Creative Marketing And Practicing Effective Brand Control

By Author: Matthew Leanna
Total Articles: 10
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Simply put, brand control is your customers’ general perception of your product. Perceptions, positive or negative, are difficult to change once established. This is even more challenging in the age of social networking sites, blogs, and the like, where feedback can spread faster than wildfire. If you want to have as much control over your brand as you can, you need a proactive, rather than reactive, branding strategy.

Practice good marketing from the beginning.

Know basic marketing principles. Focus your campaign on your product’s benefits rather than highlighting its superiority over the rest of the competition. Don’t exaggerate the benefits, as this may create consumer expectations that you probably can’t meet. Place your product in strategic locations, ally yourself with established companies, and don’t be too in-your-face when you advertise. Deliver consistently on your product’s promises for a defined period.

Keep track of customer feedback.

Type your product name in search engines, and see what kind of content shows up on the first page. Establish a presence ...
... in social networking sites, and observe your customers’ general vibe about your product via their posts, comments, and the like. Note if the feedback is generally negative.

Don’t suppress negative reviews.

This may seem counter-intuitive, but any attempt to censor or control reviews can backfire on your product. No matter your overall product quality, if your customers sense that you’re trying too hard to keep those “flames” in check, it won’t reflect well on your company, and, by association, your product. If you think the overwhelmingly negative reviews have some merit, that’s the time you act on them. Put these reviews in perspective; they can serve as free publicity for your product.

Get help.

If you don’t really know how to do brand control, take advantage of companies that offer these services. Pick a company that has a solid reputation, understands your product well, and are worth their salt. Get recommendations from trusted individuals, companies, and online forums.

Evaluate your product.

Every product has three stages: ascent to popularity, maturity, and eventual decline. Part of your brand control strategy is to keep your product from declining too quickly and too soon. Introduce changes to your product to keep up with shifting customer tastes, but remember to maintain the qualities that placed them on top in the first place.

Some people may say that brand control is something that rests solely in the customers’ hands. However, it’s possible, with the proper technique, to tip, or at least balance, the market scales in your favor. For more information on brand control, read marketingprofs.com/articles/2009/3247/brand-control-to-major-tom-the-new-rules-of-brand-management.