The Dream Customer
The New Year started (un)accidentally with projects for the top three storage system suppliers in Bulgaria.
This gave us a great chance to update the rating and valuation system of customer accounts in our CRM plus the chance to monitor three top Google ranking projects in the same industry. The customer RFM value was implemented back in 2003, but we needed a simple Customer Rating system.
The concept is basically that the account is given an ABC rating, which determines the general standing of the customer. Many clients have different rules for rating their CRM accounts.
When we define our dream customer, (the prime company, which is a perfect match for our branding services), it will be the kind of customer, who:
- Knows what the brands needs (NOT wants) and is willing and able to invest what it takes.
- Values the services you provide and the goals you care about, views you as an important resource.
- Is a joy to work with and is delighted to do business with you, no matter the brand’s industry.
Not every customer happens to be a dream one, but when you know what sets you apart and what makes you different for them, you start to think as customers, meeting their needs and solving their problems, thus providing unique benefits.
In most cases, the dream customer comes naturally, without any persuasion or spamming techniques. The source is usually a word-of-moth, organic search or Web 2.0 referral. In the end of the day, the perfect customer understands that our branding message is consistent and based on real business and web metrics: traffic, conversion and sales increase in %%% digits. Every manager knows that only ROI and bottom-line results matter, that’s the main focus.
In order to make a valuable impact with a web-presence, top ranking, findability, usability, conversion and SEO strategies have to be understood by at least a dozen of company employees. Sometimes it’s hard to explain, other times it’s easy as playing the right piano tune. It takes a whole village of people to envision, build and manage a successful brand where a tough part is to define, explain and show the profitable side of web presence, conversion and growth strategies to a Customer. We use web and CRM analytics graphs with conversion rate, CAGR and ROI benefits. Most of the employees are inspired, motivated and happy after a brand-building meeting, but there is a chance for a skeptic reaction, which can ruin the whole project in its embryonic phase.
I prefer to speak with the CEO – they tend to see the new opportunities, the competitive advantage of SEO and web branding. They manage to see the figures of the big picture from search to sale (market, customers, competition, growth, etc.) and they appreciate the project, approving the investment and all ongoing activities. Discussing the current trends and working tactics” with CIOs, market experts and even internal SEOs of the company sometimes help, but doesn’t have huge impact on the final results, because they see the web branding project from a department point of view. Marketers will have their own fancy ideas, Web designers will tend to demonstrate their creativity, SEOs play competition, Sales and finance – other focus-blurring priorities, etc. Giving a detailed SEO training to the content managers is a goldmine for both companies.
The dream customer orders not a website, but a long-lasting, mutually beneficial relationship.
Feel free to comment and share any ideas, advices or objections you have. Have a great week and keep brand-building!
Conversion as competitive advantage
Happy, successful, healthy and wealthy 2010!
It’s been more than a decade since we designed our first huge website. Customers were happy and excited just to have a webpage, visited from time to time by few patient and curious visitors…
We simply love what we do and we care about the best results.
Have you measured the outcome of your website for 2009?
Traffic vs. Bounce rate
Today 83% of businesses use the web to find potential vendors. Even though with an average website bounce (cart abandonment) rates of 70%, websites must generate leads and increase leads-to-sales conversion. Getting user-centered is not easy – it is the most important mission-critical goal in strategic web development. Successful websites should be perceived, planned and analyzed as a strategic asset investment, the decision process should be subject to the same level of discipline executives use for other types of investment.
Oranges vs Oranges
A salesperson meets 50-100 potential customers a month, still subjectively presenting the brand values. A successful website could meet a million of potential customers in a month – they will make judgment about the company, based on their web experience.
Unfortunately, many people, making the big decisions about websites are unqualified to do so. Egocentrism, competition envy , buzzwords or conservative motivation can often ruin the whole strategy.
Goals vs. Strategy
Conversion optimization means combined business-focused, strategy, SEO, usability and user-centered design. It’s about insightful strategy in the planning stage, solid platform for executing it and constant small improvements, while measuring the results. It means delivering and over-delivering what the customer needs, increasing the leads and revenue. It means reducing emotion, and prioritizing design efforts from a ROI potential. Web design has the critical role to impact company’s success as sales, marketing and finance. It means reaching the goals – for example grow online sales by 30% over 2010 without an increase in ad spending.
Increased Traffic vs. increased Conversion
CR% x traffic = sales – costs = profit. Sounds familiar? What about increasing CR to 4%, leading to 780% annual ROI? Just think twice – buying traffic is a one-time cost with one-time benefit, while increasing conversion is a one-time cost with ongoing benefit you will receive every month. Optimized conversion is a competitive advantage against wasted efforts, lost potential and salty opportunity cost.
If you don’t know where you are going, it doesn’t really matter which direction you choose, right?
So, keep brand building – all the way to the top!
Even though branding is comparatively modern concept, its’ roots go back dozen of centuries ago. The word derives probably from the Old Norse brandr, meaning “to burn” and illustrating the way livestock was marked to show its ownership. There are some archeological finds showing wine marks as labels on earth jars in ancient Pompeii. We can see potter’s mark in finds from many early time’s countries like China, India, and Rome. Other lexicological sources show that in old English “brand” meant “sword”. Many of us have read about the famous branding of “fleur de lis” in 1800’s France, or criminals’ cheeks marked with S in 1600’s England.
However, branding as what we know today became a concept in the earliest 19th century, with the start of producing packaged merchandise. The era of industrialization moved the production from households to big factories, some of which were located far away from points of sale, thus the shipping was born. The goods were shipped in barrels, marked with brands, which actually represented the trademarks. It is easy to see that brand was used to provide a source of ownership even back in these old times.
Some of most famous brands we know today have actually started using their trademarks a couple of centuries ago. Procter and Gamble, Campbell soup and Coca Cola are good example, being known since 18-19th century.
Fast moving consumer goods were the core of branding in the years before recently. Advertising was centered on the product and mass media communication about the same product. The invention of TV and its fast appearance in almost every household in developed countries shifted the focus from the brand meaning and equity to the mass-market broadcasting approach. Great brands like Coca Cola and AT&T were focusing on just one aspect of branding – communication, and while the first one still holds positions, the second one started losing them and coerced to shift its attention to other aspects of branding, like environment, behavior and emotions. This same shift started to happen with other famous brands too, showing the general movement to a more sophisticated, modern branding approach. No more product-centered, this approach gravitates around customers.
Branding nowadays, with the help of fast changing digital web trends, is coming to its sources – ensuring honesty, marking an identity, giving quality assurance, showing responsibility and crating emotional bonding.
The BrandBuild™ Platform is the way to gain competitive advantage for our customers.
Mapping the route and mastering the right brand tools on the way there is our specialty.
Having the best consultants and enjoying the view from the top is our clients’ privilege.
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