Customers don’t wake up in the morning interested in your company and products, no matter how much you push out messaging to them.  Instead, they wake up in their world, trying to solve their problems and fill their lives with experiences that are relevant to them.

What if instead, you started with a customer focus?  If you turned the telescope around and saw the world from their point of view?  Would your products and services look the same?  Would you reframe your value and messaging?  Would you meet their needs and provide relevant experiences?  That’s what’s needed today, in a world where people can go anywhere on the Internet to find what they are looking for, where consumers no longer respond to advertising or corporate messaging, but instead are looking for experiences that make sense to them.  “Push” marketing no longer works because customers are only interested in things they have “pulled.”

So move from ME ME ME to YOU YOU YOU. Turn the telescope around and get into the customer’s frame of reference.

- Lynn Parker

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There’s exciting stuff going on with my Vitamin Water.

Allow me to set the scene: Seattle’s annual Capitol Hill Block Party showcases over 60 indie bands. It’s a summer weekend that turns a downtown neighborhood into a huge party with 3 stages of music, big crowds, and lots of sun.

Vitamin Water went to the CHBP, but they didn’t pass out free samples from the back of a van as expected.  Instead they rented a hip loft space and set up fans, bean bag chairs and a dance floor. A DJ spun tunes as cute bartenders served Vitamin Water cocktails. And of course…refrigerators were filled with as much free Vitamin Water as one could handle.

My friends and I had such a good time, we spent over 2 hours dancing, meeting people and taking glam shots in their photo booth—that’s us above cocktails in hand.  I appreciate that they created a distinct experience for us music fans by making sure everyone had a good time as a good party host should.

This is social branding at its best.  This company went to where their customers hang out and contributed what’s important to them. And this kind of understanding is the magic that creates a special camaraderie and drives more meaningful relationships with people.

Needless to say, we all went home with purses full of Vitamin Water excited for their next dance party.

- Bianca Abate

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In a hyper-connected, over-communicative world, the simplest ideas are often the most compelling, which GoTime.Com discovered with a website that began as an online event, club and restaurant directory.

The happy hour tab, initially a minor aspect of the site, quickly became the most popular section—no surprise given the economic climate at the time.  And the creators quickly saw and acted on that trend in the right way by taking happy hours to the nth degree and making it the site’s focus.

Thus, an ingenious happy hour directory was born (accessible via the web or iPhone/Android app) that puts the city’s drinking deals at your fingertips.  Check it out and you’ll find all the happy hours within your geographic radius with detailed info regarding prices, times, reviews, and additional features like “water view” or “cute staff.”  And, it’s just been launched nationwide in 35 cities and counting.

But the best part? Their brand’s key strength lies in how they’ve thought critically about deepening their user relationship well beyond their level of technological prowess. “Some people ask us why we don’t charge for our app, but that feels like an oxymoron.  It’s our mission to save people money and it just doesn’t feel right to charge $2 for an app when people are on a budget. We’d rather you take that money and put it toward buying another round,” says co-founder Jeff Khadavi.

It’s clear these guys are serious about putting the “happy” in happy hour, but how do they go about delivering on that goal?

1. By looking at what’s happening in the market and responding to it in their unique way.
2. Getting focused.  Like GoTime.com learned, it’s better to excel at the one thing people care most about, versus being mediocre at a lot of things that aren’t relevant.
3. Making it simple. If it’s not simple, it won’t stick.
4. Being flexible.  As Jeff Khadavi puts it, “Early stage companies have to adapt to navigate the waters and make something out of whatever arises.”

- Bianca Abate

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Of course, the first step in social marketing (or really any pursuit) is knowledge:  know your company and how it interacts, and know your customers and how they buy.  If you sell hardware in a residential neighborhood, your networking strategies will be very different from an owner who sells vintage clothing near the university.  Both brick-and-mortars are seeking to drive sales and awareness but their customer demographics, technographics, and buying patterns are widely different.  Consider also that a vintage clothes enthusiast might be more likely than a hammer buyer to see their purchase as making them a part of the store’s community and thus be more inclined to include the business as a part of their online network.

Given that you know who you are and who you serve, the challenge is then to tailor your online presence to build and strengthen your customer relationships not only by providing an integrated brand experience to reiterate your key differentiators but also by creating and delivering greater value for the customer:

In the end, remember that today’s consumers demand authenticity.  Social networking adds an additional level of challenge to that requirement because, online, customers interact directly with your business as if it were one of their Friends.  They are not simply looking for a product or service but instead an experience – and only those businesses that provide such will succeed as social marketers.

– Dan Liska

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The brand that’s made me the happiest this year is Wolfgang’s Vault. I go there on a regular basis, often on Friday afternoons when I’m finishing up administrative tasks and need some ear candy. The more I listen, the more often I return. I’ve heard concerts by artists I wish I’d gone to and concerts from the same tours I saw “back in the day” by artists that hadn’t made it big yet. I started going to the site a couple of years ago to relive some great musical moments in my life—but now I’m getting much more.

I love that the Vault has branched out to newer artists and more recent concerts. Their A to Z list of performers is huge and inclusive, so I can experiment. There are artist interviews as well as concerts. There are lots of free downloads as well as ones you have to pay for. Plus concert listings in my area.

The website has improved steadily. It’s become increasingly easy to use and what Wolfgang’s Vault is adding, I’m enjoying. I must be in their target demographic—they’re hitting me in my soft spot and I love it!

What’s the brand lesson? Do one thing really well and build from there. Innovate around what you know and give your customers and fans an easy path to follow as you lead the way. If the substance is there and you demonstrate that you’re listening, you’ll keep your die-hards and win new ones.

Have a great 2010!

Beth Woolley

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A recent client of ours has almost twenty loosely related sub-brands, making their website difficult to navigate and leading to confusion in the marketplace.  The company was pushing the master brand, but consumers were left clueless as to what the master brand actually did and how it all fit together.

Purchasing decisions are complicated enough without making it hard for people to understand who you are and why you do it. If you can zero in on the specific role you play, you make the decision making process one step easier.  A defined brand strategy and brand architecture can enhance focus and clarity. As an added bonus, you can internally focus your budgets and energy more strategically.

So, how to get focused?

1. Ask yourself the fundamental questions of brand architecture:  is the right strategy to create a strong corporate brand or is it to create a portfolio of strong sub-brands—or a combo of both?  Always look at your brand architecture from the point of view of the customer, not how you are internally organized.
2. Clarify (for both employees and consumers) the roles that the various brands play and how they interplay.
3. Lastly, use your website’s navigation as a visual guide to communicate this road map.

-Bianca Abate

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–Jen Travis

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Check out Briana Marrah and Joe LePla’s presentation from their recent workshop at the ALI’s Internal Branding Conference in Chicago.

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