10 Steps to Create a Successful Brand

Smart businesses develop a special brand – a strong personal message that stands for something meaningful in the eyes of their customers.  But how do you create a magnetic brand that motivates customers to buy?  You must focus on figuring out what motivates your best customers, according to  BJ Bueno of The Cult Branding Company.

He has developed a set of guidelines for businesses seeking to create and establish a successful brand. Here are ten of them:

1) Build your business around your best customers instead of trying to aimlessly drive sales. Over time, your return on your marketing and innovation efforts will rise.

2) Listen to what your best customers are telling you. Don¹t be a transaction-making machine. Be a real person and build a business to serve real people. This is the key to cultivating customer loyalty.   

3) Focus on what your brand does best. If you try to be all things to all people you¹ll end up being nothing to everybody. Be bold. Be unique. Differentiate your brand around your strengths. 

4) Understand what makes your customers tick. Learn how they think, feel, and behave toward your brand. This isn¹t easy, but if you can decode these drivers, you¹ll be better positioned to create long-term customers.   

5) Identify your customer¹s drivers of choice. Why are your current customers buying from you instead of your competitors? Knowing the answer to this question can define the future of your enterprise. 

6) Be relentless in serving your best customers better than anyone else. Give them plenty of reasons to stay with you and no reasons to leave. Push your business to continually find ways to make your customer¹s lives easier and better. 

7) Find ways to wow and surprise your best customers. Do something extraordinary and unexpected for your customers. Instead of playing with “word of mouth marketing” programs, focus on better serving your customers  – word of mouth will happen naturally.   

8) Determine what your brand stands for and deliver on your promise. You must become relentless in your devotion and dedication to delivering on your brand promise each and every day.   

9) Build a brand model that identifies the psychological motivators, key characteristics, and emotional connections your customers have with you. An effective brand model will describe your customer¹s mindset, attitudes, and behaviors toward your brand. 

10) Use your brand model to make all business decisions. If your new ad doesn¹t hit on what¹s important to your best customers, don¹t run it. If you¹re innovating in a direction that isn¹t relevant to your brand lovers, change directions.

Most businesses struggle because they don¹t identify who their business is especially for. These consumer insights will provide the business lens needed to evaluate marketing strategies, advertising campaigns, and product innovations.

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BJ Bueno is founder of The Cult Branding Company, a brand loyalty research firm.  His company helps businesses use humanistic psychology, archetypal imagery and cultural mythology to identify the patterns their best customers share. He is the author of Cult Branding Workbook (2008) and co-author of The Power of Cult Branding (2002). For more information visit http://www.cult-branding.com/

Thursday, December 31st, 2009, 7:38 am   |   Branding, Consumer Behavior  |  RSS feed |  Respond  |  Trackback