Three Ways to Make Sure Your Brand Survives

Posted on August 20, 2012 by Nicolette Lemmon

Consider these names: JC Penney, NY Times, Groupon, Sprint Nextel, Zynga, Dell, Advanced Micro Devices, and Bank of America. These large corporations include long-standing names as well as newer corporations that each had what seemed a meteoric rise. The author of this article on 24/7 Wall Street discusses the competitive edges that built initial successes of each company have been eroded or compromised by new competitors, a lack of differentiation, and failure to act in light of technology or other changes: Nine Great American Companies Which Will Never Recover.

Each one of these has been hit by game changing competitors or technologies. If your business is railing from the changes within the economy, market or a new technology, here are three things to do to help your business survive:

Don’t listen to older consultants who espouse how long they have been in the business. If the person is proud of being in an industry for over 30 or 40 years and uses a pencil and notepad as their proud use of technology, RUN! While I have been in business for 28 years, I stay on top of technology, read voraciously and have a teenage daughter to hear the Gen Y point of view. All of these things are necessities to avoid hearing older strategies that cannot just be overlaid on top of this business climate today.

Start listening and engaging young adults to find new ways to insert your brand in their lives. From testing things on your own children to asking coworkers with kids to show them ideas, to asking a local high school teacher to test something with their students, find young people to give you fresh perspectives. Not necessarily your market? Well, consider your own phone habits? If you’re over 40, chances are you are now texting because your kids or grandkids text. Have you watched a two-year old with a Smartphone or tablet?

Find a way to visually show the value of your brand. YouTube is the most successful version of video sharing because people like to see and hear other people’s ideas and information. For one client, we just created four short webinars written by the member education specialist. I added employees to introduce them and kept them short. It is a way to engage their members while keeping it short and interesting.
http://www.patriotfcu.org/financialfitness/