When you think of a brand, you probably think of simple things like the company name, logo, tagline, and web design. However, the most successful brands are distinguished by a number of additional components, both behind the scenes and visible to customers, that add depth and meaning to those elements. If you want to take your brand to the next level, use these steps to lay a solid foundation and create a brand that connects with your audience and converts.
1.Understand your company’s position.
Before you can build a brand that will succeed in the crowded consumer marketplace, you must first fully understand where your company fits in. This is best accomplished by conducting research that will assist you in developing a positioning statement. There are numerous existing models available, but in general, your positioning statement should identify your target audience, summarize your product or service, and explain how you differ from competitors. Follow these steps to create an insightful positioning statement:
a. Investigate your competitors
Consider the overall composition of your product offerings and seek out businesses, both large and small, that sell the same or similar items. By thoroughly researching these competitors, you can create a competitive matrix for future reference. Once you’ve identified your primary competitors, compare yourself to them in terms of price, product quality, brand awareness, customer service, and other factors. Creating a competitive matrix will assist you in understanding how your brand stands out from the crowd, which will lead you to the next step.
b. Identify your differentiators
By comparing your company to its competitors, you can quickly identify your niche and unique selling points (USPs) that you can use to differentiate your brand from the competition. To identify your USPs, consider why someone would choose your product over another. What sets my product or brand apart from the competition? What do I have to offer that no one else in the market does?
Answering these questions can assist you in defining the unique qualities that exist within your brand and identifying your niche. Your niche should be highly specific to your offerings and extremely focused on a relevant demographic. Don’t waste time trying to sell everything to everyone; instead, target a specific audience with your offerings.
c. Determine your target audience
After you’ve determined your niche and unique selling points, it’s time to categorize and research your target market. A good way to do this is to use demographic data, which can be obtained from Google Analytics, social media, or even newsworthy articles about your industry. Pay attention to their values and interests, as well as how you communicate with them and how they think. It is critical to fully understand the purchasing patterns of this specific target market in order to better identify selling opportunities and trends that you can capitalize on.
Creating user personas—or figurative representations of your target market—can be extremely helpful when getting to know your target audience. You can internalize the way potential customers perceive the brand and how the brand can solve problems by creating 2-4 distinct personas. Include a name, job title, demographic information, goals and challenges, values and fears, how your brand can help, and how they are likely to respond to marketing for each persona you create.
