What is your brand promise?

[Diana Crites]

Do you have a brand promise? It's bad practice to have "accidental branding." Trust me.

A brand promise is a shortcut for your customer. Out of all the commerce clutter and confusion, how will they remember you? What makes you stand out? What do you deliver?

How you simply and effectively communicate your brand's message is vital. On Etsy, your forums, your banners, avatars, logo, communication. But what is primary to that is more key:what is your brand promise?

If you haven't mulled that over, now's a good time.

It should be concise, easily digestible, and resonate with your audience. It should be core to your process.

Let's try an exercise, if you're game! Tell me what you do and give me a brand promise or three.

What I do:
I consider myself a fine artist. I produce original art: mostly oils, but am branching out.

My brand promise: (I'm toying with a few)
"everyday dread"
"accessible surrealism"
or the short and sweet "creepy"

My goal in all of my marketing efforts is to revolve around this central brand promise. This is what I do, it's memorable, and people respond to it. And remember it. It's working for me.

How about you?

[Spincus]

I am going to respond to this post shortly.

I am wondering If this might have been a better blog post here, something that could of been featured on the main page also? Or if this is a better forum topic? And would these variables change at other social sites?

We are not trying to market to each other here, so part of my questions are irrelevant for this site. But this is a marketing mentoring site;.these questions could be extremely relevant elsewhere.

Here are the easy obvious trade offs. A blog post could lead to redirection to sales sites, and your MY Page / home page, have more control on your marketing message. A forum post might lead to more interaction, more eyeballs, and an indirect invitation to visit the posters My Page or home page.

Both are very relevant.

Are we constantly asking ourself what is our best ROI?

Can we do both directly or indirectly at the same time to get to the magic three impressions (views) we need?

[Diana Crites]

Not sure I completely understand this, but I'm getting that the forum may not have been the best venue for this topic? My apologies if I'm off base.

I certainly wasn't trying to market to the group, but raise a discussion about branding.

I raise the "I'm new here" flag... :)

[Pam Hawk]

Good question. I'm still struggling to come up with my "elevator speech" about Pass It On Plates. It has been hard for me to find a concise way to describe my plates to people for the first time, because there are three distinct activities around this product, which are repeated endlessly. It seems that figuring out a brand promise would headline, in a sense, my description of what a Pass It On Plate is/does.

At the top of nearly every page in my website I have comments or phrases about the plates. Would they be brand promises? Some of them are:
"Admit it! You are proud to Re-gift Pass It On Plates."
"Pass It On Plates are a fun and unique way to share treats with special people."
"Each Pass It On Plate tells a story as it travels."

I think, by themselves, they don't completely paint a picture of what a Pass It On Plate is and what you're supposed to do with it. In this case, would it be better for me to have a brand promise that is intriguing enough to catch peoples' attention the first time they hear it and make them want to know more? Then, once they understand the Pass It On Plates concept, the brand promise makes perfect sense and paints a memorable mental image of the concept?

Based on that question, the first brand promise that comes to mind is:
"Connecting people, one cookie at a time."
(or... "Connecting people, one plate of cookies at a time.")

I'll have to mentally chew on this and see if I can think up any more brand promises. Tomorrow I'm taking a road trip (to Bend, Oregon, my first time there!) so I'll have time to muse.

Would love any comments regarding my questions about using the phrases from my website vs. finding a brand promise that draws people in and may not be fully understood until the concept is explained. All suggestions on how to describe these plates are welcome, too; as I've been pondering over a good description for a couple years now.

Thanks!
-Pam

(The website is www.passitonplates.com)

[Spincus]

Pam one of the things i had difficulty with when I went to your shop was I could not figured out what you were selling? were you selling plates of food or plates? It is important to get your message out instantly 1.5 secs of instant, or folks move on.

You have a particularly difficult challenge, You have a educational (this product does...) message and a availability (buy here...) message. Marketers cringe at mixed messages like that. Your best bang for the buck is always a one message presentation.

The way we dealt with the educational part of the message in the past vs. the available here message was to differentiate them. In my case, I talked to the Magazine folks about ideas on how they could educate their customers, and often suggested topics I thought would be on interest to their readers. And I did the buy it here message. In the long run magazines / media are responsible for the education part of the equation. It is the only real way it works.

The brand promise of "Connecting people, one cookie at a time" helps solve the educational aspect of your marketing. And I really like it, and it just might work because of the implied promise of availability found here at the same time. :)

[Diana Crites]

I agree completely with Sylvie, Pam.

"Connecting people one cookie at a time" strikes a personal note within the individual so that they immediately make an intimate connection. It evokes comforting things: family, friends, connections, eating. And it makes you want to find out more. I know I do!

Going to go check out your wares... See, the line brought me in. :)

Diana

[Pam Hawk]

Thank you thank you thank you -
To Diana, Sylvie and Scott...

That intimate connection you mention, Diana, is exactly what I was going for. Homey, nesting, friends and family kind of stuff.

Sylvie, thanks for the input on "one cookie" vs. "one plate of cookies" - I think you're right. It's simpler and the psychology of the wording holds the audience. On the days I'm trying to be good and stick to my diet, I'd allow myself to think about one cookie and want to know more. If it's a whole plate of cookies? forget it. La la la la la la (hands over ears) I'm not listeniiiiiing...

Scott, dealing with the dual message of education vs. buy has been the biggest hurdle for me since the whole concept first came to me. (Probably even more than designing all the ugly prototypes that I rejected.) I get what you're saying about letting the magazine educate and my job is to simply say "buy here." Maybe I should re-work the website to focus on "buy your plate here" with the brand promise, then put all the education in the FAQ and blog? (I'm only selling the plate stuff, no food. I should make that clearer. Different picture, perhaps?)

Would you say the "find your plate diary here" is part of the available message or educational message?

I know this discussion is really about brand promises, and I'm sorry this is getting off track. If you'd like to pick this up elsewhere, let me know and I'll follow. Thanks.

[Diana Crites]

Having mulled this over, I've refined my brand promise. Writing it out was very provocative for me.

My price point is kind of high. Even the affordable prints I'm offering are somewhat high for Etsy standards. So my audience will likely be those from the pool of "expendable money."

Therefore, my brand promise would be more along the lines of:
"upscale dread"
"the finer side of creepy"
and "accessible surrealism" still works, but isn't as catchy

[Pam Hawk]

Ooh, good. I like your brand promise 'upgrade' to reflect your price point.

When I read "the finer side of creepy" I gasped. I love that one.

"Upscale dread" made me visually picture a Rastafarian in a tux.
LOL Sorry! I can't help the way my brain works! :o)

"Accessible Surrealism" has too many syllables for my taste.

-Pam

[Spincus]

I have to say that I am a little stumped on this as a question for my shop. I am deeply considering the concept. I thought i had it, and internally I believe i do, but I realize it is not expressed well in my opening shop announcement.

Pam, not to get off the topic of this thread but to answer you, In the days of old audited magazines always kept sales away from editorial. They understood that in order to present fair information to the paid readers, they could not directly promote the advertisers wares. This unbiased reporting created credibility and lead to increased circulations. Some magazines, usually unaudited types had basically paid articles by the advertisers. These types of magazines are short lived as folks see through the thing veil.

So you suggest that your blog should be used for eduction, and your Etsy should be availability. I think this is right on track. I do feel that blogs if done this way should try not to overwhelm with sales pitches, and if anything should be low key on the sales side. Again like the magazines try and keep the editorial clean to acquire trusting readership.

In this context, you pitch your blog in social sites, (by using your URL to your blog as part of your signature vs. your mini Etsy), that you want to educate, and hope for redirection from your blog to your sales site. I do not know if this is a perfect method or not, it needs to be tested. You might be able to think of a way to use both your blog url and your mini etsy, but you run the risk of mixed messages again.

For me, as art jewelry market, I am selling eye candy in a way. So the mini Etsy is probably my best signature, for many sites. But I am sure there are social sites that I will want to promote my inde crafting blog. I am not promoting consideration - the art in marketing at all.

I am still struggling to define which vehicle does what for me and how much time do I have to commit to them. So take this post with a grain of salt please.

[D'arcy]

Good point to bring up, Spincus

I started my main blog not knowing what to do with it. It started out being a place to show items from my store, but it didn't feel right.

I decided to start doing things a bit different.

When I first started our web site, I wanted to have a personal feel to it. I talked a bit about us and had some fun pictures of us, and our company car (our hearse, Lily). Over time, my partner and I decided the site should be a bit more professional, so we took off the pics and whatnot.

The blog needed some substance, other than a marketing tool, so I put up my first humorous blog. This seems to be received better, and people are actually commenting on the story. I have my links on there, so if they choose to go see more, they can.

I'm in the process of putting together a tutorial for the blog. I'm not an expert on anything, but if I can help someone else get started on something that interests them, that's cool! They can also ask me questions they might have, etc.

What you have said is very relevant to what I'm going through right now. I remember when magazines had most of the ads in the back, now they are all the way through the mag.

Thanks for going off topic!
D'arcy

[D'arcy]

Ok, I'll give it a shot

What we do: We handcraft, and retail items that are on the darker side, (Monsters, horror, goth, etc.) Jewelry, bags, buttons and the like.

On our website, the front page is set up like you're entering a very mysterious and somewhat spooky village of old. You are first met by "Little Owl", perching in front of the welcome sign. What you see is, "Little Salem", Est. 10-31-2005, and just under that are the Latin words:

Frigus Vix Res translation: Cool, creepy stuff

Little Owl has become our logo. We've done booths at horror conventions, and we have a large backdrop which includes the words "Cool Creepy Stuff".

However, the other term we always use is: "Unique Gifts and Collectables of an Unusual Nature"

I'm learning about the whole branding thing. It's not a clear (to me) to know exactly what it means, but we've found that people are starting to remember us. We've also had people say "hey, I've heard of you guys!", so I think, at least locally, word is starting to slowly get out.

Is this what is considered branding?

The other thing I've been having a hard time with is the spelling of 'collectable'. Most times you see it with an I: collectible. I prefer it with an a. The dictionary has both spellings as being correct.

This is a very interesting topic!
Thanks!
D'arcy

ps. I like "connecting people, one cookie at a time"

[Pam Hawk]

(Thanks, D'arcy!)
-Pam