Building Brands

1. Building Brands

2. Brand Equity • Brand Equity is defined as: • Financial “asset value” of a brand • Derived from goodwill and loyalty it has built among customers • Has high awareness and perceived quality • Better imagery and personality associations

3. Brand Equity • High Brand Equity brands • Can extract higher prices • Customers repurchase the brands more often than they should • Have loyal customer bases • Preference and loyalty higher • Not because the product is functionally superior • But consumer perceptions of the brand is better

4. Brand Equity • The associations of the brand in the consumers mind create • An intimacy and loyalty towards the brand. • The associations do not vary much across segments • The role of marketing is to • Build awareness to communicate high quality • Create or modify product associations • Build higher loyalty • Direct marketing useful for building brand equity when target segment is • Narrower, and • Difficult to reach

5. Building Quality Reputation through Direct Marketing • Communicating Quality • Detailed claims about product features and benefits • Stronger communications about why a product is superior • Can provide customized messages to different customers • Maximize the perceived degree or value and quality communicated

6. Building Quality Reputation through Direct Marketing • Achieving Credibility • Understand and refute customer objections • Cite testimonials from satisfied customers • Offer guarantee for satisfaction • Frequency of post sale contact • Lower follow up costs to monitor and improve customer satisfaction

7. Building Associations • Communications should be designed to • Convey product information • Overcome consumer inertia to buy • Build the linkage between the brand, and its symbols that possess “cultural meaning” • Loyalty • Two types: behavioral and attitudinal • Attitudinal better for building brand loyalty

8. Customer Service and Database Marketing

9. Customer Service Department • Historically functioned as complaint center. • Today technology has allowed order processing and next day shipment. • Companies who do not meet baseline service standards cannot survive. • Service focus has shifted from product focused to customer focused.

10. Customer Service Department • Customer service is the primary channel of contact between both prospects and customers • Responses given by Customer Service Representatives are critical for maintaining and building relationships. • Proper service provides opportunities for cross-selling, affinity selling, and upselling. • Most overlooked aspect- easy data collection.

11. Information Needed by Customer Service • Basic Name, address information about the customer • Company to customer communications • Bills, shipments, and promotions • Customer to company transactions • Payments, returns, and complaints • Details about products, services, policies, and procedures. • The information needs to be timely, accurate and complete.

12. Marketing Information • Two types of information collected: • Static and Dynamic • Static Information • Basically Name, address information • Primary use is for mass mailings • Customer service can be used to fill in any missing customer details

13. Dynamic Marketing Information • Information regarding expected and unexpected event. • Expected event • Initiator could be company or customer. • Example: response from a customer regarding a promotion, or bill • Historical information regarding customer events needs to considered when contacting a customer

14. Dynamic Marketing Information • Unexpected events • Example: customer complaints, returns or inquiries. • Current systems provide only summary information as to whether the contact was an order or complaint. • Systems need to capture information at a better detail. • Information requirements: • initial mode of contact, • whether the problem was resolved or not, and • how it was resolved • Integration between all modes of communication required.

15. Survey Data • Survey data normally collected by market research firms. • Only summary data maintained. • The detailed data regarding specific responses is also useful for database marketing. • Customer service can: • Obtain survey data when customer initiates contact • Use historic survey data to initiate contact with customers in a timely fashion

16. Issues with survey data • Surveys sent to only a sample of customers. • Only a percentage of the original sample respond. • Detailed information available only for a small percentage of the total customer base. • Initial database design required to integrate survey data with marketing data already existing.

17. Information Required for Customer Service • Service representatives require information about individual customers when initiating dialogs. • Information provided by the marketing database includes • Whether the customer is a gold/platinum member. • Product/services customer should be made aware of. • Information the representative can collect from a particular customer. • The representative is in closest contact with the customer. • Canned or broadcast oriented messages do not work here

18. Customer Service on the Internet • Historically web sites gave out only 800 numbers. • Currently web sites are more dynamic and provide: • Product support and FAQs • Provisions for complaint e-mails • Separate corporate intranet access for dedicated customer service

19. Customer Service on the Internet • Pros: • Cost effective • Better reach • Faster service • Cons: • Restricted currently to GenX • Internet has a Pull strategy Vs. Push strategy of traditional direct marketing • Capabilities restricted by customers’ computers

20. Customer Service on the Internet • Future: • Common web sites serving both customers and service representatives • Access to information for customers restricted through intranets • Customer service representatives can have updated information in real time.

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