Brand marketers invest billions to create an emotional connection between their brand and prospective customers. As media fragments and customers increasingly engage with the brand in ways outside the direct control of the corporate marketer, brand positioning and messaging and the building of emotional connections with consumers becomes more challenging.
When a distributed marketing network - an organization whose success depends on franchise networks, VARs, dealers, agents or chain store marketers to carry the national brand message to the local level - is involved, even more challenges arise. But alongside those challenges is a large opportunity.
Unlike the marketer who has little or no help with brand messaging at the point of customer engagement, the marketer with a distributed network has an army of brand warriors ready, willing and able to help deliver and manage marketing messages. When trained, organized and mobilized, this army of local marketers can explode brand value at the local level, creating exponential value for the corporate investments in brand creation, positioning and messaging.
Distributed Marketing Leadership Series
Exploding Brand Value
at the Local Level
How a good local marketing plan can create exponential value for corporate investments in brand creation, positioning and messaging.Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1: Power of Brand in Local Buying Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2: How Community Changes the Brand at the Local Level. . 7
3: What Does It Mean to be Part of a Brand Community? . . 9
4: Who's in the Driver's Seat? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5: The Five C's of a Win-Win Brand Strategy . . . . . . . . . 18
6: Taking Action-Synergy that Explodes Brand Value . . . 24
7: Equally Yoked . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
8: Related Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
1Introduction
Brand marketers invest billions of dollars every year to create an emotional connection between their brand and their prospective customers. As media fragments and customers increasingly engage with the brand in ways outside the direct control of the corporate marketer, control of brand positioning and messaging and the building of emotional connections with consumers becomes more challenging. When a distributed marketing network - those organizations whose success depends on franchise networks, VARs, dealers, agents or chain store marketers to carry the national brand message to the local level - is involved, even more challenges arise. But alongside those challenges is a large opportunity.
Unlike the marketer who has little or no help with brand messaging at the point of customer engagement, the marketer with a distributed network has an army of brand warriors ready, willing and able to help deliver and manage marketing messages. When trained, organized and mobilized, this army of local marketers can explode brand value at the
2local level, creating exponentially more value from corporate investments in brand creation, positioning and messaging.
This guide is designed to help you identify the impact of the local marketer on your brand, then understand how best to leverage the brand value given your business model and consumer interaction.
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Power of Brand in Local
Buying Decisions
Brand matters more at the local market level than at the national or international level. That's because it's at the local level that brand messages become actions taken by customers and prospects. Actions in the form of product or service chosen. In money spent. In loyalty sustained or lost. Brand value must also often be shared at the local level. For some brands, such as a quick service restaurant, the brand message is consistently and singularly delivered throughout the very standardized interaction process at the counter or at the drive through window.
For many marketers, however, the environment is less controlled. Take an organization that sells through an authorized dealer network where the product or service brand must be shared with the name of the store or service provider. Instead of "York Heating and AC" as the primary brand, it's "Dave's Heating & AC" - which sells the York brand as part of its business. Dave needs York and York needs Dave; the brands
4must synergistically support each other. Both brands matter because many local purchase decisions are made on trust and the relationship to the brand.
If the customer relationship is with Dave's Heating & AC because Dave is known to be honest and to stand behind his work, then consumers will accept Dave's recommendation of a product brand. Yet, some of Dave's good reputation is based on the York brand because of the positive experiences his repeat customers have had with York's performance and quality. That being said, it was still Dave's reputation - and his magnet on the refrigerator or sticker on the furnace - that reminded the consumer of where to call.
Conversely, if the consumer relationship is with York, Dave is just the conduit. The customer knows that when it is time for a new AC unit, then York is the right choice, and Dave is the source for that York AC unit.
Finally, there's certainly the chance that the consumer had no clue who Dave was or what HVAC brand to use, but a friend, family member or co-worker recommended someone he or she tr... [download for more]
