As I was searching the other day for more information on creative advertising, I found some really great information from Scott Smith. This is information that will help with effective marketing and advertising.

In my old advertising and marketing days, I’d always start by collecting deep knowledge of the product or service, and of the category. That included always trying the product for myself, or getting someone I know and trust to try it.

I think this is crucial: if you don’t believe in the products you are selling or know anything about them, how do you expect to speak with confidence to your potential clients? What if they have a question about a specific detail - Can you answer it? What if they want to know more about the products reputation or durability - what can you say about it without having used it?

So, bottom line - Use the products you are selling! Have your friends and family use them! Get feedback. Post the feedback on your site (especially if it’s really good!); if it’s bad you may want to look at other options within the product line. Scott Smith goes on:

…ensure that the product or service [is] up to snuff and functioning properly according to its goals, and that brand or line extensions [are] in place to address various users’ needs or tastes.

We’d learn as much as possible about what the users think, and what they want. Car manufacturers can put all the technology they want into a car, but if a consumer wants a RED car and the manufacturer doesn’t offer RED in that model, the sale is lost. You gotta know stuff like that. Knowing the category is essential to maximizing potential revenues and profits.

The phrase “knowing the category is essential to maximizing potential reveues and profits” is perfect. If you don’t know what your clients want, you are probably waisting lots of time. Find what people want and then give it to them!

How do you find out? One way is by going to a bookstore or library and looking at magazines that your market users may be interested in. What types of products do they buy currently? Who advertises in these niche magazines? What do they offer?

Another way is to ask your market. Do a survey, make a poll or form they can fill out; give them something “free” if they fill out a brief quetionnaire. Do something to collect data that you can use in the future to better meet the needs and wants of your customers.

If you understand the importance of knowing…this stuff, and make it your business to know the answers in your categories, it makes selling and positioning a brand within a Web site whole lot easier…

Great stuff! Now use it (and make comments!)…

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Businesses are taking advertising to a new level: directly targeted, lifetime marketing and a personal connection with a specific market segment. Brand is defined as “a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of these, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors.” (Principles of Marketing, Kotler, Armstorng, p. G1)

Perhaps the most distinctive skill of professional marketers is their ability to create, maintain, protect, and enhance brands of their products and services. Most consumers view a brand as an importnat part of a product, and branding can add value to a product. Branding has become so strong that today hardly anything goes unbranded.

Advantages of Branding to Buyers:

• Brand names help consumers identify products that might benefit them.
• Brands tell the buyer something about product quality.
• Buyers who always purchase the same brand know what they’re going to get in regard to features, benefits, and quality.

Advantages of Branding to Sellers:

• Brand name becomes the basis on which a whole story can be built about a product .
• Brand names provide legal protection for unique product features.
• Branding helps the sellere to segment markets. (General Mills can offer Cheerios, Wheaties, Total, Kix, Lucky Charms, etc. - not just one general product for everyone.)

Highlight Sports feels that allowing businesses to brand themselves for a lifetime on completely customized DVDs is a huge benefit to specific businesses. As you can see in the video below, clients watch customized DVDs over and over again and put a high value on preserving memories.

If this is something your business would like to be a part of or you’d like more information, email Nate at Moller Marketing today.

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Good idea - wonder if my wife would be okay with this “marketing strategy”?

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I hope someone can help me with this advertising dilema. I sell ad space for one of my companies, Highlight Sports. Branding is a concept I’m attempting to engrain in the heads of clients I work with.

My role at Highlight Sports is to promote creative advertising. We provide completely customized DVDs at cheer and dance competitions. In my research I’ve come to the conclusion that a company buys advertising for one of two reasons:

Branding refers to the process of impressing a company name or a product name onto society’s collective brain. Branding happens with both new and existing products. When you see a billboard that says nothing but “Coke” on it, or you see a NASCAR car that says “Tide” on the hood, or you see a feel-good ad on TV about a car company or an oil company but there’s no mention of a product, that is branding. The advertiser doesn’t necessarily expect you to do anything today — the advertiser simply wants to impress itself on your consciousness. The question that comes to my mind is:

“How do you teach the importantance of branding to advertisers that don’t seem to know what they are missing out on, that base their advertising decisions solely on ROI?”

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I wanted to ask some questions, share some insites, and just vent about branding…

• What is branding?
• Where do I start?
• Why is branding so helpful? or Is it really that helpful?
• Is branding something you can track?
• Can you get an ROI on branding?
• Why do companies choose branding as a marketing strategy and tactic?
• Are there just long term effects of branding or can they be short term as well?

This is what en.wikipedia has to say about a brand:

“A brand is a collection of images and ideas representing an economic producer; more specifically, it refers to the concrete symbols such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme…A brand is therefore one of the most valuable elements in an advertising theme, as it demonstrates what the brand owner is able to offer in the marketplace…”

Branding is a key factor in business building.

Need I say more? Does anyone not know what this is? It’s extremely effective “branding”!

I’m reading a marketing book right now that talks about the importance of developing a marketing strategy before you create marketing tactics. This means that you need to know WHY you are doing what you plan to do before you start implementing specific marketing tactics. Creating a brand starts with a well thought out mission statement and/or vision. You must answer the question:

How is what I’m planning on doing going to help others?

If you are able to answer this question in two or three sentences and feel strongly about it, you have taken one of the first big steps in building a brand.

More to come…What are your thoughts?

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