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.

21
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