Once a Day Marketing: September 2012

Friday, September 28, 2012

Hollywood Production on Your iPhone (Digital Friday/Process)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy for Once a Day Marketing™. Today is Digital Friday and we are talking about the iPhone. Specifically looking at how the iPhone can be a great tool for video production.

When I was first involved in professional film and television production we had big cameras, big crews and expensive edit bays. It was a costly venture to make a video. Today it’s much simpler and less expensive. Using the iPhone you essentially have the power of Hollywood right in your hand to create stories about your products and services.

From a production perspective the iPhone is amazing. It has the ability to shoot high quality photos and videos with the standard package. To enhance its capabilities there are numerous add-ons such as directional microphones to minimize ambient noise and lenses for wide angle or close-up shots.

Many apps are available that will allow you to edit the video right on the phone. You have the capability to shoot a video, quickly edit it and then upload it to youtube or vimio. Today there is nothing preventing you from creating videos and blogs about your company and your products.

The fact that you are watching this video blog right now confirms that blogging makes sense. It is a way to create awareness for your products and services.

It has never been easier than it is today to use a tool like the iPhone to make a video. I recommend that you consider creating a video blog. Have some fun, experiment, post to youtube and vimeo and see what kinds of results you can generate.

That concludes Digital Friday. Join us next week for Smart Monday. To discuss an online or face to face service engagement and enhance the marketing and branding for your organization, contact James Glover: (505) 501-1330 or onceadaymarketing@gmail.com. I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing™ and we’ll see you next time.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Strategic Brand Analysis: Consumer Recon (Recon Thursday/Process)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy for Once a Day Marketing™. Today is Recon Thursday and we are starting a three part series discussing David Akers model of strategic brand analysis.

Since the start of the year I have talked about Recon Thursday as a time when we look at your market, competition and your own company. David Akers model does exactly that, he uses the terms consumers, competitors and self-analysis. Today we are going to discuss consumers.

The consumer piece of David Akers model has four components. The first is trends; know what is going on in the industry. It is very important to pay attention to trends such as social media or mobile marketing. If you aren’t capitalizing on trends you may be missing out on opportunities.

Second is motivation. What motivates your customers? Typically it is the functional benefit of your product. It may also be the emotional benefit, how your product makes them feel or, perhaps it is the self-expressive benefit, how do they want to been seen.

Third we have segmentation. We haven’t talked a lot about segmentation; that means how you are breaking your market into subsets. You may be focusing on the various benefits you provide to consumers or your price points. Loyalty is another way to segment your customers. Segmenting the customer population enables you leverage varying marketing approaches among the groups.

Last is un-met needs. Have you done any analysis around what may be missing in the market place? There are opportunities if you can identify and fill a void.

Performing consumer analysis is critical to developing the long term strategic benefits of your brand. If you don’t know what your consumers want, you won’t be able to position your brand in the market place so it will be relevant and resonate with your customers.

That concludes Recon Thursday. Join us tomorrow for Digital Friday. To discuss an online or face-to-face service engagement and enhance the marketing and branding for your organization, contact James Glover: (505) 501-1330 or onceadaymarketing@gmail.com. I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing™ and we’ll see you next time.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Branding: Show Your True Colors (Action Wednesday/Positioning)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing™. Today is Action Wednesday. I was hiking this past weekend where the aspen trees are changing color and that color inspired what I am going to share with you today.

Right now our local mountains are spectacular with very vibrant Fall colors and that made me think about the question: what are the true colors of your brand? Are the colors standing out? Is the brand resonating in the minds of customers? Are people attracted to it just like they are to the aspens trees right now?

Continuing with this metaphor, what are the colors of your brand? It’s comprised of several aspects; 1. What is at the heart of your brand? 2. Why are you in business? You should be in business for a specific purpose which will add another colorful leaf hanging on your tree. 3. What differentiates your brand? Imagine if all the leaves were green, then they turned yellow but a very bright red one stood out. That red leaf represents what is unique about your brand and what differentiates you in the eyes of your customers.

For Action Wednesday I want you to consider your “leaves”. What color are they? How can you really make them stand out? Create something that customers will notice. It can be any aspect of branding because everything you do will reflect the colors of your business.

If some of your colors aren’t quite what you want right now, plan to implement changes to ensure you get that green to turn into yellow and that your customers notice.

That concludes Action Wednesday. Join us tomorrow for Recon Thursday. To discuss an online or face to face service engagement and enhance the marketing and branding for your organization, contact James Glover: (505) 501-1330 or onceadaymarketing@gmail.com. I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing™ and we’ll see you next time.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Marketing Ecosystem: Online (Strategic Tuesday/Promotion)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy for Once a Day Marketing™. Today is Strategic Tuesday and we are sharing the fifth installment in our series on the marketing ecosystem.

We’ve already looked at four nodes of the marketing ecosystem: print, out of home, public relations and audio/video. Today we are discussing the online environment. The concept of “online” has been around for a while and I am sure you are already using some component of it. If you aren’t, the online channel is a great tool to add to your marketing portfolio.

There are more and more people going online and they are spending an increasing amount of time when they do. Many advertisers are promoting and advertising online. The goal of leveraging online advertising is to have a presence everywhere your customers or potential customers visit in the online environment.

To increase your presence you might try online advertising or perhaps gain attention through Google ad words. You can send information to potential customers via e-mail or, they might opt in to receive your newsletter. Social networking is another good choice. For example, you can find Once a Day Marketing™ at Santa Fe.com, LinkedIn, twitter, youtube and facebook. We are everywhere you want to be so to speak.

A blog on your own blog site or on your website is another mechanism to increase your online presence. Either a video blog or a written blog will work. Ecommerce is an area where you are able to capture attention and awareness of consumers online to buy a product. Lastly, there are games. I think it is very clever when an advertiser creates a game that people use and think is fun while at the same time is sharing the advertising message about a product.

There are a numerous benefits associated with using online promotion and advertising as an integral part of your advertising portfolio. You can target consumers in ways never done before the advent of the internet. You can spend a lot of money, or, if you are willing to spend the time you can get your message out for a less cost.

The dimension of the internet that I really like is that there is always an opportunity for a story to go viral. Something that was intended for 100 people all of a sudden reaches a million. This is not typical with other forms of advertising.

That concludes Strategic Tuesday. Join us tomorrow for Action Wednesday. To discuss an online or face to face service engagement and enhance the marketing and branding for your organization, contact James Glover: (505) 501-1330 or onceadaymarketing@gmail.com. I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing™ and we’ll see you next time.

Monday, September 24, 2012

Defining Brand Stature: Esteem and Knowledge (Smart Monday/Positioning)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy for Once a Day Marketing™. Today is Smart Monday and we are continuing our series reviewing the Young & Rubicam model around brand equity, specifically looking at brand stature.

There are two components that comprise brand stature. One is esteem. The other is knowledge.

Esteem is whether or not your product or service is held in high regard in the marketplace. Is it best in class or not? With respect to its growth, is it growing in popularity or is it declining?

How knowledgeable are consumers about your product? Do they truly understand what your brand is all about and what it stands for?

As we discussed in my previous blog about determining brand strength, to determine brand stature you don’t necessarily have to go through the steps that Y&R did. You do want to consider the esteem multiplied by the knowledge; the higher the score the higher your brand stature.

A good target goal would be to have high esteem and perhaps lower customer knowledge about your product. From a marketing perspective, you can always build that knowledge. Alternately, if customers have a lot of knowledge about your product but don’t hold your product in high regard then you have a different marketing challenge. You will have to help them understand why there should be a greater appreciation for your product or service.

It is important to understand brand stature so you can focus your marketing message to enhance to weaker component; differentiation, relevance, esteem or customer knowledge. If anyone of those areas is low, strengthen that component to strengthen your brand equity.

That concludes Smart Monday. Join us tomorrow for Strategic Tuesday. To discuss an online or face to face service engagement and enhance the marketing and branding for your organization, contact James Glover: (505) 501-1330 or onceadaymarketing@gmail.com. I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing™ and we’ll see you next time.

Friday, September 21, 2012

Leveraging Your Brand: Product Rollouts (Digital Friday/Product)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy for Once a Day Marketing™. Today is Digital Friday and we are looking at whether or not you are taking full advantage of your brand recognition when you release a product.

If you are a regular follower of Once a Day Marketing™ you hear me stress the importance of building your brand. It’s important to build the brand because your customers know what your brand is all about, they know what to expect and become loyal.

Brand loyalty is essential since today’s consumers will go into a store to look at a product, perhaps try it on, or get a sense of what the product is all about; then they go home and purchase the product online from someone else. How do you combat that? Next we’ll discuss a very smart marketing tactic that Toy R Us is employing to leverage the strength of their brand and take advantage of the growing market for tablet PCs.

Toys R Us is introducing an inexpensive, proprietary tablet PC for kids which is branded by Toys R Us and you can only buy from Toys R Us. That is a brilliant branding strategy that will get people into the store and, if they like the tablet, they can’t go anywhere else to buy it.

The Toys R Us tablet pc product introduction is a bold move; they are defending their turf and are entering a competitive market and also positioning the tablet so customers can only buy the product from them.

The question for you to consider today is: What can you do as a strategist to leverage your brand and create a new product or service that people can only obtain from you?

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Real World: Building Professional Referrals (Recon Thursday/People)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy for Once a Day Marketing™. Today is Recon Thursday and I like to go out once in a while and profile real companies who are doing a great job in some aspect of marketing and branding. Today I am profiling NHance from Santa Fe. They are doing an extraordinary job getting professional referrals from Home Depot.

NHance is a national franchise that has a unique process for renewing cabinets and floors to their original beauty. For Home Depot I am a Home Depot home service provider. What that mean is I take care of one of their programs which is “Do-It-For-Me” rather than the DIY that everybody knows, Do-It-Yourself. They have several programs like that. But for cabinet refinishing and floor refinishing I am the exclusive provider for the Home Depot in Santa Fe.

Of the over 200 franchises, Nhance franchises, we were able to be number one in our close percentage for the last quarter. We were number 2 in revenue per store and we have also maintained a 10 out of 10 rating from all of the customers that we have performed work for the Home Depot as they surveyed to check on our quality of work and how we performed it.

You know it takes a lot of time and effort to build these relationships and nurture these relationships. For me, when I go in to buy supplies from Home Depot I always make it a point to spend some time talking with the staff there making sure they understand what it is that I do, where I fit into the picture for them and how I affect their bottom line. I make sure that I follow up on jobs that they send me, make sure that they can see what the contribution was to them and make sure, that if I can, show them pictures so that they are sending me good quality leads. It’s important that they understand what I do, what I don’t do so that again my close percentage is very, very high because they are sending me those good quality leads. That staff they really knows what to expect from sending me a customer.

If you are building a professional referral network I recommend that you understand you have to spend a lot of time nurturing the relationship. Spend that time getting to know who is referring to you. Second I think that your need to understand their needs. What is it that they get out of the relationship and certainly there is a third point it is to keep them informed. Let them know how we are progressing as a partnership let them know how you are impacting them and how they are impacting you as well.

Sounds like Charles gave us great advice.

That concludes Recon Thursday. Join us tomorrow for Digital Friday. To discuss an online or face-to-face service engagement and enhance the marketing and branding for your organization, contact James Glover: (505) 501-1330 or onceadaymarketing@gmail.com. I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing™ and we’ll see you next time.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Co-Promotions: Seeking the Right Partner (Action Wednesday/Promotion)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing™. Today is Action Wednesday and we are focusing on creating co-promotions with the right partners.

Simply put, co-promotion is advertisement of your brand in partnership with another brand. For example, a winery in New Mexico producing a great red table wine might approach a restaurant and ask to have their wine featured on the menu. Then they cross promote; the winery would refer people to that restaurant and the restaurant may offer the wine at a special price.

The co-promotion relationship can also include event sponsorship. Your business may be the main sponsor of a large event. The event staff will promote the fact that you are the sponsor and you as a sponsor would co-promote and inform your customers of the event.

When I launched Once a Day Marketing™ I went to Santa Fe.com and chose that site, which is the top entertainment and calendar site in Santa Fe, as the place to launch my blog. Santa Fe.com is owned by Hutton Broadcasting, who owns six radio stations in town. Each year Hutton sponsors a great seminar to assist small businesses by providing them with marketing and branding information. This year I have been asked to be the keynote speaker at this event. In exchange for my services, Hutton is promoting Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, across all six radio stations. That’s a great relationship and a great cross-promotion between two companies.

For Action Wednesday I want you to consider developing strategies to cross-promote with potential partners. If you are able to establish a strong relationship with a partner, you will create awareness through their channels. This may mean your product/company is introduced to new potential customers.

Additionally, in a cross-promotion relationship you probably don’t have to bear all the costs of marketing. In my case, the radio station is picking up the cost of the advertisements. Cross-promotion is a powerful tool if you approach it the right way.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Marketing Ecosystem: Defining Out of Home (Strategic Tuesday/Promotion)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy for Once a Day Marketing™. Today is Strategic Tuesday and we’re continuing our series on marketing ecosystems with the fourth component, OOH or Out of Home.

I also call this node “out and about” and it refers to people when they are on the move. A marketing strategist tries to place advertising and promotions so they will be seen when people are out of their homes.

One of the segments that comprise out of home advertising is traditional billboards. In New Mexico, for instance, with long stretches of open road, there are numerous billboards on the side of the freeway sharing a message.

Non-traditional static advertising may include an ad on a pizza box or on the back of a receipt when you checkout at the grocery store.

Transit is another opportunity for advertising. Buses and taxis often have advertising on-board the vehicles.

Mobile advertising is an interesting tool. A mobile billboard may literally be on a trailer pulled down the road. Vehicle wrap is also widely used. There are amazing things being done with wraps around the entire vehicle using vans or buses transforming them into a rolling billboard.

Digital video technology continues to evolve. In New York City, for example, the entire outside of a building may act as one large video display. It could also be something as simple as monitor on a gas pump or perhaps a video inside an elevator.

The Out of Home component is yet another possible tool for your marketing portfolio. Strategically, consider where your potential customers may congregate and determine if you can devise a clever way get exposure for your brand, company and product when your potential customers are out and about.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Defining Brand Strength: Differentiation & Relevance (Smart Monday/Positioning)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy for Once a Day Marketing™. Today is Smart Monday and we are going to review an old Young & Rubicon model about brand equity, looking specifically at brand strength.

Y&R determined that there are two elements that make up brand strength, differentiation and relevance.

Differentiation means how different and distinctive your brand is to your customers or in the market place. There is a clear difference or point of difference between your product and your competition.

Relevance is how meaningful that differentiation is to the customers. Do they really embrace it? Is there a mass market? Or is it somewhat limited and not many people are actually seeking out your product because it isn’t relevant to them.

Y&R also determined a calculation for brand equity. They placed a value on differentiation and they multiplied that by a value assigned to relevance, the higher the number the stronger the brand. I don’t expect you to go through the same calculations to determine brand equity but what they did is important for you to think about with respect to your own brand and the strength of your brand

Consider Porsche for instance. Porsche is a brand that is very distinctive. It definitely is differentiated in the market place. But how relevant is it? How many people are actually out there seeking a Porsche? Differentiation is high but it’s not quite as relevant so the brand strength in this case is not as high as another product, such as Disney for example. Many people know the Disney brand. It’s very unique but it is also relevant to them because they want to visit the theme park.

Why is this important? If you want to strengthen your brand the first thing to focus on is differentiation. If you are just like everybody else it’s going to be very hard to create a strong brand. With respect to relevance, you don’t have to be all things to all people. Not everyone is in your targeted market. You want to be relevant, though, with respect to the individuals you believe should be seeking out your product. If you are able to differentiate and become relevant to them, the strength of your brand will go up dramatically.

Friday, September 14, 2012

Targeting Multitasking Digital Customers (Digital Friday/Promotion)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy for Once a Day Marketing™. Today is Digital Friday and since I like to look at trends, today we are going to discuss a new way to simultaneously advertise to digital multitaskers.

There is an increasing amount of digital device multitasking going, especially among younger users. They may be passively watching television while using their smart phone or are online. According to Nielsen, over 84% of smart phone and tablet users are also watching television at least once a month.

A related trend is occurring in social media. Comments about television programs have skyrocketed in the past year from 8.8 million in July of 2011 to 76 million in July of this year. When people are watching television there are commenting about the show at the same time.

The question is how can you get the word out to multitaskers on multiple devices simultaneously? MTV has come up with a solution.

To support large advertisers such as Pepsi, MTV has created a multi-platform advertising service. This enables broadcast of an advertisement during a television show, such as the recent MTV music awards, and also delivers the same ad at the same time to the MTV website and mobile app. If someone is multitasking they will receive the ad simultaneously on all devices. No matter which device has their attention, potential customers will see that advertisement.

As more and more people are multitasking, regardless of their age, you will find this kind of multi-platform advertising support service available. It is something to think about, especially if you have a younger audience because that younger audience is definitely multitasking more so than an older audience. You will be ahead of the curve if you are considering multi-platform advertising right now.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Dealing with External Threats to Your Brand (Recon Thursday/Promotion)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy for Once a Day Marketing™. It’s Recon Thursday and we’ve been talking recently about SWOT analysis. Today we are going to specifically look at the T, or threats and how you deal with a threat to your brand.

Threats are external forces beyond your control. For example, the Hurricane Katrina flood happens and impacts a New Orleans restaurant. How do they deal with that?

Next, if your business is a destination away from town and people have to drive to your location, how would the skyrocketing price of gas effect your operation?

This last example is occurring right now. Because of the ongoing drug wars in Mexico, tourism is down substantially in numerous cozy, seaside resort towns and destinations. That is major threat and we’ll expand more on it now.

When discussing branding, I often mention that perception is reality. This is true in the case of the Mexican tourist destinations. Resort that may be 1,000 miles away from where the violence is occurring are seeing a substantial down turns in visitors. Some businesses are experiencing tourism down 50% at their locations. Occupancy and the amount of spend at resorts is down in excess of 70%.

Efforts are being made by the Mexican government to promote tourist destinations in new ways. One is to host parties in the United States at the homes of people who have had enjoyable vacations to these quaint resort towns. It’s an elaborate way of providing testimonials. They are also using more online testimonials to promote good experiences of US based travelers visiting these Mexico communities. It’s hard to say if these sales parties or the online testimonials are really working. The point is they are responding to a serious threat.

Your assignment is to consider threats to your business and ensure you have contingency plans for what you would do should those threats arise. This will better prepare you to respond to threats in the future. They may not happen very often, but they do happen.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Customer Contact: Putting Your Best Face Forward (Action Wednesday/People)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing™. Today is Action Wednesday and we are going to talk about simple things you and your team can do to enhance your brand.

If you’ve been following Once a Day Marketing™ you know that I talk about a brand being simply everything and that it resides in the minds of your customers. The first impression a customer has with your front line employees is critical to having your brand perceived as good as it can possibly be. Next we are going to discuss a few tips you can implement to enhance the interaction between your staff and your customers.

I could talk for hours about actions to enhance your customers’ experience; I will only share a few here. Your assignment for Action Wednesday is to develop a list of items related to your particular business.

One thing that is sure to leave a poor impression is for a customer to walk into a business and not be acknowledged. When the staff doesn’t say hello or let the potential customer know they will be right with them, a customer will not feel valued. Another negative experience along the same lines is walking in when two employees are chatting among themselves and continue that discussion rather than addressing their customer.

If you have employees that smoke, ensure they take their smoke break away from the front door of your business and out of sight of customers. Having the customer walk through a cloud of smoke to get to your front door will detract from your brand.

To make a positive impression, have your staff practice putting a smile in their voice when they talk to customers, it sets an upbeat tone for the interaction and creates a pleasant atmosphere. Customers don’t care if your employee is having a bad day and that is something that should not be shared.

The last is a simple gesture; acknowledge your customers’ departure. That happened to me just today at the bank. As I was leaving some who was not waiting on me said sir, have a great day. It made me feel good as I was leaving, a simple thing to do and enhance the brand at the same time.

In the future consider various actions, especially cost effective items, you can implement and your team can rally around, to enhance your brand when you have that face to face encounter with your customers.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Marketing Ecosystem: Using Public Relations (Strategic Tuesday/Promotion)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy for Once a Day Marketing. Today is Strategic Tuesday and we are sharing the third part in our series on the marketing ecosystem: public relations.

Public relations is the process of generating brand awareness outside of the traditional paid advertising environment. The objective is to share your message in a clever fashion so that people encounter your brand outside of the traditional advertising channels. This may also enable your brand to be seen in a different light.

For instance, I am working with a client who has perfected a method to deliver a well done hamburger while ensuring it is still delicious and juicy. We are releasing a story describing their two-grill technique. One grill is at an extremely high temperature, searing the burger on both sides and sealing in the juices. The second grill is a lower temperature which enables the burger to be cooked to well done while the juices remain inside. We think this is the kind of story restaurant magazines would like to cover.

What I love about public relations is there is no limit to where you can share your story. Let’s take a look at some of the possibilities. Media relations is the traditional route with public relations, such as a story about your brand or product on the local television station. Speaking engagements are also an avenue that can provide you with opportunities to be in front of people talking about your product or your brand.

Another area is called social responsibility. There are ways to tell the story when your company or your brand is doing something to help the environment, the economy or the community. New media channels are very exciting. There are so many choices using social media to share interesting stories about your company. Wouldn’t it be great if one went viral and a million people take a look at your brand?

Public relations is a tool that can be leveraged in the event your brand or company requires issues management. For example, if an aspect of your product is a concern to a particular group, you can use PR to tell the story of why there is no cause for concern around your product. Public relations is all about being clever and approaching different audiences with your potential story.

The result derived from a PR campaign is referred to as earned media because you are not necessarily paying for the coverage you are receiving. There is still the cost of time devoted to creating the informational campaign; however, the earned media you may receive could be quite substantial.

Other aspects to consider: There is no guarantee, a media outlet may not print or cover your story at all. Occasionally they will take the story in a different direction from where you were trying to go. You have to be careful about that.

PR is fun. I’ve always enjoyed it. It’s a great sense of accomplishment when you finally see that story on television, in a magazine or on the web and it’s enhancing your brand.

Monday, September 10, 2012

Once a Day Marketing: Inspiring Ideas Inside (Smart Monday/Positioning)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy for Once a Day Marketing™. It’s Smart Monday and today we are going to look at why Once a Day Marketing® was established. It really is about inspiring you to market every day.

I launched Once a Day Marketing™ because I firmly believe that if you are thinking about marketing every single day your brand, company and product are going to be more successful. Once a Day Marketing™ provides knowledge, strategy and inspiration and our new slogan is “inspiring ideas inside™”. That means we have inspiring ideas for you within the content of Once a Day Marketing™ and we are also inspiring you to develop your own ideas to pursue in your marketing direction and campaigns.

Once a Day Marketing™ is a great resource. We have divided the content into five daily themes; Smart Monday, Strategic Tuesday, Action Wednesday, Recon Thursday and Digital Friday, so it’s easy for you to find the topics. We have blogs related to all of the marketing approaches under the 7Ps of Marketing. When you have questions around pricing, product or promotion for example, you can find advice in one of our blogs.

We have also created the Once a Day Marketing™ LinkedIn Group. This is a great place to find expertise around branding and marketing. It provides an opportunity to network and interact with like-minded people. Our goal is to motivate you to focus on marketing and branding as well as to provide the tools for you to be successful.

I truly believe that Once a Day Marketing™ is inspiring ideas inside. I believe it is a great resource and if you follow us every single day you are going to improve your business. You will find networks, contacts and the advice and motivation you need to become a great marketer.

Friday, September 7, 2012

Advertising Support Enables Cheaper Product Launch (Digital Friday/Price)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy for Once a Day Marketing. Before we begin our blog I would like to encourage you to join our Once a Day Marketing LinkedIn group or Facebook site or follow us on twitter. We would love to have your input and comments, for you to re-tweet and share with your friends.

Today we are taking a look at a very interesting pricing strategy that a major company is employing to penetrate the electronic device market which includes e-books, smart phones and tablets.

As I am sure you are very aware, Apple is a major player in the electronic device market. It is said that they have 70% of the tablet sales, are soon introducing yet another iPhone and are thinking about shrinking down the iPad even more. So how does a company like Amazon, which might only have 20% of the market, penetrate the market?

In yesterday’s blog we talked about performing SWOT analysis on your competition, and in particular using the 7Ps. Let’s imagine that Amazon did that. They looked at the Apple products and determined that Apple charges a premium price. There are many people who have the discretionary income to purchase an iPad, however, there are also many who do not.

Amazon decided to introduce their Kindle Fire at a much lower price point. They are able to accomplish that with advertising subsidies. The new Kindle Fire sells for a lower price, however, in return a commercial is displayed to the user every time the Kindle Fire is activated. The question is, will consumers embrace this model or not?

The strategy that Amazon is deploying is not new. Advertising subsidies have been around a long time. Case in point is broadcast television. We’ve been watching free television for years because we are willing to tolerate advertising and commercials. The Kindle Fire is in the same situation. It remains to be seen if consumers will accept it or not. I suspect that many consumers will accept the advertising in exchange for a lower price.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

SWOT Your Competition (Recon Thursday/Process)

Hello there, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy for Once a Day Marketing. Today is Recon Thursday where we often look at your company, your market and your competition. Today we’re going to specifically look at your competition using SWOT Analysis.

I previously created a blog about SWOT so I’m not going to go into great detail but essentially SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It’s a great analytical tool to use on your competitors’ brands to identify possible ways to gain footholds on the competition.

To perform a SWOT analysis on your competition, identify a few of your top competitors and list them. Then think about what are the strengths of their brands, what are their weaknesses, what opportunities have in their own market, and what threats are they facing?

Create a matrix of your responses and carefully analyze all those factors to see if you can determine where you might be able to establish a competitive advantage.

I’ve talked a lot about the 7Ps of Marketing. You can even integrate the 7Ps thinking into your SWOT effort. Perhaps look at your competitor’s product or their pricing or their promotion to determine what their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are with each one of the Ps. The more you know about your competition the more you can create an effective strategy to combat whatever you think they are trying to do.

You may not get every little factor right but at least you are thinking about your competition and you are moving in the right direction to defend your market place and to be positioned to capture more market share.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Exceeding Customer Expectations (Action Wednesday/Process)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing. Today is Action Wednesday and we are discussing grading your brand in terms of how well you are meeting/exceeding your customers’ expectations.

What prompted me to think about grading customer experience is that over the last few months I’ve been out shooting a documentary on historic Route 66 across the state of New Mexico. I have my own expectations around what historic Route 66 is all about and I decided to grade my experience on the road against those expectations.

Let’s grade Rout 66 now based on my expectation criteria. As far as scenic beauty goes, I have to say it was an A+. If someone is seeking natural beauty you will see that on Route 66 across the whole state.

With respect to history I give it a B+. Numerous remnants of the history including the road itself, early New Mexico history and Native American history were there, however, you had to look for it.

Culturally New Mexico is a very vibrant state with deeply rooted Hispanic, Native American and even old west culture. I was able to see that diversity represented across the state although it was a little harder to get involved and experience it. I give this element a B+ as well.

Nostalgia about Route 66 and the Americana theme get an A-. At times it felt like I was 50 – 70 years back in time along certain sections of Route 66.

Lastly, in the area of personal experiences I would give Route 66 a C-. There were not enough things for me to do whether it was Route 66 related or not. This contrasted sharply against the numerous landmarks that you were able to see.

The strategic question for you today is; are you exceeding customers’ expectations? Your action item is to literally grade your business in terms of meeting customer expectations. Select a few of the key components you think are the cornerstones of your brand and then give them a grade. Pat yourself on the back for those elements that are high. For those items that score a little bit low, make it a priority to determine how you can enhance the experience for your customers in the future.