Online Reputation: Don't Ignore This!

A Brand Is a Terrible Thing to Waste: How to Manage Your Company's Online Image

How a negative online reputation can hurt you…

How to effectively monitor mentions of your brand online…

Word-of-mouth is not what it used to be. Just 10 years ago, upset customers, or raving fans, could spread their opinion about your business only to their family, friends, neighbors, and work colleagues. Now, thanks to social networking and the infinite publishing power of the Web, customers can share their rants and raves instantly with a worldwide audience. In such a wired world, your online image is everything! And if your online image is tarnished, performing the following key business functions will become much more difficult:

Marketing. Ongoing demand generation is critical for growing your business. If your Google results are soured with negativity when prospects search for your business, you will see your lead generation pipeline dry up.

Selling. With your marketing and demand generation waning from your negative online image, your sales will start to tank as well. Prospects will not want to do business with you, and customers may get spooked and look for another company to work with.

Recruiting. You need a great team of employees on the bus for your company to be successful. If your online image is tarnished, the rock-star employment candidates may want nothing to do with you.

Building a company is hard. Building a locally-known brand is very hard. Accept the Challenge!

More than a decade ago, Steve Jobs said that our only defense against a noisy world was to be clear about what we wanted people to know and remember about us. That’s what marketing is to me – formulating the story we want people to know about and then making it part of everything we do.

It’s about bleeding it.

How do you craft a memorable brand story?

1. Determine what you stand for and where you fit in. Who are you right now and who do you want to be? This is your culture. It’s your core.
2. Assess the traits that you have that best allow you to represent that core. This is where creating your character comes in – it’s the marketing persona inside of you that shows the best and most marketable version of yourself to your audience. Do not make up characteristics, but do highlight your best ones while removing the noise (the ones that don’t matter)
3. Piece together your brand story by finding the common thread between 1 and 2 and building from there. Use the characteristics and company stories that help you best convey what it is you’re trying to tell people.
4. Finalize your story until it looks, feels, smells, tastes and sounds like your core.
5. Work your story into everything you do, keeping 100 percent consistent.
6. Tell your story from every touch point.

Crafting a brand story allows you to communicate to your consumer exactly who you want to be so that they know how they are supposed to remember you. That’s how you break through the noise. By giving them something to remember. 

Here is an oldie but goodie.  Don't settle for just building a business, because a brand is worth much more.

Find our Lowest Price on our Website - GUARANTEED!

In recent months, many of you have heard me make the following statements:

"You are in the parking industry, this is obviously true. But you are also in the travel business. If your airport closes tomorrow, your company would be in a serious predicament."

"In recessionary times, small to mid-size companies have a real opportunity to position their brand in the marketplace and increase marketshare. The time is right now to implement a strategy while the larger brands struggle to compete and hold marketshare."

"No one goes on the internet to spend more money. Consumers are shopping for bargains first, and then a trusted brand who provides reliable service."

"Travel & Entertainment (a.k.a T&E) is the second largest expense in most companies. In the last three years, companies have cut travel costs simply because they can and must. This trend will continue until our economy shows any sign of growth."

"Common sense tells us that following success is smarter than following failure. Lee Iacocca, former CEO of Chrylser, once said 'you have to surround yourself with winners'. Having said that, I like following the most successful airline strategy in the U.S. - Southwest Airlines."

Why is Southwest Airlines the most profitable airline in American history?
Because they built a company going against the grain. In other words, SWA did not follow Delta, United, American and all the other others with respect to service, seats, marketing, operations, aircraft, etc. When the internet took off in the late 90's, SWA made a strong stance in being the only airline to block other third party websites (known as aggregators) from reserving seats through Centralized Reservation Systems (CRS). Fast-forwarding through their success, today the company transacts in two ways; http://www.southwest.com/ and 1-800-IFLYSWA. That's it!

The SWA website processes approximately 80% of the company's reservations. And the 800 number has played a recorded message since 1999 "Our lowest fares are found at Southwest.com".

Positioning your Brand and Branding your Business!

In today's competitive environment, it is about providing your lowest rates on your company's website to establish trust with your shopper. As a consumer, think about your own personal shopping experience for any product or service online. If you find a product or service on a third-party website you never heard of offering a lower price than your website, what would you think or do?

You would probably ask yourself the following:

who is this company?

where is this company? U.S. or another country.

what can I expect from this company?

can I trust this company?

why is the pricing lower on a third-party website than the company's website?

This is your time for branding and positioning your business in your marketplace. And if you do it right (plan, prepare, educate, execute and track), you will reduce costs, increase revenue, build customer loyalty and compete at the highest level.

Here is a website that provides great insight into branding and positioning. Click Here.