Brand Health Check-Up

Brand Health Check-Up

Brand Health Check-Up

When you own and operate a business and you live and breath it, often, it’s difficult to see when things change.  As they say, sometimes it’s hard to see the forest for the trees.

When is the last time you had a Brand Health Check-Up?

Only politicians can succeed without delivering on their promises, and only weather forecasters can make mistakes every day and still keep their jobs.

Unfortunately, you are neither, so you have to build your business and your brand by delivering on every promise and accurately forecasting how your customers prefer to be served and sold.

Some business owners mistakenly think that a brand is built simply around their business name, location, industry, employees and their paid marketing. But your brand is the sum of everything your customers and prospects hear, see, feel, and experience when they do business with you.

Your brand is who you are, what you do, and how you do it!  Reputation management is an on-going, continual task, and regular check-ups are necessary.

Brands are the sum of the impressions you create at every customer touchpoint; from your advertising to the way you answer your phone, the cleanliness of your buildings, vehicles, and bathrooms, your warranty and return policies, to the way you empower your staff to resolve customer conflicts.

Does your business need a health check? Do you have a clearly defined mission and is it evident at every customer touchpoint?

Click here for a free Brand Health Check to ensure that you are walking the talk. And reach out to me to set up a time for a more in-depth evaluation.  We’ll go through the checklist as a starter and dig deeper into the specifics that pertain to your business operation.  It’s one of my favorite things to do to help people and their businesses become more successful. 

Send me an email to Scott@WOWO.com and you can also subscribe to my weekly Sound ADvice Marketing Tips newsletter that is free to you and will arrive in your email inbox every Wednesday morning.  Just fill out the box below.

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The Mystery of Branding

The Mystery of Branding

The POWER of Brand Identity…Still the Most Important Thing!

Running a business 15 years ago was difficult enough.  With the advent of a New Media World, it became even more difficult and more competitive. First, it was the internet disrupting the Yellow Pages and print mediums.  Then Google overtaking Yahoo, Twitter yielded to Facebook, and now Facebook is taking a backseat to Instagram and Snapchat.  Mobile phones, blogs, podcasts, smart TV’s, Roku, Netflix, Amazon, and on and on and on it goes, where it’ll stop nobody knows! 

Do you realize that the what is currently the largest Social Media Network, wasn’t even open to the public 15 years ago?  September 2006, is when Facebook went from a student only social network to one that anyone 13 and older with a valid email address could join.

No wonder so many business owners are wondering what is next and how do they survive?  The old idea of building a name for yourself and promoting it seems to be forgotten.

Or is it?

This is the so-called Mystery of Branding that we’re going to talk about.

When it comes to running a business, a few things remain steadfast.  The businesses that run a clean business inside and out, offer an exemplary level of service, and are well known to the general public will not only survive, but they will thrive. 

The world’s largest advertisers, Proctor and Gamble, did the research for you.  Several years ago, they jumped into the digital/social world with both feet.  It didn’t take them long to learn they were losing “Brand Identity”.  Understanding that their “Brand” (e.g.  Tide, Crest, Bounty) was everything, caused them to re-think their marketing strategy, and as recently as last year, moved back to the traditional electronic media and in one year grew their sales and grew their brand awareness.  Without Brand Identity or Top of Mind Awareness, you have nothing!

Strategically, most online and mobile marketing kicks in after consumers have identified a need for your products and have begun to search for, or accept ads for, what you sell. Only 10% of adults will click on a paid internet ad and only 26% of the population even has Snapchat, compared to over 90% of adults being influenced by radio every week.

To hedge your bet as you stick your toes into new digital waters, you’ll want to build a strong awareness and preference for your brand BEFORE consumers begin their search or BEFORE they have a need and begin accepting your mobile or online ads.

While the internet has disrupted all media, the intrusive power of audio media and the emotional power of music and the human voice on radio remains the strong backbone of any successful digital campaign today.

Do you have Top of Mind Awareness?

Over the weekend, I saw a message from a friend who needed a plumber, asking for a recommendation. 

Now a plumber is not usually on your mind as you go through out your everyday activities, however when you need one, you really need one that you trust and that is why my friend was looking for recommendations.

I happen to have a client who does Heating and Plumbing so they were top of mind with me and got my recommendation.

This company advertises daily on my radio station, WOWO radio in Fort Wayne, Indiana and had branded themselves so that when I was asked, they came to mind without hesitation.  (My friend is also a WOWO listener, but in his frustration with his kitchen sink, not only was his drain clogged, his mind was clogged too!)

After I told him who to contact, he then went online to get their number.  That’s how the combination of branding on WOWO Radio and the convenience of the internet can work hand in hand.

If you would like to visit about how a strategic mix of broadcast to inspire and internet to inform can help grow your business, contact me.

Email Scott@ WOWO.com and we’ll set up a time to discuss how to take the mystery out of branding your business.

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How Do You Pronounce ScLoHo?

How Do You Pronounce ScLoHo?

For #ThrowBackThursday, a reposting of an article I wrote 3 years ago:

It seemed so simple to me.

ScLoHo.

Google it and 99.99% of the time you’ll find some reference to me.

That was the purpose of creating the word scloho.

But yesterday I was reminded that even some very good friends of mine don’t know how to pronounce it.

SCLOHO is a weird word I admit, and it has a unique origin which I’ll share in a moment.

But how do you pronounce scloho, or SCLOHO, or Scloho or ScLoHo?

When you want to say it, just break it into 2 syllables: Sclo and Ho

Start with the Sc sound like the beginning of Scott and add the Low sound, and you have the first syllable: Sclo.

The 2nd syllable is real easy Ho.  As in Ho, Ho, Ho, the sound of Santa laughing.

Sclo-Ho  Go ahead and say it out loud a couple of times.

And I’ll answer the other questions you have.

If it’s only 2 syllables, then why do you capitalize the L and H?

Why did you chose those letters and put them in that order?

Here’s the background and history:

My given name is Scott Howard.

If you Google  Scott Howard, there are plenty of other Scott Howards around ranging from doctors, to attorneys, to criminals.

There used to be a Scott Howard restaurant in California that was at the top of the Google Search Results, but they closed.

The dot com version of Scott Howard belongs to a real estate agent, also in California.

And there is a fictional Scott Howard, the main character from the movie Teen Wolf staring Michael J. Fox.

Back in the 1990’s when I was setting up my first email account I decided to create a unique name instead of something like ScottHoward24 or whatever Yahoo was suggesting.

If you take my first and last names and add my middle name and you get Scott Louis Howard.

Get creative and shorten it by only using the first two letters: Scott Louis Howard.

Throw away those extra letters and you wind up with: ScLoHo.

ScLoHo developed into an online persona.

A personal brand.

When I joined Twitter it was short enough to leave me with 134 more characters to play with when I tweet.

A few years ago when I decided to start my own marketing consulting firm, ScLoHo Marketing Solutions was born.

And I protected myself by registering ScLoHo on a few hundred social media sites and bought a few domains with ScLoHo too.

My wife and kids now call me ScLoHo, and you can too if you want.

Or I answer to Scott too.

What is your U.S.P.?

What is your U.S.P.?

No, that is not computer slang, tech talk or otherwise. U.S.P. It has be defined slightly differently by different “experts of advertising” for the past 50 plus years. There is Unique selling proposition, or Unique selling point which if you clicked on both of those links, you’ll see it is a matter of what noun to use.

Anyway, you can read about it, but it is most important to know what yours is.

It started for me in 1986 when I crossed over from the programming and on-air side of radio, to the advertising and commercial side with a career shift that took me to Detroit and Crawford Broadcasting’s WMUZ.

Sunday I sit in my “overall favorite” coffee shop, and realized what their USP is for me: They have overflowing cups of coffee. Yes, really. When you get a specialty cup of joe, like my fav a white mocha, and then they add the home-made whip cream, you cannot put the lid on until you sip away some of the mixture. Other coffee shops just give you less coffee, or ask “Do you need room for cream?”.

The next time I see the owner of this place, I will ask them if this is something they have as a policy, or is it just something they do. Overflowing cups of your favorite coffee beverage, made especially for you.

If you don’t know what your USP is, you risk becoming lost in the shuffle. Each person has a USP too! Mine used to be that radio guy with the beard, at least at first glance. Now I’m known as ScLoHo in social media circles at least.

Here’s a challenge, ask your customers to write a sentence that describes your business to them. Collect as many of these as possible over then next couple of weeks or months depending on your business cycle.

Ask your friends, co-workers, clients etc to write 3 words that describe you. Collect those and be prepared for a few surprises, if they are honest.

Perception is reality when it comes to your USP. Focus on your strengths now that you know what they are.

How Brands can Increase Social Media Engagement

How Brands can Increase Social Media Engagement

As I look at my Twitter stream I see a variety of conversations and announcements going all day and night.  Most are from individuals but some are from Brands.

(You can apply this to Facebook, but I’m going to talk in Twitter terms.)

What’s a Brand?

For this discussion, let’s say a Brand is a company account that is not identifiable as an individual.  @CBSNews would be an example. As would @CirrusABS.

The challenge for a Brand is to become someone or something that people want to follow.

MarketingProfs has some ideas to share:

 

Is Your Content Too Focused?

Any SEO strategy hinges on offering relevant, valuable information. But that might not mean what you think it does.

According to the Todaymade blog, we content marketers gravitate toward discussions of our core businesses. “But the challenge that we all have in marketing is moving past those spheres of immediate influence to some of the more expanded topics that our customers really care about,” they note.

To illustrate their point, Todaymade uses the example of Joe, an independent retailer who sells shoes and athletic goods. He has a competent website that lists his products and includes friendly touches like photos of his employees.

Customers rarely use the site to make purchases, however, and Joe only keeps it going because businesses in 2011 are supposed to have websites. He has a Facebook page for the same reason, and receives only a smattering of likes when he posts new content every week or so. As far as Joe can tell, his online presence has a negligible impact on sales.

“But what would happen if Joe started expanding his core?” Todaymade asks. The key to increased response for Joe, they say, is to stop talking exclusively about his products, and start talking about how his products are used. He could, for instance, blog about:

  • Favorite running spots
  • Current running and training techniques
  • Options for monitoring heart rates and measuring distances

And his social media strategy could include:

  • Mapping out jogging paths
  • Organizing group runs
  • Supporting athletic events

By expanding beyond his content core, Joe could create a thriving online presence that generates trust and—importantly—ranks well.

The Po!nt: Put yourself in their shoes. When you produce content, instead of just talking about your products, expand your message to express how your readers are using them in the real world.

Source: Todaymade.