Can branding and promotion complement one another? Your CEO wants sales growth (today) but your internal brand evangelists want messaging that doesn’t erode your brand. There’s a natural tension when wrestling short-term sales against long-term brand goals.
So how do you define your brand’s success? Most companies’ outlook is dictated by last quarters’ sales, year-over-year analysis and customer behavior (i.e., how much time did they spend, how much money did they spend?). As a CMO, you’re beholden to your numbers (your job depends on it). As a digital marketer, you’re finding ways to leverage your content to sell your product, idea, or service. The challenge is keeping your brand promise while offering a coupon, discount code or BOGO offer. Are you training your customers to expect a discount? Are you devaluing your brand? Will anyone, ever pay full price again? (Or are you priced too high?)
“We must move from numbers keeping score to numbers that drive better actions.” David Walmsley, SVP, Chief Digital and Omnichannel Officer, Pandora.
So how do you use numbers to drive better interaction with your customers? A successful brand can be defined by how its customers identify with it, how they engage with it, how long they will stay with it. Ask yourself, “What experience, memory or feeling does my customer get from our brand”? Look at your sales and marketing materials – are you leveraging your strengths? Then ask, how are we capitalizing on those to increase our sales?
If your sales are stalled, your engagement stalled – you’re not making the connection. Whether it be your content, the message or the placement of it. You’re not connecting with your customer. We would also challenge – do you know who your customer is and what problem you are solving for them? Stop looking at your competition and dig deep into your brand. Ask yourself – ask your team, “Who are we and what is our brand mission?” If that’s not sticking, if that experience isn’t translating into sales and, if you’re not able to clearly solve your customer’s problem – You have a brand problem and no amount of discount will solve it. (It may help for a few quarters, but ultimately you’ll just bleed discounts and your brand will die.)
Our current work with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra has helped this beloved, internationally known, venue-driven, performance-based brand pivot into a digital experience through an episodic digital series that connects PSO subscribers, patrons and new viewers to a world beyond traditional classical and pops music. The PSO’s FRONT ROW Series weaves music with spaces, places and people throughout the Pittsburgh region; shining a light on others while offering the gift of music – to all – for free.
They purposed that the pandemic would not shudder their commitment to excellence but instead reinforce it by lifting others in the community. They transitioned an in-person experience to an at-home experience that beautifully connected to their customers.
No coupon needed.
Answered “I don’t know?” to any of the above questions call us at 412-387-7002 or email our team at info@flyingscooterproductions.com. We’ll help you find your brand voice.