Creating brand communities

There is strength in numbers. Marketing should remember this dictum as they map out how to correctly address the problem of producing marketing strategies that will mean an increase in returns from advertising investments. How can we maximize the idea that there is strength in numbers?

One solution would be brand communities. These communities are made up of consumers that support particular brands. It would be beneficial then if marketing focused on building particular communities that will embrace your brand. A brand community can use word-of-mouth to spread the word. Personal testimonies will speak for your brand and will be more effective in convincing people.

Resolving problems in advertising

Right now, if your organization is getting a low return on its advertising investment, then it is not working and some adjustments are needed in your advertising campaign. But what do you need to do to make the numbers turn around? One path that you could try is going back to basics. How did producers advertise before? Which medium did they use?

Before the advent of television, products were marketed door-to-door. People were made to see, touch, smell, and feel the product for themselves. They were shown how the product worked and made to feel how it worked. Advertising has to connect with the consumer – to build an emotional relationship between the product and the consumer to create a loyalty.

How can you make your product more ‘alive’ to consumers?

The failure of advertising

The world of marketing isn’t the same anymore. Before 2005, expenditures for advertising across the world were increasing at the average of 3.6%. But at that high rate, returns decreased by 3.4%. Of course this shouldn’t be surprising since the average person would have watched half a million advertisements by the age of 45 and have heard almost the same amount of radio ads.

Consumers are overloaded already with ads and commercials on TV and radio. Sad but this also means we have to look for more ways to get our products and services to more consumers – and this doesn’t mean we have to make more and more commercials.

What new ways are available to advertise our products?

Building consumers trust

Advertising does not have much credibility nowadays. Most consumers believe advertising to be crap – lying through the teeth at how effective or efficient products are. But this does not mean consumers are too jaded to trust anymore. It simply means marketing people have to find out ways to build the trust of the consumer in the product that is being promoted.

In the first place, who do we trust? Friends are people we trust – our closest friends are those who enjoy our deepest trust. When friends recommend a certain product, a particular restaurant, a specific clothes store – we would also tend to follow and trust this recommendation or advice. In turn you would recommend that store, product or place to your other friends.

How can you maximize this type of viral marketing?

Strengthening companies

Companies need to follow a star – a guide to where they are going that is fixed and secure, not moving or adjusting despite market fluctuations and changes in the organization. The best thing would be if that immovable guide or star in the company is the steadfast values and mission of the company.

But there are times when a company loses focus and drifts along with the current. The company’s culture and values are not deeply ingrained and are shallow. These are the companies that will break down and not be around when there is a shakedown in the market. Buildings whose structure are not sound enough will fall down in an earthquake.

Does your company have strong values?

On being creative

At work, how many of us can say that we love our work and what we do because it allows us to be creative? Most of the time, when a project gets to be too difficult to do, consultants are hired. This means they get to be creative and we do not. Hiring consultants deprives us of the need to think and creatively solve problems.

This doesn’t mean consultants are a waste of money. It’s just that companies have a knee-jerk reaction to hire consultants rather than allow employees to sit down and think out the situation or problem so that they could work out a solution – creatively.

There are times when companies need help from those outside the organization. But there are also times when the solution-maker is just within the family.

Responding to stress

People respond to stress in different ways. Some people, when they forget something at home, feel that their days is ruined and can’t be made right anymore. Other people when faced with this situation are able to shrug it off and go on with their day. It is just a minor irritation for them and not really a big deal.

How you respond to situations and people that cause stress in your life is the basis of how your body experiences stress. To make it simple, the way your mind handles stress also dictates how your body reacts to stress. This also means that when you can handle the stress that comes with equanimity and a calm presence, the stressor will hardly create a ripple and will be a minor one.