brand value

May 12, 2016

Building a customer-centric brand for community retail

When I started Spyder Works almost 25 years ago, I was in the making promises business.  The firm created design, marketing strategy, advertising and promotion in support of clients’ brands.  Back then, I considered my job well done if I could attract legions of new customers into their stores.  After all, that’s what the ‘making promises’ business is all about in retail.  Attracting well-qualified traffic. The idea was that compelling advertising and promotions along with great store design and signage would delight our clients’ customers and build their brands.

As my relationship with retailers grew, I had the opportunity to travel from community to community and store to store.  What I quickly realized was that some stores have an important social role beyond just places to shop.  These stores are also like informal community centres where you run into friends and acquaintances, where you can chat and catch up, where you can make plans and stay in touch.

During my travels, and particularly during store visits across Canada, I saw first hand how powerful a sense of belonging can be.  Building and nurturing inclusive communities is one of the things we do best in Canada, which is really a vast connected landscape of tight-knit neighbourhoods.  Main street communities in Canada have many faces and are as diverse and unique as their urban counterparts. When main street communities succeed, the nation succeeds.

Community stores not only offer a welcome sense of belonging, they are also good for  business. 

After all, the longer people linger in a store, the greater the chance that they will buy more.  A welcoming store also increases the probability that your customers will return and develop a loyalty to your store and a stronger relationship with your brand.

I realized that all of the branding work you do, no matter how clever, won’t keep a customer coming back if the experience in-store doesn’t reflect the customer’s expectations on all levels of experience.  To properly serve our retail clients, Spyder Works also needed to be in the ‘promise keeping’ business.

How do you build a brand around the culture of ‘promise keeping’?

Businesses have to take it upon themselves to foster a sense of close-knit belonging in any environment whether it’s in a big city or a small town.  They need to evoke the sentiment of old-fashioned “Main Street” culture.  Retailers, marketers and agencies have the same goal when it comes to connecting with consumers, simply, to build a passionate community of customers that engage regularly with a brand.

The success of your customer relationships depends largely on how well you are able to engage your community.

Community stakeholders’ participation can help you shape your business to ensure you are responding to local preferences.  In community retail, the members in your community are not looking for just a cheque to support local causes, events or sponsorship – the community is looking for your participation, engagement and involvement.  How committed are you to where your customers live and work?  Ideally, you should be involved with your community from an early stage engagement; this will help you to form lasting relationships with community members to ensure a sense of belonging in a neighbourhood that everyone can be proud of.

In contrast, in all retail, where your front line people are face-to-face brand ambassadors, employee turnover can leave your brand perilously exposed.   Without a solid foundation, your brand is at risk of not keeping the promise that it communicates to everyone.  That’s why, at Spyder Works, we feel that it’s important to look at branding from both sides of the coin, outward and inward facing.  This insight has lead us to design learning programs and workshops to extend your brand to the in-store experience, embracing your corporate values and your mission with the people responsible for keeping your brand promise with your customers… your front line team members.

Retailers need to complete the branding circle to survive in the economy of relationship building. 

At Spyder Works with our retail clients, we have created ambitious brand strategies that more accurately capture the essence of brand by embracing community and engaging customers.  In this hyper connected world we are supporting our clients on the front lines of their stores, we can boldly claim that we’re no longer a half-branding company.

The secret to building a customer-centric brand for community retail is like maintaining a long lasting relationship with your close friends. Keep your relationship transparent and genuine.  Show up, stay in the moment, stay in touch, encourage and support them as they grow with you.

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Category: Branding, Spyder Works

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Feb 9, 2016

Why e-mail is killing your business

Originally published on November 6, 2015 as a Guest Column in The Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/why-e-mail-is-killing-your-business/article27123869/

Following a recent keynote I delivered, somebody asked me why an innovation guy like me would still be using a device as passé as a BlackBerry. “Two words,” I responded: “No typos.”

Viva keyboards! I went on to say how tired I was of receiving business e-mails with the “cute” disclaimer, “Please excuse the typos.” I always want to respond, “Excuse me for taking my business to a company that values accuracy of information and delivery as much as I do.”

Glib? Too harsh? Neither one. Would it be okay for your technology partners to say, “Please excuse the random mistakes, but the data is mostly correct.” Is it okay for an airline to say, “Sorry, we got the day right but we typo’d the time, so you’ve missed your flight.”

Obviously, these excuses would be unacceptable. So why tolerate mistakes in your e-mails?

Michael Eisner, former CEO of The Walt Disney Company, pointed out that your company’s reputation, or brand, “is enriched or undermined cumulatively over time, the product of a thousand small gestures.”

So exactly what is the brand message you’re sending when you let customers know that your brand of service includes typos?

Don’t let sloppy communication be your brand.

A related e-mail problem I’ve often encountered arises from the common complaint: “I regularly send e-mails to my team leaders or store managers, but they never seem to read them. What else am I supposed to do?”

One suggestion I often provide is, “Don’t write them. Or at least, not so many and not so often.” You know the definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

This comment usually elicits perplexed reactions – furrowed brow, furious rubbing of the temples, and a questioning stare that asks if I’m really advocating a return to the Stone Age. But think about it. Business success hinges on working with, managing, influencing and, above all, selling to people – and yet we keep choosing e-mail, the most impersonal means of communication available to us today.

The disconnect could not be more glaring.

Even when Walmart founder Sam Walton was the richest man in the world, he would still climb into his propeller plane and fly himself from store to store to greet team members and customers. He understood interpersonal communication, and the power that comes from speaking with your whole body: eyes, mouths, ears and even handshakes.

I understand that, as small business owners, we can’t all fly ourselves around the continent. But we can certainly mix up the way that we communicate with our customers and team members on a regular basis. Yes, there are e-mails and social media, but there are also powerful personal tools such as person meetings, the telephone, and even Skype and video conferencing.

You need to find and deploy the very best communication tools and customer experiences for your business – because building team and customer loyalty is getting harder and harder. Competition is increasing, attention spans are shrinking and consumers are more willing than ever to try something new.

Don’t make it easy for customers to take their business elsewhere. Keep things personal. Saying “no” in person or to somebody you know is much more difficult than deleting a message on your smartphone.

Here’s the interpersonal communications hierarchy I recommend for you and your team when communicating with each other or with customers.

  • For simple, fact-based communications, use e-mail
  • Use the phone for issues-based discussions
  • Conduct new or forward-looking discussions face-to-face

So many companies that I work with fail to grasp this essential truth: in business, communication is king. Don’t be sloppy. Take the time to truly engage your team and customers, and they in turn will be much more likely to engage with you.

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Category: Business, Icicle, Spyder Works

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Jan 20, 2015

Did Target ever really come to Canada? Not according to their Mission Statement.

Leases in less than optimum locations, a weak supply chain and runaway ambition in opening 133 stores may have all ganged up to doom Target in Canada.  But, there’s one corporate failure that intrigues me even more.  Target ignored its own mission statement. ‘Our mission is to make Target your preferred shopping destination in all channels by delivering outstanding value, continuous innovation and exceptional guest experiences by consistently fulfilling our Expect More. Pay Less.® brand promise.’

Target must have known, before coming to Canada, that it wouldn’t be able to offer U.S. price points or U.S. selection.  It also must have known that those were the two things Canadians loved about shopping at Target south of the border.  So, here’s the $5.4 billion question… if you can’t get those two fundamental promises right, why bother coming to Canada at all?  The cheap chic appeal of Target didn’t travel well.

Maybe more than anything else, Target’s ungracious exit from Canada shines an uncomfortably bright light on the whole exercise of creating mission statements in the first place.  I think for many companies, mission statements and the accompanying brand promise are just corporate accessories that they feel are a mandatory part of a website or annual report.  Leaders and managers only seem to pay attention to them when it suits them and ignore them too often and too hastily when a shiny new opportunity arises. The result, yet another announcement in the media of a shuttered company. In this case, one that was ill-fated from the start by it’s seemingly altered promise of expect more, pay more and receive less, in Canada.

At Spyder Works, our brand promise is encapsulated in Building Business by Design®. Design, of course, referring to the thought and intention behind the creation of a new idea or direction. Whenever we are creating something for a client, we test it against that statement. Ensuring that whatever we create is single-mindedly focused on our client’s own promise to their customers.

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Category: Business, Spyder Works

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