# How to manage a brand *Everything* connected to the product/service can connect with a unified [brand](people-image-why.md) that demonstrates uniqueness: 1. Product - the object itself 2. Service - the experience of the product's delivery 3. Brand - the product's declaration of uniqueness 4. Channel - how the product gets to the customers 5. Promotion - how potential customers learn about the product Branding has degrees of intensity: 1. Production Orientation - focused on the company's internal capabilities instead of marketplace wants and needs - Organizations have marketing myopia through defining themselves by goods and services instead of the benefits customers want. 2. Sales Orientation - employs aggressive sales techniques - Organizations have sales obsession by measuring their sales numbers instead of their retention numbers. 3. Market Orientation - focused on satisfying customer wants and needs - Often, organizations stay selfish when they measure customer satisfaction instead of their impact on the world around them. 4. Social Marketing - company goals built broadly toward improving society - Organizations become [unprofitable](economics.md) when they don't pay attention to customers' needs and wants. Consistent brands are efficient and easy to sell and distribute. - Packages maintain a uniform feeling across products. - You can standardize brand components across products. Successfully building a brand involves investing a *lot* into [the Unknown](unknown.md). - The general attitude is that there's always someone who wants the product, but doesn't have it yet. - At the farthest, every single person who is part of the organization is part of the "marketing department". ## Marketing plans Marketing plans are attempts to influence specific demographics to find [meaning](meaning.md) in a product. - It's impossible to please everyone, so your best investment comes from focusing your efforts on the people you want. - The entire purpose of a marketing plan and marketing research is to match your [perspective](people-image-why.md) with the people you're serving. A. Identify the demographics of the audience you want leads for. - If you can, aim for demographics that *nobody* in your domain is serving. - Look for what people use and purchase right now and their major complaints about it. - There are many classifications, but you can segment it as far as you need: - [Age](maturity.md) - [Gender and sexual orientation](gender.md) - [Income](classes.md) - [Ethnic groups](people-culture.md) - [Family lifestyles](people-family.md) - [Personality](personality.md) - [Lifestyles and motives](people-decisions.md) - [Social class](classes.md) - Most advertising to the under-class and middle-class appeals to reproducing whatever the wealthy do (e.g., was conspicuous consumption and waste, and more recently became [eco-friendly messages](politics-leftism-sustainability.md)). - Psychographics (psychological tendencies from the environment) - Geographic location (Geodemographics): - Province or region of the world - Regional climate - Population density B. Within that demographic, make as many XY grids as necessary to compare 2 variables at a time. - Speed - Price - Convenience - Performance - Ingredients - Purity - Sustainability - Obviousness - Maintenance Expenses - Safety - Edginess - Distribution - Network Effect - Imminence - Visibility - Trendiness - Privacy - Popularity - Professionalism - Difficulty - Elitism - Danger - Experimental - Healthfulness C. Craft the design as a [story](stories-why.md) with a [designed user experience](engineering-design.md). - The story should make consuming the brand a memorable experience. 1. Initiation - the customer's first impression upon hearing about the product 2. Immersion - the customer's first direct interaction with the product 3. Conclusion and continuation - the customer's views as they compare other products - Build a message with the Golden Circle: 1. First, *why* something is valuable 2. Next, *how* the value conveys itself through the product (the majority of the message) 3. Finally, *what* the product is - The story will reflect closely with the person by resonating with at least some of [our shared universals](humanity-universals.md). 1. Story of self - a personal transition from what you used to be to what you became, implying that others are just like you. 2. Story of us - describing how we share common bonds and how allying is a good thing. 3. Story of now - a call to action that indicates that they are doing the right thing by joining you. - The story must have a deep connecting association with something else. - It can often connect with a theme (e.g., redemption, [love](people-love.md), human connection) - The connection is often purely animal (e.g., [sex](gender.md)), which is the method used by longtime PR master Edward Bernays. - Successfully *making* a story that resonates requires [integrating your shadow](personality.md). - Keep an eye out for indirect associated words. - Sometimes, associations can make *zero* logical sense, but can float along the [intuition](mind-feelings.md) of a [culture](people-culture.md). - e.g., "break time" may associate with "broken time", "breaking out", "broken dreams", "breakfast", and may extend to coffee, candy, or drugs. D. Make something eye-catching and familiar to the target demographic. - Carefully consider your [design medium](engineering-design.md) to match what people of that [culture](people-culture.md) will [feel](mind-feelings.md). - Show the product in action. - Use current [social trends](trends.md). - Create interviews or testimonials from reputable or influential people. - Advertise the helpfulness of the company. - Show how life is worse without the product. - Donate your product or merchandise credit as a prize in a competition. - Publicly speak at events about the product. - To stay flexible, use an abstract idea or combination of words (e.g., Nike, Apple, JetBlue, 37Signals) instead of a concrete one (e.g., International Accounting Partners). - If the name is obscure or made-up, the brand can revolve around it (and rebrand later) without the name risking further associations. - Even with memorable name, a name doesn't matter *nearly* as much as the association people will make with that name. - Pick a logo, don't bother spending tons of money on it, and keep it forever. - You can tailor the logo later while maintaining its original form (e.g., get rid of shading, shift elements a little). - Product packaging has the most explicit branding. - The package holds and protects the product, but labeling can also promote it. - Tracking packages with barcodes allows the product to remain visually unaffected. - Packaging can help with product storage, use, or convenience. - Eco-friendly branding is always possible if the package can be recycled. E. Tailor the product to the medium and send it through every appropriate social channel. - Typically, you will need to use [social media](networks-social.md) and [search engine optimization](marketing-seo.md) to maximize your message. F. Follow up and keep the interaction going. - Keep them interested in further developments. - Use "Volume I", "Part 1", or some other implication that there's more to come. - Include an order form or link to a website with every product sold to create more incentive. - Showcase creative or inspiring reviews about your product on social media. - The viewpoint should be as if it were an exciting news flash from a fanatical reporter. - If someone gives a positive review via email, publicly reply to the emails on social media. - Promotions should often include discounts and vouchers. - Don't advertise the discounts beforehand or add extra incentive for someone to buy anything. - A surprise gift certificate (either after a certain amount of repeat spending or sporadically) is one of the most effective ways to keep customers coming back. - Employ scarcity whenever possible. - Give social media discounts, sales, and coupons that inspire people to revisit your content. - Include a purchase limit, even if people are never likely to surpass that limit. - Give a price, then a discount to it, instead of a lower price (e.g., %50 off a $20 item instead of $10). - If you're sending out large-scale media, randomly generate a selection from that list, then indicate those people have been "selected". - Deny something to someone, create a mailing list of rejected customers, then offer them something in the future. - Give them something legitimate, not just a discount. - Provide something for free they don't need to pay anything for. - Give a physical or emailed voucher, not just a promo code. - Even if you're in a straightforward [skilled trade](jobs-specialization.md), you can direct them to website content that answers common questions about your trade, with promotional discounts included if they respond or join your email list. - Use unconventional channels for unconventional leads. - Use a less popular channel for your type of product. - Send out fliers directing people to social media or a website. G. Keep running market analysis to find and appeal to more demographics who may want the product. - Markets can only expand a few ways: - Market penetration - move into a brand-new market - Market development - improve reputation with a current market - Product development - legitimately improve a product - Diversification - make entirely new products - Targeted advertising can appeal to specific or seasonal desires. - Cold-weather items or hot comfort foods on weather websites which show cold weather. - Often, data mining can find odd demographics through connected patterns between specific product combinations. ## Market research Successful marketing research gathers meaningful-enough data that borrows from the [scientific method](science.md) to provide enough information about what a market looks like to make a clear decision. A. Create a market segment. 1. Select a market or product category to study. 2. Choose a basis or bases for segmenting the market. 3. Select groups to test. 4. Profile and analyze the groups. 5. Choose target markets inside the groups. 6. Keep the demographic mixes for those target markets accurate to reality. B. Collect secondary data about the target market from the internet and marketing research aggregators. - Be mindful about where that data came from, since it may be [unethical](morality.md) or [illegal](people-rules.md). - Database patterns, such as an analyst or [AI](computers-ai.md), can make secondary data, which is often perfectly legal. C. Create a questionnaire around information you want to learn. - Ask what people observe. - Listen to what the demographics think. - Watch how the demographics behave in response to product-related stimuli. - Perform observational research with virtual shopping. D. Design your research and gather primary data. - This can include in-person/mail surveys, in-home interviews, mail/email/telephone reviews, executive interviews, and focus groups. E. Run experiments [scientifically](science.md). - Specify the sampling procedures and how close the sampling will reflect reality. - Account for errors caused through bad sampling or towards guiding the result. - Collect and analyze the data. - Prepare and present a report. F. Follow up the data with a decision support system. - A decision support system should keep every interested party informed as it's updated. - Let people interact with it to involve their feedback. - The decision support system should be flexible enough to allow data manipulation and changes to the system. - Instead of proving existing procedures, constantly [seek new solutions](mind-creativity.md). ## Rebranding Brands often repackage as other items, lines, and mixes for various reasons: - Reach more demographics with a generic or manufacturer's brand - Appeal to a new group with individual or family-oriented brands - Co-brand with a separate industry that shares a demographic - Create sub-brands or adaptations to a universal brand - Develop completely independent region-specific brands Brands repackage in many ways: - Focused advertising on specific demographics - Modifying the product quality, function, or style - Repositioning the same product as an entirely different brand - Creating product line extensions - Joining product lines into one product If you're trying to make a brand that approaches an entirely different demographic, move *far* away from existing brands (including possibly your own). - Change the names of everything involved. - Remove absolutely any imagery or association that others in that industry may use. - The whole purpose is to remove *every* anchor that may make people expect the same experience from the new brand. ## Brand failure Many factors destroy brands. A. A terrible-looking brand: - There' too much visual clutter. - The consumer finds the brand boring or the same as every other [fashionable](trends.md) brand of that domain. B. Insufficient planning or preparation: - The brand promises what it can't deliver. - The marketing professionals are underestimating or incorrectly using online marketing opportunities. - The website is poorly designed, obsolete or difficult to navigate. C. Inconsistent brand image through conflicting views from differing associations: - The brand doesn't match the product's conveyed feeling. - Different products have completely inconsistent branding. - Multiple groups are conveying an inconsistent image. D. The brand associates with low-quality product or content: - The product is considered very cheap or tacky. E. The public feels the organization ignores their input: - Beyond not providing feedback, this can also come from making a [political statement](politics-conservativeliberal.md) that some consumers don't agree with. F. The brand somehow crosses past feeling uniquely different into feeling offensive: - Oddness has to be balanced with [familiarity](habits.md). - [Multi-Level Marketing](marketing-mlm.md) employs quite a few offensive marketing tactics, especially once someone is educated on how they work. Even with the best brand ever, consumers will still leave: - 1% will [die](hardship-death.md). - 3% physically [move out](home-moving.md) of the product's range of influence. - 5% create new [friendships](people-friends.md) that change their demographic. - 9% will leave for a competitor who satisfies their needs better. - 14% will become overly dissatisfied with the product. - 68% leave from feeling a representative's [indifferent or inappropriate attitude](mgmt-1_why.md).