Analytical
Brand Management
Let's face it, consumers like to be treated special. They want to be treated like they are your most important customer with their individual needs at the forefront. In response, marketers need to be better prepared and equipped to treat each customer as though they were the company's only customer. This would result in an insistent relationship, one where customer loyalty becomes so strong that the consumer insists on using your product or service over all others.
To be in a position to treat customers special, it is critical that companies get to know their customers and know them personally. After being treated special a number of times, customers begin to establish a relationship with your brand. This relationship can be defined in terms of repeat purchases, referrals to friends and relatives, and increased expenditures, all leading to higher customer lifetime value.
Unfortunately,
companies make marketing decisions everyday without the benefit of knowledge
about their customers. These decisions are often based on some internally
driven strategy, not a consumer-based strategy. The conventional wisdom
is that consumers aren't smart enough to know what they need or want
in products and services. Instead, it's the job of the marketer to tell
them. However, in their haste to get products to market or generate
additional profits, marketer's overlook or misjudge important variables
that can dramatically influence purchasing decisions. Moreover, as consumers
become increasingly informed and demanding, these variables play an
even greater role in shaping such decisions.
This is not to
say that management thinking doesn't play a role in marketing. It's
very important that the marketing effort be based on a realistic assessment
of operational capabilities, governmental influences, industry trends,
long-term growth projections, market sensitivities, competitive analysis,
etc. This information should be integrated with external feedback.
Companies who are interested in developing long-term, valuable relationships with their customers need a well-defined brand conveying a solid value proposition that differentiates it from competitors. This value proposition is often stated as the brand promise or the commitment that the company makes to the consumer about the way it performs or the value or quality of the product or service it delivers. The brand promise should be legitimate, distinctive in the market, and relevant or meaningful to consumers.
The brand promise is translated throughout all of the marketing components through brand management. The key to effective brand management lies in the knowledge
that marketers have about their customers. This knowledge is derived from information such as customer transactions, profile data, surveys, focus groups, click-stream data, etc. In some cases, the information is collected directly from the consumer; in other cases, it is gathered indirectly through third party sources. Regardless of the source, this data becomes a valuable tool for the marketer. But the data alone is not enough to fully harness and leverage the information for making informed brand management decisions. A thorough understanding of the data is not possible without an in-depth and disciplined form of analysis.
Brand management becomes analytical brand management when a concentrated
effort is made to integrate customer information and analytics into
the branding process. Analytical brand management ensures that the
marketer utilizes relevant customer knowledge when devising programs
that effectively deliver the brand promise. It is a necessary component
for building insistent customer relationships.
Most marketers need help in the process of understanding the underlying value and knowledge hidden in their data. Translating that data into knowledge and, ultimately, informed, actionable marketing and brand management decisions, is the mark of the IntelliStats Analytic Solutions Group.
