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WISDOM IN A NUTSHELL

Brand to the Bone

Growing Small Business Into Big Brands

By
Jack Sims
Palm Breeze, Miami, Florida, 2002
ISBN 0.9725658-0-9
160 pages

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Brand to the Bone Page 2

The Big Idea

A successful marketing consultant and branding specialist shares his expertise


and experience on ways to develop and grow a small business into a big brand.
This is a “must” read book for those who want their products or services to
become the brand leader in their category. The author gives easy-to-do pointers
that serve as keys to improving the company’s bottom line, thus creating brand
equity and incremental shareholder value in the long term.

Embracing the philosophy that customer is the heart of any business, the author
talks about building relationship and partnership with customers for a lifetime by
applying his own version of CRM (Customers Really Matter), and in the process,
experience tremendous and lasting growth.

How do you want to grow your sales from a $2.5M to $30M? This is not
fiction, this is a real story! Ask Durasol Awning, a retractable–awning
manufacturer, and they will tell you that marketing and branding are significant
reasons for its growth and success. It is really about developing a brand and a
brand name, and a point of difference to set the brand apart that counts. There
are so many brands in the market, how will your brand be noticed if you are in a
“me too” category?

What is Branding?
Defining branding is like defining love. One can define it in his mind, but it may
not match other people’s idea of what it is. Branding may mean different things
to different people. Branding should be done with a passion. There are no other
rules.

What does “brand to the bone” mean?


It means that your brand is not just the logo at the top of your letterhead or your
packaging. It is much deeper than that. It’s what your product stands for and the
feeling it imparts to everyone who touches the product. Your brand identity
should go all the way through everything that your company touches, every
person who works in the company, and right on down to the consumer and your
suppliers. Everyone who works with you, and everyone they talk to, they all
represent the brand - they are the brand!

Why should you want to build your brand?


The most relevant reason is the positive effect on the company’s bottom line,
thus increasing the shareholder value. The second important thing is the value
of brand equity. In the U.K., brand equity is looked in a much favorable light than
in the U.S. Companies in the U.K. have even gone to include brand equity as an

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Brand to the Bone Page 3

asset on their books. In the U.S., the brand equity in the form of “goodwill” is
addressed only when the company is being sold.

A strong brand can protect a business against competitive attacks, market


fluctuations, and price wars. A brand leader has an edge over its competition in
terms of premium price positioning.

Do you have Brand Commitment Statement?


Brand commitment statement is just putting into words what you want your brand
to mean to your company, the people in it, and the people who buy your
products. Everyone in the organization should know what the company stands
for. It is very important that everyone gets involved in the process of developing
the winning statement.

Having the right people in the organization is very important in bringing the brand
message across consistently. Make sure that you hire talented people who will
enhance and grow your company.

The Branding Wheel Concept

Expectation
Sspassion

Share of Wallet

passion people

Brand
product
promotion

placement
Share of Mind
Promise

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Brand to the Bone Page 4

4 Points that form the outer part of the Branding Wheel Concept
1. Promise. As a manufacturer of goods or service provider, you make a
branding promise to your customers to deliver products or service to a
level of accepted standard of quality.
2. Expectation. Customers have expectation on the performance of the
product based on the promises made by the manufacturer or seller. This
expectation should meet or even exceed the promised quality, value,
standards and attributes of the product.
3. Bigger Share of the Customer’s Mind. Brands are feelings, thus
emotional. The objective should be to connect creatively with the emotions
of the customers, then stir to occupy bigger share in the mind of the
consumer that customers automatically think about your brand when
buying product in the category you are competing in.
4. Bigger Share of the Customer’s Wallet. Branding and creating
awareness in the mind of consumers should result in bigger share of the
dollars spending in your category.

Total Branding – The 5 P’s


1. Product: Variety, quality, design, features, brand name, packaging, sizes,
services, warranties, returns, research
3. Placement: Distribution, locations, stores, transportation, production facilities
4. Promotion: Essence, image, advertising, sales promotion, direct mail, public
relations, sales force, marketing, outdoor advertising, and Internet advertising
5. People: Employees, dealers, end users, vendors, friends, and the rest of the
world
6. Passion: The passion about the brand should start at the top down to every
employee of the corporation

16 Steps to Launch a Brand


1. Develop a plan and goal for the company and for each product.

Be a dreamer! Aim high, reach for the stars! Plan, plan and plan!

2. Decide on the product category you want to compete in.


3. Produce a product that will compete with, and beat, the market.

Remember that perception is reality

4. Determine who your real customers are.


5. Decide who will take responsibility for the brand.
6. Create the brand name, graphic image, positioning statement (or tag line),
and trademarks.
7. Develop the brand strategy, objectives, and positioning. Keep it simple.
Bear in mind that customers are the most important components of the
company. Thus, brand strategy should start with the customer; it’s what he
or she thinks and feels, not what you think.
8. Decide on the mood, tone, and image that you want the brand to have.

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Brand to the Bone Page 5

9. Conduct research to ensure that the creative approach achieves the


image with the target audience.
10. Develop a marketing plan that will achieve the brand objectives. Start with
the idea. Get to know the product. Craft a Vision Statement. Look around
and see who else is offering the product or service, do competitive
analysis. Talk to as many people as you can – consumers, retailers,
analysts, and manufacturers – listen to what they say. Develop a Business
Strategy. Determine the real size of the market by doing Market Analysis.

Outline of a Business Plan


a. What is the business concept
b. Assumptions used in business plan
c. Objective of the business
d. Organizational objectives
e. Outline the current condition: Market size and growth
projections.
f. Target market
g. Product or service strategy
h. Operations
i. Resources required to provide the product or service
j. P
romotions strategy
k. P
artnership strategy
l. Sales strategy
m. Retail: when do you expect to be in retail? How many accounts?
How many counters? Pricing and margins? Retail development
strategy?
n. Cost of sales assumptions
o. Financials: profit and loss, balance sheet, monthly sales
forecast, monthly retail account build, expenses

11. Decide on outside sources for advertising, promotion, public relations,


packaging, product design, direct agencies – then make sure they are all
team players, clearly understanding that the brand must be the star!
12. Create the advertising, communication, and promotional plans for all of the
links in the sales chain.
13. Create a look that will be consistent across all communications and last a
lifetime.
14. Produce all of the materials, including packaging, advertising, promotions,
public relations, direct mail, and the rest, to support the individual
communication plans.
15. Get support from all the people who touch your brand – your sales and
internal personnel as well as your customers.
16. Develop a customer-centric organization. The customers are the single
most important part of your company, and everyone has to get on board
the “customer first” concept.

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Brand to the Bone Page 6

Identifying Your Target Audience

How well do you know your customers? Do you really know who they are?
There is a need to do research to find out who the best business prospects for
your brand are and how you can reach them.

In most industries, there are accepted demographics of the target audience, and
promotions are designed based on these information. But, now-a-days, you
should do something deeper than this. You have to know who the individual
customer is, and certainly what their traits are.

Start by looking at the biggest group of potential customers and analyze the
profile of each customer. Get down to the LCD (lowest common
denominator): the individual customer.

Do market segmentation. This process is used to sort who the target audience
might be. It helps to identify the target audience down to a segment of one – the
individual. Take Amazon.com, who aims to identify every single visitor.

How to improve performance of the brand?

Think like a customer. Always put yourself in the consumer’s situation. It’s not
what you want, but what the customers’ want that matters. This philosophy will
surely help in making your advertising and marketing efforts work marvels for
you.

Talk to consumers in small groups – if possible, on a one-on-one basis.


This will give you more and better information as to the things that drive a
customer to choose and purchase your brand.

Remember to put every bit of research available into use. Talking to


customers and listening to them helps substantially in developing marketing
plans that will impact the customers and consequently increase business with
them.

How do you know if your brand is on track?


Questions to ask yourself to evaluate if your brand is on track; answer on a scale
of 1 to 10. Keep your answers, then revisit the same test 6 months from now and
compare the answers to assess whether there is improvement.

1. Can you describe your brand in a few words?


2. How many in your potential target audience have any awareness of your
product category and your brand specifically?

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Brand to the Bone Page 7

3. When consumers shop the category, is your brand the brand purchased most
often?
4. Are your brand’s claims defensible, or can they be challenged?
5. Can your customers easily identify your brand from the competition in your
marketplace?
6. Will customers pay what you think your product is worth? Will they pay a
premium price for your brand?
7. Is your brand timeless? Are there claims or time-specific elements in your
brand name that could affect the longevity?
8. Does the brand really deliver the benefits your customers are looking for?
9. Is your product or service relevant in today’s marketplace; is the category in a
growth or declining phase?
10. Are you communicating your brand’s image with consistent and multiple
quality impressions?
11. Does your brand have a better position (e.g., premium) in consumers’ minds
than your competitors’ brands do?
12. Is your brand delivering a consistent image across all communications?
13. Are you making sure that the brand is being featured in all of the media that
is effective in reaching your target audience?
14. How well do you know who your customers are? Do you know what they like
and don’t like? Do you know what they look like and what motivates them?
15. Do you audit your marketing programs to ensure their efficiency?

Grow your brand “sensibly”!


Visual medium is not the only way to understand about brand, there are 4 other
senses to maximize – touch, sound, taste, and smell.

16 Branding Musts
1. The brand identity is how you would like the brand to be perceived, but
only the customer’s image of your brand is real, and that’s the only one
that counts.
2. Keep your brand focused; don’t try to be all things to all people.
3. Shoemaker, stick to your last.
4. Dollar-cost average your brand.
5. When you’re starting out, think “street smart”.
6. When you have a big ad budget, follow the advice in #5.
7. Write a set of brand guidelines.
8. Appoint a guardian of the brand.
9. Make your logo easy to read.
10. Stick with your advertising. You’ll get tired of it before 10% of your
customers have seen it.
11. Make a claim you can own.
12. If you are #1, then say so!
13. Sell quality.
14. Use borrowed equity wisely.

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Brand to the Bone Page 8

15. Monitor your brand.


16. Spend an inordinate amount of time with your customers.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

CUSTOMERS REALLY MATTER

CRM is about building relationship and partnership with customers to keep them
for life through a transfer of trust between the customer and the supplier.

The 4 P’s of CRM


1. Planning. It is a must to know where you want to go, so develop short and
long term plans.
2. People. CRM requires teamwork, thus, everyone in the organization should
be involved and committed to making it work.
3. Process. Take time and effort to identify your CRM process. This includes
the steps of how your customers contract your company, the way you process
information you collect and how it is used to revisit customers repeatedly.
4. Platform. This is the choice of technology you are going to use including the
software and Web integration that works both for you and your customers.

CUSTOMERS FIRST! This should be your mantra. One thing you can simply
cannot do without are your customers!

Interesting Statistics
1. It takes 7 times as much time, effort and money to get a new customer as
it would to retain the old one.
2. For every customer who complains about your company, there are about
8 to 10 people who didn’t tell you their real feelings.

The first steps to consider in growing your customer numbers and


developing the relationships that will positively affect the bottom line.
Step 1. Produce a list of all of your customers and rank them in order of sales,
the largest customer ranking at #1 down to the smallest. This is your customer
base. There are several available computer programs that you can use.

Step 2. Segment these customers into 4 groups or blocks: A, B, C, and D,


where A customers are the best ones as they buy from you most frequently.

Isn’t it nice to make all your customers in the A group? The good news is this:
CRM is about making all your customers into A’s.

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Brand to the Bone Page 9

Build a profile of you’re A customers highlighting their attributes and lifestyles.


This can be done through spending time with them, like eating out and going to a
ball game with them. Once the lowest common denominator (LCD), then you can
write down what makes an A customer. It is easier now to focus on the A
customers as your target.

The 4 Basic Customer Blocks


Block A customers: The best and largest customers in terms of sales, they buy
more frequently than other groups. You have an intimate working relationship
with these customers and, these customers are usually your friends. This block
represents about 1% to 2% of the total customers.

Block B customers: They buy products regularly although not as frequently as


the A block. Their purchases are not as large, but there is potential to move
some of them to A customers when given some extra efforts and attention.
These are people who believed you have helped grow their businesses, as
opposed to just trying to sell them more. This group represents about 4% to 5%
of the customer base.

Block C customers: This is a mixed group. Some of them may be new and
some may have been with you for a long time and may be just jogging along.
They are good clients, but make no real move to become B customers. They are
around 15% of the customer base. Being a relatively big part of the entire
customer base makes them an important group.

Block D customers: This represents about 80% of the customer base and
constitutes the largest group. They do only small business with you, but they take
a big amount of your time, efforts, money and other resources to serve. They are
still customers. This block has to be handled in special way; you may have to
make hard decisions about them. You should take a look at their upside
potential. What will take them to become C, B, or even A customers?

Compare each building block’s proportional profit. By using a customer-based


accounting technique, get factual information of how the customers are
performing. It may be shocking to know that only the top 20% of the total
customer base provides 100% profits of the company, while a lot of customers
are actually costing money to do business with.

THE SAD NEWS IS THAT YOU MAY HAVE TO “FIRE” SOME CUSTOMERS.

Should you fire all D customers? Of course not! Some of them may have the
potential of becoming C customers. Or they may be A customers of your
competitors, wouldn’t you want them to be your A customers instead? Produce
an analysis of each and every D customer to determine what the upside potential
is. Then, decide if you want to continue doing business with that particular
company.

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Brand to the Bone Page 10

The objective of CRM is to move customers up the building blocks. If you can
move only 1% of your total customers up the building blocks, you can look for
performance improvement of around 15% to the bottom line.

The 4 building blocks can be extended up to 3 more: Block E will be for ex-
customers, block F for future customers and identified as potential patrons. Then
Block G as the greater majority, simply the rest of the category your products are
marketed in. These blocks may well fit into one or all 4 of the building blocks A,
B, C, or D.

Put the maximum amount of effort to get new A customers. You surely can’t get
all customers to become A customers, but you should try to get them to be your
B customers, at least.

All customers are not equal. Another benefit of a CRM program is that it will
make you put a value on the “lifetime value” of your customers. Estimate the
average lifetime that your customers stay with your company.

Assume normal average stay of customer: 7 years

Group Category Assumed Annual 7-year Spending


Spending, $ Estimate, $
A 100,000 700,000
B 60,000 420,000
C 20,000 140,000
D 2,000 14,000

Now, who said that all customers are equal? Getting the lifetime value of the
customers helps you to make an informed decision on what direction to go.
Make sure that you are building relationship with your customers who can remain
as your partners in business for a lifetime. Work with these customers to help
them grow their businesses. You got to want your customers to grow, make more
money and buy more from you.

Are your customers satisfied? Find out from your customers if they are happy
with your company, the quality of the product, its level of service, attitude of
employees, etc. This is how you can move your customers up the building
blocks.

Creating a Promotion that Will Grow Your Brand


The Nestle Butterfinger brand had gained 51% of sales during the promotional
period and managed to get featured in 47 trade and consumer magazines. How
was it done?

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Brand to the Bone Page 11

Promotion Development Process


1. The Brief. Development of every program starts with a well written brief.
The brief provides background information about the product, the
competition, market dynamics, and retail class of trade. The brief helps to
assess whether a promotion is needed to address the current issues or
opportunities.
2. Brainstorm Brief. The brief is distributed prior to brainstorm to allow the
participants an opportunity to come with ideas.
3. The Brainstorm. The best brainstorm happens when people with
differences are put together. THERE ARE NO BAD IDEAS IN A
BRAINSTORM!
4. Concept Development. Don’t look for “the big idea” at the brainstorm. A
smaller group usually reviews and selects the ideas for further
development.
5. The Creative Execution. This should provide the creative team (usually
consists of a writer and art director) with the specifics for all the elements
needed to bring the promotion to life.
6. Production. Get a good production manager or a printer who can be
trusted. This is the phase where most problems can occur.
7. The Sell-in to the trade. Excite the sales force, who in turn must excite
the retailer.
8. Execution. Take control of the promotion yourself. Do your own spot
checks. Visit the stores and participate as a consumer. Fix any flaws at
once.
9. Evaluation. Get as much feedback as you can to evaluate its effect on
meeting the objectives set during the planning stage. Revise the program
as necessary.

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