Winning customers and loyalty the easy way

Getting your customers to shout good news about your business is absolutely the most efficient way of selling. Especially in todays market where everybody talks to everyone about everything (much of which is pretty unimportant) - it is wonderful to be able to scream about a great customer service story and marketing initiative I have just have had the pleasure of being a part of.

I needed to order a few business cards for Tuetalk and decided to use a very simple online tool that is very cost effective, namely http://www.streetcards.com/ . After placing the order on Thursday morning I set up a new email service on Friday and realised I should have used the new details on the cards so I contacted Streetcards to see if it was too late.

Check out their reply late Friday:

Hi Keith, sorry for the late response, we got your messages, it's been a busy day! We did in fact already print your cards but to celebrate that the sun actually was shining here in London this afternoon, we'll redo the order with the changes, as long as you spread the word of course, about Streetcards!

If you need anything else, we do offer a full design service and can print much more than just business cards, so do think of us if you want any other marketing materials.

Have a great weekend and thanks for your order!

Best
regards,

Design Director
Streetcards
020 8876 5466
http://www.streetcards.com/
http://www.streetdesigns.biz/

I expect to buy more cards in my career and it'll take a hell of sales pitch to tempt me away from using Streetcards in the future. I'd thoroughly recommend you try them too.

Real Brands Score

As a follow up on my last post on brand virtues I thought it would be fun to think about how these virtues stack up in the real world, so I put together a simple table with some expressions of these virtues or lack thereof so as to score a brand. Try it out on your own or your competitor’s brand or just a famous brand. Simply think about the brand in question – maybe open the website in front of you and ask yourself which of the following expressions are most appropriate to describe the top 10 virtues:

Add the score up, the max score is 50 and minimum 10. Then in only the way women’s magazines can do well I have attempted to draw a few conclusions:

Score 10-19 :

The company responsible for this brand is likely to take your money and disappear, they are to be despised and hopefully customers will run for the hills and it won’t be long before they go bust. The world will be a better place without them.

Score 20-29 :

If you’re responsible for the marketing this brand you’ve got your work cut out. Plenty of challenges ahead, it takes time to alter these perceptions but don’t give up see where you’re marked down and find out why. These virtues are not just about changing the messaging or advertising copy it’s about radically overhauling the brand and company culture.

Score 30-39 :

A pretty good result, few large companies or famous brands will do better than this. But there is no room for complacency. One slip can undo all the value established – it’s better to keep trying to improve the margin so that in the event of bad times customers will stick with the brand.

Score 40-50 :

Check the facts – you could be deluding yourself – if you are the marketing manager try asking some real customers what they think. If the result stands please accept my sincere congratulations on a brilliant result. Your brand is a massive asset to your business. The only bad news is that the effort can never stop and there is only one direction you can go now – so stay ahead and protect your brand - its worth a fortune.

Would anyone be prepared to measure Sharedband for me?

Footnote: Thanks to Steve for coming up with a couple of great expressions and not disappearing up his own ass.

Life or brand virtues

A few months back I wrote a post about the value of Trust. In this post I mentioned that it was in my top 10 virtues for human life and brand value. Ever since I wrote about it I have wondered what else was in my top 10 and did they all apply to brand value as well as being human virtues. Perhaps you may have a view on the order but here is my best stab at the top 10 brand virtues:

1. Empathy
2. Lucidity
3. Trust
4. Quality
5. Wisdom
6. Honesty
7. Powerful
8. Humility
9. Responsibility
10. Organization
    

Did I miss any that are more important than those listed? How does your brand stack up (or even your own personal brand / image)? What do you think your customers or audience would make of these values when it comes to your own brand image?

Do you think it would be fun to score well known brands against each of these factors and reach conclusions as to their brand value as a result?