Enhance Your Brand Interactivity
In the frey of your normal management activities, take some time to develop a very important, yet often neglected, aspect of brand management: Brand Interactivity.
Brand Interactivity involves engaging your market directly, creating a unique and personal exchange between them and your company’s personality. This can mean letting them personalize your product, or even letting them choose from several “flavors” of a particular acquisition channel.
Consider M&M’s.com, where customers can actually order a customized bag of M&Ms where messages they create are printed on each piece of candy and delivered to their door. You can even send in a photo and have your face printed on every piece. This is interactivity and brand attachment at its finest.
The idea of interactivity is also taking root with major online brands such as iGoogle and MySpace, where users can create their own dashboard and tweak multiple aspects of their experience. This not only delivers immediate value to these applications, it creates a personal and unique dependence from the user.
Even small business owners can find ways for their brand to interact with potential clients. Employees of Blend Production Group, a high-end web design and production firm, actually carry 4 different colors of their business card. When asked for a card, potential clients are delighted to pick their favorite color; attaching themselves in fond memory to the brand.
Start with your lead generation stage and consider ways to enhance your Brand Interactivity all the way to the post-purchase experience. When your customers are familiar, comfortable and personally attached to your brand, the moat around your market share will increase in both circumference and depth.
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I’m in complete agreement with Jason, a quality branding is founded on this idea of interactivity. Think about Microsoft, the name is not all that clever or catchy… but we’ve “interacted” with it on so many fronts that everyone born into this world knows who they are. An even better example is Apple. We no longer think of a nice shiny fruit when we hear the words “apple” – we think of a brushed metal laptop computer. Also, the idea of business card color options is not all that original of an idea – Apple has been doing this from day one (on a less noticeable scale). Study what others are doing and capitalize on it.
Jason Futch has studied and is my number one source for marketing inspiration.
Also, pick up any of the Harvard Business Review books (i.e. “Brand Management”, “Marketing”, “Strategies for Growth”, “Effective Communication”, or even “Decision Making” and “Leadership”) – all their books are highly recommended and will give you a quick edge to whatever market you’re interested in.