Online branding.

1. Digital
strategy
● Brand proposition & story.
● Attention strategies & KPIs.
● Content plan & calendar.
Channel
development
● Processes.
● Channels.
● Tools & martech.
Content
operations
● Creation.
● Curation.
● Coaching & training.
jos.schuurmans@cluetail.com
cluetail.com
linkedin.com/in/josschuurmans

2. People buy from brands they
know, like and trust.

3. Building a successful brand
1.
Identify your
business opportunity.
2.
Create your
brand personality.
3.
Set up shop.
4.
Become
known,
liked
and trusted.

4. Your websites
www.mieladesignroom.fi
rh-studio.fi
lauritzon.fi
viiti.fi
www.moda.fi
www.modapukimo.fi
housukauppa.fi
www.muotimoda.fi
www.sasta-outlet.com
Sounds like
something
one might
google…

5. housukauppa.fi
Straightforward buying process.
Found a pair of corduroys.
Easy to pick a colour and size.
The price is clear.
No reason to dislike this brand.
No reason to distrust this brand.
And yet: Why would I buy from this shop that I
don’t know at all?
After all, trousers are a commodity, right?
Solution:
● Become known
● Become liked
● Become trusted
● (= Become more than a commodity)
How? Brand personality, e.g:
● Unique Selling Points
● Premium products
● Or: lowest price
● Superior customer service
● Being super helpful to your audience
● Culture and values that customers aspire to

6. Building a successful brand
1.
Identify your
business opportunity.
2.
Create your
brand personality.
3.
Set up shop.
4.
Become
known,
liked
and trusted.

7. Building a successful brand
1.
Identify your
business opportunity.
2.
Create your
brand personality.
3.
Set up shop.
4.
Become
known,
liked
and trusted.
Lay the foundation of your brand… Run with it!

8. The love-skills-money Venn
https://cluetail.com/en/love-underrated/
● Love (= internal)
● Capability (= internal; can be sourced)
● Demand (= external)
Demand is informed by what the world - or a
particular audience - needs or wants and is
willing to pay for.
What megatrend does your proposition play
into? What wave do you ride on?
The result of this exercise can be a vision and
mission statement.

9. www.mieladesignroom.fi
rh-studio.fi
lauritzon.fi
viiti.fi
www.moda.fi
www.modapukimo.fi
housukauppa.fi
www.muotimoda.fi
www.sasta-outlet.com
Vision and mission?

10. Vision and mission?
Perhaps:
“Everybody needs trousers, now and in the
foreseeable future. While trousers are a
commodity and every fashion outlet sells
them, nobody is as highly specialised in
trousers as we are. We have the best
knowledge about trousers. We have the best
customer understanding. We have the best
overview of trousers’ wholesale market,
which is why we can guarantee the best
price-quality ratio for all types of trousers in
the market.”
housukauppa.fi

11. Vision and mission?
rh-studio.fi
Perhaps:
“Traditional male and female stereotypes
are obsolete. Women no longer want to
dress according to outdated role models.
Instead, they want to dress to feel
comfortable with themselves and in the
company of other women. In this new world,
we provide such comfort through our
fashion products, our customer experience,
and by sharing experiences of women being
comfortable among each other.”

12. Brand personality
Branding used to be about ownership. Cattle was “branded” to identify who owned it.
Nowadays, a brand is an expression of the personality of the customer-facing business. The
brand is the perceived personality of the organisation and its people.
The more the brand’s personality is aligned with the real, actual personality of the
organisation, ie. the company culture, the less friction there will be in managing it.
It is hard to pretend on the outside to be something you are not on the inside.

13. Vision and mission
Defining a vision and mission is an internal exercise.
It clarifies your opportunity, who you aim to serve, and
what unique proposition you offer to that audience.

14. Brand assets
Your brand will have certain assets, such as a domain
name, a name, a logo, colours, typography, and
guidelines for all its visual expressions. Think about
image guidelines, the use of whitespace, and the
tone-of-voice of your textual and audiovisual content.
All of that needs to be described, otherwise it cannot
be implemented consistently.

15. Audience research
The brand experience design, the service design, and
the user experience need to be aligned across all the
brand’s assets and expressions, AND informed by the
prototypical customer, ie. the buyer persona.
This is why it is very important to start doing systematic
and continued audience research early on.

16. Brand Positioning Formula (internal)
Exercise:
… (Your brand) … is the only …
(your product category) … that
helps … (your target audience) …
to … (what your brand is used for)
… so that … (why your target
audience uses your brand) …
Example:
Facebook … is the only … social
network … that helps … everyone
… to … connect and share with the
people they choose … so that …
they can give and get instant
attention.
Courtesy of Michiel Maandag and Liisa Puolakka:
‘The only brand book you will ever need’

17. Exceed expectations
Conventional marketing wisdom dictates that prospects need, on average, at least 7
touch points with a brand before they are ready to enter a transaction.
The challenge with competing at internet speed is that you can only keep converting
customers at every touch point when you keep exceeding their expectations.
It is at the heart of what Seth Godin has called permission marketing. With every
interaction you have to gain permission to keep the conversation going.
And you can’t set the bar too low, because then people will not move into your funnel
in the first place.

18. It is not simply the best proposition
that wins in the marketplace, but rather
the one that is communicated best.
Added complication:

19. Our brains preserve energy for survival. Humans are hard-wired that way.
[I]f we position our products and services as anything but an aid in helping people survive, thrive, be
accepted, find love, achieve an aspirational identity, or bond with a tribe that will defend them physically
and socially, good luck selling anything to anybody.
[T]he human brain (...) is drawn toward clarity and away from confusion.
When having to process too much seemingly random information, people begin to ignore the source of that
useless information in an effort to conserve calories.
Story helps because it is a sense-making mechanism. Essentially, story formulas put everything in order so
the brain doesn’t have to work to understand what’s going on.
Storytelling is the key to being seen, heard, and understood.
Every brand needs a story
- Donald Miller, ‘StoryBrand’

20. Smart brands define an aspirational identity for their customers and make that aspirational identity a central
theme in their brand story.
The aspirational identity of a Gerber Knife customer is that they are tough, adventurous, fearless, action oriented,
and competent to do a hard job. Epitomized in their advertizing campaign “Hello Trouble”.
The best way to identify an aspirational identity that our customer may be attracted to is to consider how they want
their friends to talk about them.
Define an aspirational identity
- Donald Miller, ‘StoryBrand’

21. The Cluetrain Manifesto, 1999.
“Markets are conversations.”

22. Building a successful brand
1.
Identify your
business opportunity.
2.
Create your
brand personality.
3.
Set up shop.
4.
Become
known,
liked
and trusted.
Lay the foundation of your brand… Run with it!

23. As part of your brand strategy,
in order to run with your brand
and become known, liked and trusted,
the only way to grow your audience
and initiate conversations
with your customers, prospects and stakeholders
at scale
is through content;
content that is helpful, useful, relevant, engaging, and which
reinforces your customer’s aspirational identity.
Conversations at scale

24. …which is why Seth Godin has said:
“Content marketing
is the only marketing left.”

25. ← Know
← Like
← Trust
“Without content…”
Rand Fishkin, https://youtu.be/tNwf3ETUph4?t=225:
“Without content there is no SEO, no social media
marketing, no community, no CRO. No funnel. None of that.
Because you can’t get people in the first place.
You are *not* converting customers directly.
You are *not* acquiring leads directly.
You are *not* making sales directly. At least not necessarily.
The reason content marketing exists is so that we can build
familiarity with the people in our audience, so that we can
build likability, and so that we can build trust.”

26. Jutellaanko?
I can help you with everything I’ve touched upon here.
(See also: cluetail.com)
I’d like to invite you to connect with me and have a talk
about your brand story, brand message and content plan.

27. Digital
strategy
● Brand proposition & story.
● Attention strategies & KPIs.
● Content plan & calendar.
Channel
development
● Processes.
● Channels.
● Tools & martech.
Content
operations
● Creation.
● Curation.
● Coaching & training.
jos.schuurmans@cluetail.com
cluetail.com
linkedin.com/in/josschuurmans
Kiitos!