Blog

Branding makes loyal customers and advocates. Branding is broader than marketing. Branding and marketing are the key elements that differentiate you from your competition.

Branding is a rigorous set of principles and disciplines that help a business target the most powerful motivators of interest and consideration for purchase.

Marketing is what activates interest. Marketing refers to strategies and tactics used to build awareness of your brand and the services you offer.

Marketing generates the strategies of market research, competitive analysis and advertising in order to locate, attract and nurture qualified leads. Marketing strategies and tactics reduce the cost of customer acquisition and shortens the sales cycle. Marketing contributes to the brand, but the brand has more value.

Branding is the process of establishing and instilling a defined set of beliefs, values, and images in all business communication. It is a system of creating deliberate experiences through marketing consistency. All the experiences and interactions associated with your business collectively create the brand experience.

Branding sets the stage for being meaningful, relevant, and memorable. It is the expression of the essential truth and value of a business and communicates your characteristics, purpose, values, and attributes that clarify what your business stands for.

About VLW Marketing Group

Founded by Victoria Whatley in 2008, VLW provides Digital Marketing, Website Design & Hosting, Marketing, and Social Media Services for small businesses in the professional services industry. VLW’s ability to effectively address these areas for its clients has resulted in more than 90% of new business engagements coming from client referrals, check out VLW’s testimonials.

Marketers should strive to continually improve their knowledge of consumer trends and buying behaviors. Basic trends in consumer buying patterns are not sufficient to determine all the underlying reasons “why” people buy.

Behavioral science can be helpful in determining customers thought processes. It can provide insight on positioning a company’s products and services in the minds of the consumer.

Consumer Trends and Buying Behaviors

A form of mind positioning is selective perception. Positioning is what you do in the mind of the consumer; meaning the position of the product or service. In this concept, we are not just talking about positioning the product or service we are positioning the consumers “mind” to respond to the product or service. To get into the mind of the consumer, the marketer has to present the information in a manner in which to trigger their selective perception.

Selective perception is the personal filtering we use to see what we want to see and hear what we want to hear. Consumers are bombarded with too many messages to pay equal attention to each and every one so we pick and choose according to our own needs. Selective perception can be used by marketers to target and influence a consumer to consider its product or service.

The consumers selective perception is triggered when they notice something they are interested in. You become self aware of selective perception when you suddenly notice more of what you are currently thinking about and wondering why you had not noticed it before. For example, when you are interested in buying a new car or truck or just purchased one, suddenly you notice all the exact same models on the road.

Selective perception works in everyone’s mind. If the consumer’s current state of mind does not include the need for your product or service, it will be much harder to reach them. The key is to produce effective branding and marketing messages and materials that have an underlying trigger mechanism so it speaks to those that have their selective perception at a heightened level.

About VLW Marketing Group

Founded by Victoria Whatley in 2008, VLW provides Digital Marketing, Website Design & Hosting, Marketing, and Social Media Services for small businesses in the professional services industry. VLW’s ability to effectively address these areas for its clients has resulted in more than 90% of new business engagements coming from client referrals, check out VLW’s testimonials.

Marketing is a serious business discipline. People are not born marketers. It is a discipline that can be learned. But it takes the right mix of talent, time and effort.

Malcolm Gladwell is one of my favorite authors and in his book “Outliers” the recurring theme is the “10,000-Hour Rule”. The rule is that the key to success in any field is a matter of practicing it for a total of 10,000 hours or more. Just ask any Olympic Gold Medalist what they did in their spare time.

Edward S. McKay, author of The Marketing Mystique describes the many ingredients in profiling a master marketer.

Here’s what I believe the 7 most powerful ingredients are:

1. An unwavering commitment to marketing: 10,000 hours or more.
2. An entrepreneurial spirit and natural innovator.
3. Refined business judgement.
4. A master of the risk/results relationship.
5. Soundness of character and the personality to sell ideas, inspire action and elicit cooperation.
6. A combination of analytical and creative abilities; a right-brain, left-brainer.
7. A well-rounded understanding and appreciation of the functions of finance, legal, accounting, information technology, procurement, administrative services, human resources, consumer behavior and sales.

About VLW Marketing Group

Founded by Victoria Whatley in 2008, VLW provides Digital Marketing, Website Design & Hosting, Marketing, and Social Media Services for small businesses in the professional services industry. VLW’s ability to effectively address these areas for its clients has resulted in more than 90% of new business engagements coming from client referrals, check out VLW’s testimonials.

One of the greatest challenges in today’s competitive business environment is to continue to raise the bar. Marketers need to pay incredible attention to the details.

How do you raise the bar in branding and marketing? By finding and following great examples.

In Tom Connellan’s book “Inside the Magic Kingdom: Seven Key’s to Disney’s Success”, he shares examples about how Disney continues to raise the bar. Two of my favorite examples are about the horse-head hitching posts and 23-karat gold leaf paint.

The horse-head hitching posts that line Main Street at Disney have wear points from daily use and the posts get stripped down and repainted each night. In order to be painted and completely dry by the time the park opens the next day, the actual starting time for the work to be performed is determined by the temperature and humidity conditions.

The second example is about the 23-karat gold leaf paint on the carousel. Disney painted the carousel with 23-karat gold leaf paint, not just regular gold leaf paint, but 23-karat! The kids and parents certainly can not tell the difference and neither can most cast members. But the cast members know it is 23-karat gold leaf paint and it serves as an important symbol. The guests are the true gold and even though the cleaning of the carousel is not a pleasant job, the cast members are reminded of the real gold, the guests, and clean up becomes more worthwhile.

About VLW Marketing Group

Founded by Victoria Whatley in 2008, VLW provides Digital Marketing, Website Design & Hosting, Marketing, and Social Media Services for small businesses in the professional services industry. VLW’s ability to effectively address these areas for its clients has resulted in more than 90% of new business engagements coming from client referrals, check out VLW’s testimonials.