Productizing Your Service
Posted by admin on January 23, 2011
Over the years, I've come to realize more and more that if your business is predominantly service-oriented, then it is important to your brand to create a mental "product" of what that service is. The online insurance wonder, Progressive, is a great example of this. There are a bunch of different types of insurance services offered that get profiled almost like cereal boxes at the grocery store. It is worth going through the exercise of trying to create a tangible out of an intangible. It's a proven fact that people remember visual cues rather than arbitrary information. I remember reading at some point in my career that a headline that reads, "Our ____ is so durable, it can withstand a 500 pound sumo standing on it" provides a much better retention level than one that reads, "Our_____is so durable, it can withstand 500 pounds of pressure on it."
This is the very reason I've concluded after hundreds of branding sessions that it is critical to create a mental picture. Product businesses have the luxury of showing off the tasty edible or the shiny car. Services don't usually have that luxury so it is important to discover what IS visual about your service. I call this "productizing your service." Even products that are sold via an emotional ploy such as perfume or home luxuries tie back to a visual product in the end. So, even if your service evokes an emotional response from a prospect, it is invaluable to create a mental picture of what your service is visually.
In Difficulty Lies Opportunity
Posted by admin on January 11, 2011
One of my favorite sayings that I came across a few years ago is by Albert Einstein, "In difficulty lies opportunity." How appropriate for such vulnerable times for so many organizations and businesses. Now is a time to be resourceful and think outside the rectangle. An easy way to cut back is to chip away your marketing budget. But, instead of thinking "cutting the budget," I would suggest you think of how you can be more resourceful and maximize all of your channels of exposure without breaking the bank. And, since we live in such a thriving electronic age, we are lucky to have numerous vehicles of information transfer at our disposal. Maybe the economy has been a wake up call to all brands around the globe to really make every dollar count in the marketing budget. I've always been amazed at how the dissemination of positive branding via viral marketing and social media can accelerate brand worth and brand value.
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