural folk? On the other hand, psychographics are made up of the emotional and behavioral qualities of your market. They include the emotions, buying patterns, purchase histories, and even thought processes behind peoples decision to buy your product. For example, they include events they attend, interests and hobbies in which theyre engaged, associations to which they belong, previous purchases made, other related products your market has consumed, and length of time they remained with a particular company. Finally, a new category, recently defined by Forrester Research, includes peoples affection or aversion towards technology. Are they early adopters? Do they use gadgets such as Blackberries and cellphones? Or at least do they own a computer? Do they surf the web and buy online? Or do they prefer to consummate the sale offline? Bottom line, who buys from you specifically? If you were to say everyone, then you are falling in the trap mentioned earlier. Avoid it as much as you can. Try to be as specific as possible. But if you do cater to a diverse market, find out who buys from you the most or the most often.

Intelligence Gathering
The two most important elements are, of course, demographics and psychographics. In other words, demographics include the segment of the population that needs your product, while psychographics are those within your demographics that want your product. If you dont know this, you can easily conduct a survey as part of a marketing research campaign among your current clients, potential clients and clients of other similar products or companies. Dont underestimate your greatest source for marketing research clients! For example, heres a list of questions you should ask:

Who, exactly, is your perfect customer?

Whats a day in the life of your perfect customer like? Why did they buy your product? If not, why not? Why did they buy from you or your competitor specifically? Why did they not buy from you or the competition? Why did they buy from you at that specific point in time? Why did they buy right away (on impulse) or took their time? If they shopped around, why did they? Where did they go? What do they like the most and the least about the product? Would they refer you to others? Why? If not, why not? What specific benefits do they see in your product? What specific benefits do they see in your competitors product? And so on.

These are immensely important questions that can help you, guide you, or even cause you to change your approach altogether. Dont discount the power of doing marketing research, especially within your own backyard. You want to know not only who buys from you but, more important, why they do. In other words, think psychographics and not just demographics. To illustrate the difference between demographics and psychographics, heres an example pulled from my own experience as a copywriter in the cosmetic surgery field. Hair transplant doctors cater mainly to men who have experienced hair loss and are able to afford such an operation i.e., men and bald men specifically are potential patients because they may need of more hair. Psychographics, on the other hand, go a little further. In this example, they are comprised of men who not only need but also want more hair since not all of them do. (Its a matter of priorities, just as the type of clothing one chooses to wear). Therefore, in order to target this market as precisely as possible and thus generate better leads, doctors must take the psychographic element into account, such as their patients lifestyle, their interests, the type of industry in which they work (since certain industries are image-related), as well as their previous buying habits (such as men who have already invested in other forms of hair replacement solutions) the more information the better. For example, you have a headline that said, Are you losing your hair? That appeals to your demographics. People who have hairloss will probably read the ad. Problem is, they may not care about it. But if your headline said, Suffering from hairloss? now your ad is targeting someone who not only has hairloss but also cares about it enough to want to do something about it.

Aim For The Bulls-Eye

Competitors targets

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