HMBT #116 Jerel Bonner and Brand Promises

Jerel Bonner from Corralling Chaos joins me to today to talk about brand promises. I met Jerel through LinkedIn. He is knowledge broker that can help general managers and senior executives form teams that deliver on the brand promises.

Companies need to think beyond having a unique selling proposition. This is why you would buy one brand over another. A brand promise is what a customer would get if they buy a product or service from a company, not what makes them different. Zappos was discussed as an example in regards to their well-known return policy.

Employees should be hired into a company to deliver the brand promise to the customer. We Also discussed the employment promise and why employees would want to work somewhere.

I talk about hiring people that are effective at their job, but they also need to be warm. They need to be able to show customers they care. Sending thank you cards and gifts to customers can help build relationships. I also talk about how good Apple is with fixing or replacing computers.

Jerel said in order to build a brand promise, employees need to know what to deliver to the customer. You have to know your strategy. How are you different from my competitors and which behaviors deliver your brand promise? Look at the behavior that makes the action deliverable. Maybe it is sending a card, or having employees show up on time for meetings.

Jerel said that what makes the United States great is a willingness to be coached, which most international companies do not have. Micheal Jordan became successful because he was willing to practice a lot.

Make sure that you and your company keep the brand promise front and center. These four things are important when making successful decisions: know the client, the customer need, the brand and the market.

I talk about iContact and how we help our customers. That is our brand differentiator. I felt that our brand promise is that “We help you succeed…”. Jerel said that the story of how we help customers is our brand promise. After some discussion, we tweaked it to “We help you succeed through the effective use of email marketing. Whether you need support or marketing consultant, we are here to help you increase conversions”.

I then talk about my speaking pitch, which is “Through the use of email and social marketing, I give all marketers what they really want, to acquire more customers, increase revenue and avoid costly mistakes”. The brand promise would be that I help marketers reduce mistakes.

Building a brand promise is important. Make sure to sit down and develop one

Jerel and his co-founder, Ted Benson (E. Benson), can be found on LinkedIn. Make sure to mention this podcast when connecting. I mentioned that I do not accept non-personalized connection requests. It is important to be able to show value to someone that you want to connect with.

 

[youtube] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_VqjAp0XEY[/youtube]

 

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Author

  • Hank Hoffmeier

    Hank is an author, speaker, podcast host and Sr. Manager of Marketing Operations at Kickbox, a Ziff Davis company. With a passion for all things digital and social, combined with more than 25 years of experience in sales and marketing, he has been dubbed the Digital Marketing Infotainer because he makes marketing fun and successful. 

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