No, we aren’t just taking a page from Staples.  But their “easy button” was pretty cool.

Why are we talking about Staples, and what is a brand promise?  As the device connectivity market continues to explode, it’s more important than ever for us here at Lantronix to clearly define our brand promise.  And a brand promise is just that – what you promise you’ll deliver to your customers (and partners, and employees, and investors…) – what they’ll get, see, hear and feel – every time they interact with you and your products.  Not only must you deliver on the promise you’re making, but it has to be important to the customer and differentiate you from the competition at the same time.

An easier way to think about brand promise is to simply look at some of the best brands out there – When you buy anything from Apple, what do you expect? (Outstanding user experience right out of the box, with slick technology).  When you walk into Nordstrom, what do you expect? (Customer intimacy and personal attention).  How about Dell?  Walmart? Nike? Google?  Well, you get the idea.  But before any of these brands defined their promise and positioning, they asked themselves:  Is this realistic?  Is this position ownable?  Defendable?  Believable?  Can we deliver on this strategy, and the brand promise that comes with it?

The answer for our own promise is a resounding YES.  For starters, we asked our customers!  Over the past few months, we’ve researched why customers choose Lantronix (and even more importantly, whey they don’t) and how our products perform once deployed across businesses, geographies, and industries.  We also took a look at our competition and their value proposition and positioning.  The analysis was clear – across the board, Lantronix wins because we make everything about device networking easy:

1. Easy to Choose – It’s easy to choose Lantronix as the best solution for device connectivity.  We offer a full suite of cost-effective products and solutions to fit any need, and have more than 20 years experience in device connectivity across dozens of verticals.
2.  Easy to Buy – Our global network of strategic partners, VARs, distributors and direct sales makes it quick and easy to buy our products.
3.  Easy to Implement – We’ve designed our products to be ready-to-use right out of the box, designed for rapid implementation.
4.  Easy to Secure – Customer-tested, leading edge secure encryption technology ensures your data will remain confidential.
5.  Easy to Use and Support – If our customer-driven design and usability testing haven’t addressed all of our customers’ concerns, they can email or call for 24×7 support.

Ambitious?  Yes.  But we’ve been building toward this brand promise – from new internal systems and processes, to our culture and mind-set, to our new “30 Minute Challenge” campaign – where we walk into a potential customer site and in 30 minutes network enable any device.  Bottom line is, we’re continually fine tuning our business to make everything about your experience with Lantronix EASY.  The next part is easier (pun intended) – leveraging marketing and sales to get the word out and scale the business.   All we ask of our customers, partners, investors, and employees is to let us know how we’re doing.  We’re listening.

Related blogs and links:

• Forbes – “CMOs: Make A Connection Between Brand Promise And Purpose”

https://www.forbes.com/2010/04/30/iceland-cisco-aflac-basf-branding-ellen-page-cmo-network-allen-adamson.html

• McKinsey & Co. – “Executive Insights”  https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights
• Branding Strategy Insider – 10 Keys to Aligning Organizations and Brand Promises https://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/brand_promise_k/