“We need some ads”
Maybe you’re a startup (or a small-business entrepreneur) and you’re at the point where you’re ready to start selling but aren’t sure where to begin with regard to marketing. Maybe you’re a non-profit and can’t figure out why you aren’t driving the kind of donations you need. Most RFPs I see from businesses in these same situations are looking for help with advertising – maybe looking for a creative team to design and produce ads or sometimes even data analysts to help figure out why ads are underperforming. I’m here to tell you the answer is almost never “ads” and always branding.
If you were nodding along to that last paragraph, and that last sentence was a curveball, this article is for you! Maybe you’re thinking that branding is only for big companies and you’re not there yet. Maybe you’re not sure what branding IS. In a few short paragraphs I hope to explain to you why branding is the single most important thing you can do for yourself before you flip the switch and start selling.
Branding is like compound interest,
the sooner you start, the higher the yield down the road.
So, what is a “brand,” and why is it such a big deal? A brand is the totality of thoughts, feelings, associations and expectations a consumer experiences when exposed to your name, trademarks, products, designs and representatives. More simply put, your brand is the sum of every point of contact between your business and the end-user. The critical piece of that statement (and something even some marketers fail to understand) is that consumers partially own your brand. While you control and influence the messages communicated to consumers, ultimately it is up to them to interpret those messages, and as the old saying goes “Perception is reality.” The smaller your budget, the more critical it is for every single one of those points of contact to be speaking in harmony and reinforcing why your audience should care about you. Conversely, businesses that don’t market themselves as a cohesive brand cede too much control to the consumer to define what they stand for, and misspend their marketing budgets by far more than it will ever cost them to create a strong brand in the first place.
Pretty important, right? But that’s only the start.
Strong brands deliver intrinsic value. They allow you to charge a premium for your product or service and also garner preferred distribution at point of sale. Consider the difference between Coke® and grocery store cola. The cola inside those cans may be identical in flavor, but consumers willingly pay $1-2 more for that 12-pack. That’s because of branding. You’ll also find Coke on the end-cap displays of the store or on the most prominent part of the shelf. You don’t find many restaurants offering you generic cola either, do you?
In addition to intrinsic value, strong brands deliver relative value. They’re less reliant on price promotions because their customers are more loyal. They’re less reliant on proving demonstrable advantages and more resistant to competitors entering the marketplace.
Strong brands also have higher name recognition (meaning it takes less advertising impressions to get their message across), and are considered more credible, so each message is read with a greater sense of belief.
Okay, Dave, branding is important. So how do you do it? Well, that’s where Endangered Species Marketing can help. I can help you identify the essence of who you are and why consumers should care, and even who those best customers should be. I can also help you determine who is competing for those same dollars, what their strengths and weaknesses are, how they are currently positioned in the marketplace and where there may be gaps. Then I can help you determine how you should be positioning your brand in the marketplace based on critical consumer insights.
Then, and only then, should you truly start spending money on marketing. With a solid brand foundation in place, we can then develop your messaging strategy – what you say and how you say it. This will establish your look, tone and voice as a brand as well as your promise to your consumers - a promise you guarantee to deliver on every. single. time. These guardrails will help you stay true to your brand across all touchpoints and help your marketing team stay consistent as you grow. The more consistently you communicate to consumers, the more memorable you’ll be, driving efficiency and impact from every marketing dollar. THEN we can make you some ads!
This may all seem overwhelming. It’s not meant to be, but it IS meant to help you recognize the important foundational work that should be done before you start investing significantly in advertising. Most brand-building projects take about 4 weeks to complete, and while there is involvement from key stakeholders in terms of intake interviews and transfer of information, these projects do not take you away from the full-time work of running your business.
Post-Script: If you (or maybe your CFO) are interested in reading more about the financial value of a brand, I invite you to read this excellent article from the 2019 issue of Strategic Finance Magazine: https://sfmagazine.com/articles/2019/october/the-financial-value-of-brand/