Retail sales success is most influenced by one single factor – your brand reputation. For many retailers, and the brands they shelve, it’s a constant struggle to attract consumers and convert shoppers into buyers.
For a long time we lived in an era where your brand reputation was based on the quality of your advertising. How well you captured consumer attention, and convinced them that your brand is unique, influenced purchase intent and shaped shopper buying decisions.
While good advertising still serves this role, today we live in an era where shoppers are much less receptive, let alone influenced, by advertising and commercials. It’s rare indeed that any retail brand or consumer product is truly unique and distinct in its category. Competition is fierce and you’re not the only brand people will buy.
Brand reputation and consumer trust
In the digital era shoppers (not retailers and brands) are in control. They search for information at their fingertips. Get opinions and recommendations from their friends, family and personal networks. And perhaps most importantly, they buy brands that they feel they can trust.
This point bears repeating, so let me say it again. Consumers buy brands that they feel they can trust. Your brand reputation isn’t a list of features and attributes that shoppers compare to make a rational buying decision. How shoppers feel about your brand is an emotional decision that gets made – and then justified with reason.
To influence how people feel about your brand I’ve found that the most effective approach is often the exact opposite of what retailers and brands are doing most often.
Traditionally, brands begin thinking about what they want to say. How they can convince consumers that their products or services are different and better than what someone else offers. Then they build a marketing plan to get this message out as frequently and timely as they can to influence shopper behavior. Many marketers seem surprised to find that these types of campaigns and messaging efforts are having little impact on driving sales.
Improving your brand reputation
Here’s how to be more effective. Take the opposite approach. Start by uncovering what your customers and fans of your brand have to say. What is it that makes them willing to recommend your brand? How do they feel about the product and the services you provide? Why do they feel that way?
Your brand reputation is at the heart of any well told story. When you reveal the most important emotional needs and motives that your products and services fulfill, from the customers perspective, you can begin thinking about ways to reinforce and strengthen these feelings. This often leads to less focus on advertising and more effort to deliver the kinds of service and information (content) that reinforces what makes your brand reputation unique.
Before you start developing that next retail marketing campaign, ask yourself “why do customers care about our brand?” Uncover the authentic, relevant and meaningful emotional needs your brand fulfills. Then work out a plan to help shoppers discover this story. The results just might surprise you.
