As the importance and power of brands – and the customer experiences they drive – continues to creep up the scale of corporate awareness and priority, brand consultants are scrambling to find ever more evocative (scratch that: make it “provocative”) ways to describe the relationships that the buyers of products and services have with brands.

I grant you, we brand strategist and consulting types are doing a great job confusing corporate marketers. Now they can’t focus on driving sales through the door until they figure out how to make a “Lovemark.” Customer intimacy is more important than customer relationships, and those are pretty important too. Now there’s the “Love Triangle Model.” Throw emotional contagion into the mix, and we’re going to have brand-based STD’s next… (are phishing and pharming the equivalent?)

Maybe it’s a little too much to ask, but do I really want “love” from (or with) a brand? Maybe I’m just a little uncomfortable with these new levels of brand intimacy. Call me old fashioned, but these are all just new ways to describe the same old thing: Create a product or deliver a service that solves a real need. Support it with honesty, integrity and quality, and make sure you respond quickly to customer needs, delivering a consistent, differentiated brand experience across all your customer touchpoints.

Make sure your market knows that you do this, and encourage them to tell others. Conduct loyalty and brand research to make sure you know what your customers think and how they feel about you vs. your competition, and act on the results.

No offense, but can’t we save these “sweet nothings” for our wives, husbands and significant others? After all, if you want this kind of involvement, where would you rather turn for fulfillment? I know where I’d rather go. I’ll give you hint: it’s not Amazon. And if this trend towards unwanted intimacy keeps up, we can always create new meaning for “brand therapy.” We’ll need it.

Your brand is an experience, ideally resulting from a successfully planned and delivered combination of messages and interactions across multiple Touchpoints.

To keep these experiences (and brand perceptions) positive and appropriate, companies must consistently touch customers and prospects in ways that build satisfaction, trust and loyalty, at each stage of their Customer Relationship Lifecycle. This systematic process creates expectations that must be regularly met, resulting in customer confidence and an emotional connection–the foundation for all successful brands.

The downside, of course, is when good Touchpoints go bad. How many customers can you lose due to dissatisfaction to a call center employee with an attitude, or an accent they cannot understand?

You get it. It’s pretty simple, really: Managing the brand experience across all Touchpoints matters.

Brand Promise. Sounds good, doesn’t it? But what does it really mean to make and support these statements, and what is the cost of less-than-perfect delivery? In truth, achieving the outcomes that delivering on this can accomplish requires near-flawless execution in making, delivering, keeping, and reinforcing the brand promise.

While appropriately positioning the organization and the development of a branding and messaging platform are critical first steps, there must also be steadfast, across-the-board organizational commitment to developing and implementing the structure, systems, and staffing needed to effectively deliver on the promise.

Our experience shows us that the benefits of making and keeping a brand promise are well worth it. Here’s a quick primer on our point-of-view:

Defining (and Making) the Promise. Your promise needs to be relevant, compelling, believable and achievable – and supported by the values that drive your organization – to make a deep connection with your target audiences. To define it, you must understand your organization, your customers and your competition.

Delivering the Promise. The responsibility for delivering the promise message falls primarily on the sales and marketing team, while management and employees in the field deliver on the elements of the promise on a daily basis.

Keeping the Promise. Your success hinges on the competency and commitment of line staff, IT, call center, outsourced vendors, etc. to deliver on the promise at each Touchpoint. So much of your relationship with customers, and of your ability to keep your promises to them, will depend on the precise coordination and structure of your systems and staff. Leverage the processes, procedures and systems needed to effectively communicate with each other, and your customers will experience the positive results.

Feedback: Have we kept our promise? The only way to know that you are making, delivering, and keeping the right promises is to continually get feedback from your customers. Utilizing Customer Listening Tools – including those in MCorp’s Customer Experience Mapping toolkit – can be qualitative, or it can be a formal, quantitative process for measuring gaps between customer satisfaction, attitudes, and needs. Finally, processes must be in place for easily and systematically collecting, reviewing, and acting upon this feedback.

Those organizations that successfully connect with customers and deliver on a relevant promise reap huge, quantifiable benefits in areas such as retention, loyalty, customer NPV (“Net Present Value”) and LCV (“Lifetime Customer Value”). The flip side for those organizations which promise one thing and deliver an experience that just doesn’t match up is the cynicism, increased churn, and reduced loyalty and satisfaction which can negatively affect relationships with both internal (employees) and external (customers, analysts, partners, etc.) audiences.

Regardless of industry, shareholders (and those that influence them, such as media and analysts) are a core audience. So what are the best ways to “touch” these key stakeholders, and build a loyal shareholder following?

In the age of “what have you done for me lately?” investors are increasingly fickle. The ability to retain investors for the long term drives valuation. To help those willing, we’ve identified key Investor & Media Relations concepts that every management team (of publicly traded companies or companies that wish to become public) should understand, and address.

Create (and articulate) a strategic plan.
Long term thinking in a short term world. It is not impossible, but must be strategically coordinated across your organization, and articulated in a way that investors understand, believe and support. Investors must understand the direction your company is headed and develop reasonable expectations for determining success. If investors’ goals are met, they will provide you with the capital “runway” to execute your vision.

Invest in online.
Unsurprisingly, companies, investors and other stakeholders are now shifting their focus to the internet. Investors need (and want) to be steered to the web whenever there are significant corporate events. Annual reports, recorded earnings calls, conference presentations and other investor updates should be available through the website. By keeping investors on your site, you control the interaction and can help shape investors’ perceptions.

The annual report is still your most important investor touchpoint.
Despite the preponderance of other material available to investors, the annual is still king. Take the time and effort to ensure a satisfactory product that delivers the proper message to investors. Of primary importance: lay the foundation for investor expectations in the CEO’s letter. This is the bar against which investors measure fundamental execution.

Analyst coverage helps drive loyalty.
Getting analyst coverage will benefit corporations in both investor interest and market valuation. Investors need assistance with due diligence, and analysts provide this service.

Press coverage is essential to building (and maintaining) a broad investor base.
There is no better way to inform investors of your story than through unbiased local trades and national media. Seize every opportunity to present your firm to the outside world, and leverage your coverage online.

There is no such thing as too much investor communication.
Your strategic plan must be delivered to investors. Never catch investors by surprise. Pre-announce earnings dates, conference calls and speaking engagements. Let investors know what to expect, and when to expect it.

Focus on running your business.
Whether it is accomplished internally or outsourced professionally, Investor Relations is a full time job. Do not expect your CEO, CFO, or other professional to be able to competently handle both their job and IR duties. Investors expect, and deserve, the attention that an “ownership” stake implies. Of course, not all investors are created equal, any more than your customers are.

Investors may be your most important customers.
Without an equity valuation, your business would disappear. Deal with investors honestly and professionally. Never ignore investor questions, but respond immediately. Creating loyalty is an important step towards achieving success as a public company.

Customer Experience: The perfect framework to begin thinking about ways to plan, measure and improve customer interactions with your organization.

Even before the “Four Ps” of marketing (Product, Price, Place and Promotion) expanded in the 1980s to reflect the impending shift to a knowledge-based economy (People, Process and Physical Evidence), there was widespread recognition that how someone feels about an organization is driven in large part by how they’ve been treated.

Customer experience is the sum of all experiences a customer has with an organization, over the duration of their relationship with that organization.

Introduced in the late 1990s, the concept of “customer experience” was the perfect framework to begin thinking about ways to plan, measure and improve these. An organization’s ability to cost-effectively deliver an experience that positively differentiates it from the competition in the eyes of its customers boosts top- and bottom-line revenue through increased customer spending, greater loyalty, and reduced costs for service and acquisition. What’s not to love?

Customer experience: The next competitive battleground.

There’s no argument that understanding customer experience is critical. In fact, 95% of senior business leaders identify customer experience as the next competitive battleground. At the same time, over half state that “Lack of measurement is a significant obstacle to improving Customer Experience.”

ROI on improvements to customer experience can be elusive; oftentimes, the discipline and data required to measure and understand what works is short-cut, and investments are made without a clear understanding of return. One executive perspective is shaped by talk about “soft” metrics such as satisfaction and brand preference; another – the financial view – is rooted in profit and loss, short-term expense and cost containment.

That’s why assessment is so critical. Only by looking at experience through the lens of ROI can organizations reach the consensus needed to drive the top-down initiatives critical for driving customer experience change.

Measuring customer experience

At MCorp Consulting, we call this assessment process Customer Experience Mapping. Essentially, we track aspects of the experiential “journey” your customers take through the Customer Relationship Lifecycle unique to your business, and the touchpoints and interactions encountered along the way.

Experiences are defined at those the places where companies interact with and “touch” customers. Their touchpoints.

Future revenue is affected – either positively or negatively – at every single touchpoint (or interaction) between your organization and your customers.

Assessments are typically done through a variety of research and analytical methodologies, including in-person and phone interviews, surveys, and driver analysis to tie experience to actual and desired behaviors. This level rigor of also means that the process has the potential to be both involved and resource intensive.

So how can you assess and prove ROI before you start? In Part 2 of Proving ROI on Customer Experience we present four “experience investment” lenses to help you plan, measure and improve interactions with your customers, and prove significant ROI – before you invest.  (Continue to Part 2…)

The connection between actual brand experience and customer expectations is crucial to the perceptions of your brand.

A deep understanding of the importance of alignment between the customer experience and brand promise is evidenced by the nearly one-hundred percent of customers who responded in a recent MCorp Consulting survey who – through a series of research methodologies, across retail customer segments – stated that this relationship strongly affected their perception of an organization.

At the same time, just over half of the organizations we’ve worked with feel that they are performing extremely well in this regard. In short, the more accurately aligned the customer experience is with the brand promise (and their expectations of the brand that your promise implies) the greater the positive influence your brand will have on your customer relationships.

How well aligned are your brand and customer touchpoints?

Taking a look at your own company, how closely aligned do you think experience and brand are? If you deliver what you promise across all your touchpoints, then you’re part of a thriving minority. Congratulations! But maybe there’s some discontinuity. Or perhaps you don’t know. If that’s the case, there are questions to ask to help you find the answers.

• Does your brand accurately reflect the relationship your customers feel they have with you?
• Do your employees deliver your brand in the same way customers feel about it?
• Does management “buy into” your brand?
• Does your market perception and brand promise match the brand experience across all your touchpoints?
• What do your customers think of you vs. your competition?

For those organziations who get this connection, the threads that drive success are a combination of direction and obsession. Top-down direction from a leadership team that both understands and values the customer experience. And obsession on the part of everyone in an organization when it comes to delivering a consistent, branded customer experience.

From back-office operations and the call center to front-line, customer-facing staff, obsession with experience delivery and “expectation management” across touchpoints and interactions is a hallmark of customer experience leaders, across industries.

The Economy has slowed, but it has not (completely) stalled. Even as we plough through the unemployment statistics and wait for what most believe will be a long climb out of the “Great Recession,” as long as there are companies and people doing business, things will continue to be bought and sold. That’s why for many smart businesses, now is the time to grab this opportunity to increase customer loyalty, solidify market position, and get new customers.

The evidence is in, and supported by studies of every major slowdown since 1970: Marketing wins market share in recessionary times.

Studies conducted by organizations ranging from Business Week and Harvard Business Review to The Wall Street Journal support this contention, underlining the importance – and value – of marketing in an economic downturn.

In a study of U.S. recessions, McGraw-Hill Research analyzed 600 companies from 1980 to 1985 and concluded that at the end of 1985, “…firms that had maintained or increased their advertising during the 1981-1982 recession could boast an average sales growth of 275% over the preceding five years. Those who cut advertising realized a paltry increase of only 19%.”

Management Review asked AMA member firms about spending during the 1990-1991 recession. “Fortune follows the brave,” it announced, noting that the data showed that most firms that raised their marketing budgets enjoyed gains in market share.

And Harvard Business Review chimes in with this: “The rationale that a company can afford a cutback in advertising because everybody else is cutting back [is fallacious]. Rather than wait for business to return to normal, top executives should cash in on the opportunity that the rival companies are creating for them. The company courageous enough to stay in the fight when everyone else is playing safe can bring about a dramatic change in market position.”

The tipping point: where fear and opportunity collide

In spite of this overwhelming evidence, many companies are still tightening their belts, and the marketing budget is typically an early casualty. This is a mistake for two primary reasons. First, if you reduce spending on marketing, you will reduce the number of new customers. Direct marketing drives direct sales. And consistent brand presence is critical to keeping – and increasing – customer loyalty and prospect awareness. Second, (a direct result of the first reason) it is much easier to gain ground against competitors who have cut back on marketing. Why? It’s easier to drop below buyer radar as a result of decreased market presence.

This said, we recognize costs do need to be cut. So marketing smarter is more important than ever. From strategically leveraging social media tools to doing a better job of tracking brand, marketing and customer experience ROI, there are many ways to scale back dollars without dropping off the radar.

What’s the worst that can happen if you don’t step up your customer acquisition and recession activities?

You slowly leak customers and profits, and can’t keep the doors open long enough to participate in the recovery. It’s happened to plenty of companies already and there are many more to follow before we’re through. Or maybe you and your current competitor’s scale back your marketing, only to find a competitor you didn’t know existed come from behind to take over your market.

Today, the phrase “for every loser, there is a winner” has particular relevance. Your organization may be staying the course, cutting back or (let’s hope!) using this opportunity to aggressively dominate its market. No matter which direction you’re headed at the moment, it’s not too late to take steps to make sure you’re one of the winners. But don’t leave it too long…

C-Suite execs share concerns across sectors, size and geographies.

In our business, we talk to key executives literally every time we’re engaged to help address an issue. Usually in the areas of brand, touchpoint, loyalty and customer experience improvement, we hear many of the same questions and concerns from the “C” suite, across industries, company size and geography. This insights and concerns have also been surprisingly consistent for the past several years, indicating to us (on a qualitative basis) that they may be universal, and that many struggle to resolve them.

Why should brand and marketing performance be tracked “by the numbers?”

Though not all, a small majority of executives we speak with feel that – overall – their brand and marketing programs are at best only somewhat effective. We think this perception is driven by the lack of clear metrics to show what’s working, and what isn’t – and why. To improve both perceived and actual performance, marketers must be clear on their objectives, and relentlessly work to improve their programs and measure their success.

Where does marketing (and the voice of your customer) get to sit in your boardroom?

This is particularly prevalent in organizations where marketing might not have as “big” a seat at the board table as other groups. Though more and more executives are coming from marketing and sales backgrounds, the ability to quantify performance is key to assessing effectiveness.

If you’re part of a company that “gets it” then good for you. Keep it up. But if you’re not tracking the “soft stuff” by the numbers, there are some questions you can ask that may begin to get you there.

• Does your organization have an overall philosophy of encouraging and rewarding performance?
• How does marketing specifically support the CEO’s agenda, and deliver the results to support his or her strategic objectives?
• Whose “agenda” is marketing tasked with pursuing?
• Are there any informational barriers between the marketing department and the CFO’s suite?
• Has your organization begun thinking about the benefits of tracking brand and marketing performance, and being able to improve performance over time as a result?

We think that the challenge many marketers face is to become more strategic and accountable in nature, focusing more on financial and customer value metrics – without sacrificing the creativity inherent in successful brand and marketing initiatives that truly “connect” with and engage your audiences.

By now, many of us are familiar with State Farm Insurance’s commercial featuring emotional scenarios set to the Jackson 5’s “I’ll Be There.”

The message stands out against commercials that attempt to hammer viewers over the head with products and services or annoy with bouncy jingles. We’ve learned to tune those out, and just wish they would go away.

However, State Farm Insurance breaks through the noise with a simple, classic song, using a series of images featuring people just like us – “helping each other” – receiving care from the “real people” at State Farm.

On many levels, State Farm gets it right with this spot. Emotionally appealing, great soundtrack and a great job showing product benefits – where many financial services marketers hit the wall. From a branding perspective, they nail it. “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.”

1) Supporting retention, existing customers are reassured: “If something terrible happens, State Farm will ‘be there’ for me. I’m glad this is my insurance company.”

2) Boosting acquisition, potential customers may find the emotional plea of this commercial irresistible: “Real people, just like me, will take care of me and my family – State Farm is real people. I’m going to call them, or check them out on the web.”

3) And when it comes brand awareness and relevance, all viewers see that State Farm Insurance is for people of all ages, all colors, and provides support across a wide variety of situations: “I’m not planning to switch insurance companies, but if I did, I think this is a ‘human’ company and I would consider State Farm.”

Our only complaints? First, why do they wait to get to the sponsor ‘till the last frames? I don’t think folks are sitting in front of their HDs wondering to themselves who this is… “Let’s wait and see, honey – I wonder what these guys are selling? We might want to buy some…”

Second – and more troubling – is that on the website featured in the spot (the main State Farm site) the brand promise-slash-tagline so powerfully supported by this spot is conspicuous by its absence. No tie-in at all. Why walk away from such a powerfully differentiated position? State Farm could benefit from a little integrated marketing and cross-channel brand strategy help…

What do you think? Does this State Farm Insurance commercial stir your emotions? Or is it just another emotionally touching :90 spot that leaves most viewers wondering what’s being sold?

1. Be Dominant: Many studies show that companies which slow marketing spending lose out now, as well as after a recovery. You want your customers to know that they’ve picked a winner, and your prospects to know you’ll survive – and thrive – in tough times as well as good.

2. Audit Your Brand your company or product brand accurately reflect who you are… and who you want to be? Is what you say you stand for believable – and important to your target audience? Make sure the brand you go forward with is the right one, and put systems in place to maintain its value. A consistent experience, a single “voice” and the way you communicate your brand in other ways is critical. If you are like most companies, your brand is the most valuable intangible asset your company owns. Improve it, and protect it.

3. Reevaluate Your Product and Service Mix: Are there ways you can repackage existing products or services in ways that can provide more value? Or, develop a product or service line that can accommodate smaller clients or customers with reduced budgets? Ask your customers – they’ll be happy to help.

4. Embrace Your Database: Your current database probably houses former customers and prospects, as well as current customers and suppliers. Now’s the time to go after them. Reactivate dormant accounts and leads with new products, promotions and services. Also, contact current customers for referrals. Give them ideas they can use to help their business in the current economy, and they’ll be happy to pass you on to others who could benefit from your knowledge.

5. Measure your Return on Marketing Investment: The problem with many marketing efforts is the inability of management to ascertain what really works, and why. That’s why smart marketers always measure outcomes so they know exactly where to invest for the greatest return. The more you test and measure, the more relevant data you’ll get. And the more data you get – and analyze – the smarter your marketing will get.

6. Cost Controls: Controlling cost does not mean cutting cost. It means being smarter with the budget you do have, and wringing greater value from every dollar you invest in your marketing program. Closely related to Marketing ROI, controlling costs allows you to invest your money where it drives the greatest revenue.

7. Launch a Targeted, Integrated New-Business Campaign: Now is a great time to launch a customer acquisition campaign. Set specific goals, tighten-up cost controls, and strive to sell product and build brand. Target your best customer segments through an integrated campaign across different media (including social and other online tactics) leveraging results-driven direct-marketing and customer engagement strategies.

8. Reevaluate Your Marketing Service Relationships: Are you totally satisfied with your marketing or PR agencies? What about strategic marketing counsel? Do you have a Social Media agency, or an expert on-staff? There are lots of smart practitioners out there, and many may be able to give you greater insight, higher levels of service, and greater value for your investment.

9. Enhance the Customer Experience: Do you provide “bullet proof” customer service? The cost of getting new customers is much higher than getting more business from existing customers. Each customer you lose is taking money out of your pocket over time. By improving customer experience – with a focus you’ll boost awareness, acquisition, loyalty and retention.

10. Increase Customer Insights: The more you know about your customers, the more accurately you can target brand and marketing messages to address their specific needs. To do this, marketing executives need to get down in the trenches. What do your prospects and customers want or need, and why? From voice-of-the-customer research to tracking your brand’s online reputation, it’s easier to gather real-time data – and act on it – than ever before.