The Experience Effect: Engage Your Customers with a Consistent and Memorable Brand Experience

by Joseph, Jim

• ISBN13: 9780814415542
• ISBN10: 0814415547
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-05-03
• Publisher: Amacom Books

Summary

"He will make you think and change how you act and for a marketing book that is the ultimate praise." - DTC PerspectivesThe decision to pay money for a product or service is often based on more than just the product or service itself. Consumers care deeply about the overall experience of the buying process: They respond to the marketing message, the advertising, the sales approach, the website, the interaction with company personnel, and more. When all these elements come together to form a seamless experience, the customer is left with a feeling of satisfaction that ultimately builds loyalty. Jim Joseph calls this ideal combination the "experience effect," and in this book he shows how any business can create one for its brand. Filled with practical advice and real-life examples, The Experience Effect shows readers how to understand their brand's target audience, conduct more effective market research, connect with customers on an emotional level and perform a gap analysis of their brand's marketing. Whatever the business, whatever the size, The Experience Effect will help companies create a simple yet powerful brand experience that resonates purpose fully, consistently, and continuously with customers.

Author Biography

JIM JOSEPH (New York, NY) is an award-winning marketing professional who specializes in building consumer brands. His client experience includes blockbuster brands like Kellogg’s, Kraft, Cadillac, Tylenol, Clean & Clear, and Wal-Mart.

Table of Contents

Foreword: Thoughts from Two Icons	p. vii
Foreword: "Just Stick It Between Your Legs,"	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xvii
Introduction: Marketing Is a Spectator Sport: Observing, Learning, and Then Applying	p. 1
Prologue: The Experience Effect in Action: Two Personal Examples	p. 7
Buzzwords Need Not Apply: Defining the Experience Effect	p. 15
Best Pasta in Town: Positioning the Experience Effect	p. 27
Brand Soundtrack: Making the Right Decisions for the Brand	p. 39
Not by Numbers Alone: Understanding the Brand's Target Audience	p. 57
Kiss a Few Babies: Constructing a Consumer Profile	p. 73
Get Emotional: Connecting with Customers on Multiple Levels	p. 89
Reach Out and Touch: Mapping Effective and Engaging Touchpoints	p. 99
Squishees from Kwik-E-Mart: Activating Touchpoints	p. 115
Avoiding the Cookie Cutter: Creating Unique Touchpoints	p. 129
Meet Martha, Louis, and Some Elves: Finding Inspiration	p. 141
Madonna and Tide: Learning from Celebrities	p. 151
Everyone Else Bring Data: Researching the Experience Effect	p. 163
A Flash of Color: Owning the Experience Effect	p. 175
Mind the Gap: Assessing What's Missing on the Brand	p. 191
A Room with a View: Keeping the Team on Track	p. 201
Afterword: Click-Through: Making It Real	p. 213
Index	p. 215
About the Author	p. 221
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

INTRODUCTION: Marketing Is a Spectator Sport--Observing, Learning, and Then Applying

We interact with brands all the time, whether we consciously

realize it or not. Some brands we’ve been loyal to for

years (like a favorite shampoo or pair of jeans), and some we are

just discovering for the very first time (like a new enhanced water

drink or a new electronic device). Some we don’t even know are

brands (like our favorite singer or a local restaurant)! Our interactions

can run the gamut from amazing to just okay to disappointing

to completely horrible.

Like clicking on a banner ad that takes you to a website where

you find the perfect item you didn’t even realize you wanted, in a

cool color you didn’t even realize existed, and discovering that it

comes with free shipping—coincidently only on orders placed that

day! Pretty amazing. Or stopping at your favorite coffee shop,

noticing that it’s a lot messier than it used to be, getting the wrong

flavor added to your usual coffee drink, and then being charged 67

cents more than usual. Very disappointing.

These kinds of interactions are our personal experiences with

brands, and they completely shape our perceptions. They influence

our feelings about the brand, good or bad, whether we realize

it or not. These experiences define our thoughts, attitudes, and

behaviors toward brands and the value that they bring to our lives.

In a sense, how we experience the brand, how we feel the

brand, and how we choose to interpret the brand actually

becomes the brand to us. This is The Experience Effect, and

throughout the book we’ll be exploring the effect that brand experiences

have on consumers.

At the crux of good marketing is the conscious and methodical

process of determining exactly the kind of brand to offer consumers

and exactly the kind of experience to create for them—and

then developing it consistently across every facet of the marketing

plan: from obvious marketing elements like packaging and advertising,

to the not so obvious elements like customer service representatives,

the CEO’s weekly blog, or a branded Twitter presence.

The essence of good marketing is creating a consistent brand

experience with each specific consumer interaction.

In The Experience Effect, I will walk you through that conscious

and methodical process step by step, chapter by chapter. By the

end, we will have mapped out a consistent and ownable brand

experience for the entire marketing plan.

We will also be exploring a lot of examples here. Some of the

examples will be personal, and some observational. Some we’ll

explore in depth, and others will be brief mentions to help make a

point. I love looking at and analyzing examples of good and bad

marketing, and you’ll get a load of them in this book. Marketplace

examples help bring to life the principles of marketing that are

otherwise left to theory. When we observe marketing theory

applied in the real world to real brands, we can learn from both

the successes and mistakes of others and apply what we’ve

learned to our own marketing challenges.