Download Building Brands

Building Brands
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
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
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
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
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
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
Customer Service and Database
Marketing
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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
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.
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
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
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
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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