With so many major and micro brands to choose from it has become imperative to ensure your brand represents true value that is more than a slogan or a hollow promise of quality service. Designing brand value takes time to form, plant, nurture and secure locked-in loyalty among users who prefer your brand over all others so doing it right is essential for success.

The rewards of building a loyal brand is a momentum that keeps growing when its owners truly think through what matters to their customers and deliver on those promises: this leads to greater loyalty and more satisfied customers and a more highly engaged experience that both customers and employees enjoy.

This in turn creates the rewards that a relevant Loyalty Rewards Program should bring.

Getting the brand logic and promotion right produces a successful program that can carry a brand for a very long time. To begin, you have to understand what your customers want to experience when they use your brand. Regardless of what type of organization you represent, what constitutes brand value is universal. To construct this link, begin by following three steps that lead a visitor to your website all the way through to a loyal customer.

Tip #1: Create a Set of Customer Expectations. Begin with defining what behaviors and outcomes you can associate with your brand. Be careful to only select outcomes you can consistently deliver over time that will excite customers and build their trust in your brand. Nothing breaks momentum faster than promising one thing and delivering another.

Tip #2: Create a Group of interesting Cohorts. Few things spread good news like good news! Finding real people with real-world happiness with your brand and promoting what they’re saying is a sure-fire way to build customer interest and eventually loyalty. For example, in the food services sector, the more reliable your brand is, the less likely you will experience profit-destroying returns, which will lower your cost of sales as well. Of course, these net returns will vary by market sector, but the universal best practice of consistently delivering quality will make customers want to follow you.

Tip #3: Create a Business Model That Rewards Loyal Customers. Most will consider signing up for a loyalty program only after they have significant experience with a brand. Exceptions to this rule can exist with the best-known brands such as American Express or Starbucks Coffee, but realize they have had to build their brand loyalty using the very steps outlined here. Knowing what matters to your customers and what priorities they have are the key areas to drive brand improvement. Done well, this business model can outperform highly creative marketing campaigns that change often and do not build brand equity within the market sectors they serve.

To ensure that the customer experience operates with excellence, the need for linking loyalty programs to value has never been greater. The best companies set their programs in place and do not vary them and as a result they tend to not stumble over their internal politics or profit goals.

Warning: Whatever you set in motion, be prepared to keep it in motion for a very long time. If you don’t, you risk losing all of the brand equity you’ve spent so long building. Unlikely you say? Just take a look at both Starbucks Coffee and Staples that have both recently changed their Rewards Programs and angered their most loyal customers in the process.

Tom Marin is the president of MarketCues, a national consulting firm wants to hear from you! Follow MarketCues on Twitter for strategy and related tips. Tom also welcomes emails, new Linkedin connections, calls to (919) 908-6145 or learn more at: www.marketcues.com.

Note: If you are a printing executive or vendor serving the printing industry who would like to be considered for a feature in this blog, please complete the contact information here: www.marketcues.com/contact/.

As a commercial printer, label printer, mailing house, print finishing business – whatever your area of expertise, if you don’t break through to your prospects on an emotional level, you’re dead in the water! In other words, your writing must personally convince potential customers that you can save them money while adding value. But you must also get them to look upon you as a partner who is genuinely interested in their success, rather than just a supplier. While there are many proven rules about effective writing that you can use in your print-marketing efforts, here are 10 you might not have considered.

• Appeal to the reader’s emotions. Most writing will fail, or be very forgettable, if this doesn’t happen. Shatter that barrier of indifference. Find some common ground and address the ‘pain points’ of your clients and potential customers. Infer that you’ve been there before and sound genuine (i.e. no clichés) when offering practical solutions. No unaffordable “pie-in-the-sky” strategies here please. Be empathetic rather than sympathetic.
• Convey excitement. Sound enthusiastic, but not corny. As a print supplier, if you’re not excited about your topic, don’t expect your prospects to be. Try not to use superlatives. People simply don’t believe them. If you have an amazing fact or story to tell, then just tell it. It should hold up on its own merit.
• Keep it conversational. Write as if you’re chatting with, not writing to, your readers. Use plenty of contractions. You’re not writing a legal document and you don’t need to be perfect. Most prospects and clients never talk the way they write. But they will respond better to a sincere “narrative.” Oh, and for heaven’s sake, make sure everything you compose is grammatically correct. If you’re sloppy with your writing, your prospects might assume you’ll be sloppy with their printing too.
• Look to the second paragraph. A good car dealer embellishes the truth by saying your new vehicle will make you the sexiest person on earth. The same is often true with writing – especially writing to persuade. So try this: see how your final piece reads when you remove the first paragraph. That paragraph usually contains “hype” while the second (or third) gets to the real facts. This will help you with editing and future writing.
• Use humour sparingly. It’s great to put a smile on a prospect’s face while conveying your message. But humour does have a short lifespan. In general, the same joke repeated will elicit a smile the first time, indifference the second, and annoyance the third.
• Re-read the next morning. Put your masterpiece aside for one day. Look at it with a clear mind (and your preferred caffeine infusion) the next morning. This will help you trim more fat and get to the point much faster.
• Limit proofreading to two experts. One person should check for grammar and typos, and another for technical accuracy. Don’t ask someone to do both simultaneously. I once worked at a newspaper where 6 different department managers had input into each project I wrote. The rewritten final versions invariably looked like failed ESL tests!
• Don’t highlight to much. Highlight everything and you highlight nothing! I had one client who used to ask “Can we underline this, bold face this, box this off?” By the time I did what he wanted, I couldn’t figure out what was important on the page – and neither could his clients! Limit text emphasis in your print marketing to three areas: Headline, reader benefits and call to action.
• Emphasize client benefits, not equipment features. That new digital printer you just bought might be loaded with features in terms of power, speed, output, etc. So what? Don’t they all? Pointing out how wonderful a new piece of equipment is to a potential client, might also sound like bragging. However, pointing out how it can make their lives easier by reducing their printing costs, improving print quality or adding value (such as new finishing options), shows that you’re thinking of your customers first.
• Talk slightly above your audience. Never ever talk down to a client or potential customer, even in the slightest. Words matter. If you’re trying to score points, try talking slightly above their heads. This should flatter them and give them a sense that they can actually learn from you. Warning: Don’t talk too far above their heads though – you’ll frustrate customers, or they’ll simply conclude that you’re being somewhat arrogant.

– Tony Curcio, Editor, Graphic Arts Magazine.