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Brand Mentions + SEO

Brand Laddering / Positioning

“Tim Cook led the iPhone 12 event with privacy.

If you walked around the Apple HQ and asked what should Apple lead with in their marketing, I don’t think anyone would say “privacy”. But they are leading and have led with privacy.

Why?

It comes down to a basic concept in brand strategy called “laddering”.

When you make a marketing statement, when you promote a feature of a product or service, you are not only highlighting a strength, you are immediately raising that dimension for public scrutiny and thereby ideally depositioning your competition.”

“It’s toasted.”
5G, Disney+, and All Things Social Media
Also, “…we can say anything we want.

Prioritizing New Product Launches

How do you consider prioritizing the launches for new products? For example, your new online design consultation service? 

“By collecting customer feedback research. You don’t have to be perfectly scientific, you don’t have to hire McKinsey. Just talk to your customers, do focus groups, get on the phone with them, and do surveys.

We do surveys all the time. People love doing them and you don’t have to offer some huge reward. We offer the chance to win a free throw blanket. So you know that people aren’t doing it for the possibility of winning a blanket, right, they’re doing it because they care about the brand and they want to give their input. And how cool would that be if you gave feedback to a company and they used that feedback to create new products for you?

For a lot of founders, and people in general, you’re afraid to ask because you’re afraid of what the answer might be.

What if they don’t like what we’re starting to develop? What if they don’t like it what do we do? Well, wouldn’t you rather know that now than launch it and have them not like it? You should perfect products as much as possible before launching. You’re not going to figure out all the kinks, but I think doing any sort of customer research upfront is incredibly valuable. People are more willing to give their opinion than folks might think.”

Burrow CEO Stephen Kuhl shares his playbook for direct-to-consumer businesses.