Test Your Brand’s Strength

You’ve done your homework and designed a brand program to increase the image and impact of your company in its markets. The problem is, you have figured out that if you stop pushing the brand into various media channels all of your marketing responses come to a screeching halt. You’ve found this out the hard way by pulling out of specific marketing and media venues such as adwords, print ads, eMailings, etc., but you haven’t figured out what’s your next best step!

This situation can be very frustrating for any marketing director who is in charge of developing, managing and delivering qualified results. Let’s be honest, this situation occurs every single day in the business-to-business marketplace. The illustration above presents the three levels of brand development that starts with value building and ends with specific tactics. The basis of creating a brand strategy begins with the four qualifying questions below. If you can answer yes to them, you are on your way to building a sustainable and healthy brand. If some of your answers are no, then more brand building is required:

1. Have you fully researched both your prospective and current customers? This means you are able to answer the following questions:

What type of topics are of greatest interest to your key customers?

What do they typically purchase from you and other companies in your marketplace?

What dollar volume of purchases from your company do they represent per year and how many years do you project that you will keep them as a customer?

Through what kinds of media do they prefer to receive information—email, social media, telephone, direct presentation, etc.?

Knowing the answers to these questions will allow you to provide them with the qualified answers in the formats they prefer. In short, you know what makes your customers tick and you know how to talk in their comfort zone and language.