Building Your Brand Promise
Posted by Stacey Gibson in Marketing Tips Monday, 29 March 2010 14:37
Branding is a word that gets tossed about quite a bit. From marketing strategists and business owners to media sales reps, everyone agrees it’s important. But why? A brand may literally be the only difference between you and your competitor. It can serve to create disparity between 2 products when in fact there is no real difference at all except in the hearts and minds of your target audience.
Marketing purists define brand as a promise. But in truth a brand can only be effective if the promise is consistently delivered by every point of contact from employees to your phone number. That’s right your phone number is typically one of the top 3 contact points for a business and thus is an important part of the brand promise. Considering its importance, it is no surprise what a memorable and intuitive vanity phone number can do to reinforce and energize your brand.
Right off the bat, just having a vanity number communicates several things about your brand.
1.) Builds instant credibility since consumers trust companies that are easily accessible.
2.) Suggests a market leader status by implying your business is
• A large company
• An established company
3.) Creates the perception of prestige based on the amount of advertising done by large companies employing vanity numbers.
Building on this basic halo effect, one merely has to employ an intuitive vanity phone number that communicates the essence and/or a key benefit of the brand. This is where the rubber meets the road and can really energize your brand by synergizing your messaging.
Consider the following examples:
1-800-#1SMILES for a Dentist or Orthodontist communicates the end benefit.
1-800-LessTax for an Accountant suggests their clients pay less in taxes.
1-800-LiveWell for a health food store speaks to a key goal of their target audience
All communicate an important benefit or feature of you business that will be reinforced to the prospect and/or client who uses it. Just like frequency is critical to achieving critical mass with an advertising campaign, engaging your brand promise at every contact point is critical to building and maintaining one of your businesses most valuable assets – its brand.