Your brand identity is tied to the design you associate with who you are. Think Apple, Nike, Coke, Polo Ralph Lauren……how is your brand’s design identifing your products and services?

Best Nicole

Your Website is the window into your business’s soul. It’s your brand’s identity, so if the design isn’t measuring up, it’s going to drive people away rather than invite them inside.

Regardless of whether you employ the most talented staff in today’s working world, if your Website or social media profiles don’t employ good marketing design, you’re losing business.

How can you ensure that your site’s design is making the cut? Follow these important guidelines to find out:

Style and tone must match brand personality.
You need to establish a personality that is unique to your brand. If you’re a flower delivery business, you probably wouldn’t want a black-and-brown Website that uses a cryptic font.

Why? Because unless you’re a rare exception to the rule, it doesn’t match the brand personality that’s commonly associated with floral gift arrangements.

But that’s not to say that all flower shops should be pink, green and bubbly. Use your brand personality to establish a style and tone, and use this as a core for designing your Website and social media profiles. This will ensure that your business maintains a credible, professional appearance and as a result, will typically result in a greater number of sales.

Be organized.
Your site must be organized so that people can easily navigate through it. Be sure that your main navigation links and sub-navigation links are straightforward. If you own a clothing store, your main navigation links may be “men’s” and “women’s,” and sub-navigation may include age, styles, seasons, etc. If you’re not sure whether your site is organized well, conduct a trial run with a focus group.

Be functional.
Nothing screams unprofessional like a site with links or other features that don’t work. Be sure that both internal and external links function properly and direct the user to where they say they’ll be directed. If they don’t, you’ll undoubtedly lose customers and business.

Ease of purchase.
People should not have to jump through hoops to buy something from your site. The fewer the clicks it takes to get to check-out, the better.

On the same note, be sure that your checkout process is secure. People are giving you their credit card information in good faith that it will be kept private and protected.

I have posted an interview from Collective-E, in lieu of this celebration. The interview offers some insight and thoughts from Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, that led him on his steadfast path to success. I think there are things that we can all learn from him. The most important is that he focused on his mission of customer service and leveraged social media by letting his customers do the marketing for him. On any given day, 75% of his orders come from repeat customers and word of mouth!!!

This is not a lesson just for entrepreneurs but for all business owners in every product and service category. Your customers are eager to engage and connect with you. Build a relationship with them that is transparent and valuable and they will pay you back over and over and over again! Who’s next in line for a multi-million dollar celebration?

Best Nicole

On the heels of Amazon’s $840 million acquisition of Zappos.com, Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh spoke with Collective-E, a worldwide collective of women entrepreneurs, and some of its members.

If you had to explain why you believe Zappos.com has been so successful, what key reasons would you attribute it to?
I think it’s because of our focus on customer service and company culture. Our whole belief is that if we get the culture right, then most of the other stuff, like delivering great customer service or building a long term enduring brand, will happen naturally on its own.

We’ve grown from almost no sales in 1999 to over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales in 2008. The No. 1 driver of that growth has been through repeat customers and word of mouth. On any given day, about 75 percent of our orders are from repeat customers. Our philosophy is to take most of the money we would have spent on paid advertising and marketing, and put that into the customer experience instead, including things like free shipping both ways, our 365-day return policy, and staffing our call center 24/7.

How do you feel businesses of all sizes should respond to the recession in order to thrive?
I think the true test of a company’s character (or even a person’s character) is how they behave when times are tough. For us, we’ve continued to focus on providing the very best customer service and developing our company culture. My advice to businesses of all sizes is to figure out what you want to stand for (i.e., what your core values are) and continue to make decisions based on that.

How important are social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to Zappos.com?
Our primary focus has been on Twitter. We have over 400 employees on Twitter, and you can view their tweets at: http://twitter.zappos.com/employee_tweets

As you can see, most of the tweets are not about business or marketing, but it’s a great way for us to connect on a more personal level with both employees and customers. It gives people a glimpse into our company culture, which is ultimately what our brand is all about.

What is your favorite thing about entrepreneurship?
I enjoy that there are always new challenges and that you have to be creative in figuring out how to attack those challenges.

What is the biggest challenge you face as an entrepreneur?
I think the biggest challenge is that there are so many great ideas but not enough time or resources to do all of them. The hardest part about being an entrepreneur is figuring out what not to do.

How have you created such a powerful and positive customer service force in Zappos? Even scheduling this interview, the level of positive and quick feedback was notable enough to talk about after we hung up the phone. How do you keep that spirit alive and thriving?
It’s a combination of making sure that everyone understands our vision of having the Zappos brand be synonymous with the very best customer service as well as making sure that we hire people that are a fit for our company culture. Our culture is defined by our 10 core values:

1. Deliver WOW through service.
2. Embrace and drive change.
3. Create fun and a little weirdness.
4. Be adventurous, creative, and open-minded.
5. Pursue growth and learning.
6. Build open and honest relationships with communication.
7. Build a positive team and family spirit.
8. Do more with less.
9. Be passionate and determined.
10. Be humble.

Entrepreneurs seem to be very good at starting and developing projects. I’ve found one of the most challenging things for me is to figure out and then decide what to stop doing, whether it’s because the market is changing, it’s not profitable, or I’m just not good at something. Can you give an example of something you stopped doing and include how you made the decision, how long it took you to make, and the outcome?
We are always open to experimenting with ideas we get from customers and employees. For example, we had some customers that suggested that we try selling dog collars, and others that suggested that we try selling sunglasses. Neither of those categories have very much to do with shoes, but we decided to experiment with both.

As it turns out, the dog collars did not sell very well, but the sunglasses did. So we decided to stop selling dog collars and invest more heavily in sunglasses. Today, we have one of the best selections of sunglasses available anywhere, online or offline, and they continue to sell well for us.

How often do your Tweets turn into actual sales? Do you measure that in some way?
We don’t measure that because we don’t think of Twitter as a direct marketing channel. Twitter allows us to be more personal with our customers and build relationships with them over time.

What was the most effective thing you did to maximize web awareness?
Most of our awareness online or offline has been generated by word of mouth. We really just focus on WOWing our customers, and let our customers do the marketing for us.

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So I have an answer. I came across a blog that provides a clear outline of both the scientific differences and the implications of marketing to women. It comes from a blog called “There is More to Life Than Shoes” in the UK. Their post called “How to Market Your Business to Women” gives you the facts both scientific and the tools to get started.

Creating a value proposition—that speaks to this most important target market by taking action NOW—means that you are poised to grow your business. Women love value and are bargin shoppers. In this new economy, they are clammering for businesses like yours that have finally taken them into account: thinking about who they are, addressing their needs, giving them what they want and letting them know that YOU understand the benefit of having their business.

How easy can it be! Gazillions of sales await for your business, products and services.

Best Nicole

Women are now the most important target audience in the world, and yet many of us feel traditional marketing ignores and patronises us. How can you market your business successfully to the girls with the power? The experts at marketing consultancy PrettyLittleHead are on the case.

WE’RE IMPORTANT BUT NEGLECTED
Women are now the most important target audience on earth. Figures published recently by The Economist suggest that women in the West are now responsible for almost 80% of purchase decisions. Even when it comes to choosing traditional boys’ toys like cars and electronics, women are fast becoming the dominant purchase-makers, and many of the most substantial areas of business growth are those driven by us girls.         

Yet despite the huge opportunities presented by women who are ready to spend, we are often patronized, misjudged or simply ignored by traditional marketing. In a YouGov survey conducted at the end of 2006, over two thirds of women questioned felt they couldn’t identify with women featured in advertising. One in two said they felt people try to sell them things by making them feel bad about themselves, and over 70% said they thought marketers believe they are only interested in household items and beauty products.  

So how can you improve your marketing strategy to reach that huge female audience out there?         

WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?
Two significant developments have occurred over the last decade that mean we are now in a better position than ever before to market effectively to women. Firstly, we know loads more than ever before about the scientific differences between male and female brains – mental preferences, stress responses, biological instincts and strategies for surviving.

Secondly, we are beginning to recognise that acknowledging differences between the sexes is realistic, not sexist. Men and women aren’t the same: in fact, they’re profoundly, uniquely, interestingly and helpfully different from each other.

WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM SCIENCE
What can science teach us about the differences between men and women and the way they approach the world, and what do those differences mean for marketing?

Masculine = analytical, linear and focussed.  Feminine = whole-brained
Scientific tests have shown that there are hard-wired differences between the way male and female brains are constructed. Evidence suggests that women have a greater ability to connect between the left-hemisphere of the brain where the centres of logical, linear and analytical thinking reside, and the right-hemisphere where more emotional and intuitive thinking takes place. This may mean that when it comes to problem solving or assessing a situation may use more emotional and intuitive parts of the brain alongside more reasoned approaches.

Masculine = action.  Feminine = feeling
A further area of difference appears to emerge in the more primitive inner parts of the brain – the sub-conscious areas where automatic and instinctive responses take place. When the male brain is at rest, most activity takes place in the most primitive area of the brain that deal with survival instincts and fight or flight responses; when the female brain is at rest, it appears that most activity takes place in the limbic system – the area where feeling is centred.

Masculine = fight or flight.  Feminine = tend and befriend
The male response to stress is the release of a cascade of hormones (testosterone, adrenalin and so on) that encourage a flight-or-fight response. In women, stress responses induce the production of oxytocin. This kicks off the ‘tend and befriend’ response; whereas testosterone drives men to physical action, oxytocin encourages behaviour that is nurturing, calming and conciliatory.

Masculine = interest in things.  Feminine = interest in people
It may sound like a cliché, but there is scientific evidence that women tend to be interested in people while men are more interested in things. Female babies have been shown to respond with more interest to a picture of a face; female toddlers are less likely to engage in mechanical play and are more likely to initiate social interaction for fun; little boys are more interested in mobile and mechanical objects than they are in natural or people-based play things; little girls are much more likely to draw pictures containing people whereas little boys are much more likely to draw cars, buildings and other mechanical objects.

Masculine = power and competition.  Feminine = relationships and empathy
Anthropological studies show that women and men have different approaches to survival. Male primates, men included, need to create mating opportunities. This leads them to focus on the hierarchy of the pack and their position within it. By contrast, females focus on the survival of their off-spring. They choose a mate to make sure they are getting good genes, they nurture their off-spring intensively and they develop relationships with others to provide further protection from external threats. All of which means that women are motivated to achieve a peaceful, safe and harmonious environment, building bonds of shared interest and support, whereas men are motivated by much more self-interested strategies, asserting dominance and competing successfully in the hierarchy.

Masculine = systemising.  Feminine = empathising
All this adds up to men and women having fundamentally different views of the world. Scientist Simon Baron Cohen says, “the female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy. The male brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems”. In other words, men understand the world by breaking things down in to their component parts, women understand the world by putting themselves in other people’s shoes.

THE IMPLICATIONS FOR MARKETING TO WOMEN:
Men and women are wired differently and therefore need to be approached differently by marketing campaigns.
   
There are four key areas that determine the success of a brand when it comes to targeting the female audience. By combining the study of sex and gender difference with the study of those brands that have successfully appealed to the female consumer, we have arrived at Four Feminine Codes: the four areas of influence and activity that appeal to female motivation and operation.

The Altruism Code
How and why women respond to altruistic motives and behaviour in brands
Women tend to focus on the group and the wellbeing of others rather than on their own individual success or achievement. This is borne out of the female ability to empathise, to put oneself in another’s shoes.

The Body Shop, Fairtrade and Red are strong examples of brands built on overt altruistic positionings.  But there are others that are less overt but equally consonant with the positive, altruistic sentiment to which women respond.

Among telecom networks, Orange stands out as the most developed and powerful brand.  It has an inspiring brand positioning, encapsulated in the endline ‘The future’s bright, the future’s Orange’.  This thought resonates positively with the Altruism Code, because in the world of drab, grey, unwelcoming Telecom brands, Orange offers you the opportunity to be excited about what is to come.

The Aesthetic Code
Why appearance matters to women and what that means for marketing. Women want to make the world a more attractive place:  a more attractive environment is a safer, more harmonious and more pleasant place to be for everyone.

The creators of the iMac understood the Aesthetic Code and responded wholeheartedly. Until the 1990s, computers were cumbersome grey boxes, designed entirely for function.

The iMac changed all that, bringing in an appreciation that as a computer was something you live and work with all the time, its aesthetics are important. The way a computer looks can also generate a sense of friendliness and approachability and so encourage experimentation. The look and feel of the iMac changed the face of computer design.

The Ordering Code
The importance of enhanced order and elimination of risk to women
Women run on the assumption that order creates harmony. The desire to take on responsibilities like running a home and family and the meticulous planning of events are evidence of the Ordering Code.

The way women have embraced the Internet is a reflection of ordering behaviour.  Women now outnumber and spend more money than men online.  The internet allows women to carry out their responsibilities and duties (most of which are self appointed) with ease, and it provides information to give women confidence in their decision-making.  This is empowering! Where once women had to trudge around car showrooms being ignored or patronised, they can now get the information they need online and buy the car they want quickly and painlessly.

The Connecting Code
How and why communities are important to women
Women like to build relationships. They like to draw people together and find common ground between them.  Businesses that recognise the power of female communities in building brands will benefit from free marketing and develop deeper more commercially rewarding relationships with their female audience.
 

Ultimately, people are responsible for their own actions. That’s not to say that media and advertising don’t affect what we choose to do and believe. Of course they affect us. Otherwise, what would be the purpose of most advertising? Why would advertising even exist, considering its main job is to skew and alter public thinking?

However, nothing excuses the actions of opportunists looking to make a buck or those who feel so inadequate that they think by owning the hottest “it” product, they’ll become cooler/faster/smarter/better (hmm…think I stole some of that from Kanye West. But don’t tell anyone!). They still have a choice. And if iPod didn’t become the “Apple” of their dollar sign/approval seeking eyes, then it would have been something else.

For example, why are Honda Accords and Civics so popular amongst discriminating car thieves?Including those who are looking to pump up these appealing, somewhat innocuous vehicles, into ‘roid raged, street racing machines? Is it because Honda did TOO good a job of touting them as the coolest cars for sporting your ground effects and peeling some illegal rubber? No. Certain people, for whatever reason, just chose to go this route on their own—probably based in part on the popularity of these vehicles and their reliability (things that Honda DOES advertise). 

But admittedly, Honda did come up with a way to try and cope with this problem. They decided to be proactive—offering their customers an added sense of security by making car alarms standard on even their base models. I remember when my girlfriend and her husband bought their Accord a couple of years ago, the dealer actually made a point of this fact: explaining that Honda decided to add car alarms to all the Accord (and Civic) trims because of their somewhat nefarious popularity.

That being said, what can Apple do about this iCrime situation? Should they speak out about it (and say what, I wonder)? Should they change the white earbuds and detract from the identity of a brand they worked so hard to build? Perhaps. Or develop some sort of feature, such as a Biometric security device, that makes it virtually impossible for anyone other than the owner to use the iPod? Sure…but can you say “excessive”? And possibly very expensive?

Although the idea of a sophisticated security feature is not entirely out of the question (and, ironically, would probably increase the inherent value and popularity of the iPod), the fact is that we’ve become too much of a hand-holding, baby-sitter society as it is. Should every company then be expected to jump through invisible hoops to try and ensure that no possible harm ever befalls the users of their products? Should they have to anticipate any and all negative external factors over which they have absolutely no control and are not part of “regular use and operation”? 

Perhaps it’s up to parents and kids to be more aware and to take their own measures to prevent possible threats. Get another pair of earbuds that aren’t a dead giveaway. Don’t allow the kids to wear their iPods to and from school. Whatever the plan of attack, in this case I think the burden of self-protection lies primarily with the consumer.

And as the old saying goes, “let the buyer beware”. I know it wasn’t necessarily meant the way I’m spinning it, but sometimes you just have to take responsibility for your own choices.

Bye for now,

Margaret.

Click here to read more about the “Darkside of Brand Evangelism”.

And while your still here, check out our latest Doings.

In this article, they discuss various forms of social media and relate how it can be successful for several companies. My biggest lesson from this (and an important reminder of something that I’ve mentioned in the “about us” section of our blog) is that everyone has a story. The job of all advertising and marketing is to tell that story and let the customer help piece it together. The most important thing, especially in this new economic time, is to review your story and decide whether it’s being told. Are you having a conversation with your consumers and or target market about whatever it is you want to tell them about your brand? Or are you just force-feeding them what they should believe, regardless of what they think?

I have copied here a few tidbits of the interview to wet your appetite, but I highly recommend that you click on the link and read the interview for yourself.

“Now you have to try to be more authentic—even if it’s just authentically acknowledging that what you’re doing is advertising.”

“It used to be that companies would commission a study at great expense to find out what people thought about their product. Now you just go online and find out. It’s really scary at first. You realize there’s a whole dialogue going on outside your brand, and you can’t control it.”

“The feedback you get, though, is so much richer and more immediate than what we used to get. In focus groups, there’s always one guy who sort of steals the room, so you wind up getting his opinion and no one else’s. On ­YouTube, you put your ad up, and right away you can read the comments. It’s such a democracy.”

“Are there brands that are resisting this kind of change? Palmer: Sure. Almost any household brand you would find under your sink or in your medicine cabinet. The macaroni-and-cheese products of our daily lives. They assume their business practices will carry on forever.”

“Rasmussen: It’s not just Clorox. Even brands that are doing very well are resistant to this change. They want to take advantage of all these new media channels, but they’re afraid.”

The last paragraph includes the quote that I used in the title of this post. As stated by Trevor Edwards:

“Nike’s main marketing guy, had a great quote. He said, “Nike’s not in the business of keeping media companies alive, we’re in the business of connecting with consumers.” That sums up digital pretty nicely.”

Rasmussen: Clients are not saying, “Make us ads” or “Make us Web sites,” they’re saying, “Create interaction between our brand and our customers.” That’s our job now.

So…what is your company waiting for?

Click here to read the full article.

Best Nicole

That being said, here are my 2 cents (or is it 10 cents now with inflation?) regarding the Motrin situation:

Do I think that some women have WAAAAY overreacted to a 40 something second commercial that will eventually fade away within a few months? Yes.

Do I think Motrin did the right thing in pulling the ad and apologizing? Maybe—hey, the squeaky wheel and all…

But in the end, even though I personally find the furor surrounding what I consider to be a rather innocuous, occasional amusing, sometimes “what were they thinking?” spot to be a bit knee-jerk, I believe that it’s a fascinating case study for the power of the internet.

It’s a living, breathing, evolving example of why advertisers have to listen. They can’t just assume anymore. They can’t pretend that they know their customers—that they TRULY understand where they’re coming from. And that’s why they need to start taking advantage of social media and networking. The “mad moms” are doing it…so why aren’t they? It’s time for them to get engaged, instead of sitting behind 2-way mirrors watching the artificial interactions of focus groups and assuming that all moms/women/customers are the same. They need to take advantage of what the net has to offer and develop strategies that allow them to take the pulse of the people and figure out what ails them—before they wind up choking on their own bitter pill.

Adeus,

Margaret.

Have you seen the Motrin ad? If not, check it out and let us know what you think.

And if you’re still here, check out what we’ve been Doing lately.