Dig Deep: Unconventional Ways to Grow Your Brand

March 29, 2018 | sc_admin | Marketing

On Thursday, March 22, we were pleased to sponsor a free webinar on brand building with guest speaker Carla Johnson. In this information packed hour, we learnt about Carla’s experience with Fortune 500 companies, along with her insights on how we can implement those strategies to build our own brand. So often overlooked, tucked on a shelf, and forgotten, Carla provided a fresh look at how to reinvigorate brand building with a focus on customer experience.

This post is for those of you who either missed this important webinar, or would like to review it again. You can watch the full hour video above, or skim through the main points summarized below.

Introduction: Why Brand Building Matters

Companies like Lego are a great example of how they are able to create and build an empire from a seemingly simple product, essentially plastic blocks. Lego has grown their brand to include much more than plastic blocks for kids, including top selling Lego Club magazines, subscription website, movies, and television shows. Using their brand, what they provide is much more than a product, it’s an experience enjoyed by millions of kids and adults.

Don’t discount great creative work… instead, use it for Inspiration!

Studying a successful brand. Learning how it affects its users’ experience. Then try to emulate it with your own brand.

Find Inspiration Everywhere. Be open to what’s around you anytime, anyplace.

A brand is a promise you make to customers and a belief for which employees stand. It’s how people recognize your company as something unique, making an important emotional connection.

Carla shares 4 practical steps to building an amazing brand.

Step #1 Compete on a Broader Scale

Look at any brand that a customer or employee may love.
What are the elements that people love about it?

Empathy
Humor
Intelligence
Delight
Dread

Step #2 Be Unexpected

What patterns do people expect that you can break?
Think about how to be your own George Costanza.

Step #3 Create Recipes

Employees are the greatest amplification of your brand.
Give them an engaging story to tell.
Teach them how to tell it.
Empower them to tell it.

Step #4 Think Audience, Not Customers

What questions would anyone in your industry have?
How can you become the go-to resource?
How can your audience deliver research information that you can feed back to your audience?

Unconventional Ways To Grow Your Own Brand

Compete on a broader scale
Be unexpected
Create recipes
Think audience, not customers

About Carla Johnson

Carla is a world-renowned storyteller, an entertaining speaker and a prolific author.
Carla helps individuals to leverage the art of storytelling to inspire action through amazing experiences.
Her latest book, Experiences: The 7th Era of Marketing, sets the benchmark for marketing’s evolving role in business.
Carla has been named one of the top 50 women in marketing and is the chair of the ANA’s Business Marketing Association board of directors.