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[/responsive]A stagnant brand can do more than bore your audience. It can hamper growth and kill your sales.
Branding plays in increasingly important role in our multi-channel marketing environment. As your prospects decide within seconds if they want to read, watch or hear more about you, your brand must have an immediate impact that resonates above the clutter.
For two catalogers – Eastwood, a seller of auto restoration tools, and American Meadows, a seed and bulb retailer – doing a complete brand rework has paid off in immediate benefits, according to Joe Keenan of Retail Online Integration.
For Eastwood, the process was broken down into four parts: discover, define, design, deploy.
“The discovery phase involved identifying what makes Eastwood different than its competitors,” writes Keenan. “The answer: it offers make than just products; it offers solutions that helps their customers get jobs done right. The define stage involved validating the assumptions it had about its brand and customers through testing. Design included rolling out a new logo and tagline (“Do the Job Right”). And the deployment phase is ongoing, including the launch of a new channel for Eastwood: brick-and-mortar stores.”
Meanwhile, American Meadows needed to make a strong value statement in their market space, so the team “created a brand pyramid to help it identify its unique value proposition. The exercise kept bringing American Meadows back to two themes: confidence and sustainability,” notes Keenan.
Both companies noted that it’s critical to define what makes you different from your competition, and use this in every element of your brand. By doing the hard work of rebranding, they are now seeing proof of the benefits.
“In addition to sales increasing, American Meadows now has a guide book on what its brand should be,” Keenan explains. “And its customers have become more engaged and confident with the brand. Case in point: American Meadows tested using branded rotating banners on its homepage vs. promotional (i.e., selling) rotating banners, and the branded banners ended up driving more sales.”
Eastwood notes “increased sales, increased average order values and a higher dollar per book return for its catalogs” after launching their new branding elements.
If your sales are slower than you like, consider a brand facelift. Keenan advises you start with a strong mission statement, test all your assumptions, and remember that in the end, people buy from people.