Do you want outsized ROI? Focus on your brand.
Ready to start building your brand? You’re in the right spot.
Let’s face it; there are millions upon millions of brands out there (depending on how you define a brand), and though some are downright amazing, others, not so much. If your brand doesn’t stand out from the crowd, your business will never gain the traction it needs to succeed. Branding and creating brand value help brands stand out from the crowd and achieve an outsized ROI.
There is no one size fits all branding solution. That may seem daunting for the business owner looking for an easy fit, but it opens up a world of opportunities for creatives. Ultimately, your brand is the story you tell. Telling it right can increase your company’s value, make your employees happier, help achieve market penetration, and even make your inferior product worth more than the competition. In this blog, we’ll cover two extreme ends of the branding spectrum, along with some tips for you and your brand.
Let’s play two truths and a lie. 1) Customers only want the best value for their money. This trade-off is usually trying to find the highest quality for the lowest price. 2) A brand can be objectively lower quality and still charge higher amounts than the competition. 3) “Quality” has more to do with the stories customers tell themselves than actual performance.
What’s the lie?
If you guessed number 1, you’re right. While there is some truth to number 1, most consumers do not make purchases based on objective quality but rather fall prey to the emotional stories they tell themselves when making a purchase. Emotional purchasing is especially true for “savvy” consumers who are always hunting for the best deal. The deal itself is a story they buy into.
A great example of this is the Stradivarius brand. World-renowned for their quality craftsmanship and sound, experts agree that Stradivarius instruments can never be reproduced. The most expensive Stradivarius is valued at around $200 million, and others have sold in the low millions. These violins are so famous that they have inspired violence. Deceit, theft, murder follow these violins all because of their value. It’s curious to note that these stolen violins are nearly impossible to sell. Such is their reputation that selling it would almost certainly lead to being caught. Criminals are willing to steal these instruments solely to have one in their possession. Don’t you want that level of obsession over your brand?
You must be thinking, “These violins must sound amazing.” (Or maybe you’re on to me, and you know I’m setting you up). I thought that too until an objective study challenged my belief. The study conducted double-blind trials, and the outcome showed that enthusiasts and professionals alike preferred the sound of modern ( and much cheaper) violins. Let me restate that: even world-class professionals fell prey to the Stradivarius brand.
Undoubtedly, it would be amazing to hear a Stradivarius be played live. However, the idea that their sound quality is better has been objectively proven false. The power of a brand is such that it can convince people of quality.
Not all brands can be crafted by masters and survive history to become unique industry hallmarks like Stradivarius. However, every brand can employ techniques that add more value than the product alone provides. Coca-Cola is an excellent example of a brand that sells the brand more than the product. Don’t believe me? Check out their website. (I’m writing this just before Christmas, and their current slogan is “Bring Home Holiday Magic.” — I’m confident that checking their site during any part of the year will show a similar message because of their branding strategy.)
What’s not said on their website is anything about the superior flavor of their product. They do not try to sell their product. They sell Holiday Magic, happiness, family togetherness, and other ideals that are easy to buy into. Anchor these emotions into a consumer’s mind enough, and they will forever associate your brand with whatever emotions the brand appeals to.
I’m not telling you that your brand can be as successful as Coke’s. There are probably very few people in the world who have never seen a Coca-Cola label or bottle. That’s truly impressive. I’m not telling you that you can sell a lower-quality product for millions of dollars. Many other factors make Stradivariuses unique. What you can do, though, is employ similar messaging to your audience. Appeal to their emotions by telling stories. Speak to their fears, their desires — speak to their hearts.
A few tips when developing a brand:
- Tell a story: Humans love a story. It’s arguably how we can best remember things. If you don’t remember anything else from this blog, remember to tell a story.
- Develop a “customer persona”: It’s challenging to develop a brand for a nebulous concept. A customer persona is an archetypal buyer that you can use as a North Star when developing your brand.
- Follow the trends: Be careful here; I do not mean fads. Trends are well developed, identifiable patterns that can be spotted with detailed analysis. Sometimes you don’t need analysis to spot the most well-defined trends. Example: Coke targets human happiness. People want to be happy. Groundbreaking stuff, I know. An example of a more recent trend is convenience. Convenience is deeply rooted in our psychology and has been proven an important factor in decision making. It would be difficult for a brand to succeed today if it were not easy to access. An emerging trend is connectivity. There is some cultural pushback here, but, in general, we are moving towards a more connected world. APIs are taking advantage of this desire for connectivity.
- Use the right tools: Brand boards and brand wheels can be a great way to hone in on your brand. What exactly do you want your brand to look like, feel like? These tools can be great for brainstorming, creating brand campaigns, and gaining insight into your existing brand.
- Omnichannel awareness: Today, consumers have more ways than ever to interact with your brand. Do yourself a favor, and have a strategy from the start of how and where you want to interact with your brand’s audience. While you will have slightly different messaging per channel, messaging throughout the channels should be consistent with the brand’s core values.
Crafting and deploying a unique, thoughtful brand is very difficult. Done right, and you can see impressive ROI. Done wrong, and you will miss your audience entirely and put your brand at risk.
Insight Projects is here to help with our brand architecture and cultivation experts. We can build your brand from scratch, help you take your brand to the next level, and can even turn around struggling brands. Our small team of specialists handpicks projects that come to us only after a vetting process. Taking on only the brands we can fall in love with guarantees our quality of work. The exclusive nature of our client relationships means that you can be sure that your brand isn’t lost in the backlog of some corporate marketer. We make it our business to obsess over our clients’ brands.
Want to learn more about us? Visit us today at www.InsightProjects.co. We look forward to meeting you and learning about your brand!
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
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