What is your brand experience?
Memorable brands are often leaders in creating brand experiences that are seamless, efficient, personalised and talk-about-able. Some of the standout brand experiences I’ve been a part of include:
- A complimentary hand massage at Aveda Hair Salon while my colour was setting.
- Opening a delivery from 180Cakes, to find my cake mix wrapped in blue ribbon with a personalised, handwritten note.
- Apple store’s seamless booking, friendly check-in and expert service.
These brand touchpoints formed an impression in my mind. Yet they were just one of the many touchpoints I experienced with these brands. It would have been easy for these memorable touchpoints to be degraded in my mind, or even dismissed, if any other part of their service delivery was poor.
Everything matters in your customer journey
Whether a person is just starting to notice your brand, following you online, downloading your online resources, speaking to your sales team or completing an online purchase, every single touchpoint makes an impression and builds a lasting perception.
Large brands leave nothing to chance. Every single touchpoint is given the attention it needs with heavily scripted protocols, guidelines, training and systems in place. This is to ensure that touchpoints are delivered in the same manner to each and every customer, each and every time.
The resources of a large company may be out of reach for us but we can learn from their excellence and adopt practices that elevate our own offers.
Getting more by doing less
I find that some business owners tend to gravitate to a ‘less is more’ approach. They hold back from crafting a truly memorable brand experience because they do not have time to manage everything properly.
So they stick with what they know. They follow up with leads and customers personally … for as long as they remember to. They get back to that Saturday enquiry on a Tuesday. They send haphazard newsletters to tick the marketing box.
They do their best with the resources they have.
Automation systems expand your capacity
Marketing automation systems expand the capacity of an organisation by delivering information on autopilot; assigning tasks for team members to action and housing systems to be followed.
Unfortunately, automation systems often have a poor reputation for bombarding people with emails that clutter up their inbox. However, this is not the fault of the system itself. The system is no more to blame than a vehicle that was crashed by a reckless drunk driver.
In the right hands, when used strategically and creatively, automation systems are powerful tools to deliver better customer service, drive audience engagement and ultimately, increase sales.
Here are just a few of the many ways an automation system can work for your business.
- Communication: automate emails and messages to leads, prospects and clients.
- Reminders: set reminders for your team to execute tasks.
- SMS: send timely SMS to keep customers well informed.
- Reviews: request reviews from customers and track your performance.
- Word of mouth: automate a referral program for happy customers to refer you.
- Educate: drip feed resources or educational content at exactly the time they are needed.
- Operations: enhance operations with checklists, reminders and tasks.
- Sales pipeline: create opportunity pipelines so leads do not fall through the cracks.
Putting it into action
My brilliant and trusted business coach, Keith Ravenscroft, once shared with me a pearl of wisdom. He said, “Melinda, the fortune is in the follow up”.
We all get busy. We all have too much to do. We all let things slip through the cracks and we all deliver a brand experience we think could be better.
It is through automation, where you can teach a machine to do what you would otherwise have to do. You will find more freedom and predictability in your business and more opportunities to enhance the customer journey.
So, what lies ahead for brands who master this? As Keith tells me, great fortune.
About Huddle Up Creative
Huddle Up Creative is a boutique marketing agency based in Perth, founded by marketing strategist, Melinda Cahill. Melinda and her team deliver marketing strategy, branding, web design, automation, and content writing for clients in the professional services and medical industries. The Huddle Up team has a vision to ‘help game-changers positively reshape their world’, by delivering creative marketing (and a little magic) that turns good brands into great brands.
If you’d like to learn more about automation, the marketing experts at Huddle Up Creative can help. Contact them today and create a unique experience for your customers.
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