To successfully brand your company, you must know who youare and show who you are in every aspect of your business – but especially inyour promotional materials. Are you the innovative maverick in your industry?Or the experienced, reliable one? Do people choose your product because of itsquality – or because of its price point? You can’t be all things to all people,so you have to decide just who you are. Strategically pinpointing your niche inthe market will simplify all your branding efforts. Every visual aspect of yourbrand should consistently point in the same direction. But when you’re firststarting out, how can you do this quickly and cost effectively?
When it comes to the basic building blocks you need todevelop your brand in the most efficient manner possible, I use what I call the”A.S.A.P.” formula of branding. Here’s how it works:
A = Advantage. You’ve got to decidewhat prevailing message – what content – you want to communicate to yourcustomers.
S = Style. What’s the style of yourmessage? In other words, how are you going to “dress” your messagefor your audience?
A = Adjective. What verbal cue willyour message carry to your customers?
P = colour. What visual cue willyour message have that helps to reinforce your brand?
Now for youradvantage
So what makes your company unique? You’ve got to determinewhat differentiates your company in your market in order to craft a brand thatmakes that advantage obvious. Ask yourself this: How is your brand better thanthe others? In what areas does your brand create value for consumers?
Here are some common competitive advantages I’ve found inworking with small businesses:
- high quality
- low cost
- customised
- stylish or trendy
- wide range of choices
- experience
- reliability
- conveniently located
- eco-friendly
- first-to-market (the “classic”)
- unique (the only one)
When you’re trying to decide just what makes you stand out,remember this: Contrary to popular opinion, a brand can’t successfully occupyboth the high quality and low cost niches in the mind of consumers. Simply put,it’s impossible to be “the high quality, low cost” option. You can bethe high quality choice, or you can be the low cost choice. But you can’t beboth. If you really think you could be both, your best bet might be to focus onvalue, because value is a different story. Value implies satisfactory qualityat a satisfactory price, and that’s something all consumers love.
If you’re having difficulty identifying your key advantage,start by answering this: What makes you personally different? Most newbusinesses take on the personality of their owners, so your unique traitsreally do matter. Another option is to list all the advantages up forconsideration, and then choose the strongest, most interesting, or mostprofitable.
Whatever route you take, choose only one advantage for yourbrand. When it comes to marketing and advertising, the ability to prioritise isgolden – and the ability to select just one advantage is genius. Today’sconsumers have no time or inclination to juggle the three, four or fivedifferent advantages you may actually offer. They need to file your brand intheir minds quickly and easily, into just one slot, so they can retrieve itquickly and easily, so choose one advantage.
Once you’ve determined that one advantage, sum up yourbrand’s value in a sentence, and try to include your product’s principlefeatures or benefits. Here’s a sample, fill-in-the-blank formula: “[nameof brand] provides [name of target market] with [advantage to targetaudience].” For instance, “Prodo Products provides JSE Listedcompanies with the highest quality printers.” Then go further by statingthe benefit your clients derive from your advantage:”… by providing fastdocument printing to increase business efficiencies.” This statement canserve as a compass for virtually all your branding efforts.
Only after you’ve determined your brand’s advantage andnailed the content of your message can you address its style.