A promise is a declaration that one will do something. As a child, I look forward to my parents fulfilling their promises. To me, in my childhood world, a promise was an emotional contract with my imagination. I build different scenarios in my head of how I would feel when my parents delivered on their promise.
A promise is a declaration that one will do something
There was a pulsation in my anticipation. The constant questions I would ask my parents about the emotional contract they had made meant that everything revolved around this promise and its delivery for that one week or over that period.
Now, there are often two outcomes to a promise: –
- There is joy and exhilaration on the recipient when the promise is delivered.
- The opposite is true of the disappointment and the greying of skies when the emotional contract is not honoured.
Your business carries the same promise to its dream consumers. Like it or not, you have assured your customers that you will consistently deliver quality value to them every time and all the time they interact with your business.
Two things happen when you make a promise. On one end of the spectrum is you, the online entrepreneur cum promise giver. You put your reputation at stake. On the other end of the spectrum is the receiving party cum prized dream customer, who builds hope in preparation for the delivery of ‘the promise’.
This article will delve into five strategic steps for you to follow to start branding your business from the inside out. It will discuss the importance of concentrating all your business activities around your dream customer as a means to build trust. It will also illuminate the significance of sharing your company’s mission statement, vision and core values.
The implementation of these five strategic steps will help your business stand out. It will become easily identifiable and attract the right customers, your dream customers. These are the people who want and are willing to buy your product.
It will show you how your business as a brand is a promise you make to your customers. A contract that you must keep if you want formidable brand loyalty and equity.
Your business carries the same promise to its dream consumers. Like it or not, you have assured your customers that you will consistently deliver quality value to them every time and all the time they interact with your business
Strategy 1: Adapt Marketing as Your Core Business
Marketing is often confused with branding; the difference is highlighted in a previous blog. Marketing is a process of exchanging value. As a business owner, you give value to your customers. You give them what they need and want by creating an offering and freely exchanging your product (good or service) to receive money.
Branding, on the other hand, is also the process of distinguishing and differentiating your business. So, branding puts a mark that will set you apart from everybody else in the same sector or anybody operating in the same sphere.
Branding ensures that your online business stands out from the crowd. It puts your business in the spotlight. You have no choice but to put your best foot forward.
The marketing concept is the key to achieving your company goals. Your business has to be more effective than its competitors in product creation and delivery. Consistent superior customer experience will undoubtedly separate your online business from the pack.
The marketing concept is a framework that consists of four distinct pillars: –
- Target market
- Fulfilling customer needs
- An integrated marketing
- Profitability
Target market: You have to decide on who will buy your products. It is not possible to satisfy everybody. People are individuals and have specific preferences for the things they love.
If we think of carbonated soft drinks, two major brands come to mind – Pepsi Cola and Coke Cola. Each brand appeals to different people for various reasons. It’s the same primary product with similar attributes, but each person in the cola market will choose their preferred cola brand.
Most customer segmentation is done using demographic’s, psychographics and behavioural preferences.
Now that you’ve decided on your target market. It’s time for you to dig deep.
Remember to choose the most attractive segment for your business, the one that offers you the most sizeable opportunity.
Strategy 2: Understand Your Dream Customer Better Than They Understand themselves.
Now that you have selected the segment that offers the most significant opportunity for your business, it is time to fully engage and immerse yourself in the world of your dream customer.Suppose you can enter into the conversations your dream customers have in their heads. In that case, you are closer to winning their trust and solidifying your authority as a leader in your industry.
If you can tap into this resource, then you can create products that will assist your customers. You will have a competitive advantage as you will deliver concrete benefits.Your goal is to immerse yourself in the world of your dream customer—work towards understanding your dream customers’ wants, needs, and demands.
Just to clarify, needs are the basic human requirements. In general, most people have fundamental needs for recreation, education, and entertainment.
A need becomes a want when directed to specific objects that might satisfy the need—for example, a person who needs food but wants an apple cinnamon pancake.To illustrate this further, most Americans need transport but want a car. Here in the Netherlands, most people also need transportation but want a bicycle to get around. I think it’s safe to say that, for the most part, wants are shaped by society.
On the other hand, demand is a higher level of want—the ability to pay creates demand. So, if I want a bicycle to get around in the Netherlands, I will increase the demand for bikes if I can pay for one.
The success of your business is the ability to find demand for your product. To find that customer who has the ability and willingness to pay, you have to find your dream customer.
The success of your business is the ability to find demand for your product. To find that customer who has the ability and willingness to pay, you have to find your dream customer.
Strategy 3: Craft Your Value Statement for Your Online Business.
Once you’ve identified your dream customer, you need to communicate the benefits you will offer them to satisfy their needs. I’ve learned that business, by its very nature, is multidimensional. You not only have to have an actual product or service to offer your customers.
But in addition, you have to make an offering that combines service, information and experience.
Are you selling an e-book? How do you make an e-book into an offer? You make your e-book move from a simple product to an offer by making it easy to purchase and return the product. Create supporting information about your e-book, talk about the benefits your dream customer will derive from reading your book. Challenge yourself to think of ways you would like to be delighted when buying an e-book and mirror the same process for your online business.
That’s an offer. It’s more than just a product. It’s a combination of benefits or all that makes your product stand out. Now your value proposition is an offer. It’s a package.
This value proposition will be successful if it delivers value and satisfaction to your dream customer. The only way your customer will get to experience your intangible value proposition is through your offering. And remember, an offering is a combination of service information and experience.
If I were to choose between two organic milk brands, I would choose the brand that I perceived to deliver the most value. The cheaper one would be my preference. It is my opinion that grass-fed cows produce the same milk. So why would I pay more for organic milk?
My criteria when choosing Electronics is very different. I start with Apple and then move on to other brands if they don’t have the electronic gadget that I want.
Value is a combination of quality, service and price. The general rule is that value increases with quality and service and decreases with the price. Businesses are founded to improve the well-being of society.
My organic milk offers me both functional and emotional benefits. The practical benefit is that I have healthy dairy to make my Boba milk tea. The emotional benefit is simply the feel-good feeling of using a product with the word ‘organic’.
Strategy 4: Brand Your Online Business for Success.
I like to think of branding as an ongoing process. Everything you release from your online company has the potential to build or destroy your brand[1]
Getting your business branding right requires a long-term view. It is part of your value proposition, your promise to your customers. It is the means by which you package your offering.
In strategy 4, we shall look at the branding of your online business. Branding is the art and the cornerstone of marketing.
The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a name, term, sign, symbol, design, or a combination of them intended to identify a company’s goods and services and to differentiate them from those of competitors. Your brand helps your dream customer to identify you and perceive the value you offer.
The Complex Nature of Brands
Brand Attributes: Your business has the potential to bring into the mind of customers specific attributes. Think of the attributes you might associate with Walt Disney parks or even an Apple iPhone.
Make it actionable: Take a piece of paper and a pen and quickly write down the brand attributes you would like for your company.
The Apple iPhone, in my mind, elicits attributes of innovation, modernity, speed, durability, sleekness, intuition etc.
Brand Benefits: The brand benefits must be translated into both functional and emotional benefits.
Using the Apple iPhone attributes of innovation and durability. Let us see how we can translate these into both functional and emotional benefits:
| Functional | Emotional |
Innovation | speed | I will have no problem with connectivity. I feel important |
Durability | Sturdy | I will not buy another iPhone for several years. |
[1] Just so you know I use Brands to represent your online business
Make it actionable: On the same piece of paper. Write down for each business attribute that you came up with the associated emotional and functional benefit.
Hint: Try and link these benefits as the solutions to your dream customers pain or problem.
These benefits will be important when you are crafting any communication messages from your organisation. If your benefits align with the conversations your dream customer is having in their head, their resonance and alignment will make your product the preferred option. The one they will buy
Brand Culture: Your business will project a specific culture to the world. The culture will be a sum total of the predominant colours on your brand logo, the tonality of your content and your social media platforms.
For example: –
- McDonalds and the Golden Arches signify American culture.
- Mercedes Benz definitely German engineering
- IKEA Swedish minimalistic culture
Make it actionable: Think about the culture you would like your business to portray, write it down,
Brand Personality. Brands have a personality. Red Bull is often associated with high energy sports, and you will often see their branding plastered all-over high-energy sporting events such as Formula 1.Disney movies, on the other hand, have a personality that reflects wholesome family entertainment.
Your work as an online business owner is to ensure that you are consistently creating content that builds on your brand attributes, benefits and value.
Just so you Know :
Brand Attributes: – these are accessible for competitors to copy. Current brand attributes may also become less relevant over time.As a business owner, you want to continuously work on your brand attributes to ensure that they are still relevant to your dream audience. You also want to move your brand communication to highlight benefits and values.
Brand Benefits: – These genuinely address the pain points of your dream consumer. Emotional and functional benefits give your online business a competitive edge
Brand Values and Culture: The sum total of the brand attributes and benefits that reside in your consumer’s mind. The difference between buying a German sports car and an Italian sports car is the culture and the value that the consumer wants to identify with, not about the attributes or the benefits.
How will you know the culture that your dream customer wants to associate with? The answer is straightforward -spend your resources in getting to know them better than they know themselves.
Strategy 5: Building Brand Loyalty and Solidifying Your Brand Equity.
The final strategy in branding your online business for success is building your brand Loyalty and equity.
Once you have moved your customers to the top of the pyramid, your next step is to use your online business value proposition to build and sustain customer loyalty.
How do you, as a business owner, consistently deliver on your promise? You need a benchmark, a compass that will act as a reference point. I think it is safe to state that your business mission statement, vision and values are your true North.
Consistency will guarantee that everything produced goes through the lens of your mission, vision and value. If you want to develop a new product, check that it aligns with your mission, vision, and values. If by the off chance it is not, then you have two options: –
- Ditch the product because it goes against your values
- Diversify and expand your vision, mission and value.
Entrepreneurship is an ongoing experiment!
Remember, as a brand owner. You are offering a contract to your customers regarding your product. You have to be honest and communicate attributes, benefits, and values that sincerely represent your company.Your ability to deliver on your promise every time, all the time, will lead to brand bonding.Brand bonding occurs when your dream customers experience your online business ability and consistency in delivering functional and emotional benefits.
Your ultimate goal is to reach this point of bonding and keep the bond strong by enriching the experience your customers have with your brand.
Brand equity is an asset that flows when you build brand loyalty and bonding with your dream audience.
Brand equity results in customers showing a preference for your product over another in the same category. It is safe to say the extent to which customers are willing to invest in a particular brand is a measure of brand equity.
Coke was the brand I was willing to pay more for with my money back in my Coca Cola drinking days. So Coke had robust brand equity in my head.
Brand equity is such a vital asset, and like most intangible assets, it needs careful management. It is easy for this asset to depreciate when mismanaged.
Maintain your brand equity by improving, enhancing the overall brand experience.
The 5 simple strategies require Kaizen that is a continuous improvement over time. Branding is, after all, an ongoing process that evolves with time.
And here you it! The five simple strategies to branding your online business for success.
Conclusion
Your dream customer should be at the heart of all your business activities. Your online business is your number one brand. It is how people will find you online.You must ensure that all your online properties speak the same language in projecting your brand attributes, benefits and values.Consistency is your superpower. As an online business owner, consistency in your offerings will lead to brand loyalty and brand equity
Your dream customer will come back for more of what you have and what you will have in future. If you deliver on your promises, you will create a sense of anticipation and excitement in the minds of your dream customer.You will be in brand heaven when your dream customer shows a preference for you and your online offerings.
Now that you know how to go about branding your online business, click here to download your free brand pyramid worksheet . So, you can start drafting the attributes, benefits, both functional and emotional, and values for your online business.
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