Why Your Employees Need to Know “Why”

October 15, 2009

It’s one thing for employees to follow policies of your brand culture. It’s another for them to understand why the policy and culture exists, and to make it an authentic part of their job. A friend of mine called me about an experience he had at Chick-Fil-A today. When the Chick-Fil-A employee handed him his [...]

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Want to Attract Customers? Don’t Hide Behind The Fine Print

October 11, 2009

There was a lot of buzz last week over the FTC’s new guidelines for endorsements and testimonials. Reviews are mixed, but a big positive in the new guidelines is eliminating the “results not typical” disclaimer many businesses use. You’ve seen the diet ads featuring a celebrity or consumer making an amazing weight loss claim and [...]

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How Doing Little Things Creates Customer Loyalty

October 6, 2009

Most businesses want loyal customers, few are willing to do what it takes to create them. Some see it as too complicated, but doing the little things can create loyal customers. On a recent business trip to Iowa for a client workshop, two companies did some little things that earned my loyalty and that of [...]

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Is Your Business Afflicted with NAPS?

September 21, 2009

Words mean something. Words matter. What we say has important outcomes. The curmudgeon in me may be coming out here, but I’m seeing a sad trend in human interaction: The Not a Problem Syndrome or NAPS. It afflicts the more youthful members our society although it is creeping into the more senior members as well. [...]

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Three Questions Every Business Must Ask

September 10, 2009

Marty Neumeier, author of The Brand Gap, shares some great insights with a presentation on Slideshare. One slide that really caught my eye was the “focus test” slide. I discussed the importance of focus here. These three questions provide the foundation of focus to that will allow you to establish and grow your brand. The [...]

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Discounting Damages Your Brand

September 2, 2009

The first response for many businesses in a difficult economy is to slash the price of their product or service. It’s rarely a good decision for the short-term situation and definitely has negative repercussions for the long-term success of the brand. Give Them a Reason to Buy Brandweek featured an article earlier this year that [...]

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How to Increase Your Market Share in a Difficult Economy

August 30, 2009

The best way to increase your market share in a difficult economy is to zig while your competitors zag. “Zag” rhymes with “lag” and lagging is what many businesses will be doing that choose to follow the conventional wisdom during an economic downturn. It’s seems that the first thing that businesses do when the economy [...]

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How Simple Beats Creative

August 21, 2009

The goal of an effective advertising campaign should be to make the business the one the customer thinks of first and feels best about when their moment of need arises. Unfortunately, it seems that most of the advertising discussions today are focused on the need for “creative.” Often “creative” equals “clever.” I scratch my head [...]

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Why Top of Mind Awareness is Not Enough

August 17, 2009

The goal for most advertising/branding/marketing efforts is to create top of mind awareness. However, this is only one step if your goal is to increase sales. You want to be the business the customer thinks of first, and feels best about when their moment of need arises. A few years ago our local newspaper hosted [...]

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The Advertising Results Equation

August 14, 2009

Relevance X Repetition = Results Think ARE. Achieving your desired advertising results really comes down to this simple equation. Thinking of advertising in these terms will help keep you focused on what really matters in achieving advertising success. Relevance is where it all starts. Advertising has to be relevant to the customer or it will [...]

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