Catalog Marketing: Your Brand Never Takes a Summer Vacation

3. Ask customers: Sometimes you can’t get all of the information you need about where your brand fails by merely watching customers’ activity. “Pick up the phone and talk to your customers,” Syverson says. “Send them e-mail questions; just try to get into their heads and listen.” Whether it’s because your product quality has fallen off or because your Web site is harder to navigate than your competition, Syverson notes that customers usually will tell you why they’ve changed their shopping habits. Once you know what’s wrong, then you can start to respond.

4. Get internal stakeholders involved: “In order to get buy-in for new strategies, you have to tap into your internal expertise,” Syverson says. Employees who are passionate about your brand can’t only reveal what the problems are, they often can provide solutions you wouldn’t have considered. Additionally, in order to build buy-in for new brand initiatives, you need to foster a collaborative environment. “When people see they’re part of a greater solution and that they can make a difference, most people want to excel at what they’re doing,” she says. It’s then that you can create some energy and get everyone focused toward a common goal.

Next week: Part II in our feature series on revamping your brand will focus on reinvigorating your product line.
Andrea Syverson can be reached at (719) 495-2354 or via e-mail at asyverson@ierpartners.com.