Blog Post April, 2018
Does Your Business Need A Brand?
When I work with small business owners, they often associate the term “brand”, with big companies like Coca Cola, Nike, Mc Donald’s, Verizon or Apple.
Many of them haven’t put much thought into building a brand because they don’t know why they need to be one. Their mindset for getting in front of customers is by advertising or posting on social media. They don’t realize they can speed up the “know, like and trust” of the buyer’s journey and create a fanatical fan-base or tight-knit community quicker with the what I call Authentic Cult Branding (more on that later).
Well here’s the deal… conventional advertising and exposure through social media is not working like it used to.
Well here’s the deal… conventional advertising and exposure through social media is not working like it used to for both small business and big brands. That’s because in this digitally connected world, consumer attention is getting harder and harder to come by.
There is so much information available at the tip of our googled fingertips. People are tuning out to avoid information overload. Consumers today are more selective in what they tune into these days. With brands, companies, social media, broadcast media and live streaming entertainment all vying for your attention, attention has become the new commodity.
In this on-demand culture in what Google has labeled “micro-moments”(where we as consumers “want what we want when we want it”), the way to capture attention these days is to be there with the right message when your potential customer wants it.
Being there in that micro-moment with the right message is what branding is about.
Branding helps your customer to understand what you can do for them, and wraps it up in a nice, super cool, attractive package.
This on-demand culture is shaping consumer behavior into what I think of as the indulgent expectations of a spoiled little child. That child expects us to serve their needs immediately, and deliver customized, personalized goods as if we were reading their mind and know their heart’s desires. And when we meet those needs, they are happy for the moment, and from there, their expectations continue to grow.
Google is calling this “the hyper-segmented revolution” driven by this kind of individualized consumer behavior. Brands and business owners like you need to respond to these new expectations in meeting these needs for each individual.
Google has been consulting with the the global consumer goods company Unilever on consumer behavior. Unilever’s CMO Keith Weed says their goal is to meet a billion customers one-on-one in this hyper-segmented way, rather than trying to fit a niche.
Branding with Hyper-segmentation in your unique specific, intense, profound, vehement voice is what I call Authentic Cult Branding.
Branding with hyper-segmentation in your unique voice is what I call Authentic Cult Branding. That is speaking so intensely, profoundly, vehemently, and specifically in your authentic company culture voice to fulfill the needs of that “spoiled little child”.
That child will feel so understood, so nurtured that a fierce loyalty will naturally happen. I know that sounds extreme, and it is. The psychology is that people want to feel understood and want to belong to a culture that they strongly identify
with. And if they believe in the message behind that company’s culture, they feel a fervid cult-like loyalty to belong to it, get behind it, and even proudly promote it as if it were theirs.
In this attention economy, authentic cult branded messaging with one-to-one hyper-segmentation is currently one of the most effective ways to cut through the ever-increasing noise in the crowded marketplace.
What are you doing to cut through the noise?
Watch the replay of Angeline Longshore’s live interview on BCB Live with Leland Best. Below is a short clip. Watch the entire show here http://bit.ly/2zsXrQE.
