Brand Effectiveness Key To Membership Growth - Part 2
Topics: Marketing, Branding, Non-profit, membership, association
In Part One, we discussed using in-depth member survey work to boost the visibility, awareness and effectiveness of your organization’s brand, and how it can directly impact your ability to recruit and retain members. If your organization isn’t the first thing member prospects think of when they turn to industry issues, there’s work to be done.
Your survey may provide mixed results that don’t show a clear direction. Often this is an indication that there is a disconnect between the brand you put out to the external world, and the one you use to craft the questions! That alone tells you something, and a series of follow-up interviews with the same basic set of queries to the external and internal groups should help clear up the discrepancy.
Other sources of data can help you check your brand effectiveness as well. Interviews with those alternate stake holders should be couched slightly differently, and can use more “insider jargon” in the questions, as their awareness starts off at a higher level. They can give you a median read, between the internal and the external, and this can often help you reconcile the disparate results mentioned above.
Take Stock
An inventory can be helpful in analyzing your brand’s effectiveness. Simply create a list of all the places where your brand appears, in what context, what medium, attached to what product, message or outreach vehicle, and see if they seem to have an obvious pattern, if they are aligned. Often pulling samples from the archives and lining them all up together can be very enlightening. You may be unaware of a brand shift that may have occurred over time, small miscues that send a less the consolidated message to the recipient. One example of this is when an outsource vendor or contractor uses your brand in their program, and it doesn’t match your normal set of brand characteristics. If you are seen as a very sophisticated, august and professionally ethical branded organization, and an outsider puts your logo as a sponsor on a ticket giveaway coupon for a concert, that would be a brand slip or miscue. If several of these items have crept into your inventory, it may be time to pu
t some tighter controls on the use of your brand, and provide some increased education within the organization about the importance of protecting the brand and how to use it properly.
Top of Mind
Keeping memorability high is another positive effect of a well-aligned and effective brand. If your brand is consistent with individual experience, that experience will be more memorable. L.L. Bean shows a great example of this. Their “Return any time, no questions asked” return policy has been with them since virtually the beginning of the company. They were so confident in the quality of their products, they couldn’t dream of anyone sending them back, and thus the perceived risk of such a policy was low. That policy became part of their brand, and is now a deeply embedded positive characteristic, so much so that there was near revolt when a senior staffer proposed eliminating it to help save money. As it turns out, their return rate is notably lower than their competitors, and the savings realized would have been more than offset by the damage to their brand as a trusted, honorable retailer of fine outdoor merchandise. As a result, when you get an L. L. Bean catalog in the
mail, you instantly put in the back of your mind that the purchase from there is of lower risk, and therefore a greater possibility, as a result of that policy. That gives them a competitive advantage, and keeps their customer retention high and their loyalty even higher, due to the memorability of that policy.
Brands Aren’t Built In A Day
If you’ve launched a new product, are a new organization or subgroup within a larger organization, you know the difficulty of setting the stage for a lasting brand. It takes many, many customer touches to build a brand effectively, and with non-profit, member driven organizations, the rate of touch is often affected by budgetary constraints. That puts the building process on the slow track, as the mailings, e-mails, directories, guides, meetings and other activities slowly mount up in the member’s mind. Each piece of the building process must be consistent, and have relevance and meaning for the recipient, or you undo much of the positive work up until then. Be patient. It can take years for an organization to reach a highly memorable, effective state with its brand, and many a good program has been discontinued by impatient senior staffers with a more cautious eye on the bottom line than knowledge of the branding process and its benefits.
If your brand message aligns with expectations, your touch rate is predictable and rising, and your organization has shown relevance for the audience it wishes to serve, you’re on your way to a highly effective brand.
David Poulos, Chief Consultant at Granite Partners has been offering marketing guidance to firms for over 25 years. Specialties include non-profit marketing and full-scale strategic marketing campaigns. He can be reached at www.granite-part.com, or 410-472-4570.
Previous Articles Highlighter:
Teleseminars: Increasing Your Teleseminar Profits By Training People Closest To You (1)
It allows you to impart knowledge as an expert and have students trust you at that level. I firmly believe you can have a great mentoring Teleseminar with less than 30 people, and that a small group mentoring call must be for a fee.
Barriers To Reaching Ignorant Potential Customers (2)
What if you don't have such a friend? You may not be able to find people who give reliable directions. On the Internet, finding trustworthy providers through online referrals is more difficult.
How To Get The Most For Your Money With Cheap Banner Advertising (3)
With these simple instructions, there will always have traffic on your website. First, to be able to capture the attention of your target audience, your title and topic should be thought of with concern.
Secrets Of Building A Really Effective Website (4)
Where does the variety lie? We have often seen that there are two websites with similar content and features, but even then one of them gets more traffic and the other doesn't.
3 Tactics Affiliate Marketers Can Use To Make More Money Online (5)
Although there are many tactics you can use to increase your affiliate commissions, I have found these three to be some of the most highly effective. Although they do take some time to implement, they will help you substantially increase your profits from your affiliate business.
The 3 Most Important On-Page Optimization Tips For Your Website (6)
However, to further increase your chances, set the keyword in bold. Spiders will view your keyword as highly relevant to the theme of your website which in turn will help you rank better.
Pay Per Click Management - Taking Care Of A Passive Money Maker (7)
PPC management was not that much easy in older times. A decade ago, the way to make money on a website centered on either direct sales or banner advertising.
Conference Calls Do Not Have To Be Costly (8)
There are a lot of companies who offer straight forward conference calling as well as video conference calling so you can take advantage of the services that you need when you need them.
Keyword Density: Tips For Business Success (9)
Next, divide the keyword count by the total number of words in the text, and multiply by 100 to get the keyword density percentage. Keyword Tips Keyword density should be between 1% and 3%.
Pay Per Click Services - Which Work Best? (10)
Some of those partners include MSN Search, About.com, Netscape, and AltaVista. With Look Smart, you don't bid for listings. Everyone pays a flat $.15 per click through, and your ranking is determined by how relevant your site is to the search term, according to Looks mart's ranking criteria.
Identify And Eliminate Customer Complacency That Costs You Profitabale Growth (11)
As a result, many people check and inflate tires when they have on their old clothes while doing errands. But those who are concerned about their appearance at all times will just avoid the whole thing.
How Free Web Content Has Become The Internet Marketing's Driving Force (12)
Find them by typing "free web content" into your favorite search engine. You'll be amazed at what's out there for you to use free. Who knows, you may even find stuff written by your geeky cousin and use it too.
Can Any Web Hosting Company Guarantee 100% Up Time? (13)
Most web hosting companies would not be able to make the guarantee of 100% up time because they do not have the products and backup features available to make that claim true.
5 Essential SEO Techniques For Your Website (14)
Do place your most important keywords at the front also when you are changing your Meta description. 3. Link popularity. This is one of the most important elements of a SEO campaign and it will take up most of your time.
Back Links: Article Marketing's Backbone (15)
What better way to improve your ranking than to link yourself with another high-quality site? While Back links are important to build interest in your article and website, it's important to use them correctly.
Article Marketing: An Old Idea Made New Again (16)
That text was not actually written by the owner of that business, but it does give him or her credibility. All parties involved benefit: Publishers don't have to pay a writer for content to fill their publications.
The Basics Of Conference Calls: What To Do (17)
Topics: conferencing, conference calls Many people assume that conference calls are something that a lot of managers know how to do, but it actually takes some work to learn how to run these calls efficiently and effectively.
Free Article Marketing: Your Template For Success (18)
Again, it assists in search engine optimization: An article is ranked more highly if it links to one or more other sites with useful information. When linking to your own site, it is better if your article links to a page with more information about the subject (such as another article), rather than just your business home page, but either is helpful.
Web Syndication And Free Content At The Heart Of Viral Marketing (19)
However, by using web syndication, you can arrange for the latest news from those publications to be on your site. Here is how web syndication works in a nutshell: Your web browser has a file type (such as Netscape's RSS (Rich Site Summary)) that lists a headline and a summary.
Get Rich Online, I've Heard That Before! (20)
Yet people keep on trying. I looked into a few, but nothing caught my eye, you know the feeling when you go into the store and have money to spend, but you leave empty handed.
Newer Articles Highlighter:
First, Develop A Secure Marketing Mind Set! (1)
Develop these attitudes and motivations before you begin. A secure marketing mindset is required before you get started in marketing. Srini Saripalli is a technologist, marketer & Success Coach.
Measuring Home Based Biz Advertising Success Online (2)
One such utility is WinZip. Most scripts, once downloaded and unzipped, may appear in text format with extensions such as .php, .cgi, .pl or .cfg. Most of these files can be read as plain text in an application like NotePad.
Why E Bay Online Auctions Is Number One (3)
Anyone can register to become a member of E Bay online auction. It's completely free to join and you can start bidding almost instantly. You can become both a buyer and/or a seller.
Help Your Downline Succeed Using 3 Easy Steps (4)
Does that stuff really work? In your dreams yes, but the only way you can turn your dreams into reality is to use proper marketing techniques and the majority of downline distributors never get this vital training.
Is Your Web Page Designer Hurting Your Business? (5)
Most visitors to your sales page will not read the whole page. Most will browse through the page picking up on the emphasized parts. If your designer is emphasizing the wrong places in your sales page, it won't work.
Learning About Internet Niche Marketing (6)
Websites which have informative articles may provide a great deal of information for visitors but care should be taken to verify the information obtained online. This is important because although the Internet can provide a great deal of accurate information, there is also the potential for websites to spread misinformation as well.
Outsourcing Your Articles (7)
There are writers who have great experience in doing this and charge only a minimal fee for such work. Writers like this can be regarded as experts in this style of writing and can greatly help your website to get that coveted spot in the search engine rankings.
Opt-In List Building And The Challenges You'll Face (8)
In a nutshell, one of the main challenges of opt in list building is to know your product or service really well and then place extra emphasis on what sets you apart from your competitors.
How Much Does An Online Business Really Cost? (9)
2. Your own domain name(s). A domain name of your own, in the long run, will be far easier for people to remember than one given by one of the free hosting companies.
Use Public Domain ! (10)
This is probably the easiest way to write articles. You don't need to scour around the library or the internet for hours for information and start an article from scratch.
Finding A Niche For Your Own Blog The Best Way (11)
Before you finalize your choice of a particular niche for your blog, remember to do a little bit of research and find out what many people want to read about while visiting the Internet.
Increase Sales Page Conversion With Basic Graphic Elements (12)
It can also be used as part of your personal branding, depending how you market yourself and your product. The header sets the tone of the sales letter and can do as much to draw the users attention as the headline.
Make Your Resource Box Eye-Catching (13)
Resource boxes can also make use of all the creativity it can get. You only get a small space for your resource box so you better make the most of it.
Disbelief Is Leading Your Potential Customers Astray (14)
Appearances can certainly be deceiving. That's a major lesson of the Volvo example. Here are a few other examples of where aspects of vehicle appearances and performances can give the wrong impression: Bigger is better (not when it comes to parallel parking) More expensive is better (a Ferrari just won't carry six adults comfortably) What you see is what you get (many two-bench truck cabs can be converted to carry more cargo internally where the back bench is) It's how much steel there is between you and the outside world that determines safety (a roll bar can keep you from being crushed by all that steel if you flip over.
The Smart Way To Start A Blog (15)
Blogs also provide a great way for people to communicate with each other and to express their opinions freely. After realizing all of the great benefits of owning a personal blog, you must then take an intelligent approach to the actual start and implementation of the blog on the Internet.
Amazing Linkbuilding Strategies For The Beginner (16)
If they are followed closely and implemented into the web sites business model, then the acquisition of success will be inevitable. Popular Directories One of the best ways for you to increase the popularity of your web page is by first submitting it to web page directories.
How To Get People To Cite Your Posts On Their Blogs (17)
The titles and subtitles of the blog posts should also be carefully written so that it will have a higher probability of being looked up by Internet users through the use of search engines.
How To Be Successful With Viral Linking (18)
As you do so, more Internet visitors will want to click on your link icons because they address topics that they are curious about. Push For The Viral Effect The key objective of any viral link is to exponentially increase the amount of people that link in to your web page.
How To Find The Missing Links (19)
Make sure that you carry out this quest thoughtfully; think about how you would like to be approached and go about it in the same way. Personally address your proposition and aim it specifically at whom you are writing - thus avoiding the 'one size fits all' blanket approach.
Using Forum And Blogs To Generate Tons Of Laser Targeted Free Traffic (20)
You can suggest your products as solutions for problems within your posts but they must not look like advertisements. They must appear to be of the "friend-helping-a-friend" variety. Never include links to your website within the body of your posts to blogs and forums.
Permalink to Brand Effectiveness Key To Membership Growth - Part 2