Brand Autopsy

I can’t begin to summarize the WOMMA Word-of-Mouth Basic Training Conference like the WOMMA Bloggers have done. So instead … I’ll offer up a few takeaways from noteworthy presentations I attended.

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Don Peppers said a lot of smart things during his Return on Customer keynote but the only thing that left an indelible mark with me is the notion that customers, not capital, are a company’s scarcest resource. In other words … in today’s commoditized world, products and services are in over-supply while there is a shortage of paying customers. For summaries of Peppers’ keynote visit HERE and HERE.

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I was blown away by Scott Ginsberg’s “Power of Approachability” keynote presentation on how to become more approachable and this coming from a guy who wears a Doctor’s coat which just begs people to approach me. Scott expertly tailored the presentation to address the needs of marketers by outlining six steps, five of which are listed below, to make a business/brand more approachable:

1 | Do something cool. Don’t do boring stuff. Be interesting to get customers interested.

2 | Tell your story. Every body loves a good story. Businesses with good stories develop good relationships with customers.

3 | Fans, not Customers. Acquiring customers is one thing … creating fans out of those customers is something better.

4 | Own a Word. Scott owns the word ‘Approachability.’ What word does your brand/business own?

5 | Market yourself Daily. Always communicate the uniqueness of your brand/business. Why? Well, Scott quotes from Hebrews (13:2) "Fear not to entertain strangers for by so doing some have entertained angels unaware."

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I was interested to see Frederick Reichheld speak in person. I’ve read some of his books on customer loyalty and found them to be smart, yet down-to-earth. However, he is a Harvard guy and Bain consultant so part of me expected him to have an uppity persona on stage. WRONG. In his keynote, Frederick was approachable and delivered simple, yet super smart ideas.

The brilliance of Reichheld is his ability to simplify business success. For example …

Bad Profits | Good Profits
Reichheld warns of driving growth through bad profits. Hotels achieve bad profits when they charge guests outrageous fees to make local and long distance calls. Airlines achieve bad profits when they charge travelers $100 to change flights. Not only do bad profits alienate customers, they also demotivate employees. Employees become demotivated because they know it is silly to over-charge customers for making long distance calls from their hotel room. Yet, these employees are the ones having to take the verbal abuse of irate customers to help their company benefit from bad profits.

The Secret to Building Loyal Customers is …
… treat others like you would want to be treated. Wait. That’s no secret … that’s The Golden Rule. Yet, that is exactly what businesses like Southwest Airlines and Enterprise Rent-A-Car credit for their success in creating loyal customers. Treating customers exactly like we would want to be treated. Hmm … sounds simple. So why don’t more companies create a customer service culture around The Golden Rule?

The Ultimate Question
Reichheld contends companies no longer need to rely on expensive studies and complex statistical models to measure customer loyalty in hopes of increasing sales. Instead, they need to ask just one question: Would you recommend us [the business] to a friend? All this is tied into his Net Promoter Score which you can read more about in this Q&A.

And … Frederick Reichheld is blogging these days. Cool.

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The best presentation I attended at WOMMA was Douglas Atkin's lunch breakout session on The Culting of Brands.

He mesmerized the audience with his astute analysis on how the most engaging brands create devoted followers by getting them to believe in the company’s mission and to feel a sense of belonging to the community of the company. Believing and belonging are key to brands creating evangelical customers. And believing and belonging are also key concepts cults use to turn everyday people into exceptionally devoted cult members.

Atkin shared only a snippet of his culting of brands theory with us but the information he shared was incredibly useful. He concentrated much of his presentation on the importance of brands needing to separate themselves from the status quo. Atkin offered up four ways brands can best separate themselves from their competitive set:

1 | DETERMINE your profound sense of difference.

2 | DECLARE your difference via a brand ideology.

3 | DEMARCATE your difference by living it through unique symbolism and iconography.

4 | DEMONIZE your main competitors … make them look sadistic to make your brand look angelic.