The Digital Transformation era has come and gone. Experiential concepts like personalization, transparency, transference, uniquity, and immediacy are now table stakes in an increasingly connected and responsive market. Companies that failed to ante up are already gone - or fading fast.
In Make Your Brand Matter, serial entrepreneur and brand strategist Steve Soechtig delivers an eye-opening discussion of the post-Digital Transformation era in which we now live. The book walks you through the evolution of brand and experience, leveraging examples of historical and digitally native brands that have succeeded and failed to seize the digital moment.
You’ll discover brands that enabled new customer acquisition, customer value optimization, and customer loyalty, all the while realizing that brand and experience are two sides of the same coin. The book also offers: - Strategies, techniques, and activities for teams to capture digital opportunities - Discussions of why brand and experience reinforce one another and how experiences must embrace, reflect, and enforce brand identity - Tactics to accelerate the customer’s progression from evaluator to loyal advocate
Make Your Brand Matter is an essential resource for marketing professionals. It also belongs on the bookshelves of company founders, owners, managers, executives, and other business leaders seeking to develop their organization’s ability to marry brand and experience into one coherent and exciting package.
Table of Contents
Introduction xi
Better Lucky Than Good xiii
What to Expect from This Book xvii
Chapter 1
A Far Too Brief History of Brand Strategy 1
The Emergence of Modern Brand Strategy 2
The Intersection of Brand and Experience 3
The Criticality of Experience 10
Chapter 2
The Dawn of Digital 15
The Birth of the Internet 17
Online Advertising Begins 18
Personalization of the Online Customer Experience 19
The E- Mail Explosion 23
Customer Expectations and Technological Innovation 25
Emerging from the Digital Transformation Era 29
Chapter 3
Focusing on the Modern Consumer 31
Millennial Expectations 32
Generation Z Expectations 35
The Customer Funnel 36
Awareness 37
Evaluation 40
Transactions 43
Engagement 44
Loyalty 45
Chapter 4
Believing in Your Brand and Redefining Your Strategy 47
Experience Defines the Brand 48
Building a Culture Through Data Analytics and Engagement 53
Location Through Data Analytics 55
Leveraging Technology to Drive Engagement and Growth 56
Turning Brand Promise into Reality 58
Chapter 5
Selling Experiences, Not Products 61
Commoditized Brands Become Invisible 62
Customers Control Branding 63
Replacing Products with Experiences 64
A Foundation of Innovation and Performance 65
Creating an Engaged Community 69
Pivoting to Gain Market Share 74
The Fusion of Digital and Physical Personalization 76
Customer Connection, Personalization, and Omnichannel Strategy 81
Chapter 6
Time Is the New Currency - Anticipating without Being Invasive 85
Collapsing Time 86
Time- Saving Conveniences 90
Data- Driven Innovations 93
Making Quick Service Quicker 97
Post- Digital Data and Loyalty 101
Four Time- Based Lessons 103
Chapter 7
Finding a Novel Approach to Solving a Market Need 107
Ambassadors of Innovation 109
Strategic Innovations in CRM 112
Novel Omnichannel Engagement 116
Building Innovation into Your Brand Strategy 118
Chapter 8
Humanizing the Experience 123
Understanding People’s Needs 124
Expanding an Exclusive Market to Everyone 128
Human- First Engagement 130
Risking Controversies for Growth 134
Humanizing Effectively 137
Chapter 9
Connecting Your Customer with Your Cause 141
Embracing Corporate Social Responsibility 142
Shifting from Brand Identity to Social Cause 145
Authentic and Proactive Leadership 148
Engaging and Inspiring the Community 149
Committing to the Cause 151
Chapter 10
Looking to the Future 155
Innovation with a Large I 156
Predictions Sometimes Miss the Mark 157
Emerging Experience Trends 160
AI- Enabled Conversational Interfaces 161
Augmented Reality 166
The Metaverse and NFTs 169
Chapter 11
Where You Should Begin 179
Three Approaches to Assessments 179
Three Prerequisites for Assessments 181
Three Areas of Assessments 182
Agile Experience Innovation 184
Notes 187
About the Author 197
Index 199
