Picture a brand, very simply, as an ongoing conversation with a consumer, business decision maker or any audience you target.  From your brand’s first introduction, through ongoing discussions, encounters and experiences, you build a relationship with each person.  That relationship is fragile and can be breached at any point.  It takes focus, investment and consistent messaging to ‘brand’ – defined as winning the minds and, most importantly, the hearts, of your users.

Everything in the advertising/marketing industry has changed dramatically, yet, I believe, has stayed completely the same.  Recent research shows that consumers and businesses have shifted spending to brands that create, maintain and strengthen their relationships while delivering both value and values.  This reflects the principles of a classic marketing approach – listen to your target and speak with them, not at them.

The internet has created (even forced) a new, transparent, immediate, measureable and wide-reaching, yet specific means of relating.  This approach is a far cry from early messaging, during the onset of the ad industry, when brands talked at, not with, their audience.

What has not changed is that in each medium – traditional PR, advertising, events, social media, digital messaging and on every brand’s web site, what you are saying must be based on the customer’s needs.  They want to be friends with the brands that are high quality, great value, connected to their lives and to their communities.  This means using internet presence management to listen to customers and to strategize your brand’s conversation based on the ‘voice of the cusomer.’  A myriad of online products and services to measure what your customers are saying exists now and needs to be a mandatory part of a brand’s marketing mix.

Go to www.domusinc.com to learn more about how Domus’ branding products and services offering can help you hear your customers better or contact her directly at 215-772-2805 and betty.tuppeny@domusinc.com to qualify for a brand assessment analysis utilizing the proven Domus Voice of Customer Tracker (DVCT®)

Betty Tuppeny is the CEO and Founder of Domus, Inc., a marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia.