6 steps that make your brand relevant to customers
The business landscape is getting highly competitive as many companies are struggling to survive, especially with technology disruption and ecommerce taking over. With our decade of experience engaging with businesses, we found most companies struggling to describe themselves succinctly enough to have customers or clients immediately understand and reap the benefit of their product or service offering despite them having a unique product or service.
What is lacking in brands today is relevance. Relevance is what makes consumers take notice of brands especially soon digital marketing platforms. Relevance could come in the form of a relatable catch phrase, a graphic that appeals to customer’s style or even an approachable face that makes people take a second glance. Being relevant is about saying or showing something that is important or interesting to your target audience. Be it inthe form of solving customers’ problems, fulfilling a need or a desire.
To illustrate how brands can create relevance in today’s dynamic industry, Piquant created a simple 6 step process to help businesses find their purpose that helps build relevance with consumers.
Step 1 INTERNAL REVIEW: Listing Product/Service offerings
It is common for businesses to offer more than one product or service. Thus, in this phase, it is about identifying the common denomination that brings it all together. How would you define the industry that your products or service belong to? Do all your products belong to a particular product or service category?
The purpose of identifying the common denomination among your product or service is to help your consumers understand how your brand can solve their daily problems Being able to identify this consistent proposition is the first step to identifying relevance.
Step 2 INTERNAL REVIEW: Identifying your purpose
After evaluating your common denomination, work on identifying the reason why your business exists. Ask yourself questions like
- Who am I trying to reach out to and what frustrations do they face?
- What is most unique about my product or service that is different from competitors?
- What do I want people to know the brand for in the long run?
Through these series of questions, streamline the most compelling reason about your brand’s existence that is in line with what your customers believe or relate with. Identifying your brand’s purpose can help you stay true to what your brand stands for and guide you in the development of your marketing messaging and visuals.
Step 3 INTERNAL REVIEW: Defining the promise you give to your customers
The brand promise is the commitment that you want to give to your customers. Thus, brands not only need to be able to live up to the brand promise, but also be sure that customers see the value of the promise made to them. In orderto create the brand promise, be sure to also have a plan that allows your brand to deliver and live up to!
The brand’s promise can help extend to create an emotional connection with customers. And being able to connect emotionally with customers gives brands better retention rates and loyalty. Brands do use the term brand promise and a tagline interchangeably. Some examples of good brand promise are,
- BMW – The ultimate driving machine
- Apple – Think different
- Walmart – save money, better lives
Step 4 EXTERNAL REVIEW: Crafting the first impression
You never get a second chance to create a first impression. Unless you did not successfully catch their attention. Thus, the visual and verbal touchpoints of the first impression are very important. There is a big difference between a good design and a piece of art. Good designs should not only look attractive but also get the point across to customers by emphasizing the important aspects of the content. What impression do you want your brand visuals to reflect? Does it go in line with your brand purpose and promise?
Before launching an ad or new marketing campaign, find a new set of eyes to take a look at the visuals and messaging and get feedback on their first impression of the ad. Ask if they understand the message the ad is trying to convey, how they would describe the look and feel and if they understand the objective of the ad. If the feedback gathered does not align with your original intention, it means it’s time to go back to the drawing board.
Step 5: EXTERNAL REVIEW: Communicating and engaging your customers
Once your first impression is aligned with your intent, it is time to look into convincing customers. Content is key in communicating and engaging with your customers. This is the time for brands to tell their difference, explain product/service features, share your brand purpose and story . This information can spread across different touch points such as website landing pages, videos or brochures so on..
Think about your ideal sales pitch to a potential customer and craft your content in a way that gradually convinces customers. Always make sure your content is easy to understand and where possible, utilise imagery, infographics or even videos to keep your customers engaged constantly!
Step 6: Convince and convert
The final push to achieve a desired action from customers is always the most challenging. Whether it is to lead to a purchase online, sending in an enquiry or calling the office, businesses should also consider other ways to keep potential customers close. Conversions can also be smaller actions that can lead to a purchase. Some ideas for B2B companies include subscribing to newsletters for updates or liking and following the page. For B2C companies try encouraging purchase for a lower cost item or collecting emails to receive a direct discount. It is always good to get new customers hooked on something small from the brand whilst spending more time convincing in between.
At the end of the day, marketing and branding can be effective if done right. Especially when digital revolution has changed the way consumers make purchase decisions. The time to start thinking from a consumers point of view to relate and connect with customers through your brand starts now.
