BrandSqueak: Creating Emotional Connections Your Competitors Can’t Touch

Last night Wily Dog and I were leaving the house for a walk. The Nuggets were in their swan dive with the Lakers and I couldn’t take the heartache (still proud of you, Nuggets!). As we left, I could still hear the squeak of basketball shoes on the boards and thought, What would basketball be without that squeak? Then it hit me: That’s how branding works.

The NBA can’t patent the squeak, but when you hear it, you think basketball. Just like the smell of spaghetti sauce says “Mom” to me, those subtle (or blatant) sensory cues that conjure one specific thing can go a long way in branding. In fact, those barely tangible but highly effective connections are among the most powerful gizmos in your branding toolbox.

ID the Squeak
BrandSqueak is that impossible-to-copy value proposition you deliver on every time your customers interact with you.

What “squeak” does your product or business “own” that makes your customers think of you and only you?

For personal care providers like massage therapists and hair stylists, it’s all in the touch. For car mechanics it’s an honest assessment and a fair price—every time. For liquor and cosmetic companies, it’s packaging. They spend millions on design and labeling to get you to reach for their product first. Do you consciously think about packaging when you reach for them? No, but you sure like the heft and feel in your hand when you get there.

Branding as a Value Proposition
Wily Dogs know exactly how their customers like to be scratched behind the ears. BrandSqueak hits the sweet spot.

Maybe it’s your customer service, how everyone leaves happier than when they got there. Maybe it’s that customers can easily find what they need to know on your web site or blog. It could be the way you help your customers zoom in on problems and fix them. Or the fact that you always have a nugget of wisdom to offer up in a business meeting.

As in every great relationship, it’s the little things that count. You don’t have to spend millions to make that sensory or emotional connection between your customer and your company. But when the little things go right, it inspires affection and loyalty. Over time your BrandSqueak will create a strong, even sentimental connection your competitors can’t take away.

Building Great Customer Relationships (for Service Providers)

Yesterday I had a great client relationship experience. I met two new clients in person and left thrilled to be working for them because I know I can really help them with their marketing goals. It was pretty amazing how quickly we clicked. Here are some rules I follow to attract great customers. Maybe they’ll help you.

• Surround yourself with good partners.
I got the work from another vendor who, like me, always puts her clients first. Maybe it’s no accident that we work well together—we both are totally committed to getting to know our clients’ business inside and out, so we can serve their best interests always. Law of attraction: You draw to yourself and your work what you put out there. If you want to surround yourself with excellent people, you have to be top notch in customer service yourself.

• Listen. This was my first in-person meeting, but both my partner and I had done quite a bit of research on our client, their philosophies, and their competition. Still, nothing beats hearing it straight from them, in their words, with their gestures and interjections.

Listening sounds so obvious, but you’d be surprised how many of your customers have hired people who came into their space and immediately launched into a presentation on why they are such great vendors. Every last one of your clients and prospects has been burned like this before, so show up all ears. They’ll appreciate it and you’ll…

• Attract customers who are willing to help you help them! A customer who won’t sounds self-defeating, but they’re not uncommon. Some clients get defensive if you challenge their perspective.

Why didn’t they get defensive? I let them know: “I have lots of questions and some of them are challenging, but if you can bear with me, you may find it helps you as much as it helps me.” They answered them as honestly and as fully as they could.

I explained I was trying to anticipate objections or confusion on behalf of their target audience. They know their customers pretty well, but it’s my job to also understand their prospects, as well as leads they may be losing and why.

Lucky break? Maybe. But “luck visits the prepared mind” as they say. That’s why Wily Dogs do their homework, put in extra effort on every project, and put their customers first. Please share how you’ve contributed to your own successful customer relationships!

An Easy, Affordable Home Page Up-Do

Speaking of nurturing your web site…even if you don’t have much (any) budget for adding content right now, or are in the throes of a big redesign, don’t neglect your home page! Just mine what you’ve already got by featuring different content on your home page through links. If you’re a Wily Dog, you’ve stored some tasty bones to dig up for hungry days like these. Time to get scratchin’.

It’s tempting, I know, when you’re all caught up in the next best thing to just wait until the new whiz-bang site is ready, then hope to blow away your visitors. Worse, you might want to stick up “Coming Soon” or “Just you wait, this site’s gonna rock!” posters everywhere. But your visitors don’t care what your editorial calendar looks like. They ALL live in the here and now. Show them something worth their while right now or they’re outta here.

To keep your home page dynamic , you don’t really even have to innovate. If you designed it correctly (see Placemat or Buffet post), you should be able to swap out headlines and links to pull more of the site’s existing pages forward. Pages they might not have seen yet or content that deserves further promotion. Mine your content by linking to deeper pages from the home page with icons, buttons, photos, etc. Do this often…once a quarter doesn’t count. At the very least, pull intriguing lead sentences to the home page with a “more…” link.  

Has your company or product recently been promoted or reviewed on another site or other media? Stick a link on your home page. (A quick way to sniff around for buzz on you: Google “links: [your URL]” and you’ll get results showing where on the web your site has been mentioned or linked to.) Anytime you get a nod, it’s a chance to show your visitors you’re a dynamic force. All it takes is a short headline and a link: “See us in Top New Widgets magazine!” Don’t bury these treats in your “News” section, howl about them up front.

The worse thing you can do is treat your web site like a museum, where everything stays all nice and pretty and untouchable. Yes, you need the standard info in the obvious places, but if you want repeat traffic, make it worth the trip! Wily Dogs don’t have much patience for museums…neither should you.

Is Your Web Site an Orphan?

Think back to when you first launched your web site. The birthing metaphor is apt to describe the longer-than-expected gestation, then the emergency-room rush near the launch date. By the time the site goes live, everyone’s sick of the wait and just wants to see the darn thing out there in the world in all its adorable glory.

At this critical juncture, many companies do a funny thing. They abandon their site. Oh, they might spend hours pouring over page hits and statistics, but it’s easy to think that’s the same thing as working on your site. (Small companies tend to reach this stage with alarming speed. “I built a darn web site,” they think, “why aren’t new customers beating a path to my door?”) So all these orphaned web sites are just left in the cold.

Fact is, you can’t just shove a web site out on the street and expect it to attract hot prospects like a charm school valedictorian. You have to promote it, check in often, feed it a steady diet of NEW and RELEVANT CONTENT, and (can’t stress this enough) make some noise to drum up traffic.  

Lots of ways to do this: First, make sure you keep the new content coming, to satisfy your customers who’ve actually made you a resource for improving their lives, solving their problems, getting their daily humor or wisdom, or whatever your web site is designed to deliver. Content-rich web sites are the ones that get used, and the ones that sell product. “Tell me something I don’t know” is the given expectation, and if you can deliver, bingo! Bookmarked! Sold! Blogged!

Second, promote the URL not just as a rote addition to any ad or packaging, but offer it as a solution to a problem or connect it to a topic of interest for whoever’s reading the ad. Landing pages are a great, inexpensive way to max out your ad relevancy, add content to your site, and grab a target audience’s attention/loyalty.

An example: Say you own Jen’s Bike Shop. You want to advertise your new top-of-the-line mountain bike in the local press. So you do up a nice quarter-page ad showing the tricked out bike, and you add: “Visit www.jensbikeshop.com/totallywickedtracks for a list of Jen’s favorite trails.”  

Readers go to the landing page, which is of course on your site, and you give them great info on trails they might not know about, tell them how incredibly well this new bike handles on these trails, and lots of free tips. Link back to other pages that have relevance to such a reader, and see what happens. My guess is you’ve gone a long way in building trust and esteem–after all, you gave away free information they can’t get anywhere else! And now readers have a reason to walk into your shop for a test ride.

Main idea: Keep your web site vibrant and relevant, not on life support. And for heaven’s sake, don’t abandon it. Launching it is just the beginning.

Get the “Blah blah blah” Out of Your Blog

Like you, I research on the internet. I’ve gained marketing insights in the process, but I’m only sharing here the ones I think are worth your time. And that’s the point of this post.

Blogs are the business world’s fancy new bling. If you’ve tried them, you know there are hundreds of blog-o-maniacs to egg you on with everything from case studies to get-rich-quick formulas. Unfortunately, many companies and entrepreneurs take the bait and start flashing their bling like drunken lotto winners. No class, but plenty of bravado and noise.

A Wily Dog does not approach blogging like a goofy puppy with a new toy. Basic formula for marketing successfully with blogs?

• GOAL
• STRATEGY
• RELEVANCY

Goal: Before you start a blog—even if you have, keep reading—set a goal for your blog and write it down. This sounds obvious, but many companies jump on the bandwagon without packing their bags for the trip. What do you hope to accomplish with your blog? Build brand loyalty? Establish credibility as an expert? Start viral chatter that turns to advocacy? Create a venue for sneak peeks at future products or projects? Increase sales? Grow your market share? If you don’t have a goal, you’ll end up chasing your tail.

Strategy: Next, develop a clear strategy for reaching your goal and write it down. Nothing stays on track like a plan committed to paper. Write an editorial calendar (when you will cover what topic) to build a path to your goal. Leave room for blogs that capitalize on current events but beware: Even though blogging by nature invites quick reactions, if you don’t have a marketing strategy you’ll just end up an armchair commentator rather than a leader.

Bonus Insight: Some companies hire a slew of bloggers to tout their products in the form of thinly veiled “reviews” on their supposedly objective blogs. If you use this strategy, get to know your bloggers-for-hire before you turn them loose. If they are not balanced in their reviews of products (addressing both positives and negatives), readers will see right through the hype and avoid you for fear of being “taken.”

Relevancy: It’s tempting to just start blathering when you believe you have a captive audience. You don’t! Your readers are always just a click away from your competitors, so stick to the point. Example: Before posting this, I revised my opener 6 times (and that’s JUST the opener), cutting the word count 60%. I respect your time and want you to come back, so I’m not going to tell you about my nephew’s birthday party or my favorite web pages UNLESS it’s relevant to my post’s theme. Every word I blog has to support my goal or I’m wasting my time. Worse, I’d be wasting yours.

So blog on with wisdom, O Wily One, and let me know how it goes. Rrrfff!

Your Home Page: Placemat or Buffet?

It’s time to take a hard look at your home page, where your customers and prospects come knocking, hungry for information and answers. So when they get to http://www.YourCompany.com, do they find a placemat or a buffet?

If you have what I call a “placemat” home page, you’re missing huge opportunities. A “placemat” is a big photo (or worse, an ad!) that fills up the monitor, some navigation, and maybe a clickable icon or two. But front and center is a big beautiful shot of the product or lifestyle you are so in love with (or that you paid so much for) that you want to share it with the world! So you “set” your home page like a table for a special occasion, all pretty but not too cluttered. It’s well balanced, tasteful, and conveys your company image.

The problem with these lovely scenes is that they are freeloaders on your marketing budget, contributing nada to your potential earnings! Plus, they annoy your visitors. They know you sell cars—do you have to hit them over the head with one? Here you’ve spent $$$$$ for a web site, and the first thing you do is bore your visitors to death. Or worse, they don’t see what they need, so they leave.

But what about all that slick navigation you draped across the top or sides of the page? Necessary, but do you really expect your visitors to always recognize the path to exactly what they need through one- or two-word clues? Nav bars and menus by nature are telegraphic: Contact Us, About, Special Offers…some of those are sufficient no-brainers. But what about these gold mines: Products, Services, What’s New, Join Us…yeah, a visitor can see what they are, but why aren’t you telling them why they should click here now? Because you don’t have the space. You don’t want to clutter your placemat!

Which is why your home page needs to be a buffet. By “buffet” I mean you set out all kinds of goodies as a bountiful feast so your visitors are immediately enticed, engaged, and hungry to dig around. Most importantly, if they come looking for specific info, you can show them exactly where to find it because you’re not held hostage by a two-word limit. Instead of tapping out Morse code you can shout out all the great news and ideas you spent months putting together for their edification!

A hard-working home page has smaller photos (add a “click to enlarge” link if you want), headlines, summary blurbs, and links, all arranged in a grid and grouped by topic or subsets, so visitors can scan your page, find tasty bits, and dig in. When you set out your buffet, however, you still need to exercise restraint. Don’t tell stories in their entirety. Brief but clear summaries with relevant headlines should then link to site pages for the full story.

News media and variety show web sites are the best examples of this approach. You can learn lots by visiting sites for CNN, MSNBC, Newsweek, Oprah, Martha Stewart, and so on. Just be warned, as you “research” you will probably get sucked in to clicking on stories and articles that pique your interest. Great! Just go back and look at how they did it. Then load your home page with all the goodies in your web site content.