At Jibe we often talk about the milk and meat of marketing. These fundamental marketing provisions often entail knowing your audience, following a proven strategy, being visible, consistent, and simple. However, we don’t often discuss some of the more savory aspects of a company’s marketing approach. Any company can have a strategy, but they may not see great results until they have established an amazing brand, delighted customers, and display market/business intelligence. This folks, should be your special sauce.
Before we dig a little deeper into your secret sauce let’s consider Kentucky Fried Chicken.
They’ve got a location near you, they have great food with several options to satisfy your hunger, they are always staying top of mind with consistent advertising, but with all of this aside, one of the many things that makes KFC successful is this: their original secret recipe of “11 herbs and spices” for “finger lickin’ good” chicken.
So, what is your secret weapon, recipe, or sauce?
Brand Amazingness
The greatest aspiration of every business is to be an entity of influence. This happens as a natural by-product of trust. And trust is the result of consistency in message and performance. If your business is confident in your ability to perform consistently then your look and message is the most important foundation. These are elements of your brand. From look and feel, to the words and design choices you make, you must consistently convey credibility and likeability.
Amazing branding isn’t about the coolest logo, it is about establishing a professional look, feel, and message that doesn’t deviate and therefore is constantly working to build credibility, trust, and influence. Your branding is simply effective communication of the true value you provide.
Delighted Customers
We live in a time when customers have high expectations of customer service and product/service quality. Companies should be spending the majority of their efforts in these two areas in order to create loyal customers. But, these are not the only parts of the winning formula.
In addition to these, delightfully surprising customers from time to time, or simply going the unexpected, simple, second mile helps them to see a business as a personable and likeable partner and not just a cold and flat affiliate.
Now, to be clear, this isn’t about making every customer service effort centered on trying to do some great, nifty, clever thing all the time. These moves are simple but special. Things like an unexpected discount, a simple freebie, a sincere compliment, and unexpected extra. These never need to cost very much, but when made a consistent part of how you do business they will do much to build loyal customers.
I submit that in order to stay competitive and create loyal customers in today’s ultra competitive business environment, we must be delighting our customers, not just servicing them.
Curated Market Intelligence
There is a ton of data out there. What analytics do you want access to? What social mentions do you want to listen for? What industry news is of most importance to your day-to-day? Whatever it is, there is a way to find the data you desire.
However, what is more rare is data that has been curated to fit your specific needs.
Jibe developers have created a human-curated software (as opposed to relying solely on computer algorithms) that gives you constant access to specified, relevant data pertaining to social company mentions, competitive intelligence and industry news, and includes suggested action items based on the data we are finding/hearing.
The key benefits to this secret sauce are:
1—Time and resource savings—you don’t need to sift through an immense amount of irrelevant data.
2—Effective responses to issues of reputation management, customer service, and new business opportunities.
3—Consistent resources for fresh content ideas based on the timely and relevant intelligence we are gathering.
To those who feel they have many things operating well in their marketing efforts but are looking to move to the next level, consider the secret sauce of cohesive and consistent branding, delightfully surprising your customers, and taking advantage of curated market intelligence. When utilized these marketing elements will breathe new life into your content plans and overall efforts. Doing so will make your brand more “finger lickin’ good.”
And just in case all this sauce talk has made you hungry, here is a 5-star cook book for many of your favorite restaurant foods. Check out recipes for KFC’s chicken, The Cheesecake Factory, PF Chang’s, and more. Bon appetit!