In social media marketing, brands have to get personal. Doing this will create strong marks. Reverse branding is when a customer creates a brand with their own brand. This is critical to building strong brands. One of the fundamental rules of social marketing is that customers and the brand must create relationships with each other.
An important marketing statistic is that 97% of all brand purchases are made on the recommendation of a friend. Only 10% of all purchases are made thanks to traditional and ancient means. Building friendships and having “friends” to recommend our products is simply fundamental to social media marketing. Much of a marketer’s time is now spent building brands that create “friendships” with customers.
In my research, I found an interesting development. This development is what I call reverse branding. This is when a customer builds a relationship with your brand. Then the brand has a personal relationship with the customer that intensifies the brand’s presence.
There is a college fundraising case. They had some success in raising funds for scholarships for this university. The manager of this fundraising group had an idea. He created a five-minute meeting with students who had been awarded scholarships thanks to the efforts of this group. These were students who would never have been able to afford college without the efforts of this fundraising group.
These were kids who had “compelling” content. These were children who came from the middle class. They had working parents who could never have been able to send their children to college without the efforts of this group. These conversations were a game changer for this fundraising group. The talks made his work, his brand, personal. These students created a brand with their fundraising events. They had names, they had faces, and now they existed, compared to other college students.
The talks created differentiation, positioning and a strong brand. The conversations created a reverse brand. The students created a differentiated and positioned brand with their brand. End users created a brand with the brand. In this particular fundraising group, after the chat with the students, the weekly fundraising productivity increased by 400%. The reason for this is that the students were now a brand, etched in the minds of the fundraisers. This brand now got personal.
Three things create a reverse brand. Customers create IMPACT with your brand. Employees see for themselves how their work benefits others.
Reverse branding creates APPRECIATION. Employees come to feel valued by end users. Although employees know intellectually that their contributions make a difference, end-user gratitude is a powerful reminder of the value of innovation and continuous quality improvements.
The reverse brand creates EMPATHY. Employees develop a deeper understanding of end-user problems and needs, and thus become more engaged in helping them. Researchers found that when product development teams had contact with customers, they were more likely to create offerings that beat sales and market share projections.
Dean hambleton