Is Your Brand Out-of-Control?

If you've answered "Yes," you are probably better off than you think. For years, companies have talked about "branding" as if it was something tangible that they could control.

Design a logo, write a tag line, test it with some focus groups, and viola! You have a brand.

No, actually, you have a logo, which is, at best, an image that people associate with your brand. A brand is best defined as: the customer's perception of your company. It's not what you tell your customers about your company, it's what they tell you.

You don't own your brand. Your customer owns your brand.
This is what makes the concept of "branding" so powerful. When your business strategy matches exactly the actual experiences of your customers, you have created an unstoppable marketing force.

How You Talk Is How You Should Market Your Business

How we talk is the core to how we communicate.  How we communicate is core to how we connect with customers. Too many businesses create a marketing strategy based on what they think they their customers want to hear, rather than trusting their own voice to communicate why they serve their customers in the first place.

My approach to marketing for Teton Healing Arts has been to encourage every practitioner to speak in their own voice.  To communicate from their own heart.  Once everyone became comfortable speaking candidly about why their work is important to the health of their patients, it became simple to make those messages engaging from a marketing perspective.

Thanks again to my friend Nick Staron from Jackson Hole Adventure Video, for helping me create this video testimonial.  

-John

Customer Service vs. Customer Engagement

"En-GAGE!"

I am always surprised by how many businesses confuse the concept of Customer Service and Customer Engagement.  When I inquire about Customer Engagement strategies, their minds subconsciously make a word swap and they begin telling me about their latest and greatest customer service initiative.  I am not sure why this happens, but when it does, I give them the following analogy to open their minds.