Sales before branding?

To many times, I've commonly seen this problem happening with would be business entrepreneurs. The echo is always about getting in the sales first before embarking on any sort of marketing activities. What is the best way to get sales? Throw a promotion they say...

I have to say, in my experience both are VERY important and you can't put one before the other. Why? Glad you asked... if you're to concerned with sales and only push promotions with your business, what happens to your brand? You'll soon be known only for cheap products or services. Let's face it, the point of all promotions is to ultimately build sales. In the long run, you quickly see diminishing profits and no brand at all.

On the flip side, being too concerned with branding alone can be difficult as a lot of branding activities usually require a fair amount of budget and time. Without any sales = profits, can you really carry out much branding activities. I have to say, there are only so many cheap and low cost brand building ideas.

Thus, the smart brand knows how to walk the fine line between the two.

I'll be back soon to teach you how to start thinking about great promotions to build sales whilst also creating a brand presence for your products and services.

Talk to ya soon. T

The end of Advertising as we know it

This post is rather an echo of Seth Godin's post on 24th Sept 2009. You can read the full post here

The point I find rather interesting is that this post is remarkably accurate to what I see as the sunset of mass advertising. In the continuous drive to digitise our lives, company's of the future will probably not be willing to spend so easily on advertising which is unmeasurable (i.e. billboards, newspapers, etc).

I believe that companies of the future will want to know exactly where their advertising spend is going to as well as how well it is working. Thus arbitrary figures such as "we reach 1 million people" will no longer cut it!

Companies want to know exactly how many people are receiving / reading / seeing their advertisements as well as how effective are the promotions which they are running.

So I see an end it sight, question is do the owners of traditional media see it coming?

OCBC's big marketing Flaw

A funny thing just happened to me, I just received a call from OCBC Bank. They asked if I had a home loan and when I mentioned I did not they proceeded to tell me if I was ever to consider getting a home loan I should consider OCBC bank. DONE. End of conversation which took less than 2 minutes.

2 things come to mind immediately, first off why would I bother getting an OCBC loan when I have had no prior contact with them. Do they seriously assume that from one single 2 minute call I would be interested to get a home loan from them?

Second, this lack of engagement or even relationship building on OCBC's part only confirms that they (i.e. OCBC) are only interested in selling to me.

As per my previous post, I mentioned that brands need to engage their customers. That goes for everything. Contact in any form must strive to build some kind of relationship with the potential or existing customer.

So, did OCBC make a huge marketing mistake - YES. Was their marketing technique time and money wasting - YES again! Two wrongs don't make a right.

Communicating your brand

Brands need to communicate more with their consumers. That is the gist of great branding today.

Here's an excerpt of an article found from The edge - a malaysian based newspaper. You can find the whole article here

(There is also a clear trend towards proactive consumers (prosumers). These are consumers who actively generate content for sites, communicate with brands, and network online. In Malaysia, this group is dominated by Malaysian youth aged 20-24, according to the Synovate Media Atlas Malaysia Q3 2007-Q2 2008. “Communication between brands and the consumer used to be one way. Now, it is a lot more interactive,” says Murphy. “The best brands, such as Nike and Coca Cola, invite consumers to interact, to provide ideas and feedback in exchange for rewards.")

A brand today has got to be more personal and more human. So how do you go about communicating your brand?

Well, one can start from the many fold places in the big 'ol world wide web, whether its a simple linked-in or even a facebook account. But whilst managing your on-line profile, don't forget about your other communication methods such as your consumers who have a mobile phones.

In Asia, the proliferation of data plans such as 3G is still relatively low, thus many phone holders still communicate via sms. For those of us in Asia not able to use accounts such as Twitter then they are in luck for I came across a service called Hailer

Companies such as Hailer and Twitter exist to help brands communicate. Hailer, for example allows its clients to communicate with mobile phone users who do not have data plans such as 3G thus giving potential brands the ability to communicate with millions of mobile users.

The great thing about this is, Hailer is set up on a platform which allow brands to create channels where mobile users can subscribe to. This type of setup forces brands to communicate responsibly where if a brands starts spamming its subscribers these subscribers can choose to unsubscribe to the brands channel.

Thus the ability to communicate goes both ways. Brands can now interact with its customers but in a responsible manner and consumers can now tell brands their thoughts and feelings. Gone I believe are the days where brands can be faceless and corporate.

In conclusion, the need for brands to communicate today is even more pressing then before. With the bountiful ways with which a brand can now communicate itself whether on-line or via mobile, I'm sure many will be interested to get in on the situation. So, grab your mouses and warm up your laptops and click away...

Principles for Sale

It seems these days; everything is for sale whether its opinions, integrity or principles. The idea is... throw enough money at anyone and you'll be able to buy their point of view.

To successfully build brands, I believe there needs to be integrity in the way companies or organisations go about their business. Without it, all that's left is a rotting foundation of lies.

So, the question is, are you brave enough to do what you say or is it the other way round?

5 things to consider before embarking on Store Branding

Hey there,

Its been a while since I've last updated but I wanted to share with you a contributor on my blog which is Ms. Pamy Wong. She is a retail specialist in Retail Architecture and she was recently a guest on the toolkit segment of the BFM radio show.

She was speaking on 5 Things to consider before embarking on store branding and attached is the excerpt of the interview.

1) Name: It defines the type of business you are in.

2) Product / Service: Knowing your product / service in detail will help you to identify the correct target market you should focus your marketing activities and brand towards.

3) Target Market: Identifying your target market will let you know the kind of customers who would want your product/service. There is no such thing as a product / service which is catered to everyone.

4) Place: When choosing a place, it is important to identify the following criteria:
- Traffic movement of the area
- Visibility of your store
- Suitability of the place to match the target market you are going for

5) Concept: Your concept store concept should be act like a billboard on the highway, it should be attract customers interest and ultimately draw them into your store to browse and purchase your products /services.

For those who want to listen to the whole interview, I've attached the link here

For more in depth information. I would strongly recommend you listen to the interview.Take care and Happy BRanding!

Concerns for Small & Medium Businesses

Hey everyone,

Just a short note to share on the site to link to for a radio interview done on the 18th June 2009 at BFM 89.9. Its about how Small and Medium Sized companies struggle to grow their business and how marketing is a tool commonly unused by these companies. This is the link below.

http://www.bfm.my/Concerns-for-SMEs-Routes-to-Growth-SL-Liew-Visata-Creative.html

To conclude, a quote from the radio podcast - "Marketing is not beyond SME's who need to start looking at Marketing as a basic tool in their artillery"

What's your thing?

Over the weekend, my friend shared with me that he wanted to go into business himself. The business was in making cakes.

Getting into the food business has always been a good idea but unfortunately, it is also a very difficult industry to survive in. After the initial tests of his products I was left feeling un-impressed by the whole tasting.

Not that what he did was bad but rather what he didn't do that left my taste buds wanting more.. To me he's baking skills were exceptional based on the fact that that if you asked me to I would not be able to reproduce such a cake.

But what was disappointing to me was the lack of a thing for his cake. What do I mean? Well, whenever you do something be it a business / any sort of project, I find it incredible that most people don't start off with asking themselves these 3 simple words... What's my Thing?

What's my thing is built upon the idea that every business/project has to be unique, it has to have its own thing. Most people refer to it as a point of uniqueness or differentiation, I prefer to just call it a Thing.

So my deal with my friend's business was not that he was going into the wrong business or that he was not a good baker, it was that his cakes had no sense of uniqueness (i.e. a thing). They weren't shaped differently or had a unique flavour. It was just a very good cake.

Someone once mentioned that very good is the enemy of great and I believe that's true. In today's business world, it is already a general consensus that your product or service has to be good. But what makes you truly memorable is that you have to have a thing and that moves you from very good to great.

Think about it this way, I'm sure many of you out there know a person or place that bakes good cakes, but tell me, do you know anyone who makes an awesome cheese cake or a great chocolate cake? Ask yourself, if you say they're good what makes them so different about from the rest of the chocolate and cheese cakes out there?

So whenever you think about embarking on a new project or business, you first need to ask yourself - What's my Thing?

Design & Emotion

I was wondering about what to share on the blog lately and have been a case of writer's block lately. Then I came across this talk on TED which was about Design and emotion (Design & Emotion) by Don Norman.

To think about it, great design is really all about product, packaging, etc which is fun to use. Makes me think a lot about my own design work and style.

Branding Personality

I say "Great branding is about having a personality". Question is, what's yours?

KL Design week

This weekend I'll be attending the KL design week. I'm excited and yet at the same time wondering if this will prove to be a thought provoking event or a disappointing one.

On my last trip to the Singapore design week 2 years ago the turn out for that event was also mediocre.

I wonder indeed how well this event with fair. Well, its off to the design week conference and I'll let you know how well the event went.

Is FujiFilm on the Right Track?

I read a very interesting article this morning on the business times site, It mentioned that Fujifilm (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd intends to sell 80,000 units of digital cameras this year.

In the article, the Senior Executive Director of Fujifilm Mr. Paul Ho mentioned this quote

"We believe that quality products matched by a strong advertising campaign will help us to achieve our sales target." (article)

Its my personal opinion this statement is inaccurate. First of, quality products. Everybody expects a product to be of quality before they would even consider buying it. So that statement of having quality products is not a strong differentiating statement. Having a strong advertising campaign would probably buy you some buzz time but in my opinion, the payback from the ad campaign might not translate to sales.

Its true that advertising is an integral part of any marketing process but herein lies the difference, it is an integral part and not the whole process.

My belief is that Fujifilm suffers from a very basic branding problem, being its name itself... FujiFilm. Fujifilm has built up its name in the consumers mind as being a camera film producing company. No one today uses films anymore in their cameras and Fujifilm has not been trying to rebrand themselves by moving away from the perception they are great at producing films to being great at producing digital cameras. So its obvious why this is a problem.

I believe that if Fujifilm does not address this problem, no matter how much advertising they spend its not going to help them gain market share.

But on the bright side, its good to know that with everyone else cutting back on advertising & promotion, Fujifilm intends to spend. That is a bold marketing move so it just remains to be seen whether or not they are spending their marketing budget correctly and on the right medium. An interesting case to follow...

A great idea?

Great ideas mean nothing if they are not put into action.

Email Marketing Campaign

For all my Malaysian Readers... First of I'd like to mention... GONG XI FA CAI or a Happy Chinese New Year! Yes, its the celebration of a new lunar year for us Chinese in Malaysia... Just fresh of the heels of my break I would like to bring you a few thoughts on email marketing campaigns. First, this posting was based on Seth Godin's recent posting on his blog. You can find the whole posting here.

There are a few do's and don't when it comes to email marketing:

Do:

1) Ask permission - Consumers will hit that delete / unsubscribe button faster than you can shout stop if the sense that they are being sold to. Get their permission to communicate with them before you send them your newsletter or HTML Ad.

2) Be Personal - There is a saying, if you can't take the time to be personal, I won't take the time to read your newsletter or mail. Don't cc everyone your newsletter or blog insert. Take the time to address each one of them personally. I know it takes time... but such consistency which ultimately lead to trust.

3) Consumer Rights - Yes, if you believe that you have a right to email all the addresses in your contact list, You're Right! But remember, your consumers also have rights... the RIght to IGNORE you and HIT DELETE when they receive you mail.

Don't:

1) Mass Mail - Dn't mass mail your newsletters out... Nothing stinks worst than companies that mass mail their newsletters out... you're not speaking to a company. Well technically, yes you are but behind each company receiving your mail is an individual and trust me that person is busy enough already with his/her own life. There probably not interested in your newsletter what's worst and mass mailed newsletter.

2) Mailers list - you have your own contact list, do not ever sell this list or rent this list out to anyone or any company. Once your consumers find out that you sold their contact details away, whatever trust you have gained with your consumers will be lost... FOREVER!

Taking the time to build an e-mail marketing campaign that works and is effective takes time and of course patience. An honest SPAM campaign may seem like a great idea in the short run but will hurt your brand in the long term. Till next time, market effectively & responsibly.

branding 101

Been thinking about all this branding hype that's been going around lately. And the branding issue is something which I think is clearly misunderstood.

For me, branding or brand building is made out of 2 components... your products / services and your users. First is of course your product... you go out and hire a fancy branding specialist and he develops a identity for your product / service by giving your product / service a savvy new name, new packaging design, some clever designed brochures and does a PR launch and then tells you.. YOU NOW HAVE A BRAND!

So what's next? Well the part that I think most brand specialist do not focus on is the part of your consumers.... The point is that, you can develop a new look for your product or service with some fancy PR and claim you have a brand but you don't really have a brand until and unless your consumers acknowledge it!

What do I mean? Think about it? would Mac really be considered a branded product if nobody talked about it? Would Dockers or Levi's be a hit if the people who wore them didn't acknowledge that they did?

So in essence, my opinion is that the crucial part of branding is not the new look or identity but its about gaining consumer recognition or your product or service. An example of a company who has done this brilliantly is Apple.... Think about it, the Ipod is just a MP3 player. Do other brands like Sony or Creative not have MP3 players? Why the Ipod?

Well, its a case of great branding. Its about getting your consumers and turning them into fans which Apple has done an incredible job... In essence its getting consumers to talk about your products/services, rave about it and ultimately if possible swear by them!

As such, don't be deceived by people who mention great branding is about just building an identity for your product / service. There is a 2nd part and the most important part, getting consumers to acknowledge and ultimately live your brand.



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A New Beginning

First of A Happy New Year to you! A new year in many aspects represents a new beginning. So what is your New Year's resolution? Could it be to take your company's brand more seriously?

There's no better time to do that than in the year 2009! As markets become harder and more difficult and as recession effects become more apparent, its clear that the companies with a good brand base would find it easier to survive.

If you have spent time building your brand, you will already have a consumer base or fan base with which to roll out your branding activities for 2009. If not again I urge you there would be no better time than to start now.

So, 2009 should be a great opportunity to build brands the only question remains is are you ready to do it?