Welcome Autumn!

AbuLLard talks about Volunteering

Expanding Your Brand through Volunteer Work

Volunteer work can be a great way to expand your network while giving back to your community.  Small business owners may say, "I don't have time to volunteer!  I'm too busy trying to build my business!"  This can be a short-sighted view for many reasons...

Businesses succeed not just by practicing good business principles, but also by being good community citizens.  Customers are key to your success equation.  Visibility in your community strengthens your brand with them, and volunteer work can strengthen it positively.  Sales may not flow in right away, but you and your brand will continue to build both positive reputation and that ever-elusive brand loyalty.

Working with "volunteer-run" organizations also gives you the opportunity to network — by working side-by-side with other business people interested in the same cause as you are.  Relationships built on common ground tend to last.  Who knows who you'll meet while pricing T-shirts — perhaps the President of a company you need for a customer proposal or to help distribute your products!

Volunteerism is nothing new.  In large businesses, support of non-profit organizations and fund-raising events is often encouraged through matching gifts and other programs.

A recent study by "Business Strengthening America" highlights Deloitte’s IMPACT Day on which the organization will encourage its 30,000 people nationwide to make a difference in the community by setting aside work for the day to volunteer with nonprofits in their communities. Participation in IMPACT Day has the added benefit of enhancing teamwork, leadership and networking skills, as well as motivating others and achieving results.

What else does your business gain from volunteer work?  As an employee or owner, you have an opportunity to enhance or develop your skills.  Volunteer for an activity that can strengthen the skills your business needs.  Whether it be specialty-skills, on-the-job experience or general skills like networking and selling, honing your skills will benefit your business.

So how do you choose an organization to work for?  Many people work for health awareness organizations that have touched their lives.  Others find political activism is invigorating.  Find a cause that you can relate to personally, be it health, political, cultural, environmental, educational, or social.  Recognize that certain volunteer work, e.g., political activism, elicits diverse reactions which you may not want...  So choose your volunteer activity thoughtfully.

Choose which organization best fits your needs, making sure that your skills and talents suit the organization as well.  And decide how much time a week you are willing to give to an organization. 

“Most people are well aware of the effect volunteering can have in our communities,” said Robert K. Goodwin, President and CEO of the Points of Light Foundation & Volunteer Center National Network. “The results of this survey indicate that people realize volunteering is mutually beneficial not only on a personal level but also professionally, which is important to the community, company, and employees.”

Whatever you do, get involved! Your brand will expand.

Most customers search first on need and not on unique terms like trademarked product names.  If your brand is already known, a general search will find you.  But when you need to rely on keywords, need-based ones will reward you. 

The best search keywords are unimaginative, detailed and factual — describing what you provide to customers or how you help them in words which your customers use.

Keyword Strength:  Listen, Compare, and Differentiate — Step One: Listen

Keyword success begins with listening to your customer. Tony Grass’s article, “Choose Your Keywords Carefully; Your Website’s Success Depends On It”, provides 4 simple rules for improving the effectiveness between your website and its keywords.  Besides being a well-written article, his Rule 1, Use the “voice of your Internet customer” keywords to organize your web site, deals with listening to your customers. 

But what does “listening to your customer” really mean?  Any expert will tell you to market the products for which your customers ask.  That’s 210% true.  Your e-campaigns and website should prominently feature those products your customers most frequently request.  This includes home page features and easy-to-spot positioning on lower level pages.  Specificity is also important, especially with paid search services.  E.g., the keyword phrase “midtown Manhattan kosher deli” is more likely to get you actual customers than the keyword “deli”.  If you are paying for the number of visitor clicks, customers — not visitors — are who you desire.

But beyond this, the “voice of your Internet customers” refers not only to the products for which your customers search and how you describe them, it also includes the customers’ language, word choice, and phrasing.

Customer demographics impacting keywords?  Believe it.  If you market to a particular age group, speaking the language is critical.  Do you know the distinctions between seniors and active/age 55+ adults?  Trust me, these are very different markets and active adults do NOT refer to themselves as seniors.

Using your own marketing jargon and not layman’s terminology?  Think again.  Your marketing goal is to stand out from the herd, not leave it.  It's too easy to get lost in cyberspace.  Keywords are the road signs which locate you. They need to be standard directions, matching your customers' words and preconceptions. (If a stop sign was purple and "V"-shaped, would you recognize it?  Apply this logic to choosing keywords.)  Uniqueness, such as made-up names, is fine and desirable in product branding, but not in your primary keywords.

Your customers are people first.  Regional dialect, age bracket, and industry determine their word choice — and your keywords.

A U.S.-based company targeting the UK was implementing an expensive marketing and sales campaign.  From sales visits, they knew potential customers were interested in

“radio frequency
optimization software.”

They made sure their website used this as a keyword phrase.  They followed all the steps the experts advised but they didn’t get the traffic they expected to their site.  Do you see the problem with their approach?

Answer: Americans and British have that spelling issue with “z” and “s”.  The vendor forgot that their target customers would search on “optimisation” with an “s”.  This little dialect detail undid all their planning. 

While search engines are continually improving their thesaurus features (e.g., a search for car should also return pages with auto and automobile), they lack the ability to compensate for idiosyncrasies in spelling and dialect.

Brand Element of the Month:

Jeff Bunin, Circle of Life Board Member says, "Our fund-raising is doing very well, we attribute much of this to the professional look of our materials.”

An Approachable Look

Results

Circle of Life Staff found the materials easy to use. Within 2 weeks of receiving the Brand Identity package, they created a professional looking brochure for a direct mail campaign.

HayLoise's Books of the Month

Are there any books that have given you important insights into branding?
Tell us about them.

Send HayLoise an e-mail.

Brand Sense : Build Powerful Brands through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Sound By Martin Lindstrom

Lindstrom takes the discussion of branding far beyond the traditional notions of the visual and aural representations of a company.  The focus of the book is how to involve all the senses, in particular smell in determining your brand.  People remember scents extremely well.  Remember how a new car smells?  Bought bread because the bakery smelled so good?  Well, imagine this: New car scent can be purchased in a aerosol can.  Grocery stores add ‘fresh bread’ scent to the ambiance around their bakery section.  These are just a couple examples.

While the focus on the senses is very interesting, perhaps the most useful takeaway from this book is the notion of ‘smashable brands’.   When coca-cola first had the classic coke bottle created in 1915, they wanted a bottle that would be recognizable in the dark by feel. And beyond that, they wanted a shard from a ‘smashed’ coke bottle to be recognizable as part of a coke bottle.  The result is the icon we know today as the classic coke bottle. 

So what does this mean for you?  If you remove your logo from your materials, are they recognizable?  Do your colors, images, and graphics capture your brand personality?  If so, your ‘look and feel’ is smashable — you have created a brand that is easily recognizable in all it's elements.  The notion of smashable, when applied to critical aspects of your brand, can go a long ways to building a very powerful market presence.

Click on the book cover image to go to its page on Amazon.com

Brand Tip of the Month

What happens when the go-go zeitgeist of corporate America meets the risk-averse world of a non-profit?

The short answer:
Culture shock.

Borrow Ideas from Other Industries

"GW of Los Altos" sounds like a trendy upscale boutique doesn't it.  And it looks like one too. You walk in to an spacious environment with designer suits, brand name clothing, and accessories attractively displayed.  There are three dressing rooms, a jewelry display case, some high end home accessories, and, of course, a "Sale" rack.

What is this store?  It is the Good Will outlet store in Los Altos, CA, an affluent community in Silicon Valley.  The changes are the inspiration of two new leaders, former United Airlines executives, who are infusing the agency with an array of fresh marketing ploys and Madison Avenue savvy.  Good Will has made themselves really "stand out" from the crowd, not only because their store is so high class.  GW makes it very easy to make donations by sending a truck to pick up goods.

Trish Dorsey, vice president of retail for Goodwill of Santa Clara County said the Los Altos Goodwill store had been named "GW of Los Altos" after careful thought.  "We really did kick it around — should we call it Goodwill or something different?" Dorsey said.  "We wanted to make a statement that this is something different.  There are more high-end items here.  This is our boutique."

Neighboring resale shops, who haven't done anything to spruce up their own stores, are up in arms about GW.  Not only have their sales gone down, but donations have as well.  "How dare they?"  How dare they do what ... do something this creative?

"We are not your father's Goodwill store," said Frank R. Kent, president and CEO of Goodwill of Santa Clara County.  "Why should this be stodgy?’’

Do you like our newsletter? We would love to work with you on developing a newsletter for your business.

Give us a call: 215.732.1553 or contact us by e-mail.

Copyright 2005 CattLeLogos Brand Management Systems, LLC. All rights reserved.

CattLeLogos is a Registered Trademark of CattLeLogos Brand Management Systems, LLC. AbuLLard, AbuLLard's ABC's of Branding, the CattLeLogos Method are trademarks and copyright CattLeLogos Brand Management Systems, LLC.

Published September 21, 2005

Contact us:
[email protected]