Kick-Ass Business & Marketing Secrets: How to Blitz Your Competition

Chapter 13

Building the Brand and First Recall

Often when people see an advertisement, they're not interested in purchasing the item being advertised at that particular point in time. In most cases, the ad simply makes people think of the generic category being promoted. It might remind you that you need to buy razor blades or get a new winter coat, but it doesn't do much for the specific brand being showcased. In order to actually capture a sale, you must make your brand top of mind for potential customers.

To review: as the purchasing process begins in the brain's preconscious, totally emotional segment, you think of the product or service and immediately search for an emotional trigger. You only begin to rationalize purchase options in the conscious mind if no item in that particular category has made an impression on you emotionally.

Therefore, to achieve a sale, companies must develop the emotional connection between their product or service and the potential customer.

You can accomplish this in two ways. The most powerful and longer-term method is by building a brand the consumer knows and respects. The second method is by creating instantaneous emotional recall. This doesn't mean that the consumer necessarily trusts your brand; it simply means that they remember it. That is usually sufficient for an initial sale, providing your competitors have not positioned themselves as well as you have.

Putting your brand and customer purchasing benefit (CPB) together in front of ...