Marketing thought leader BJ Bueno and CEO Dave Ratner reveal the advertising and marketing secrets for independent retailers at this year’s NRF Big Show Convention & Expo.

New York City, NY (PRWEB) January 09, 2014

Where do independent retailers go to get inspiration and knowledge for growing their retail businesses? Thousands of independent retailers will be attending the 2014 National Retail Federation Conference and Expo at Jacob Javits Center in New York City from January 12th to the 15th.

Marketing speaker, author, and founder of The Cult Branding Company, BJ Bueno, will share the stage with President and CEO of Dave’s Soda & Pet City, Dave Ratner, to illuminate the strategies and methods independent retailers can use to improve sales, customer loyalty, and profitability in their dynamic breakout session, “How to Advertise and Market Your Retail Business.”

As a loyalty expert and marketing consultant to major retail brands like Kohl’s Department Stores and Scheels, Bueno will share how focusing on your customer’s wants and needs is the secret behind explosive market growth. “Independent retailers can compete with large big box retailers if they invest in better understanding their target customers and finding creative ways to better meet their needs,” Bueno says.

A seasoned entrepreneur with almost four decades of retail experience, Ratner will share how independent retailers can use simple and cost effective methods to achieve consistent sales growth.

In this practical session, Bueno and Ratner will share the ten most effective ways to spend advertising dollars and how to create an amazing in-store retail experience that keep customers coming back.

In their keynote address, BJ Bueno and Bert Jacobs share insights on how CEOs can use core values to grow their retail businesses.

New York City, NY (PRWEB) January 08, 2014

Where do the nation’s top CEOs of major retail businesses go to share their experiences and gain new marketing insights? The National Retail Federation (NRF) is hosting their annual convention, “Retail’s Big Show,” at Jacob Javits Center in New York City from January 12th to 15th.

Marketing thought leader, author, and founder of The Cult Branding Company, BJ Bueno, hosts an exciting keynote address, joined to the stage by CEO and cofounder of the successful lifestyle brand Life is good, Bert Jacobs.

Today’s retailers must work hard to understand the subconscious motivations and needs of their customers. In their engaging talk, “Optimism, Compassion, and Joy: How Selling the Right Mindset Can Grow Your Brand,” Bueno and Jacobs will illuminate how knowledge of a brand’s company culture and core values can provide an effective approach to attracting more customers.

“Companies that consciously identify their organization’s core values,” explains loyalty expert BJ Bueno, “have an easier time projecting those values into their marketing strategies as well as the overall retail experience. This strategic focus helps clarify branding initiatives and to attract more loyal customers who are in alignment with what the organization stands for.”

Attendees will learn how to bring a thriving positive energy to their brand experience from one of today’s most optimistic brands, Life is good. Bert Jacobs will share his experiences and insights on building a multinational retail brand from the ground up with a simple affirming message.

What is a Brand?

Brands are funny things. You can’t just go to the store and pick up a pound of brand. There’s no brand app to download. You can’t go to the Brand Store and buy brands to make your organization more appealing to your customers.

Brands have to be created, and you might be surprised to find out that you’re not the one doing the creating, at least, not the only one.

A brand is a relationship, formed and shaped by all the emotions and ideas that the customer associates with a product or service that create a distinct customer experience. The stronger and more unique the customer experience is, the more robust the brand becomes.

A brand is a co-authored experience—a mutual relationship that lives between the customer and the brand.

The company sets the intention of the brand, and customers interpret their own meanings based on their experiences.

The ultimate definition of your brand is determined and owned by your customers when they evaluate their experiences with you.

How Customers Perceive Your Brand

Your customers’ perceptions of your brand are far more multi-dimensional than you ever imagined.

Everything is in there, including all things real or perceived, rational or emotional, physical or sensory, thought or felt, whether in form or function, planned or unplanned.

You could say a brand is all the good advertising you run, all the bad advertising you regret, your best and worst customer service stories—virtually everything that your enterprise does and the public’s perception of those actions.

This includes the good, the bad, and the ugly. Collectively, this conglomerate determines the customer experience and, therefore, the marketplace’s perception of your brand.

You do not control your brand. You can control what your brand does, but how your brand is perceived is entirely up to your customers.

Your brand’s messaging and actions define the parameters of your customers’ experiences, but your customers come to you with their own frameworks of education, experience, and emotion which influence how they interpret your brand and feel about your organization. The combination of your actions and your customers’ perceptions is your brand.

What is a Cult Brand?

Cult Brands have mastered the art of building meaningful, long-term relationships with their customers. Cult Brands exist in every industry.

Successful brands need to be consistent. Cult Brands need to be consistently amazing.

Cult Brands understand that their brands belong to the customers, and only the customer’s voice counts.

Rather than engaging in a meaningless attempt to dictate to the customer what they should want, a successful Cult Brand embraces its customers by anticipating their basic human and spiritual needs. As a consequence, Cult Brands achieve a level of customer loyalty unprecedented in traditional business.

Cult Brands—companies with unusually high levels of brand loyalty—have learned to serve a special group of customers. Harley riders, Mac users, Parrot Heads, Trekkies, MINI drivers, and the like represent a core group of people at the heart of each brand. We call this special breed of customers Brand Lovers.

Embracing Your Brand Lovers

Brand Lovers aren’t born. They’re made. Cult Brands are deliberately, continually engaged in building strong, meaningful relationships with their best customers. While brands that have the Merchant Mindset chase the next sale, Cult Brands chase the next conversation.

Cult Brands look for ways that they can play an integral role in their best customers’ lives. They embrace their customers like members of a loving family, providing a safe community for them to be who they really are. These brands are bold and courageous—often disliked by many, but loved by a precious few.

A Precious Few Is More Than Enough

A small legion of Brand Lovers will do more for the growth and sustainability of your business than all the transactional customers in the world. Not convinced? We’ve found that Pareto’s Law (the 80/20 Principle) generally holds true. As little as 20 percent of your customers can drive roughly 80 percent of profitability.

For many businesses, it costs five times more to acquire a new customer than keep an old one. Most importantly, the customers who love you the most—your Brand Lovers—spread the word and create new customers for you (just ask anyone who owns a Mac or an iPad).

Before you can embrace your Brand Lovers, you need to know who they are. Are all of your customers contributing equally to your profits? It’s unlikely. There are certain customers who choose you more often and purchase from you over a longer period of time (customer retention). These precious few are the lifeblood of your business.

Do you know who your best customers are? Without this knowledge, you can take yourself out of business or your competitors will do it for you. With this knowledge, you’ll be able to start cultivating brand loyalty and transforming your company into a Cult Brand with all the power and profitability that comes with that position.

Develop a Brand Lover Strategy For Your Business

As we’ve seen, there are many different types of marketing strategies. Naturally, different marketing strategies are appropriate for different businesses at different times and in different marketing conditions.

In our firm, we mainly focus on brand loyalty strategies because we have found (with the help of our clients) that this strategic focus works well in up and down markets. By focusing on your best customers, you continuously learn about your business is especially for and find ways to better serve these special customers.

These Brand Lover Strategies, as we call them, helps you differentiate your brand and make your competition irrelevant while guiding your business towards greater profitability. Put simply, it works.

Marketing is the practice of allocating resources to gain awareness and consideration from future customers for purchase of a product or service. Marketing is about creating customers.

A brand is a relationship, formed and shaped by all the emotions and ideas that the customer associates with a product or service that create a distinct customer experience.

A brand is a co-authored experience—a mutual relationship that lives between the customer and the brand. Branding is the process of cultivating relationships with your customers on tangible (logos) and intangible (emotions) levels.

Brand loyalty occurs when your branding efforts are effective.  Your customers develop an emotional bond with your brand. They become loyal to your products and services. (Degrees of loyalty vary, of course. See “Brand Loyalty Continuum” section here.)

Why Building Brand Loyalty Is Important

When you help develop a strong bond between your brand and your customer, magic occurs. You can naturally increase customer retention. Frequency of purchase often goes up. You command a greater share of wallet from your customers as you become more meaningful to them and more worthy of a business relationship.

If you’re successful at building brand loyalty, your customers will help you grow your business themselves, helping you harness the power of word of mouth.

Do you need another reason? It can actually makes your business practices more fun and engaging as you’ll be building relationships with real human beings. It can make you feel more human too!

Attend Our New Marketing Seminar on Brand Loyalty

Building brand loyalty rarely happens by accident. Cult Brands are skilled at creating customer evangelists, but you don’t have to be a Cult Brand to reap the benefits of brand loyalty. You can model the marketing and branding strategies of Cult Brands by understanding the psychology of your customers: what drivers the behavior behind customer loyalty.

We’ll be exploring this topic in greater detail at our next Winter Marketing Seminar on December 6th at the Ritz-Carlton Orlando. This intimate seminar, “How to Build Brand Loyalty: The Art of Getting Your Customers to Love You,” will explore ways your brand can develop stronger emotional connections with your customers.

You’ll meet other like-minded marketers and exchange ideas to help you grow your businesses in this fast-changing marketplace.

Former Chief Marketing Officer of PetSmart, Ken Banks, will also be sharing how your company can develop a more resonant brand and reach more customers by understanding the four “Buying Styles” your customers have.

Not All Cults Are Created Equal

For some people, the word “Cult” is enough to make the hair on the back of their neck stand up. Thoughts of Jim Jones and David Koresh spring easily to mind. These renowned cult leaders certainly had their followers, but they didn’t lead them anywhere good.

It’s important to understand that there are both benign and destructive cults: benign cults don’t harm their followers; destructive cults do. The fanatical devotion exhibited by Apple aficionados and Harley owners exhibit behavior that is certainly cult-like, but no one is harmed as a result of their affections.

Benign cults build their members up; destructive cults tear their members down.

We turn to Rick Ross , one of the nation’s leading experts on cults, for a more in-depth explanation. For over twenty years, Rick Ross has studied cult groups and has helped rescue family members trapped inside cult compounds.

Destructive Cults

Ross describes destructive cults as “groups with an absolute authoritarian figure at the top of a pyramid scheme of authority where there is virtually no accountability for that leader.” This is where you see the Jim Jones type of dynamic at play: the leader is a super-star who has absolute control.

Cult Brands are different because it’s not at all necessary for people to know who’s in charge for them to form a relationship with the brand. Lots of people know Steve Jobs was at the core of Apple’s success, but the average customer doesn’t know who is at the helm of IKEA, Whole Foods, or even Harley-Davidson.

Destructive cults hurt, harm, manipulate, and often brainwash their members. The leader of a destructive cult really doesn’t care about the well being of its members. In fact, such leaders openly exploit and abuse their members, usually for their own personal benefit.

Benign Cults

Benign cults have one trait in common with their negative counterparts: the intensity with which the cult members are attached to the object of their affection. Ross describes a benign cult as “any group of people that are intensely devoted to a person, place, or thing,” but where the relationship between the follower and the cult is harmless, benign, or even positive.

Benign cults are never destructive. They don’t harm or injure their followers either physically or mentally. Benign cults have leaders who are accountable to the group, and the leaders value the feedback of their followers.

Benign cults are inclusive. They welcome anyone who wants to belong. There’s no price of admission—you don’t need to live in Key West to be a Parrothead: simply being enthusiastic about the brand is enough. This is an important point of differentiation from destructive cults, which are exclusive, shutting out anyone who doesn’t fit a specific set of criteria.

The important thing about benign cults is that they help fill the emotional wants and needs of their followers in a positive way. There are clear, easily identifiable, objectively observable benefits that are derived from membership in a benign cult.

Why People Join Brand Cults

Watch this presentation to get a better understanding of why loyal customers often gather together:

An exclusive focus on the short-term bottom line is the hallmark of brands that will never be great. We call this the merchant mindset.

As long as your operation is too tightly focused on generating the next transaction, from the perspective of building brand loyalty, you’re headed in the wrong direction.

Let Go of the Merchant Mindset if You Want to be a Cult Brand

It’s good to be a Cult Brand, very good, indeed. But we’re not going to kid you: Transforming your organization means making some fundamental changes, starting with the way you think about your company and your customers.

Just as there are certain traits, qualities, and practices that unite Cult Brands, there are pervasive unifying tendencies that define companies that aren’t nearly as successful.

The big one—the stumbling block that sits directly in the middle of the path to greatness—is known as the Merchant Mindset.

(Star Trek fans, we can make this easy for you. Everything we’re about to say in this next section can be summed up with a Star Trek reference. The Merchant Mindset = The Ferengi.)

Winning the Battle, But Losing the Brand Loyalty War

There are people who will tell you that brand loyalty is a myth, a lie, a sheer figment of the capitalist imagination. These people (we hesitate to call them experts, because that implies a certain level of value in what they have to say) will tell you to do whatever it takes to squeeze one more sale out of your customer.

If that means cutting prices, cut prices. If lower prices necessitate lower quality, so be it. Customer service and support are expensive endeavors—operate both at bare-bones levels so you can be as profitable as possible. Nothing is off the table when you’re battling for the next sale.

This is all really, really bad advice. Sun Tzu said it best: “If a battle cannot be won, do not fight it.”

If you’re battling for the next transaction, you may win the day, but in the long term, you will lose everything. Customers who will choose you based on price will leave you for the same reason.

Kmart is standing on that battlefield right now. The retailer is notoriously famous for their cost-cutting strategies. Historically, they invest less in the shopping experience than any of their competitors, and it shows in their stores.

Kmart (and Sears, their parent company) are ranked #7 on 24/7 Wall St’s “Worst Companies To Work For” in 2013 list in part due to their low compensation and miniscule raises.

This cost cutting has resulted in prices that are comparable with Walmart. Yet, in market after market, customers have demonstrated that they’re willing to drive past Kmart to shop at Walmart, even if that decision added as much as 20 miles to their trip!

Kmart has the Merchant Mindset. Walmart doesn’t.

Businesses with passion and heart build relationships with their customers. There are decision-making factors that far exceed price, selection, and location.

A company like Walmart has been masterful at connecting with customers and offering them an intangible benefit they can’t get anywhere else.

Walmart made the customer its boss: this was founder Sam Walton’s personal philosophy and it’s been a fundamental principle guiding the company as it’s grown. Today, Walmart is the world’s leading retailer.

Kmart, on the other hand, isn’t. The brand’s market share has dropped off precipitously, going down faster than a Winnebago over the side of the Grand Canyon.

The Cult Brand Alternative

A pivotal moment happens in the life of a company when its leadership realizes that the Merchant Mindset is no longer serving the best interests of the brand and the long-term value of the business.

It takes courage, vision, and dedication in order to successfully change how your business operates. History has proven that it’s a worthwhile investment.

Cult Brands have mastered the art of building meaningful, long-term relationships with their customers. Cult Brands exist in every industry. The list of Cult Brands includes companies that have absolutely nothing to do with computers or smartphones:

• Harley-Davidson is a Cult Brand. They make motorcycles.
• IKEA is a Cult Brand. They make furniture.
• John Deere is a Cult Brand. They make lawn mowers.
• Many more examples can be found here.

Did you notice: In each of these examples, we explained to you what the Cult Brands do. In every instance, the explanation was very likely totally unnecessary. You don’t need us to tell you what these Cult Brands do. They are generally so well known that both their branding and offerings have become part of our cultural knowledge.

Simply saying these Cult Brand names tends to evoke an understanding of the visuals and values associated with the brand. This is an understanding that transcends all of the barriers humanity uses to categorize itself into groups: socio-economic, cultural, even language.

Cult Brands aren’t born: they’re made. They all started life in relative obscurity. Steve Jobs planted the seed that eventually became Apple by selling computers he hadn’t built yet in order to raise the money to pay for the parts he needed to build the computers.

The first year that Harley-Davidson was in business, they sold three motorcycles.

Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA, went into business with a handful of matches he’d bought cheaply in Stockholm.

John Deere started with a single steel plow in Illinois.

Lots of companies have humble beginnings, yet few make the journey to greatness.

The Benefits of Being A Cult Brand

Being a Cult Brand gives businesses significant competitive advantages:

• Cult Brands are perceived as being the high-value option within their industry; generally, they are the standard that their competitors are judged against.

• Cult Brands tend to command premium prices, which has an obvious positive impact on profitability.

• Cult Brands attract new customers at a higher rate than their competitors, and they keep those customers for a longer period of time.

• Customers tend to do more business, more frequently, with Cult Brands, and they enthusiastically recommend the brand to their family and friends.

• Cult Brands are the brands customers buy “automatically”: in many cases, they are not only the default option, they are the only option in the minds of their customers. Cult Brands command such fanatical loyalty that when, for whatever reason, they are not available, a customer might wait rather than switch to another brand.

Cult Brands Have Staying Power

Do you remember Beanie Babies? What about Mortal Kombat or TickleMe Elmo? Do Furbies ring any bells? What about America Online?

There’s a difference between fads and Cult Brands. People often get the two confused, but they’re really two very distinct phenomena.

Fads are short-lived bursts of extreme consumer enthusiasm, generally for a specific product or product line. Fads are typically youth-oriented, appealing mainly to teenagers and young adults. Fads have short lifespans, ranging from a few weeks to a handful of years.

Cult Brands enjoy sustained extreme consumer enthusiasm. This enthusiasm is not tied to a specific product or product line, but instead tends to extend to the entire organization, including their iconography and messaging.

Brand Lovers of Cult Brands can be any age. The appeal of Cult Brands endures. Many Cult Brands have been in existence for more than 40 years.

Cult Brands Are Not Infallible, But They Know How To Recover

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about what Cult Brands are, but it’s very important to understand what Cult Brands are not. Cult Brands are not perfect. To err is human, and business is fundamentally a human enterprise.

Every brand we talk about on this blog, and look to as an example of how to do things right, has also done things wrong—in some cases, really, really wrong.

Harley-Davidson is a great example. If you’re not a biker, you might think that Harley has always been a major player in the heavyweight motorcycle industry, and that they’ve always had the sterling (or perhaps chrome!) reputation that they enjoy today. But nothing could be further from the truth.

The sixties were a tumultuous time for America, and they were a terrible time for Harley-Davidson. There was a veritable flood of Japanese motorcycles entering the marketplace, featuring low prices and superior quality. At the exact same time, Harley motors, as a result of a cost-cutting sourcing decision, were becoming notorious for their poor performance and unreliability.

This was not a sustainable situation. Harley-Davidson was headed for that Great Big Junkyard in the Sky, but luckily for bikers everywhere, the brand had a strong core of Brand Lovers who were willing to step up and try to save the company they loved.

CEO Vaughn Beals, joined by a dozen of his colleagues, went all in to save Harley-Davidson. Their $81.5-million leveraged buyout was a bold move, and a big gamble. Would they be able to make the changes the brand had to make in order to recover the customer enthusiasm that had been lost?

You know the answer to this question. Today, Harley-Davidson is a dominant player in the heavyweight motorcycle industry. They control more than half of the domestic marketplace, and a third of the global. The company’s current valuation is $12.4 billion. Not a bad return on $81.5 million.

The Seven Golden Rules of Cult Brands

How did Harley-Davidson’s leadership team create this turnaround? They followed the Seven Rules of Cult Brands. We’ll be illuminating those Seven Rules in the weeks ahead. So stay tuned.

Many independent retailers worry about big competitors who have significantly larger marketing budgets. Unfortunately, these fears are well-founded. Studies show people purchase a higher percentage of their merchandise from big box retailers. Despite the emergence of these mega businesses, however, many small retailers continue to thrive in this competitive marketplace. The key to survival, we have found, is knowing your best customers better than any other retailer in your market.

Here are three retail marketing strategies to help David compete against Goliath:

1) Show your best customers the love

As a small store owner, you can concentrate on small details that big box retailers cannot. Superb customer service is the biggest intangible asset for independent retailers. People like to shop where they feel comfortable and where they feel the owner truly cares about their wants and needs. It is the least expensive change to make in order to take on the larger chain stores.

Dave’s Soda & Pet City is an independent pet supply retailer with seven locations. While its not easy to compete with the big boys like Petsmart and Petco, Dave has always found time to show love to his best customers. People value when others share stories with them or listen to their stories; and this is why Dave created his community involvement programs where Dave’s Soda & Pet City joins the local community in activities where stories abound and real relationships are formed.

2) Follow your own unique product and service path

Offer your customers products and services that your competition does not. You’re going to need a strategy to overcome the lower prices and wider selection that large retailers provide. Get creative.

Dave’s Soda & Pet City accomplishes this by partnering up with brands who only sell to independent retailers. This gives the store unique products that his big competitors don’t carry. In addition to this strategy, Dave started his own brand of products that are now available nationally for other independents shops to carry. Combining this innovative retail marketing strategy with a personal touch (Dave has a company of very nice people) creates a strong relationship between his brand and his customers.

3) Train your associates to better serve your customers

Hire employees that you plan on treating fairly and you like working with. If you want your associates to take care of your customers start by taking care of them.  Give your team motivation and pay attention to their needs. Help your staff become proficient in their respective departments and make sure they are readily available to meet your customers’ needs. If your employees can provide this, your customers will have an extra incentive to continue doing business with you.

Consumers often make mistakes with their pets and are very upset to learn that they could have harmed their little loved ones. This requires Dave to always hire associates who will be kind to his customers and teach them the right way — to ensure that they will take care of his customer’s beloved pets. When you’re in a business that is emotional as buying goods for your best friend, it’s important to have associates who care deeply for the store and for the customer’s needs.

The Untold Story of David and Goliath

As an aside on the theme of David and Goliath, author Malcolm Gladwell shares his insights into the classic tale of the underdog: