The Rise of Author Marketing

:) I was quoted in the Boston Globe in an article about online marketing for authors - Book Marketing: "Verve Marketing Group Fills Gap to Help Authors Promote Own Books, Build Personal Brand."

Tools to Help Optimize Search for On-Site SEO

Nice article by Joe Edakkunnathu on tools to help you understand how your website is being used to help direct search optimization and marketing decisions - read about some basic on Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, Google Keyword Tool and Spyfu.com. http://bit.ly/1cSfYTi

Are You Protecting the Old Way of Doing Things?

I recently read the book How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton Christensen, a professor at Harvard Business School. The book is a good read with practical advice for making decisions that keep you moving toward who you want to be and where you want your organization/career to go.

The takeaway nugget for me was a point he made about the dangers of marginal thinking in business decision-making.

It's hard to ignore what you've already invested in

Marginal thinking focuses on the additional cost or benefit of a possible decision rather than looking at the big picture that might need to be reinvented entirely.

In the late 1990s, Blockbuster dominated the home movie rental industry in the US. From a business standpoint, to maximize revenues, They needed movie renters to watch the movies and get them back to the store to increase turn. Late fees were charged, escalating every day to encourage customers to return videos on time. Analysts estimated that perhaps 70 percent of Blockbuster's profits were from those late fees.

But imagining a clean slate can help prevent losing it all

In comes Netflix, a newcomer who addressed those annoying fees

Branding for Greater Ministry Impact

The Christian Leadership Alliance posted an article I wrote on branding today...
http://blog.christianleadershipalliance.org/2013/07/19/can-better-branding-cause-greater-ministry-impact-2/

What Are Brands and How Are They Created?

A  brand is the unique experience audiences have with an organization or product. It is the perception your customers have based on all their experiences with the brand including, most importantly, the product experience itself, plus all communications about it – website, emails, customer service interactions – virtually every point of contact that leads to their beliefs and feelings about the brand.

A brand is like a person 

I love this analogy. Just like each of us, a brand is unique and quickly recognizable.  The core things about you don't change much over time. If you're a big-hearted, relational, outgoing person, people pick up on that pretty quickly. And while you may act slightly differently with friends than with casual work acquaintances, regardless of whom you're with, you're still you.

When we develop or relaunch a brand, we uncover the core, attractiveness that never changes. It's a promise founded on the product itself and an attractive positioning against other competing organizations and brands. Brand strategy and development articulates the best of what the brand has to offer and in communications, expresses it with messaging and a look and feel that captures its essence and personality.

For example, if your organization is characterized by leadership, cutting-edge knowledge, trustworthiness, reliability, and top-notch customer service, the communications experience should reflect that in content, look and feel. Other organizations may have some of the same traits, but your organization is memorable and distinctly compelling. You'll often see entire industries with cookie-cutter websites, with, say, one financial services firm looking like any other. Good brand development helps you rise above and create value with strong design.

Why purposefully create and manage your brand?

Branding provides clarity in your audience's mind about who you are and your reason for existence. It's an ongoing effort that increases efficiency – and profits – through consistent messaging and a look and feel that can be carried through all communications, leveraging consistency to make an impact in your customers' minds.

The brand process also can lead to greater focus within an organization and help direct decisions regarding product development, resource allocation, and prioritization of initiatives.

How do you create your brand?

Every marketing agency or brand strategist probably handles the process slightly differently, but the same elements all need to be addressed. At our branding agency, we have a strategy phase and an implementation phrase.  

Strategy starts with an understanding of the envisioned future of the organization incorporating purpose, values, and consideration of target audiences. It's at this point where we also want to understand where the gaps are between who you are and want to be versus how customers perceive you.  

Defining your brand includes:

• Brand positioning – The distinctive that your audience cares about that creates an emotional attachment and is unique to you
• Brand promise – The compelling, credible promise that connects with your audience
• Brand personality – What your brand represents in terms of values beliefs and behaviors

Bring it to life!
Brand identity is the look, feel, and words that express your brand. These include color palette, typeface selection, use of space, photography and images, graphic elements, textures, and logo usage – these are the raw materials of your brand look and feel.

Remember, it's living. Your brand, just like a person, will evolve over time and that's okay. You'll develop new products and your marketing communications will evolve.  Part of the process of a brand relaunch is identifying how much you want to keep (your brand equity) versus how much should change. Very rarely do you want to completely start over. Instead, you'll want to keep the "best" of the current, making sure that customers know it's still you and building on the investment you've made to date.  

Purposeful branding will cause an increasingly larger number of people you communicate with to become brand advocates who are emotionally attached and strongly loyal. It's an art and a science, founded on strategy, expressed in creativity and design, and a valuable business asset to be nurtured and protected!  

Joan Begitschke is Founder, Marketing and Brand Strategist at Verve Marketing Group in Chicago. Follow Joan on Twitter @jbegits and find her on Google+.