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Sweet marketing music

Tanner Montague came to town from Seattle having never owned his own music venue before. He’s a musician himself, so he has a pretty good sense of good music, but he also wandered into a crowded music scene filled with concert venues large and small.But the owner of Green Room thinks he found a void in the market. It’s lacking, he says, in places serving between 200 and 500 people, a sweet spot he thinks could be a draw for both some national acts not quite big enough yet for arena gigs and local acts looking for a launching pad.“I felt that size would do well in the city to offer more options,” he says. “My goal was to A, bring another option for national acts but then, B, have a great spot for local bands to start.”Right or wrong, something seems to be working, he says. He’s got a full calendar of concerts booked out several months. How did he, as a newcomer to the market in an industry filled with competition, get the attention of the local concertgoer?

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by Jim MacLachlan
May 2003

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Developing brand evangelists

To nurture faith,
develop insider
brand evangelists

SOMETIMES FLEETING, often fickle, faith can be a funny thing. It measures what we believe, why we believe, and the depth of conviction we have for the things we believe in.

Evangelists take to the pulpit all the time hoping to teach, persuade, convince and even cajole people into embracing the life-changing value of keeping the faith. In a sense, every company is in the business of building faith, too – faith in a product. Faith in a brand.

To nurture this kind of faith in your company, you would do well to develop your own brand evangelists – people within your organization who are committed to, and responsible for, continually preaching the good word about who you are and the unique value of your brand in the marketplace.

The role of the brand evangelist is simple: To instill lasting confidence in your brand promise. What’s a brand promise? It’s the total set of values, unique attributes and ways of doing business that give your company its personality.

In today’s business climate, communicating a clear, consistent and distinctive brand promise can set you apart from competitors. Doing it effectively can give you a distinct advantage in attracting new followers (loyal customers) into the fold.

Faith starts from within. As any good preacher understands, you must first believe before you can make a believer out of somebody else. But many companies fail to understand this basic principle when taking their brand message to the outside world. They spend thousands of dollars on high-impact advertising and brand communication programs for customers, yet devote little or no resources to make sure people inside the company understand and “buy into” what the brand is all about. Unless you take this important step first, your branding efforts are bound to fail.

How come? Because each audience must understand and embrace the brand persona before you can effectively reach the next audience. Skip an audience and there’s a gap. All it takes is one naysayer on the inside to damage your brand image on the outside.

Say you specialize in corporate incentives and you’ve gone to great lengths to promote a brand promise of providing exemplary products that inspire motivation. Your message might be convincing, but if customers encounter a lazy receptionist when they call, or a sloppy salesperson when they place an order, all your work is for naught. The brand experience doesn’t match the brand promise.

The result? Customers perceive your brand promise as phony and lose faith in it.

Practice what you preach

You must clearly articulate your brand promise internally so that each and every one of your employees works together to uphold it with your customers, consistently. It starts with your top managers. Once they’re fully vested in the brand promise, they can share its positive impact and business-building potential down the chain of command.

This, in turn, inspires others to become “brand believers.” As you build conviction across the organization, everyone becomes a partner in making sure your brand is being handled responsibly and consistently in every aspect of your business. Everything counts: the way you answer phones, the way your lobby is set up, the look and feel of your sales materials and correspondence, the way you dress, conduct plant tours and service customers.

Developing brand stewards

Brand evangelism is really everyone’s job, but in any brand initiative it’s important to identify who will be primarily accountable for carrying out the role.

Most companies appoint an individual or group of people to act as stewards, protecting and overseeing a company’s brand. If you don’t entrust your brand to the right steward, you take the risk of letting your brand fall apart.

Brand stewards are responsible for seeding the brand throughout the organization. Answering questions, giving direction and converting skeptics are other critical functions. When choosing brand stewards, look for opinion leaders, people with the vision and passion to build conviction in others.

Brand stewards must unite the entire organization around a set of core values that comprise your brand promise. They must unabashedly stand up at the pulpit and tell it like it is – to shout loudly and shake the rafters (with your full blessing and support, of course) to keep the company from straying from its promise.

Initially, nothing should leave your organization without the approval of a member of the brand steward group. They are your watchdogs, charged with monitoring and policing your brand. Besides getting all the employees on board, the brand stewards must also work to make sure that your vendors, brokers, distributors and other marketing partners understand your brand promise, because these groups act as an extension of your organization and brand. As more people begin to embrace the brand, they in effect become brand stewards, too, working on your behalf to make sure the brand promise is delivered consistently to all constituents.

With the buy-in of each consecutive audience, you build momentum around your brand. In time, it becomes omnipresent. People internalize it.They finally “get it,” which is what eventually enables you to communicate a compelling brand message with just a word or a symbol.

It takes time and effort to build the abiding, unshakeable belief in a brand that translates to loyal followers. So before you start shouting from the mountaintop, make sure you do some serious soul-searching inside your own doors first. Keep spreading the good word at the top until it trickles down to everyone.