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54 PCB007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2019 ample: bed pillows. Many people never con- sidered brand names when they thought of bed pillows—not until MyPillow came along. Now, MyPillow is the brand that most know. They don't even consider a second choice. If you watch American TV, you have most likely seen MyPillow ads. In 15 years, the brand has become a household name with nearly $300M in revenue. I don't expect the MyPillow guy to stop building his brand anytime soon. (In fact, he's about to publish an autobiography.) So how do you measure the result of brand- ing? The simple measure is number of impres- sions into your target market. Remember, if your target markets are B2B, then there are not going to be ever-growing numbers. B2B mar- kets are defined by a fixed number. The mea- sure is not how many people saw your ad one time; it is how many times you can get your ad in front of the right people in your market. In other words, you want each prospect to see your message as many times as possible. Of course, the other measures come over time as well. You start to see your sales increase. You notice a higher demand for your products. More people are contacting you to do business. Overall, more people think of you first in your chosen category, like McDonald's did with fast food or MyPillow did with pillows. Successful branding is also about making your message memorable. Message recall can happen with saturation, as we see with the MyPillow company. The other factor that im- pacts recall is having a message that resonates with the emotional mind of the prospects. I know, here we go talking about emotions. We know that the higher the emotional con- tent, the greater the recall. So, when we say resonates with the emotional mind, what we're talking about is decreasing the number of im- pressions needed for prospects to have a clear recall of the message. Combining saturation with a message that appeals to the emotional mind is the best approach. What's Your Message? First, let's define message. In this case, mes- sage is the stated value that defines your of- fering and communicates to your customers. The message shouldn't focus on how great you are, but rather on the benefits the customer re- ceives by doing business with you. Consider these two messages: • Everyone wins with our product! • Improve your yield by 35%! The first statement is vague and targets ev- eryone as a winner. It hardly serves as a com- pelling argument to gain attention. The second message talks directly to you, the potential customer. What you will gain—a 35% increase in yields—is very clear. This value is strongly compelling to prospects who want increase yields. It gets their attention. It positions you as a yield improver. Once you have a clear message, this is what you use to build your story: your marketing message. This includes all communication, everywhere you go. You become your message. Bring your message into your branding ads, write columns to share your expertise with prospects, write a book on the subject, put it on your business cards. However, most of all, your whole team needs to be aligned and talking about it all the time. In this case, when people think of in- creasing yields, you want them to think of you first. That's how it should be for your message; they think of you first. The iconic three-pointed star that appoints the grill of each Mercedes is an iconic symbol of powerful branding.