What you need to know about positioning?
I attended the Growing Your Own Business show at London’s Olympia today. To be honest the exhibition wasn’t great, unless you want to buy into a franchise, which by the way is an excellent route into business if you’re struggling for ideas.
Part of the show included a presentation theatre where I listened to Jeremy Martin talking about his sports drink business ‘For Goodness Shakes’. To be honest, having never seen or heard of this product or brand, it was a weak case study, although an entertaining presentation.
However, Jeremy did run a great workshop afterwards all about positioning and I want to share his ideas with you.
First of all, what is positioning? Jeremy defined it as “what your customers think your product is”, later elaborated to “what you want your customers to think your product is”. In other words, how you want to be perceived. He used the example of Ryan Air and how its position is being like a flying bus rather than an airline. This is designed to make you more comfortable with the low price and minimal service and sets RyanAir’s place in the market place, relative to its competitors - Easyjet, BMI Baby etc.
So what can you take away from this? To my mind, positioning is an essential ingredient of your brand promise. When you define your brand, what it looks like etc, take the step first of thinking what you want your customers to think your product is. (To be even more effective you really should identify what needs your target market has first, then identify your position). This will then help you to set the guidelines for your brand.
The Ryan Air example is good. Jeremy’s own product is positioned as a sports recovery shake, which works with his target audience. I haven’t tried it yet, but I surely will now - thanks for a good workshop Jeremy. (What a good example of the value of PR).
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Small business advertising
- link to
YouTube Directfantastic video
I love entertaining TV advertising. This one by Nike is a classic example of big brand advertising at its best - funny, carrying a message, memorable and so much more. But as a small business can you use brand advertising as a marketing tool?
Unfortunately the answer is almost certainly NO. The cost alone prohibits most companies from getting in on the action. But not only that, as a small company, it’s unlikely you will have a strong enough brand in the first place to reinforce through TV advertising. So what can you do to advertise your business?
There are lots of options, but my first suggestion is to consider direct response advertising. This is when your adverts are designed to promote a specific call to action from prospective customers. For example:
- Call now to save 50% on carpets!
- Log on to www.megaDVDdeals.com for cheap blockbuster DVDs!
This will encourage prospective customers to contact you and enter your sales process. Compare this to a brand advert like the Nike example - whilst you may come away thinking how great Nike is, have you actually gone a step closer to buying a pair of trainers?
The second, and final option for this post, is to consider which advertising is the correct medium for your target audience. For the carpet example above, your best choice might be a local newspaper, whereas for the DVD Mega deals an online search campaign might be better. This is what media planning is all about and there’s a whole industry dedicated to this.
Advertising is a massive subject, so please come back regularly for more posts. I’ll do my best to showcase some of the best advertising and viral marketing campaigns like the crazy Indian cricket Nike ad.
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Fantastic Brand Advertising
- link to
YouTube Direct
Here’s another example of fantastic brand advertising, this time for John Smith’s bitter.
View and enjoy, these ads are very very funny.
Tag:Advertising brandingcomments
Is Branding Important for Solo-Professionals? Take My Branding Quiz
You’ve probably heard the term “branding.” It gets thrown around a lot these days. In fact when I typed the word “branding” into Google there were nearly 70,000,000 search results!
It is a popular topic! But is it just for big businesses like Coca-Cola, Microsoft and Nike?
Do solo-professionals and small business owners need to worry about branding?
I believe that in many ways it’s even MORE important for solo-professionals and small business owners to brand. But, before we get into why, let’s get clear on just what branding is.
Here’s a paraphrase of a Wikipedia definition I found that I think sums it up pretty well.
What is a Brand?
A brand is a collection of images and ideas representing a business. More specifically, it refers to the concrete symbols such as a name, logo, tagline and design scheme. Brand recognition is created by the accumulation of experiences a person has with a specific product or service. This includes their experience using the product as well as how they are influenced by the company’s advertising, design, and media exposure.
In short, a brand is a symbolic embodiment of ALL of the information connected to a company, product or service.
Why Branding is Important for Solo-Professionals
If you’re a coach, consultant or some other type of solo-professional or small business owner, odds are there are many other coaches, consultants or business owners who do what you do.
These other business owners are your competitors because they are people your clients could hire instead of hiring you.
If you don’t take the time to create a brand, your services will not stand out. They will not be unique. And you will not be giving people a REASON to hire you or buy from you instead of your competitors.
What Happens When You Don’t Have a Brand
If you don’t take the time to create a brand, you and your business are generic. They don’t stand for anything. So, you will struggle more to get clients and you will be forced to compete on price. And, that’s the hard way to market and be successful.
Branding isn’t something you need to hire a marketing agency or consultant to do for you. You can do it yourself by taking a few simple steps.
Your Marketing Step
I want you to step back and ask yourself a few questions to determine if you have a brand, or if your business is generic.
1) Does your business stand for something beyond just the services you offer?
For example, 10stepmarketing is a brand because it stands for simple, step-by-step marketing. Everything is built on this foundation. It is what the business is known for. The look of my marketing materials portray this simple, no-nonsense image. And, my products and services are all designed to be simple and step-by-step.
Conversely, a marketing consultant who only markets the service of marketing consulting, without any kind of differentiation, does not have a brand.
2) Do all of your marketing materials and messages consistently portray this brand image?
Look at your website, your business cards, your ads, the articles you write, your newsletter, your press releases and anything you use to market your business. It should all reflect your brand and what it stands for. Anything a prospect or client sees from your business should be easily recognized as being from you - in the way it is written and the way it looks.
This recognition creates trust, which is a key marketing ingredient for solo-professionals and small business owners.
3) When someone purchases your product or service, is their experience consistent with your brand image?
Do you deliver your products and services in a manner that is consistent with your brand? Take a look at the experience your clients have after working with you or buying one of your products. Is that experience consistent with your brand image?
If after taking this short brand quiz, you find that you DON’T have a brand and you are currently marketing and selling a generic service, I encourage you to take steps today to start creating a brand.
Determine what you want your brand to stand for. What you want it to represent. And start incorporating this into EVERYTHING you do.
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Debbie LaChusa created The 10stepmarketing System to make marketing your own business as simple as answering 10 questions. Learn more about this unique, step-by-step system and get a free Marketing E-Course when you subscribe to the free, weekly 10stepmarketing Ezine at http://www.10stepmarketing.com |
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