SaaS Survival Guide: 4 Steps to Define Your Brand’s DNA
Unlock your companies potential and stop competing on price when you find your purpose.
Build your tribe, create your own market, front as a respected leader and emotionally resonate with your buyers to drive more deals.
Founders get bombarded with hundreds of branding terms and exercises. If this is you, and you want to understand the exact process to the only brand strategy you’ll ever need, spend 5 minutes reading this.
We’re going to cover the first of our 3 pillar brand strategy framework. Which is: Pillar 1: Brand DNA, Pillar 2: Positioning and Pillar 3: Persona.
If you find your DNA, the rest comes easy.
Purpose:
As Simon Sinek explains the golden circle, most companies start with WHAT they sell; then HOW they do it (mission statement); then, which few get to, WHY (purpose). Great brands start with why, then how, and then what.
People don’t buy what you sell, the emotionally connect and resonate with WHY you sell it. Align your team, articulate your value and psychologically attract new buyers when you find your purpose and WHY.
A few questions you can start asking are:
Why are you in business other than financial gain?
How will the world be different if you didn’t exist?
How do we aim to change the lives of our users?
Vision:
What’s the big grand plan with your business? A bold, inspirational declaration that gives your customers a peak into where you going. Design your tribe with people who align with your ambitions.
What impact do you want to leave on your users’ lives as well as your industry in 10 years time? This will be your Northern star to every brand decision you need to make.
Here are two good examples:
Google: “To provide access to the world’s information in one click.”
Starbucks: “To establish Starbucks as the premier purveyor of the finest coffee in the world, while maintaining our uncompromising principles while we grow.”
Notice there’s something more there than selling an internet browser or a cup of coffee. They’re aiming to bring value to the world and change their customers lives. When you can do this you start creating your own market and stop competing on features and price. You’re selling an emotion and purpose bigger than something of the shelf.
This is how you outmanoeuvre the competition and leave them behind. No one can sell the same identity as you.
Mission:
The mission statement is what you are doing right now in order to achieve your vision — the HOW behind your vision statement.
What beliefs do you hold close in order to change the lives of your customers? Do you aspire to have the most genuine and friendly customer support or do you believe in having the fastest delivery in the country.
Your mission statement must include these 4 components:
- WHAT you’re doing now
- For WHOm
- HOW you’re doing it
- What this achieves (RESULT)
Consider our running example:
Google: “To organise the world’s information (HOW &WHAT) and make it universally (WHO) accessible and useful (RESULT).”
Starbucks: “To inspire and nurture (WHAT) the human spirit (RESULT) — one person, one cup and one neighbourhood (WHO) at a time (HOW).”
Values:
What are your core beliefs through which you go about achieving your mission. Consider a few words as your shorthand to the above 3 components. Brainstorm and find 4 words that sums up your companies purpose, mission and value.
For example:
Google would use: Accessible, innovative, human-centred, leadership
Starbucks would use: Friendly, caring, inclusivity, community
However, let’s expand on this a little further. Rather than using vague, overused words. Flesh out a few sentences or taglines that embody your culture better. If you’re a quirky brand make them super informal and fun, as if you had to stick it on your office wall. Give them your companies special twist!
For example:
Google use: Focus on the user and all else will follow; Fast is better than slow; There’s always more information out there; Great just isn’t good enough.
Conclusion
The brand’s strategy starts to come to life when we refine and articulate our DNA with the following 2 pillars, positioning and persona, in mind.
We find gaps within the competitor landscape, analyse the desires of our audience and start crafting a personality and messaging framework. Building the strategy is never linear. We’ll go back and forth the more we uncover about who we are, where we’re going, who we speaking to and what we saying.
If you can get your team to answer some of the questions we mentioned you’ll already start to see clarity to achieving your business goals through finding your brand’s DNA. I hope you enjoyed this and found some value.
If you enjoyed this. I wrote a 55+ question brand cheat sheet to help (non-creative) founders improve their branding. A done-for-you audit covering your strategy, verbal and visual identit. Get access here for free
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