3 Practical Tactics for Brand Simplicity.
How can marketers utilize simplicity? This advice is not like descending from Mt. Reductionist armed with stone tablets full of “thou shalt and shalt nots.” In fact, giving this topic any kind of convoluted canonical spin would be dead wrong since the first rule of any decent how-to—exception made for every home assembly guide ever written—is clarity.
The best starting point is with the notion of “owned media,” defined here, as “any communication channel or asset under your direct control.” It’s all yours, no need to go out of pocket, it’s right there for the using,. There you go, simple-simon; another arrow in the quiver to help you get the word out about your brand, product, service, or anything-you-damn-well-please.
While there are plenty of companies that get this, the real puzzler is how many don’t and, in the process, leave anywhere from hundreds up to millions of marketing dollars on the table. After all, every organization–not just consumer, but business-to-business and non-profit as well—has audience-facing assets that can be deployed to send or reinforce important messages without paying for the privilege.
Consider: when the nice real estate agent has the seller bake cookies before the home showing s/he is using an “owned medium” to evoke a positive emotional response. While also doing us the favor of demonstrating that a “medium” is all in the application.
Nobody asked The Reductionist, but here are 3 practical tactics:
Take full advantage of your packaging by going beyond price promotion into brand purpose.
Take a fresh look at your digital template and tool kit (Zoom-missteps aside, there’s fertile territory there).
Engage your employees and their online networks in expanding the reach of your latest ad (see also, a related data-mining concept called “social graphing”).
Finding new creative ways to be on the tips of more tongues is right there in front of your company’s metaphorical nose.