Blu Maya Digital Marketing Agency

Halloween is almost here and lots of people will go out trick or treating with their favorite costume resembling their own personal brand. What, personal brand?

Mike Michalowicz has written a great piece on how you are your brand and it’s worth a read. While his post touches on how you dress to represent your brand, he does touch on an important factor in branding.

Your brand experience doesn’t start with your product, it starts with you.

Your behavior determines your brand experience and everywhere you go you’re representing your brand, how you act is the perception you’ll create about your company.

Key Takeaway: Determine what expectations you want to set and act on them consistently because your brands starts with you.

Continue Reading

Are you listening to your customers?

A week ago I mentioned how when times change you also need to change how you do business. Well the New Jersey Nets of the NBA have taken one step in changing their brand experience to fit the times.

In a bid to sell more courtside seats, for $25,000, the Nets are offering four courtside tickets for 10 games, parking, access to a private lounge at the Izod Center with free food and beverages and something more — a one-hour appearance by a Nets player of your choice at your home, office, school or party.

Fans want to interact with players outside the court on their own time. This is not new!

This is interesting because the idea originated from a need:

Yormark said the idea for the courtside plan developed because he had an inventory of courtside seats that he wanted to sell and he frequently gets calls from season-ticket holders and fans about having a player attend an event.

As teams are pushed to try new things, listening to their customers needs becomes even more important. Your customers provide you with the most potent source of innovation, look for unmet needs and find ways to fulfill them.

Brand experiences change too, what are you doing about it?

"I tell people if you are doing business the same way you did a year ago, you have to stop it because that’s not the world we live in today," Yormark said. "A lot of people say it, but it’s really true in the world we live in today. You have to do things differently. Things have to be more special and different than before and that’s our goal."

Now’s a good time to start obsessing about your customers because your ability to deliver a better brand experience depends on how you solve your customers needs.

Continue Reading

There is a universal assumption on the internet that if you create compelling content you get all the good stuff every business wants. You get the traffic from organic SEO, the awareness, the branding, the word of mouth, the community.

Really? Is it that easy?

I don’t think so!

Don’t get me wrong producing compelling content so people come read, see, hear and spend time on your site is a good engagement strategy but the problem is when it’s treated as a tactic. Tactics dominate our thinking and applying the same tactics that worked for others is not going to work for you. Let me put it more bluntly, if you do the same thing as your competitors you’re already irrelevant.

Instead look at it this way: Don’t create compelling content to be #1 in Google, create great products and services so you’re #1 in people’s minds.

The truth is if you want to create compelling content (anybody really know what this means?) your better have a damn good product or service that people want/need because a good product or service speaks for itself.

You have to escape the natural pull of the ‘tactical mindset’ and focus on the doughnut not the hole. Differentiation doesn’t come from producing ‘compelling content’, it comes from providing products or services consumers will fall in love with, stuff that engages them emotionally and that enhances their lives.

Key takeaway: When you can create awesome products or services, you don’t need to find better ways to sell it.

Continue Reading