Make Your Brand Matter

About the Author

Steven G. Soechtig is a renowned brand expert and author with extensive experience in digital transformation and customer engagement strategies. He has been instrumental in helping top-performing brands leverage their experiences to build strong connections with their customers. His work emphasizes the importance of experience-driven solutions in the post-digital transformation era, a time when brands must go beyond mere messaging to create lasting relationships with their customers through meaningful experiences.

Main Idea

In "Make Your Brand Matter: Experience-Driven Solutions to Capture Customers and Keep Them Loyal," Steven G. Soechtig explores the shift from digital transformation to post-digital transformation. He argues that the most successful brands today are those that have moved beyond simply adopting digital capabilities and are now focusing on delivering exceptional customer experiences. The book provides detailed breakdowns of the strategies used by top brands to gain, retain, and strengthen customer relationships. Soechtig emphasizes the importance of believing in your brand, selling experiences rather than products, collapsing time for customers, humanizing the experience, and connecting customers with your brand's cause.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: The New Era of Brand Experience
2. Believing in Your Brand and Redefining Your Strategy
3. Selling Experiences, Not Products
4. Time is the New Currency
5. Humanizing the Experience
6. Connecting Your Customer with Your Cause
7. Conclusion: The Future of Brand Experience

Introduction: The New Era of Brand Experience

The world of branding has undergone a significant transformation. The advent of the Internet and smartphones has revolutionized how brands engage with customers. In the post-digital transformation era, it is no longer sufficient to rely on digital capabilities alone. Brands must focus on delivering exceptional experiences that capture and retain customer loyalty. This shift requires a deep understanding of customer needs and preferences, as well as a commitment to continuous improvement and innovation.

Believing in Your Brand and Redefining Your Strategy

The market evaluates a brand across the entire experience continuum. Every stage of the customer journey must align with the brand proposition to ensure a seamless experience. A weak point in the experience chain can lead to customer defection. Starbucks is a prime example of a brand that has successfully redefined its strategy by focusing on digital transformation and leveraging data to enhance the customer experience.

Starbucks created a consistent experience across its stores, catering to both locals and travelers. Their focus on convenience, illustrated by the launch of the MyStarbucks app, provided customers with an unprecedented level of ease in ordering coffee. This app not only enhanced the customer experience but also provided valuable data to improve store locations, menus, and operations.

"Continuously validate your brand proposition and ensure that your experiences reflect that proposition across every stage of the customer journey." - Steven G. Soechtig

Lessons from Starbucks:

• Continuously validate your brand proposition.
• Ensure digital enablement enhances, not hides, the experience.
• Engage employees to embrace and reflect the brand promise.

Selling Experiences, Not Products

Modern branding has shifted from a product focus to an experience focus. The control has moved from the brand to the individual, who can now easily switch between brands and channels. Brands must create experiences that evoke emotional responses in their customers. Nike exemplifies this shift by transitioning from a product-centric strategy to an experience-led approach.