The 5-step process to building brands that work
“ I want to be an entrepreneur. I’m going to start a business. I need to start building my brand. So how do I start? “
This is where each and every business owner once started before having a successful business. It’s a good first aspirational step to take, and it can even give you a good spark of adrenaline to have taken the daunting step of making this decision.
But what comes next?
Here’s the 5-step process I follow to help me work out the brand strategy before diving too deep into content creation.
1. Defining the value
The first step is to define the unique value of your product or service in comparison to your competitors. Whether you are selling a service or a product, it’s important to figure out what’s the most valuable thing your customers are getting out of it.
For example, a coffee shop may be giving value by producing a local blend that is unique to their area. The value here would then be the local coffee blend that is exclusive to this area.
2. Identifying YOUR audience
This leads to the second step which is to identify who your primary target audience is.
It would be easy for a coffee shop owner to say that they cater to everyone who loves coffee. But the owner of the coffee shop down the street may also say the same thing — that they cater to all people who love coffee. Therefore, you would both be competing for a very large and generalized market.
Being more specific in your definition of customers would help you create more targeted content that is more directly relevant to them.
For example, that coffee shop owner might find that they are getting more customers from tourists who visit because they want to taste the locally exclusive coffee blend unique to their shop. In that case, their primary audience would then be coffee-loving tourists from out of town.
3. Creating content with intent
After defining the value of your product as well as a specific audience of yours that finds value in what your product gives, you can then move onto creating audience-specific content.
That means creating content that your customers find value in. For example, the coffee owner wouldn’t suddenly switch to selling exotic tea when their market demand is for their coffee blend unless there was good reason to.
4. Finding your constant
Once you’ve found out what content is reaching your customers, stick with it. Sure, variety can be nice, but it isn’t always the most helpful thing when trying to create a consistent brand with a constant flow of content your audience can expect from you.
Following this consistent algorithm will help your audience identify you and your brand. Over time, this will lead to a steady customer base loyal to your brand just like the returning customers to the coffee shop who keep coming back for another taste of that local blend.
5. Embracing your brand
Great! You have created your brand strategy and now have a steady flow of customers who love your brand and the content you create. It’s important at this stage that you stay with your brand. Embrace what you’ve created thus far and don’t add something new just for the sake of adding something new.
Instead, create variations of the original content you began with. The common pitfall here is that you worry your content is getting stale, repetitive and old. The best thing to do now is to truly embrace your brand and stick with it.
For example, if your local coffee blend is attracting customers, you wouldn’t want to switch to selling tea out of the blue because customers are coming to you with the expectation of finding an exceptional coffee blend. Failing to meeting that expectation can be a frustrating experience for your customers and a potential way to lose them.
If you are determined to add new content and extend your offering, do research first to ensure it’s actually something your current customer base would be willing to buy.
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