#64/111: The Experience Effect

What is it about?

Have you ever been in an Apple store and used an Apple product? If so, you saw that there are components that are consistent. There’s lot of white space. There is modern design and simple design/architecture. Even Apple’s ads are created this way. You are feeling the experience effect. Jim Joseph shows you how to create a strong experience effect and how to align your marketing.

What can I learn?

Define your brand: You should start with defining what you want. Do you want to be a high price segment product/service? Do you want to be hip? Try to list what makes your brand special. The next step is to find out who your possible prospects are. Who wants a high priced hip product? Where do they live? What do they do?

Live your prospect’s life: If you can’t live it, observe it (or at least talk to them). Follow a customer one day and register what she does, where she is and what she consumes. This way you can see how you could improve your channels and what is important to your customers.

Be consistent: A brand is about the experience with the brand, not what the marketing manifesto says. If you begin to be inconsistent than your brand will lose value and eventually die. If you brand stands for great customer service but people have to wait 20 minutes in the waiting loop, you brand isn’t trustworthy.

What are the touch points? If you’ve done the first step, you probably registered a lot of touch points (channels), e.g. billboards, radio ads or specific websites. You should find out which touch points are the strongest and build strategies that are consistent with your brand experience.

Conclusion

The Experience Effect is a solid guide to branding. Jim Joseph explains each step very detailed and practical. He shows why Madonna is more successful than Jennifer Love Hewitt and gives you actionable advice on how to improve your brand. Nice book!

#56/111: Permission Marketing

What is it about?

How do you advertise? Seth Godin differentiates between interruption marketing (e.g. banner ads, TV ads, magazine ads) and permission marketing (sending information directly to people who accepted to send your information). 

What can I learn?

Leverage interruption marketing: Permission marketing is often a bit mis-defined. It’s not about stopping your advertising, it’s about using it better. You have basically two options in advertising: a) You try to make a sale directly or b) You try to get the permission to give them more information. Seth recommends b) because it’s a less expensive step for your prospect (giving away their email vs. giving away twenty bucks) and you have a less expensive channel for frequent information (sending emails vs. buying magazine/tv ads).

Build trust: After the first step is done, it’s time to nurture your prospects. If you aren’t a big brand, you probably want to build trust first. Send them some relevant information: Articles, Top X Lists, How-to instructions, etc. After some time, you can sprinkle advertising in your emails. However, if you actually sold to them, don’t stop providing relevant information. This will increase your customer lifetime value.

Conclusion

At first, I was a bit unsure about actually reading this book, because I read Purple Cow by Seth Godin and wasn’t really impressed. Though, this book is impressive. Seth Godin wrote it in 1997 and it was incredible visionary. Today, it is unsurprisingly a bit outdated though the basics are still useful.