Richard Wright and the Pink Floyd Brand
Pink Floyd pianist/keyboardist Richard Wright passed away today. Apparently he had a short bout with cancer.
Richard Wright was one of the original founding four members of the Pink Floyd in 1965 and aside from a brief period as only a “session” musician when Roger Waters essentially ousted him, Wright has been with Pink Floyd through its entirety from Piper at the Gates of Dawn to the Division Bell.
The Pink Floyd brand is an awesome example of residual equity where the investments you made long ago continue to pay off. Not just monetarily but in all fashions. People know Richard Wright. Maybe not by first name but certainly by association with one of the world’s more popular rock bands of all time. Wright exemplifies the power of a lasting brand and the character necessary to succeed.
When Floyd originally set out to play music, they were categorized as a blues band but with some psychedelic flavor. But it was Floyd’s breakaway from the Blues resemblance that ultimately helped push the envelope of Pop Rock at the time and set themselves apart from the British Invasion of which several other bands of longevity such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were formed.
So shouts out to Richard Wright, his family, and remaining members of the Pink Floyd. Your influence on Art, Pop Music, Rock-n-Roll, and society all together is one of extraordinary force. Wright’s passing should be one of celebration and acknowledgment for a true contribution.
Peace be with you, Richard. You were Pink Floyd as much as Pink Floyd was you.
The trickle effect in new and used car sales
The meat of this article by Arianne Walker in Online Automotive Review is iterated in the final paragraph:
Even though OEMs and dealers have been shifting their marketing budgets online, the data shows that most should probably be accelerating that transition, putting even more money where shoppers - new and used alike - are increasingly going.
These trends are consistent with the recent Cobalt-Polk-Yahoo! study on new vehicle buyer behavior in how it directly and indirectly influences used vehicle purchases.
When I think of car sales, I think of long-term retention. But immediate sales are important to. While you need to invest into new and used car advertising, a primary benefit with investing in to new vehicle advertising is that the investment not only trickles down into used car sales, but it even influences used car sales. That is what the study suggests at least.
This is a key topic today for dealers and providers. Dealers today are cautious of where and how they shift their marketing dollars. It is widely known that the Internet offers the greatest ROI, however establishing your online brand recognition is not an event, it is an establishment that requires years of vision, commitment, and dedication from dealers and their providers.
Dealers must be prepared to take risks and to embrace long-term change in order to meet auto shoppers in advance, but it can be done with the right tools and techniques.
Does Your Branding Line Up?
With all the talk of online automotive marketing these days, it’s easy to get the impression that when you communicate with your customers online, you’re doing so in a vacuum. Online customers become a crowd full of strangers without faces or names or personalities. They don’t seem like the same real live human beings that come into your dealership and buy vehicles.
Consistency is arguably the most important aspect of branding, and that doesn’t just apply to your website. Yes, you want every page on your site to give the same impression. But you also want to give the same impression on the website as you do in the dealership, in your emails, and in any offline media advertising you purchase. Here are some things to think about.
Does your website scream “cheap”? if a customer comes to your website, is the first thing they see a huge flashing banner telling them about a sale or a discount? There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, but is that the same impression they’ll get when they come into the dealership? If they go to the website and see huge yellow flashing discount signs and show up at the dealership and find somber salespeople in suits, you’re not giving a consistent message and you’re bound to make people uncomfortable.
On the other hand, is your site too serious? If you run a dealership that focuses on great pricing and your website gives no such impression, you could be leaving money on the table by turning off your ideal customers when they show up at your website.
Do your emails give the same impression as your website and your dealership? Emails are a great way to communicate your brand. Give your outbound emails an audit. Do your signatures promote the same values that your site promotes? Would somebody receiving your email be surprised when they walk in the door?
One of the best ways to get answers to these questions is to find someone impartial and objective to give your impressions about your different media types. Ask them what they think — you might just be surprised by their answers.
Brand Marketing Lessons from Guinness
Making an online brand marketing campaign a success isn’t easy. In fact, very few companies actually become successful enough to make their brands household names in a global or even domestic market. That’s why it can help to look to some of the success stories. This time, let’s take a brief look at the story behind the Guinness beer brand.
Guinness is a company that is nearly 250 years old and originated as a way to quench the thirsty throats of Irish pilgrims. When the company’s marketing staff wanted to capture what the brand was all about, this long history was definitely in the plans.
When the company built the Guinness Storehouse in late 2000, the designers implemented a variety of exhibits and displays that celebrate the company’s history. They also included an explanation about how they make the frothy black beverage. The facility also has an art gallery with conference rooms, training centers for employees, bars, restaurants and even a large open space for events. The seven-story storehouse demonstrates that the beverage maker is dedicated to the community.
According to Ralph Ardill, one of the integral minds that helped design the facility, “Guinness as a brand is all about community. It’s about bringing people together and sharing stories.”
Guinness succeeded by setting and meeting a community-drive goal to spread the message of its brand. It’s important to have a goal for your brand that you can strive to meet. Without a goal, it’s impossible to tell if you’ve achieved success in getting people to recognize your brand.
Using Facebook to Further Your Brand
Are you looking for more ways to get your online brand marketing message out to more people? Facebook, the social media marketing giant, is making it easier for you to do so. Here’s how.
When you have an account at Facebook, you can build up a list of friends with whom you have something in common. These “friends” are people that you typically communicate with through the website. You share your preferences for products and read their blogs and other posted communications. Each Facebook member has a homepage where photographs and updates can be posted.
But now, you can go even a step further. Facebook recently began selling advertisements that you can purchase. When you do, your profile photo appears next to commercial messages that your Facebook friends can see.
Let’s say, for example, that you rented a movie that you particularly liked from Blockbuster.com. The website will then ask if you’d like to have your movie choice advertised to all of your friends on Facebook. Your friends then receive the message in addition to an advertisement from Blockbuster.
And because Facebook’s millions of existing members already use the social media networking site to tell others about the things they like, there isn’t much of a change with this new offering. The only difference is that your messages may be accompanied by an advertisement when you tell others about the things you like.
This is just another great way to get your name and your brand noticed. If you have a Facebook account set up for your brand, your logo or your face can accompany each of these messages to embed it further into the psyche of those with whom you are networking.
Five More Tips for Marketing Success
Anybody who has ever created an online brand marketing campaign from scratch will tell you it’s not easy. It takes hard work, dedication and a variety of strategies to make it successful. Whether you’re just starting out or have been working on your campaign for a long time, you could always use more suggestions to get your campaign noticed. Here are five more suggestions you can use to make your campaign work harder for you:
1. Leave your signature when you comment on somebody else’s blog. Be careful not to sound like you’re self-promoting, because that’s just rude. But mentioning your brand underneath your name isn’t something that would make most people upset.
2. Mention your brand and your name in your blog tag lines.
3. Use your brand and logo when you send an email. Most, if not all, email servers allow you to attach a signature with each email you send. This signature appears at the bottom, and it exposes your brand to everybody with whom you communicate.
4. Put your brand name in the title of your blog. This serves several purposes. Every time visitors view your blog, they will see your brand. But when they subscribe to a feed for your blog, they encounter the brand each and every time you update your blog.
5. Create a separate blog to talk about your brand. Blogs are one of the best ways to attract attention, as long as you constantly update them with fresh and relevant content. You can also do pretty much anything you want on your blog, so self-promotion is certainly not out of the question.
Keep an eye on our blog here for more brand marketing tips in the future.
Spreading Marketing Seeds Around the Web
So you have a blog or a website that promotes your online brand marketing message. You maintain the blog and make daily updates as well as ensuring it has relevant and fresh content each time. But if that’s the only thing you’re doing, you’re missing out on a whole World Wide Web of opportunities. Consider the following tools to increase your web presence and get your brand noticed more widely.
Twitter
This free social network service allows members to send updates to their account through text-based applications. Updates are generally 140 characters long, giving the website the reputation of being a micro-blogging service. The updates are posted on the user’s front page and other users can see them or sign up for a feed to be alerted when a user updates their site.
LinkedIn
As a business-oriented social networking site, many professionals frequent LinkedIn to maintain a list of contacts and details for people in their business. Last December, the website reported more than three million visitors each month, making it a great way to get your brand marketing noticed.
Squidoo
This is a blogging website that allows anybody with Internet access to set up page that deals with anything they want. Content creators share in advertising revenue, but it’s generally a site that garners high traffic. By posting a large amount of content about your brand, business, products, services or anything else relevant to your company, you can spread the word to potentially millions of readers.
There are so many websites and methods for getting your brand noticed by the online community. We’ve discussed three of them here, but there are probably dozens more. We’ll discuss more websites in the future to help you even more.
Characteristics of “Gotta Buyers”
There are two different groups that auto dealers need to reach to be successful with their online brand marketing campaigns: the “wanna buyesr” and the “gotta buyers.” Yesterday we listed the characteristics of the wanna buyers. Today we’re going to list the characteristics of the gotta buyers.
Characteristics of Gotta Buyers
• As the name implies, these customers are generally in a bind and they need to buy vehicles soon.
• They usually have vehicles that have broken down or need repairs that are too expensive.
• These buyers are generally recent graduates or have had recent changes in their situations that necessitate second cars in their households.
• Gotta buyers generally have credit issues that could create problems in financing some higher-priced vehicles.
• Many of these customers are open to the possibility of new vehicles if the dealership can “make it happen.”
• This is one the groups with the most profit potential for a dealer.
• Gotta buyers are in the market for new vehicles now.
Tips for Marketing to Gotta Buyers
• Price is typically the most important aspect of buying a car for this demographic.
• Gas prices and mileage are other important aspects of the purchase.
• Your dealership’s financing capabilities will play a major role in this group’s decision to purchase.
• Solicit phone calls for credit pre-approval.
• Emphasizing the ease with which you can get them approved will bring them to your dealership to make their purchases.
• Give your sales staff a stack of business cards to hand out to people they meet that are in the gotta-buy category. This will make the customers feel like they’ve got a “friend” in the car business and give them more confidence in your dealership.
“Wanna Buyers” and “Gotta Buyers”: What’s the Difference?
Last week, we talked about getting your fair share of customers. We discussed two different types of buyers in the auto market: the “wanna buyers” and the “gotta buyers.” Now let’s take a look at the differences in these two groups so you can tailor your online brand marketing campaign to reach the maximum number of each.
Facts about Wanna Buyers
• They represent the largest percentage of buyers that have delayed their purchases in the past year.
• These consumers can buy new vehicles, but they need to be convinced of great value and good timing.
• They are typically middle-class to upper middle-class Americans.
• They generally have decent credit.
• Most are driving late model vehicles that are still under warranty.
• They have their vehicles paid off or they are near the end of their finance contracts.
• They have several reasons for delaying their purchases, including the unstable economy and waiting for the best timing.
• Most consider buying late-model or certified vehicles due to the increased value.
• Wanna buyers typically trade in their vehicles on a regular basis.
• Generally, they don’t need to buy vehicles. They are just in positions where they can buy them if they really want to.
• They are always watching the auto market and waiting for something that appeals to them.
What Appeals to Wanna Buyers
• Personal contact
• Specific offers that make sense to them
• Vehicles that provide more cost efficiency than the ones they already have
• Customer-driven service centers
Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at some facts about the Gotta Buyers. Don’t miss it!
Writing for Target Audience Increases Blogging Success
To have any success with a blog that relates to your online brand marketing campaign, knowing your target audience is crucial. You’re not simply writing to the people who read your blog. You also need to write for a specific crowd. And to do that, you must also have a clearly defined target audience. To give you a better idea how to tailor your writing for maximum effect, here are some questions to ask yourself each time you sit down to write a post:
• To whom am I writing?
• What are the ages of my target audience?
• In what industry does my target audience work?
• What types of publications and books does my audience read?
• Is my target audience primarily male or female?
• Who are their customers or what businesses are they customers of?
This is not an exhaustive list of questions to ask yourself. But the more you know about whom you are trying to reach, the more of a niche you’ll fill in the blogosphere. If you’re trying to figure out the best demographics to reach, though, here are some tips to consider so you can enjoy more brand marketing success:
• Younger crowds
Teenagers account for about $150 billion worth of spending each year in the United States. In addition, brand loyalty tends to form at a young age.
• Older crowds
Those who have saved their money through the years are ready to spend it. They make a great target for your strategies if you’re selling something.
• Religious groups
Catering to a particular religious affiliation is a great way to “push” your products or services. Think of wedding planners who specialize in Orthodox Jewish ceremonies. They have the market cornered with little or no competition.
• Economic situation
You can make money by catering to either the lower-income class or the upper-income class, but you must choose one to carve out a niche.
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