A gaming company wants a POP-UP SHOP

I answer a lot of questions on BizCrowd for brands wanting to grow their businesses.  A lot of the questions are simply stated, but represent BIG endeavours for a brand.

This is one I'd like to share with you and I've rewritten my response for a larger audience.

"Do you know of anyone who organises or runs pop-up shops in the South West or would be interested in renting out a pop-up shop. We're are a gaming business in Devon and we are looking for a cost effective and unique way to sell our products on the high street."

Here is my insight from designing all types of retail stores and branding for 19 years.

For a pop-up shop, make it easy on yourself to be successful. Choose a location where people are already in the mood to shop. So if that is a mall, choose for an open space in a mall near a major entrance, or empty shop with good customer sight lines. Next to a toy shop is ideal for a gaming company. Pop-up shops in random public spaces rarely work. 

This gaming company needs to put the user into their world of game(s)....it needs to be experiential. There are pop-up shop design studios that will work to any budget. Do some research and find them. The design needs reflect your brand, it will be re-usable and can be stored as a kit-of-parts. For a gaming pop-up shop, soft seats will important as they'll want people to sit for hours, making their shop look busy. Printed graphics for the wall are cost effective. 

Have a DEAL for your customers. Make it clear and enticing. The deal should be pop-up centric so that you can track it. Social media will be important. Run a Twitter campaign of 'Tease, Reveal & Reward' with short reward periods. To keep vibrancy in the pop-up for this gaming company, I'd run a competition, or even connect it with a local charity to show brand depth and caring for the community around you.   

A busy shop attracts customers and will illustrate how fun it is to play your games. So your PR person and your marketing team need to have a plan that meets your needs and will 'saturate' the marketplace with unmissable messaging on when, where and how to find your brand.

Get PR & marketing that focuses on gaming. I don't mean the £5K per month retainer types. 1-4 person teams that are hungry for your business is your goal with external resources. Have an overall budget in mind. 

To have a pop-up shop you'll need to really show how your brand is attractive and different from other (gaming) brands. You can start by using our new brand positioning tool for FREE to see how you are positioned amongst your competition. This will be important to convey to your pop-up designers. 

I remember a gaming pop-up for Little Big Planet in Covent Garden. They were making character puppets and I wanted one to take home with me. It was memorable. So what is your memorable gesture going to be?

The most important thing to remember is that no one entity will deliver your pop-up store for you. You will have to have someone on your team that is in charge of bringing all this together if you want it to be successful. It is essential to bring together the right team for your brand, or have someone do that specifically for you. 

You don't want do this half-way because a pop-up requires a strong brand, a design that reflects it, a marketing plan, media coverage and follow through of all the details. If your question is super, top level like the one above, then you definitely need some expertise and someone to organise your strategy, then make a plan to implement it for you.

I love questions like these because this is something our Brand Concierge service can do quite easily because of my retail design and branding background. 

Contact us if you want to bounce your your big brand building idea off me. We focus on high-impact short projects that bring in customers and raise revenues. We are affordable too.

Lynn Kingelin

BrandStarMe LTD

www.BrandStar.Me

buildyourbrand(at)brandstar(dot)me

Why the behaviours of your favourite customers matter to your brand

 ~ 15 min brand building exercise #3 ~

This blog is part of a series that will illustrate to business owners/start-ups/moonlighters/team leaders/product development teams how many different ways you can build your brand strategy DIY style easily for FREE. 

Discovering who your brand's ideal customer is can be an epiphany for a business :

1 Accept that your business is a people business. This is true no matter what you are selling if you are trying to pull at the needs, wants and desires of your customer. If you want loyal, happy customers you are going to have to figure out how to the adore the customers you have, or you have the opportuntity at any time to define the customers you want and then go find them. 

source

2  Make a list of behaviours that your favourite clients exhibit. It may be as simple as a smile. One could have a dog and makes your business part of their routine. Listing the behaviours of your favourite customers should take you 15 minutes.

It could be only 2 out of 10, but then you'd be ready to discover that wonderful 80/20 Rule that states : '80% of your customers will provide 20% of your business and 20% of your customers will provide 80% of your business.' 

It is a shocking realisation for some brands, but if you think about those lovable customers in the 20% category, wouldn't you rather all your customers be more like them?

3  With your list in hand, ask yourself how your current customer base stack up to your new standards?
Now identify the customers in that 20% and strike up a conversation with them.

• Find out things about them. You are looking for patterns in the customers you like. Maybe they like the Proms and you can consider a promotion that mentions that. You are simply connecting and showing that you are interested in them.
• Tell them that you consider them to be one of your favourite customers because....
• Tell them you are considering some changes in your business and then ask them why they like coming to your shop/online business? They will be telling you your strengths and the benefits they get from you.
• Ask them if they'd like to see anything different, or is there something that would make the experience better for them. You can offer a teaser idea to gauge their response. Your testing your brand growth ideas to see if they match your customers expectations.

4  After the conversations (at least one a day for 5 days...if this sounds daunting) refine your list of behaviours exhibited by your favourite customers and lavish those customers with your newly borrowed brand values(see that blog).

5  Now that see some patterns in your customers, see how you can reach out to more in the pattern. 

Happy brand building today @BrandStarMe


~ A Message from the Brand Concierge team at BrandStarMe ~
It is just over a week to go on our crowdfunder campaign to introduce small business geniuses like yourself to the business game changer experience that you will receive when you take a a few minutes out of your day and build a solid brand strategy for your business. We are offering to review your brand, show you what goes into a brand strategy, how to create one step-by-step, plus give you the insights you'll need to turn your business in the right direction for about 60% off what our Brand Concierge would normally charge. We are only doing this once because we are a start-up about to launch our online tools and we are feeling super generous, so if you want in, pick your reward on the campaign right now.

Go here if you want more of your favourite customers

Create brand values for your brand

 ~ 5 min DIY brand building exercise #2 ~

I am going to create a series of blogs that illustrate how many different ways you can build your brand strategy DIY style easily for FREE. 

Creating BRAND VALUES for your brand :

1 pick a brand you love, admire or one that at least makes you smile. Scour their website and find their values. Without changing it, make those values yours.

You can't possible go wrong with borrowing Gregg's.

"We will be enthusiastic and supportive in all that we do, open, honest and appreciative, treating everyone with fairness, consideration and respect."  

- Gregg's brand values statement 

2 Now try it out on your employees, vendors, associates, clients and customers....for a day....then 2 days. If it works for your business, adopt it permanently. It is okay if everyone is wondering if you had a personality transplant, or if you are in love!

Happy brand building today.     @BrandStarMe

~ A Message from the Brand Concierge team at BrandStarMe ~ 
It is just over a week to go on our crowdfunder campaign to introduce small business geniuses like yourself to the business game changer experience that you will receive when you take a a few minutes out of your day and build a solid brand strategy for your business. We are offering to review your brand, show you what goes into a brand strategy, how to create one step-by-step, plus give you the insights you'll need to turn your business in the right direction for about 60% off what our Brand Concierge would normally charge. We are only doing this once because we are a start-up about to launch our online tools and we are feeling super generous, so if you want in, pick your reward on the campaign right now.

Go here if you want more of your favourite customers

Our Crowdfunder.co.uk Campaign - Pledge your support today!

 

 

 

Hello Brand Builders : 

We have launched a campaign on Crowdfunder.co.uk to get enable us to hire our branding/marketing team to populate our new Brand Database with the competitors of our Crowdfunder.

READ ON IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE.

OR

GET FREE COMPETIVE ANALYSIS WHEN YOU PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT HERE

OUR PROJECT : A BRAND DATABASE
We are building a Brand Database for small businesses to have access to affordable ££-£££ competitive analysis. A traditional branding agency would charge you £,£££-£££,£££ to build your brand for you. 

With the funds we will hire 3 marketing graduates for 6 weeks to populate the Brand Database with Brands so we can launch our site and our first Brand Strategy Tool. 

We want to put YOUR COMPETITORS in our Brand Database first so you, our Crowdfunder Supporters can receive full benefit from our first Brand Strategy Tool on the day it is launched.





HOW THE BRAND DATABASE IS KEY TO HELPING SMALL BUSINESSES
We excel at making people happy about shopping and we want to show you how you can create your Brand Proposition, Story, Values Culture & Vision through an analysis of your competitors. Our tools do this. The Brand Database is connected to each brand strategy tool and when selected, populates each tool with the competitive information for you, enabling you to leap over the branding learning curve and position your brand in your market with an informed point-of-view.

OUR FIRST BRAND STRATEGY TOOL :
Our first tool is a Brand Proposition tool. You'll learn what your competitors offer to customers in exchange for their business and which brand offerings you should focus on to have a chance to be successful in your market. You'll then position your brand in amongst your competition by the value of importance that each offering has for your business and to your customer. At the end of the step-by-step tool, you'll be able to download your results as a presentation-ready graphic. This is Branding 2.0.





WHY WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT :
1) It has always been our plan to initially populate the Brand Database with Brand information before we launch. We want to make a positive financial impact for every business that uses our Brand Database, so we've decided that we should fill the Brand Database with Brands that our Crowdfunder supporters have identified as their competitors, so they can receive full benefit from the first tool on the day we launch.

2) Our Brand Database will later be populated by crowdsourcing and, or by hiring our Brand Concierge service to populate the tools for you. This is a unique opportunity to receive some traditionally expensive competitive analysis for a truly low price.

3) Our Brand Culture has a mentoring facet : Everyone on our BrandStarMe team has mentored graduates into competent, confident human beings who now love their careers. We'd like to do our part and put some graduates into the workforce in a field they actually studied.

OUR BUSINESS :
We are bringing affordable branding to small businesses, which is an underserved market. So many businesses are failing and our tools can help small businesses audit their brand from a customer point-of-view. We want your customers to love you, believe in you, trust you, go to you and recommend you.
We aren't designing logos or brand identities, we only focus on helping businesses create the vital brand strategies they need to become more successful businesses. After you have a solid brand strategy you can then re-design your logo and market a brand identity that truly suits your business.


OUR BRAND CULTURE :
"Our Team is Your Team" Building a great Brand is about focusing on what your customer needs and wants. In that spirit : Our attention is focused on all aspects of what what our customers' need to build their brands. We want you really enjoy working on your brand.

(A not-so-secret-secret : successful brands work on their brands every single day, that is why they are successful)
Once you like/love your brand you can live it and then you'll want to work on it everyday too.

WHY WE ARE DOING THIS :
After 17 years of designing stores for high-end and luxury retail brands for my full-time profession and gifting my time to startups and small businesses for branding strategy sessions; I found that I could make clear and quick impacts in peoples livelihoods, by running their business or idea through my branding methodologies. I really enjoyed helping entrepreneurs align their business to a brand they could champion, so I founded BrandStarMe and recruited some talented branding enthusiasts to build it with me.
We turn businesses into brands. Support us to help us bring this vision of affordable branding to small businesses.

Check out our Branding REWARDS HERE.

Brand Propositions : Your Promise to your Customers

I like this 'Brand Idea Chart' from Adliterate. An entire brand can be created on this little simple chart. Gob smacking isn't it. Once you've answered the question in each circle in one or two sentences, then you need to refine your statement to the world.

This refinement of the right hand circle where it says 'Your Promise' is called a Brand Proposition. It will be your brand statement of clear and deliverable benefits your customer(s) will derive from choosing your brand.

A good Brand Proposition will also include your USP(Unique Selling Point) customer benefit that no one else can provide.

Ultimately a brand proposition is a promise that you'll deliver what your brand says on its tin.

Deeper than that it should build an emotional connection, be engaging, unique, relevant to your intended customer and be easy to understand.

Once you've grasped what your brand is about and you believe you can deliver Your Promise, then you can set yourself the challenge to create a Secondary Brand Proposition.

A Secondary Brand Proposition is an expression/action of your brand promise without using your statement or products.

Give yourself two quick homework assignments.

First fill out the diagram pictures above for your brand and see if you can give Your Promise an emotional connection.

Then think of a highly visible and effective altruist action that your brand team can do to 'live' your Brand Statement.

Create a spring cleaning list for your brand

 ~ 30 min DIY brand building exercise #1 ~

It is time to give your business a spring cleaning and get it ready for building it into a blossoming brand!

In writing on this theme, I have decided for this blog post to channel the sage words of Simon Middleton, the self-described brand strategy guru. He has a lot of really great things to say about building a brand. In fact he has written a book called, 'Build A Brand In 30 Days.' (anything in quotes is from his book)

While it will in reality take you longer than 30 days to craft a brand that grows without much effort, its beginning chapter highlights what every business needs to do, which is sit down as a team and review the business from top to bottom, inside and outside. 

It is a spring cleaning for your business. I suggest that you do this before you brief your branding agency or your marketing/PR firm for your next marketing campaign. It is well worth doing and will likely lead to an increase in sales.

Step 1 of spring cleaning is to decide if you want to be a commodity or a brand :

You have two choices with your business. You can either be a commodity or a brand. 

Yes, it is that simple.

Many businesses survive as a commodity. It is a tough road though. "You need to be cheaper, quicker and more convenient than your competitors." This is what customers expect of you.

As a brand you are judged on different criteria.

There are benefits and meanings that customers buying in each industry expect to see, but once you know what those are and make them your own, you can add your own brand personality to them. You aren't tied into being cheaper, quicker and more convenient, although you will likely be pressured to be. Owning your brand is like putting on that stunning suit and shoes that make you look and feel confident. It is okay to say 'no' to something that doesn't fit with your brand, or branding message.

Step 2 of spring cleaning is to measure which aspects of your business are strengths/positives :

• Draw a large A2 size North/South East/West diagram
• Put 'positive' at north, 'negative' at south, 'weak' at west and 'strength' at east.
• Now put your brand's characteristics/offerings on the diagram and see where your business has strengths and where your customers are positive about your brand.

Examples of what to measure : people recognise your brand, you have a clear message(positioning slogan) that fits expectations of customers of your market, size of your geographic brand area, your name, services, pricing, ownership, guarantees, offers, personality, business emphasis, logo, website, staff, your brand is understandable to the customer, words and descriptions and imagery that describes your brand, what comes to your customer's mind when your brand is brought up, repeat business

This diagram is a spider web of all aspects of your business that you customer can see, feel, touch, experience, dream about, cringe about, watch, imagine, hope, aspire to....etc. This is an exercise of seeing your brand through the eyes of your customer. Hopefully you find it fun and enlightening.

Step 3 of spring cleaning is to ask your customer what they think :

....what they think about your self-identified strengths and positives. If you don't know what your customers think about you, ask the next one that walks in the door. Ask why they elected to buy from you. Those answers will be your true strengths and positives.

Do they think you deliver your slogan/positioning line? Do they understand your logo? Does your store environment fit your product(price of your product). Ask what your brand means to them in regards to quality, value and service. Ask about characteristics of your business that you weren't sure where to position on your diagram. Ask where you can improve.

Now in another colour write your new customer revealed strengths and positives on your diagram. Don't forget to put the weaknesses and negatives on there too.

Step 4 of spring cleaning is to sweep away the negatives & weaknesses cluttering your business:

Here is the action part and it is the most important thing you will do for your business this year.

• On your diagram sheet if you have room - Make 3 columns and at the top of columns put 'Focus On', 'Fix' and 'Stop Doing'
• Everything written on your diagram can now be placed in one of those columns.
• In the 'Focus On' column put the positives and strengths identified by your customers.
• In the 'Fix' column you'll need to use your best judgement and put the items from all 4 quadrants that you/your team identified as crucial to your business/industry, but your customers weren't wowed by your efforts.
• In the 'Stop Doing' column are all the rest of the time wasting things that you have left in the strengths/positive quadrants of your diagram and the listed weaknesses/negatives in the other quadrants that you obviously haven't been doing well.
• Only list items once.

There is your brand spring cleaning list! 

Step 5 of spring cleaning is to come up with a strategy :

• Create a strategy on how to improve each item in the 'Focus On' column and how much time/money/effort should be allocated to each. Give the tasks and act on them.
• Pick one item on the 'Fix' list and come up with a strategy for fixing the issue. Implement your plan and see if you see any measured change in your customers' behavior.  

For example : more people come in, you get compliments, or you get less complaints than usual.

• Stop doing everything in the 'Stop Doing' column.

This doesn't mean stop doing your taxes. These are all the things you are doing for your customer that they don't see the need for, you aren't making money on, you are losing money on and the customer doesn't appreciate.

Good luck and send me comments and let me know how you did on this task and whether it helped your small business.

Taxonomy of BRANDING : an education, a clarification and a coining of 'ACCIDENTAL BRANDING'

Someone recently asked me, "Why would someone would want to be a brand instead of a business?"

It is a valid question and since I am in the 'Education of Branding' business, I thought it would be worth breaking down the taxonomy of BRANDING. 


BRANDING HAS 3-PARTS

1) LOGO   2) IDENTITY   3) BRAND

1) LOGO is a mark/symbol/flag/signature. It is designed, thus it is part of 'brand design' = it is for identification of your brand

2) IDENTITY is a group of communication devices that form the overall 'corporate' image of a brand. These visual aspects include the logo, stationery, slogan, marketing collateral, uniforms, packaging and signage.  It is also designed, thus it is part of 'brand design & brand identity' = it is for visual communication of your brand

3) BRAND is the personality of an organisation, service or a product that is shaped by the perceptions of the audience. A BRAND also stands behind the IDENTITY ('corporate image') as the core concept, which proposes that "everything it does, everything it owns and everything it produces should reflect the values and aims of the business as a whole." "It is then the consistency of this core concept that makes up the company, driving it, showing what is stands for, what it believes in and why it exists." "A designer cannot design a BRAND, but the designer can form the foundations" for the personality and the people in the business can live and exude the personality it would like to be known for. It is the audience that turns a BUSINESS INTO A BRAND. We say that a business is a BRAND when the audience recognises it. A consistent personality then becomes a business's reputation.

*The bulk of the descriptions above came from a blog by a graphic designer called, Jacob Cass. His clarity on the topic explains it well and allows me to elaborate further.

So what does it mean when it is all put together as BRANDING?

A LOGO goes into the IDENTITY. A BRAND wears the IDENTITY like clothing and the clothing it wears helps it remember to exude a particular personality, but it is the core concept of the BRAND that makes the BRAND behave in a particular way. A consistent personality indicates a strong brand has been created and everyone in the company understands it and in turn takes on that business personality to deliver consistency. Over time that consistent business personality becomes the business's reputation.

Poorly communicated BRAND VALUES and BRAND STORY that are part of that core concept of the brand = a poorly received BRAND.

A strong BRAND with a consistent business personality will have a strong, well thought of and well received business reputation, which = increased revenues if you have a revenue model operating.

When you have designed a few successful retail store brands like I have you'll begin to take the taxonomy of a BRAND further.  And this is the part that most people miss !!!!

That core concept with the all the parts of the business including the BRAND VALUES and the BRAND STORY should be created from the point-of-view of the main type of customer, who lives within the audience. It isn't good enough to focus on the customer as a BRAND. It is important to see every aspect of your BRAND from their shoes and fix what doesn't reflect your core concept. The true meaning of a BRAND is when your customer likes you so much they can feel it, but have no idea why they like having you around.

When you think in terms of your business from your point-of-view then it is about your narcissism. To have a BRAND is to make your business about your customers' narcissism.

Do you remember when you were a kid and your parents consoled you by saying that "not everyone is going to like you in this life"? It applies here too. Your audience as a BRAND is potentially everyone who, thinks, sees, hears, feels, tastes or experiences your business personality. They aren't your customer, but they will shape your BRAND and judge you on your core concept. The only people you really need to seek and please is your customer. If your core concept resonates well with them, then you probably have a strong brand.


Or if you think you don't have to worry about all this BRANDING malarkey with your business, you'd be wrong, or at least in denial.

If you are a parent you may have heard of the term 'accidental parenting', meaning you aren't being pro-active in setting a routine, or outlining and reinforcing expected behaviour.
I am going to coin the term 'ACCIDENTAL BRANDING'.

In short, every business is a brand!
A business that has a BRAND foundation/core knows who it is, what it believes and why it exists.
A business that hasn't bothered is just 'ACCIDENTAL BRANDING' and the results may vary.