Unusual & Eclectic Blog Posts Over Time

Today, I thought I would share some of the more obscure, interesting or unusual blog posts out of the 725 posts on BrandingStrategySource.com. Here they are for your reading pleasure:

• 101 Trends Shaping Our World
• The Exploding Use of Drones in Marketing
• Color Psychology
• Power Tool Branding and Color
• Identifying Riding Lawn Mower Brands by Color
• Just for Fun - The Loudmouth Brand
• Marketing Careers
• How to Remain a Leading-Edge Marketer Throughout Your Career
• 55 Ways to Sabotage Brands
• 21 Stories for Scouting
• Rebranding Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
• What Do Brands Signal About You?
• Repositioning Through Labels
• Brand Spokespeople and Characters
• Animals in Advertising
• Brand Advertising and Humor
• Affluence and Frequency of Purchase
• Purchase Patterns of Wealthy Households
• Brands, Mystery & Exclusivity
• Luxury Brands and Exclusivity
• Importance of All Five Senses in Branding
• Everything is Fantasy
• States of Mind
• What Do People Need Most?
• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
• Basic Human Needs and Branding
• Tapping Into Self-Esteem Affirming Symbols
• Cognitive Distortions & Marketing
• Brands and Memory Structures
• Brand Benefit Cues
• Brands and Memory Triggers
• Historical Brands in America
• The Poison Parasite Defense
• Retro Brand Imagery with Sexual Overtones
• Creating Compelling Places
• Beware of Asking Too Much of Branding Copy

You can also search topics in the upper left hand corner of the blog window. Topics include brand management, brand strategy, brand differentiation, brand positioning, brand equity measurement, brand research, brand identity, tribal branding, marketing strategies and tactics, digital marketing, social media marketing, marketing for business founders and startups, place branding, college and university branding, PR, publicity stunts, and any other brand management or marketing topic you can think of. You can also search by brand name. I have referenced over 200 brands in these blog posts so pick a brand in which you are interested and search on it to see if I have written about it in a blog post. 

Finally, here is the post that summarizes what I can say to date about brand management and marketing:  My Thoughts on Marketing After 40 Years of Working With Over 250 Brands.

50 Ways to Increase Revenues

 

In my other posts, I have explained many ways that one can increase sales through a wide variety of marketing strategies and tactics. In this post, I will focus on other ways to increase revenues.

Here are some approaches to consider:

1. Explore new markets and market segments for your existing products and services
2. Explore new, different uses for your products or services
3. Explore different distribution channels for your products or services
4. Explore geographic expansion for your products and services
5. Offer your products or services in different quantities or amounts
6. Create single use and multiple use versions of your product
7. Offer your product in different sizes or colors
8. Bundle or unbundle your products or services
9. Suggest add-on sales to the purchased product or service
10. Offer complementary products or services
11. Create variations of your current products and services
12. Charge for technical support
13. Adopt a subscription model
14. Charge a set-up fee for complex products
15. Offer training for a fee
16. Develop and sell new related products based on rigorous customer research
17. Partner with a non-competing organization to share customer lists and marketing expenses - cross-promote and co-market your products with them
18. If your product can become an "ingredient product," sell it as an add-on or component of another organization's product
19. License your product through third parties
20. Move up or down the the price spectrum, inviting higher-end or lower-end customers
21. Identify opportunities for upselling
22. Pursue circular entrepreneurship, creating sustainability and multiple revenue streams
23. Explore ways to add value to and charge a related fee to your suppliers and business partners
24. License the technology underpinning your product, while still selling your products separately
25. Offer customized products and services for an additional fee
26. Offer personalized products and services for an additional fee
27. Add highly stylized products to your product range - focus on in-demand designs or styles
28. Offer concierge-level services for an additional fee
29. Offer your products as private-label in addition to selling them under your brand name
30. Rent or lease unused spaces or resources
31. Create a timeshare program
32. Add a program element or special ingredient to make your product or service unique
33. Tie your products or services to different types of events
34. Identify and work with as many strategic partners as possible
35. Set up a franchise model for your product or service
36. Partner with trade associations
37. Pursue a tiered pricing model
38. Pursue price segmentation
39. Create high-end packaging to increase perceived value and charge a premium price
40. If your product or service is building a database, consider selling the information from that database as a separate revenue stream
41. Create a customer tribe, club or community
42. Create customer loyalty programs
43. Start a customer referral program
44. Offer volume price incentives
45. Offer as many forms of payment as possible, make payment easy
46. Offer delayed payment plans
47. Be available for purchase 24/7
48. Educate the customer about new or additional additional product uses
49. Help the customer to form a habit around product usage
50. Turn your brand into a self-expressive brand - this is also known as "brand as a badge"

Focus Groups to Determine Brand Messaging

 

Often brand messaging can be more difficult than one might imagine, especially for larger organizations that offer a myriad of products or services that appeal to different customer groups. And functional benefits may not be the most powerful things to promote to stimulate purchase and especially repeat purchase and brand loyalty. Often, it is shared values and emotional, experiential or self-expressive benefits that have the most power to motivate purchase decisions.

So, if the objective is to determine the optimal brand positioning and messaging, especially succinct and powerful messaging, the focus groups should include a discussion of the following:

• Customer beliefs, attitudes, values, anxieties, hopes, fears, motivations and behaviors
• How purchase decisions are made
• What other product or services, if any, they considered in the purchase decision
• What the purchase experience was like
• What the product or service usage experience was like
• Asking them how they felt while using the brand's products or services
• Talking about the brand as if it were a person, identifying the adjectives that best define the brand
• Identifying what they believe the brand's values are
• Perceived relevance of the brand and its products or services
• The need that led to considering the brand
• Asking them to use only one word to describe the brand
• Asking them how they would sell the brand to someone who was unfamiliar with the brand
• Asking them what the most important things about the brand are to them

Another insightful question to ask would be, "What would the world miss most if the brand ceased to exist?"

Usually, you would want to talk with loyal customers, new customers and customers who have walked away from the brand after having purchased its products and services previously.

This will lead you to a potent motivating unique value proposition and messaging for the brand. 

Did you notice that I did not include questions about the product's or service's functions and features? While this might become part of the discussion, these are rarely the things that sell the brand. 

I wish you great success in gaining insight into customer's motivations for purchasing your brand's products and services.