Category Archives: Business Branding

Building A Commercial

The first step in building a commercial such as a 30-second TV spot or a promotional video for YouTube is to know your audience.

Basic demographics are age and gender. Understanding these basics for your audience, or viewer, are important because different age groups watch videos differently and each gender has different receptors for the message. The more clarity you have about your audience, the easier it becomes to design your commercial to get through to them and to influence their buying decisions. Remember that people, in general, prefer to avoid being sold and would rather make their own purchasing choices.

When you’ve determined which audience you’re targeting, part of the design work is to grab their attention. A good rule of thumb is to focus the attention-getting device (AGD) on your potential customers and what they are likely to want as the message relates to your product or service. Is the purchase for necessity, pleasure, or to avoid pain? There are other options, but we’re trying to keep this brief.

Once you’ve got the audience’s attention, the commercial needs to keep their attention or engage them to ensure the message is delivered as intended. Generally, you want to leave the viewer with an indelible memory, a positive perception, and/or an urge to buy what you’re selling. The hope is you will build brand identity and, if they like what they purchase, brand loyalty. You also want the viewer to stay through to the end, where you provide the call to action.

Know what you want them to do. That’s your call to action! Do you want commercial viewers to stop by your store? Would you prefer they call to set up an appointment? Send you an E-mail? Or do you direct them to your website for more information or to place an order?

Now that we’ve gone through the construction elements, let’s go back to the planning process. One of the worst reasons for producing a commercial for your business is “Everyone is doing it.” Know your purpose … and your audience. Whatever you attempt in producing a spot, you are building brand awareness. You want it to be favorable. Yes, you are trying to sell your brand, your product, your service, and maybe yourself, but keep in mind who’s going to be viewing your commercial. Why do they or should they care? Does the spot relate to them … or is it about you and your company?

Remember, too, that your commercial may not reach everyone in your intended audience, and will more than likely also be viewed by people outside of the audience you’re trying to reach. Both scenarios are okay.

What’s your budget? Fancy graphics, animation, and acting or modeling talent can rack up a big expense without any consideration for scripting, shooting, and editing the video. Plus you generally have to pay if you’re airing commercials on TV or cable channels. There are ways to reduce the expenses such as shooting two or three spots at a time, but either way, it’s best to have professionals help with production because your reputation, and brand, are on the line.

Consider, too, that you need to understand the time frame involved in producing a commercial. Concepts and script writing need to be thought through, modified, and finalized with your approval before the shoot can be scheduled. The logistics of finding a location, getting permission to use it, and then setting up the various shots takes time. The process of finding the right talent takes time, too. Remember to add in rehearsal time and get talent releases as well.

When you shoot video, shoot from several angles and do numerous takes to ensure you have enough material to work with when you get to the editing booth. Think of and take all the shots you think of so you can avoid returning to the location to shoot something you forgot you needed. Editing requires time to enter video, audio, graphics, and manipulate the sequences between scenes.

Sure, you can shoot some video with your smart phone and post it on YouTube, but is that the image you want to portray of your company?

Take the time to think things through, and get help if you need it!

Brand Your Work – Work Your Brand

How Well Are You Communicating?

The ability to communicate is a vital skill in today’s world.

Good communication relies on feedback and goes both ways.

When you think about your ability to communicate with your customers, being able to connect with them is critical when it comes to marketing your products and/or services.

Pay attention to some of the commercials you may watch on TV these days. Is the company or product message promoting the company or trying to connect with the consumer? Most miss the mark.

Texts. Ask your customers how they would like to receive messages from you. Many with smart phones are now open to receiving text messages, but use caution and avoid overwhelming them with sales pitches. A text is an attention getting communication and generally warrants a response for the sense of urgency. Trying to sell the receiver something is usually considered a major turn-off.

E-mail. E-mail messages may seem like stone age communication with newer technological developments, but they have been a stalwart of electronic communication methods for more than 15 years. E-mail messages that are meant to be read are best kept short. Attachments are okay, provided they are relevant to the general message. Assuming the recipient has received an E-mail is a false assumption. Just because you hit “Send” is not a guarantee the recipient got it. It may have wound up in a spam filter or lost in the cyber mail system somewhere.

If you realize someone you are exchanging E-mails with is responding promptly to your E-mails, pick up the phone and call them!

F2F. While we could elaborate on communication methods and styles for an entire year, one of the most important is face-to-face (F2F) communication. Yes, some believe it’s a dying art form, but it is still ranked high among the most effective ways of communicating with another person. Laugh if you do this, but think how ridiculous it would be to text your spouse while he/she is in the bathroom and you’re in the living room. Go and talk to them, even if it’s from outside the bathroom door!

Face-to-face communication is a two-way process. The difficulty in the process, which is why some people avoid it, is in listening to what the other person is saying. Our natural tendency is to say something and then look like we’re listening while we’re thinking of the next thing we want to say. It’s a more common occurrence than you might think.

Demonstrate interest in what the other party has to say. Listen and learn before you determine your response. Consumer complaints are best handled by listening, and asking what the customer really wants. Many times, they just want to know you care and that they are going to be heard.

Listening is a key skill for business owners and managers, too. When you hear what your team members are saying, you may discover new opportunities to explore or potential problem areas that can be averted with the right action.

How you communicate reflects your brand, too. More in weeks to come.

Brand Your Work – Work Your Brand

Planning for 2014

Now that it’s less than a month away, it’s time to take a few minutes and think through your business strategies for 2014. If you’ve already done this, take some time to review them and make sure you are going to be on the right track.

First step – What is the right track?

Look at where your business is today and try to project out a year from now. Where would you like to see your business in mid- to late-December 2014? Have sales shown an increase or are they holding steady? Will you be in a growth stage? Transition phase? Or will it be time to think about exit strategies?

The key area to consider is what your consumers want and need. You need to know what the market is asking for, and then be prepared and able to deliver it on a consistent basis. Be on top of industry changes. Know your market. Some communities are a year or two behind on trends, and you need to know where your consumers are in your marketplace. You should be slightly ahead.

Second step – Where are your profit margins?

Remember, you’re in business to make money. Consumers understand that, yet still want a good value at a fair price. They also want to know why you’re different from your competitors so they can rationalize buying form you and remain loyal to your brand. If the margin you’ve been operating on has provided your company with good profitability, consider making changes to increase your margins. Those changes could involve cost reductions, if appropriate. They could mean price increases if the market will bear them, at the potential risk of pushing too far and losing market share.

Third step – How strong is your brand?

If yours is the only barbershop in town, you’ve got a good chance of securing 100% of the market share. It doesn’t mean you have a strong brand if the way you treat customers is like you’re the only place in town where they can get their hair cut. You have a strong brand when your customers love coming in, catching up on the latest gossip, enjoying the experience you provide in cutting their hair, and leaving with a satisfied expression because they know they’ve received a good value for the investment.

There are many variables that you need to think through when it comes to strategizing about your business for 2014: Management, competition, pricing structures, overhead, growth, productivity, marketing (including sales, advertising, and public relations), and finances, among others. Call Brand Irons at (920) 366-6334 if you’d like some help.

Take the time to think things through … then act!

Brand Your Work – Work Your Brand.

Thank Your Customers!

In the hustle and bustle of running a business, it is easy to forget the simple things. Then, when you stop and think about things, it is often those simple little things that are the most important to your business.

Telling your customers “Thank You!” tops the list.

You can, and should, thank them for their business when you send out invoices or give them receipts. “Thank You!” should be automatic … and sincere.

Where you can stand out as a business, though, is by finding non-traditional special ways to say “Thank You!” to your customers. Give them a turkey at Thanksgiving or cater in a meal for their employees at this time of year. Have pizza delivered when you know their team is working late or busting it to complete a project for you. Gift them with a bottle or case of wine or their favorite alcoholic beverage, provided it’s appropriate.

If you think this is extravagant and something unnecessary or too expensive, take a minute to think that thought through a bit more thoroughly. What would it cost you to replace those customers if you lost them? Could you recover if they all went away?

Find a way to cover the expense of saying “Thank You!” to the life blood of your business.

Obviously, there are different ways and budgets to account for expressing gratitude to your customers. Most appreciate a simple “Thank You!” when they pay their bill, but the more you say it – sincerely – the more likely they are to remain loyal to your company and your brand. There is a nightmare scenario where your business is seen to be ungrateful for the work you get from clients. Negative word of mouth can spread far more quickly than positive word of mouth.

Another tip: Your method of saying “Thank You!” should reflect your brand … tastefully.

We once recommended to a specialty chair and barstool retailer that they find doll house chairs that they could put their logo on. They wanted something they could leave with prospective business clients that the prospects would remember them for, so they found wooden doll chairs that could be branded and left as business card holders. It was cute, appropriate, and reinforced the brand when they were used to say “Thank You!” to customers who bought their furniture.

Since it’s Thanksgiving 2013, we’d like to thank our clients for their business. We appreciate the opportunity to work with each of you, and hope you find our counsel to be of value in growing your business.

To those who have yet to become clients, enjoy this Thanksgiving holiday and express your thanks to those who matter to you and your business!

Follow-Up

In an earlier post, we talked about how to work a room when you’re networking. If you were fortunate to meet an excellent potential client or referral source at that event, your key to success with a networking marketing strategy is follow-up!

Do you have a marketing strategy for networking? For following up?

Assume you had an interesting conversation with an accountant who, you discover, has years of experience working with the types of companies you want to connect with. Assume this accountant has been looking for someone like you to whom they can refer some of their clients who need your services. Assume this accountant also seemed pleased with your responses to her questions and asked you to call and set up an appointment to get together for a smoothie or coffee. That connection alone made attending the event worth the entire evening, in your opinion.

Now let’s assume it’s a week later and you have yet to make that follow-up phone call. In the book of right ways to do things, that follow-up phone call should have been made within 24 hours of the event. The preference would have been to pull up the calendars on your smart phones and make the appointment right there on the spot, but if that wasn’t done, the call needed to be made the next day. Having a time frame for following up, and how it’s done are part of a networking marketing strategy.

How do you handle the fact you messed up on following up? Here are some scenarios:

You make the call and humbly apologize, paying attention to the tone of her voice to determine if there’s a coldness to her response, which is also verified by whether she still wants to meet with you. She may meet, but is likely to be skeptical of your ability to follow-up with her referrals in light of how you followed up with her, meaning she may be hesitant to refer clients to you;
You wait for her to call you and, if she does, express your confusion about whether you were supposed to call or she was. If she calls, she is obviously still interested, so stay on top of the relationship from there on out;
You avoid making the call and anticipate you will run into her again at the next networking event. Be prepared to eat humble pie if she shows up at that one or any of the next events where you may both be in attendance. You may have a ready excuse, but it may carry little weight in convincing her you really are good at following up with people, and she may have already made a different alliance that shuts you out of getting any potential business referred to you;
You call her with a referral for her, and apologize for the delay with an excuse that you were working on the referral before you followed up. It might work if she appreciates the referral, especially if she can convert it into business; or,
You write it off as a lost cause, toss her card in the recycling bin, and kiss the potential referrals business good-bye.

Which scenario would you be most comfortable using a week after meeting someone? Which is most likely to nurture that relationship and lead to referrals?

How much easier is it to carve a few minutes out of your busy schedule to grab your phone, dial the number, and exude enthusiasm for having met the person last night? Make that part of your networking strategy.

Follow-up is easy if done promptly.

Two quick examples of what it can mean for your business:

Trying to scrap an old vehicle, I contacted a salvage yard that had been recommended to me. Several phone calls and voice mail messages failed to get a response. I contacted one I had used before and they were on site within an hour, gave me a fair price and hauled off the vehicle. I heard from the first one an hour after the vehicle was gone. Too bad, so sad.

Looking for a plumber, I contacted two in the community where the work needed to be done. The same scenario of waiting for a call back played out, until I called the second one. The first had been highly recommended so I was giving them the benefit of the doubt. Within an hour after contacting the second, the first finally called after more than a week. Yes, I understand plumbers can be busy people, but a courtesy phone call does wonders to build credibility and that level of trust you expect from contacting a business.

Part of your corporate marketing strategy should be to carve out a brief time period every day to make those follow-up phone calls or to merely follow-up on whatever you need to follow through on. Your customers, prospects, and referral sources will appreciate it.

Advertising: Purpose is Pivotal

When a business owner tells me they need a brochure for their business, my first question is: Why? The answer usually goes something like: Well, everyone has one, we should too.

Again, why?

I take it a step further by asking: What is the purpose of the brochure? This puts a big stump in the middle of the road. When you take the time to think things through, the purpose of a brochure is, first of all, to get the viewer to pick it up. That means it either has to have a strong attention getting device or that the viewer is interested in the subject of the brochure. That could be a resort, a restaurant, tourist attraction, business information, or whatever else is being advertised, if done right.

Thinking it through a bit more, the second step in the process of an effective brochure is to get the viewer or person who picked it up to open it up and spend some time reviewing the contents. Typically, once they’ve digested the information, they look for a call to action or a reason to save the brochure. Without a call to action or reason to save it, the odds are that little brochure winds up in the recycling or trash bin.

The plus is that a brochure that is picked up and looked at has made at least one impression on one human being’s brain. Whether anything is done about it is another matter, and that is what has prompted this blog.

The purpose of the brochure or other advertising is pivotal. The call to action is essential, especially if it is intended to drive sales.

Regarding a brochure, here are a couple more questions:

Who do you want to see or receive the brochure?

What do you want them to do once they’ve received it?

The answers provide you with basic information about your target audience, how many brochures to print, the delivery vehicle (a brochure rack, direct mail, etc.), and how the reader should contact you. Have you ever received a brochure in the mail that was without any contact information? That’s a big “Oops!” and a costly one, too.

Whether it’s a brochure or some other form of advertising for your business, here’s the basic question you need to ask yourself: What’s the purpose?

You should know what you want your advertising to do. Do you want viewers, readers, and/or users to call you? Stop by your store? Go online? Check out your website? E-mail you? You must first give them a compelling reason to take action, and then call them to action so they do what you want them to do.

Even if you merely want to share information to educate potential consumers, you need to stir action to get them involved. If you’ve paid attention to the fine print in TV commercials for ED products, you’ll notice they generally direct people to a magazine ad for more information. Pick up that magazine and you’ll see a three-page ad; one for the product and two pages of disclaimers.

Think about who you want to receive your advertising message. Male, female, or both? What age group? What income level? Where do the majority of them live?

Next, consider what is the best way to reach them with your message. Are they most likely to listen to radio or view a brief video online? Choosing the right delivery vehicle and crafting a message relevant to your target audience are additional steps to gain success and a return on your investment in advertising.

Advertising seems simple, but it’s a complicated process that requires you take the time to think it through. Save yourself some money and engage a qualified consultant to help.

Protecting Your Image

Your brand is your image. Your image is conveyed through the marketing or your brand. That encompasses your logo, your social media, your advertising, your employees, and every other aspect of your business … all the way down to your business cards and the way you answer the phone.

The first step is to brand your work. Even if you are a sole proprietor, your brand involves the unique nature of your business. What separates you from others in your field? How do you answer the question it seems everyone asks nowadays: What makes you different? You need to know.

The second step is to craft a plan to protect your brand. Your image, in large part, is what attracts consumers to your business. Your business, therefore, is on the line. Your reputation is at stake, so every effort should be taken to protect what you represent.

Set standards for the use of your corporate logo. Make sure printers have the right colors (PMS standards usually apply) and place your logo in the proper location. Register the copyright and consider obtaining either trademark (™) or registered (®) marks. Prevent infringement of your logo by copycats or thieves as much as you possibly can. In an earlier blog we covered the basics of protecting your brand.

The biggest concern for companies should be protecting the corporate reputation in social media. You can probably find an article about the topic in virtually any business-related publication since it has come to the forefront lately. One of the best methods for protecting the brand is an old technique – have an online and social media strategy that includes written policies and a corporate protocol manual.

Outline who is authorized to post. Be careful who has administrative capabilities. Clarify content to be posted. Create response time guidelines. Follow accepted protocols for each social media application. The concept for your business using social media should also be clearly defined in order to protect your credibility.

Here’s an example of how your reputation can be damaged in social media: If your goal is to increase sales and every post is a pitch to move a product or service, the strategy is likely to backfire and drive consumers away from you. Once that happens, it will be difficult to get them back. Share relevant information that is of interest to users, especially your target audience. You want to be a thought leader, which means consumers look to you and your company for valuable information to help them make decisions.

In today’s economy, monitoring your social media platform and electronic footprint involves keeping your website current and watching E-mail correspondence, too. These have become as important, if not more so, than keeping tabs on your other advertising strategies. Today’s savvy consumer checks out your web presence right away.

Other concerns when it comes to protecting your image may seem minor, but they have an impact on consumers. Two we’ll cover here are employee attire and visual images.

When they’re at your place of employment or representing your business in the community, your employees convey your corporate image. Consider putting a dress code in place, along with methods for dealing with violations. How would you feel about a sales representative appearing at a trade show for your company wearing a logo emblazoned dress shirt that wasn’t tucked in? Or being drunk? How about a customer service representative swearing and arguing with a customer in a room full of other customers? Proper training can go a long way toward alleviating the potential for these mistakes, which may seem trivial but could have an impact on sales.

How does the outside of your building look to the public … your potential consumer base? If you have a reader board, keep it current. Sweep the sidewalks and shovel the snow. Keep the lobby clean and smelling nice. It’s often the little things that make a difference.

Do your corporate vehicles sport faded or outdated signs? Monitor the quality of your vehicle graphics and replace them when they start – repeat “start” – to look shoddy. You want existing customers to be excited to see one of your vehicles in their neighborhood or community, and you also want potential customers to be enticed by the image they see.

Brand Your Work – Work Your Brand

Where Is Your Business?

Where is your business?

Two reasons we bring this up: 1) It’s important for your customers and prospects to be able to find your business; and, 2) It’s important for you to know where your business is in the cycle of life for a business such as yours. Make that three reasons: 3) It’s critical that you know how your business is doing from the consumer’s perspective, which ties in closely with customer service. Are you doing the right things to take care of customers and bring them back frequently?

#1 refers to your location, whether it’s the physical plant or your place in cyberspace. You need to make it easy for people to find you, either through optimizing your search engine position and social media or providing clarity as to your physical location. If your business is at the corner of a major intersection in town, just off the highway, or conveniently located next to a city park, use your advertising to tell people that’s where you are.

The focus of this blog, though, is on #2 – where your business is in its life cycle.

A typical graphic of a business life cycle.

At left is one of hundreds of diagrams that try to explain the cycles a business typically goes through during its existence.

This example may seem foreign if you’re unfamiliar with Smith-Corona, which was one of the top brand names for typewriters in the days before computers. When you think about a company that had a dominant role in the typewriter business and look at the life cycle diagram in that context, it is rather obvious why Smith-Corona disappeared from sight. The company had grown and expanded to a position of maturity in the typewriter marketplace, but failed to make the transition when the new technology of computers entered the picture. Transitions can be brutal, especially when most people and a majority of companies tend to resist change.

Take the time to think about your business. This is always a good exercise. It forces you to work on your business by thinking about where you are instead of remaining immersed in the day-to-day ennui that can stifle the growth or expansion cycle. Do you consider your business to be on an upswing, or have things stabilized and stayed fairly steady? Do you enjoy a high percentage of repeat business from the same customers or do you have a steady influx of new customers? Are you unsure where you are because you’ve only been in business a year or two?

Have you grown as much as you can and now sales and production seem to have stagnated? The question you may ask if you’ve reached this cycle is “Now what do we do?” This is an excellent position for bringing in an outside consultant to examine and explore options. They might help you discover that a simple change in your existing product line or offering a similar but slightly different service can re-energize sales and bump up production for an additional boost. They might also find that what you’ve been doing for x number of years is out of style and an entirely new direction is needed.

Take those recommendations, whatever they might be, with a modicum of caution. Weigh the costs of re-tooling and re-branding your business to make sure the change makes sense. Change for the sake of change is rarely worth it, since change is constant anyway.

Here’s a big question: What are your plans for getting out of the business? Do you have an exit strategy in place? Are you like a great many dreamers who insist that their business is their retirement plan and when they’re ready to retire, they’ll sell the business and live off the profits? Think about that for a minute … or longer and do something about it before it’s too late.

We counselled a client with that mindset and talked frankly about the potential for that strategy to do what they anticipated it would to let them retire. A buyer would have little interest in their facility unless the new owner was looking to first enter the marketplace and had yet to establish a base of operations. If the buyer did have a facility, the interest level would be less. The same would hold true for the equipment, machines, and tools which become antiquated the longer they have been in use. Even employees, unless they’re willing to move, may be written out of a purchase agreement.

What the potential buyer has the most interest in is the customer base!

Lots to think about as you continue through the process of evaluating your company’s position in its life cycle. When you need an independent party to help you through the process, contact Brand Irons at 920.366.6334.

Protecting Your Brand

Classify this as a “Did You Know?” blog entry.

If you are concerned about protecting the proprietary material related to your business, talk to your legal counsel about the steps you can, and should take. Your attorney may refer you out to counsel who specializes in copyrights, patents, and trademarks, but it’s worth the effort to ensure your investments retain their value.

An example would be putting copyright information on your business documents. You can insert the © that indicates “copyright” in your document, along with a date and an identifier, such as © 2013, Brand Irons. While we don’t pretend to be attorneys, we do believe that simple act sets precedent.

As we understand it, where the legality gets sticky is if you pursue a violation through the court system, you have a far better chance of getting a favorable judgment if that copyright has been registered with the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress. The fee may be as little as $35.

If you’ve talked to someone who either has or has tried to obtain a patent, you have probably heard pros and cons about the merit of having one on your product or idea. These are processed through the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. The key to having a patent on your invention is less about the filing process than it is about protecting your concept and product from being stolen by a potential competitor. This is where your legal counsel can provide a valuable service.

If you have a patent, as we understand it, you should obtain signed non-disclosure and non-compete agreements with any parties interested in learning more about it. The key is the signature and the date, especially if there’s an expiration attached to the document. This, as we’re sure your lawyer would tell you, is the first step in protecting what you have. You must then take every other step necessary to ensure you enforce the provisions of your patent protection. Again, consult and engage your attorney to handle these efforts for you. You want counsel handling these matters so you can run your business.

When it comes to protecting your brand with a trademark, there’s a 7-step process to start with on the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office’s website. From a protection standpoint, having a mark on your logo, service or product name indicates you have taken steps to protect the theft of your brand identifiers. Will it deter knock-off competitors? It should if the potential rival has scruples and business ethics, but remember that competition in our global economy relies on following the leader.

Yes, you should be flattered that someone is mimicking your brand concept. You should also be aware they are diluting the market by causing confusion among consumers who have yet to establish their loyalty to your brand. Setting the precedent of shutting down imitators sends a strong message through the marketing world that your brand is, indeed, your brand and one that will be protected at all costs.

Will there be emulators? Yes. Will there be loopholes in sustaining your legal rights to copyrights, trademarks, and/or patents and in protecting your brand? Yes.

Your strength in these matters lies in the strength of your brand. The more you create a unique identity that consumers associate themselves with, become and remain loyal to, the stronger the case becomes for your brand.

Another aspect of this topic that we’ll leave you with is that you should have a strategy in place for dealing with legal attacks of this nature. Consider it a crisis, perhaps relatively minor but with potentially significant long-range impact, and be prepared to deal with it.

Think of it this way: If you discover someone has launched a product with a similar purpose and knock-off logo, you’re already suffering damage. The sooner you can nip it in the bud, the less significant the potential repercussions. And remember, Brand Irons is here to help you establish and protect your brand.

Brand Your Work – Work Your Brand

Why Does Water Taste Different?

A perspective on where our water comes from.

Okay, you’re wondering what the heck how water tastes has to do with marketing your business, and it’s a good question. The answer will be revealed.

Water should taste the same, right? It’s a clear liquid without additives, so it should have a uniform texture, consistency, and refreshing appeal to the palate.

Every business is the same, right? There’s a reason for existence, a leadership team, incorporation, sales team, products and/or services, and marketing to reach the audience.

The answer to the question about every business is obviously false. Now, some non-business people may believe every business is greedy and therefore evil, but what they fail to realize is that a business would be unable to provide them with a product or service if it was unable to make a reasonable profit. Even non-profit organizations need to have money to operate. Even franchise operations are different.

As a marketing professional, I prefer to avoid reference to particular franchises (unless it’s a client and we’ve been given permission), but let’s consider one whose logo features certain-colored arches. There is a level of consistency one expects from this franchise, wherever one of the company’s stores may be located. That premise implies that each of the fast food stores under that umbrella is the same. Wrong!

The variables range from location (inner city vs. highway exit) to management, staff, volume of traffic, and the make-up of the surrounding neighborhood. Patrons frequent one store over another for quality of food, speed of service, cleanliness, friendliness, price, and convenience, among other factors.

Let’s flip back to the variables that have an impact on water. Think where the water comes from in the first place. It’s absorbed into clouds and comes back to earth as rain, which then filters through the ground into an aquifer or runs off into a stream, river, lake or other body of water. As the natural rinsing agent it is, water brings along minerals, dirt, pesticides, and other “stuff” into whatever container it flows. Unless we extract it ourselves from a lake or stream, water is usually processed through a filtration system and pumped into a water tower or other pressure tank to flow into our homes so it’s there when we turn on the tap. Some municipalities treat the water with fluoride or other chemicals and some leave elements such as certain levels of iron in the water.

So, the bottom line is water can taste different depending on where it comes from, especially in terms of what container holds it. Water in plastic bottles all seems to taste the same, but it depends on if it was bottled at a spring or through a municipal or business processing system. Some of us can drink tap water and love the taste, where others may find the iron content too high or dislike the city water’s flavor.

Personally, I have grown accustomed to drinking water from a stainless steel bottle, which reminds me of drinking cold water from a stainless scoop dipped into a milk can from my days working on a farm. I try to avoid filling the landfill with plastic bottles, even if they are recyclable, but if it’s my only choice, plastic fits the bill.

The point of this is that your hamburger, product, or service is going to taste different to every consumer. In the case of the burger, it could be the quality of meat, percentage of fat, how it’s cooked, or the accompaniments such as the bun, condiments, vegetables, and whatever else someone likes on their concoction. You need to know, as much as you can, what your customers want and deliver it in such a way that differentiates you and your business from the competition … and build loyalty to your brand!

That means you need to know what your brand is.

Is it tap water? Well water? River water? Spring water? Or run-off?

When you need help finding the source of your water, contact Brand Irons for guidance.