July 15, 2011
OPEN Forum Message
Affordably Build Your Brand
FedEx Global Brand Management Director Monica Skipper shares a cost-effective way to build a bigger brand for your small business.
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When you substitute, you rob the customer. When you substitute, you shoot yourself in the foot. When you substitute, you demonstrate a lack of commitment. Remember: Substitution is the shortcut that takes longer. Don’t buy into the lie that you can cut corners to save a few bucks or a few minutes.
Today we’re going to explore five substitutions that don’t work, along with what you can execute instead:
1. Copy is not a substitute for care
Just because your marketing department whipped up a clever statement about security and smeared it all over your collateral materials doesn’t mean customers feel seen, safe, and heard. Caring is a way of thinking, a way of speaking, and a way of being that reminds people that you bother to bother—every single day.
Like my financial planner, when the stock market started to seriously tank, she sent me a personal letter explaining three things: A simple summary of current market conditions, reassurance that no matter what happened, she would handle my assets ethically, professionally and wisely, and, finally, an invitation for a personal meeting at her office to explain anything further. Wow.
Does the brainless disclaimer at the end of your e-mails make customers feel safe or executives feel protected?
2. Passion is not a substitute for reality
That’s great if you love your product more than life itself. But if you want to make money, there has to be an intersection between your obsession and the marketplace need. If you want to make history, you have to solve a problem that’s real, urgent, pervasive, and expensive. Otherwise you’ll be passionately irrelevant. For example, people use the Internet to solve problems. Questions are the number one thing typed into Google: How do you hunt elk? How do you write a book? How do you start your own membership website? How do you successfully stalk your ex-girlfriend on Facebook with her finding out?
Are you making something useful or just making something?
3. Information is not a substitute for interaction
Access to knowledge is nice, but access to each other is necessary. That’s what customers crave, come back for, and tell their friends about: How interacting with you makes them feel. This is the core value that your brand delivers. And if you’re not making a conscious effort to deliver meaningful interactions in addition to helpful information, customers will view you as a commodity.
I’m reminded of the website, Discuss Cooking. They know that their users don’t just want recipes. They also want to learn what others thought about the recipe, what ingredients they added, what spices they used, what side they paired it with, what wine goes with it and what their families thought about it. In short: They want to become better cooks, not just better at following directions.
How does your brand enable connection?
4. Celebrity is not a substitute for credibility
Just because people recognize your name doesn’t mean they see any promise attached to it. And just because your hilarious video went viral doesn’t mean you’re going to get hired. Credibility comes from creating an unquestionable knowledge base. Credibility comes from establishing a zone of trust around you. And credibility comes from building a consistent timeline of execution. Crystal Pepsi was remarkable, but irrelevant. It was nice, but not necessary. That’s the trap many organizations to fall victim to: Being remarkable for the sake of being remarkable.
Do you truly offer meaningful uniqueness?
5. Strategy is not a substitute for execution
Instead of holding a meeting before the meeting to prepare for the deployment of your plan so you can formulate a strategy to start the initial stages of brainstorming for your pre-launch initiative, just go. Just start something. Stop planning. Stop talking. Take some initiative and ship something that matters. Even if you’re not ready. Even if the final product isn’t perfect. Forget about “Ready, aim, fire!” and consider, "Try, listen, leverage!” Personally, I am geographically impotent, which isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes you have to lose your way to find your home. But personally, I can’t imagine living in a world where you can’t get lost. Sometimes you have to stop planning and start doing.
What are you waiting for?
Check your balance, review recent transactions and pay your bill on the go.
Julie Rains 10 months ago
That "information is not a substitute for interaction" seems to be a lesson that needs to be learned and re-learned as information flows so freely. It's valuable but at some point, you need to interact with someone to learn how to really apply information to real-life situations.