Local Marketing Insider #021 // The Brand Mosaic

At Widewail, we believe in the power of the "Brand Mosaic." When we think about the journey of your next customer on the way to purchase, is their experience generally positive as they interact with the brand and past customer sentiment, or is that journey neutral to negative?

Here’s how we visualize the Brand Mosaic:

Each one of your individual customers is going to have a very different experience on their way to purchase. 

Each customer will experience a unique combination of information across multiple touchpoints. As business owners, we don’t have any control over exactly how or where this information is consumed.

What we need to remember is that the prospect is, of course, impacted by traditional word of mouth, but also consider all of the digital interactions around your store, branch, location or property on various online platforms, some owned and some not.

Immediately Google reviews come to mind. But also maybe customers are talking about your product on YouTube. Or posting photos on Yelp. Maybe they watched a testimonial video on your website.

All of these different interactions will color their view of your business or product before they even arrive. 

Sure, we will always have loyal customers that regularly come back because that’s just what they do. But loyalty is on the decline. Consumers have a lot of choices.

So today our job in protecting our brand is to influence this “Mosaic” to try to ensure that everyone considering a transaction has a really positive view of your business before they walk through the door.

How do you do that? 

You have to actually solicit this feedback, it won’t happen naturally.

Whether it’s a text review, video testimonial, etc. You have to engage with your past customers and invite them to voice their opinions.

A good example of this is in reputation management. We know that if you don’t ask customers for reviews your star rating will be depressed. 

In fact, as an example, we commonly ask our non-automotive prospects at Widewail what they think the average star rating on Google is for a car dealership. 

In most cases, the answer is “in the 3s.” 

That’s really because of the halo of negativity that has followed Automotive for a long time.

In reality, however, the customer experience for most people at car dealerships is pretty great, and we have the data to back it up. Widewail knows that dealers who solicit reviews on average achieve a 4.515 average star rating. 

The secret: activating the quiet, happy, majority

What happens is the average customer that visits your store or purchases your product, has a great experience and moves on with their life.

They’re not thinking about leaving a review. They’re not part of your marketing department. They’re not going to contribute to your Mosaic. 

But if you ask, we find around 20% are willing to voice an opinion. And these types of customers are the most important contributors to your Mosaic. Activating the quiet, happy, majority in your customer base is what managing your Mosaic is all about. 

You’re not cooking the books, doing something cheap or misleading, it's just about taking the extra step to encourage the average happy customer to share their experience online.

Do this with regularity and in time and the vast majority of touchpoints a prospect will have with your brand, anywhere online, will skew heavily in your favor. This is what we mean when we talk about shaping your Mosaic.

And across close to a million reviews in the Widewail database, 88% are 4-or-5 stars. When asked, most customers are happy with their experience and will contribute a positive viewpoint to your Mosaic.

Understanding the Brand Mosaic is key because the importance of pulling that positivity out of your customer base and sharing it with your prospects will help drive your growth now and in the future. Our new reality: customers sell each other.