Question

Topic: Branding

Should I Have A Different Brand For Different Markets?

Posted by Anonymous on 2/11/2004 at 6:57 PM ET 125 Points
We're a small business consultancy.

We have 2 distinct market demographics & pychographics.

In the small business space we offer a full range of business coaching/consulting which looks at business strategy, sales improvement, marketing, people etc.

This market generally has between 1 and 20 employees and we work principally with the business owner.

In the middle corporate 20 - 500 employees, we target sales performance improvement. This is done through training, coaching, sales management analysis, people selection etc. Here we may work with the sales director as well as the CEO.

Our dilemma is how do we separate our marketing materials (ie web site content) so that a large business doesn't get put off by the small business copy and vice versa.

One thought is to have 2 different brands.

Our original brand is Revealed Resources. This handled the small stuff. We just launched another company Bizsavvy.biz for some public business seminars.

We're thinking about using the Revealed Resources company to target the corporate market and Bizsavvy to target small business.

This would allow us to separate the marketing messages etc.

Is this a good idea?

If so, we were wondering if we could have a double sided business card, one side Revealed Resources, the other Bizsavvy? Would this confuse the hell out of people???

Thanks,

Rashid.

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RESPONSES

  • Posted by williamarruda on 2/11/2004 at 7:25 PM Accepted
    Managing one brand takes a lot of effort and resources. Managing two...

    I work with lots of coaches/consultants who have multiple target audiences, but work under one brand unbrella. Different offerings can be targeted at different segments, but your value proposition - what makes you unique and valuable is likely the same for both targets.

    Unless you are selling two completely different things to two completely different targets, you should try to work under a unified brand.

    Brand your company and produce different literature that is relevant and compelling for different targets. You can also provide customized experiences for each target on the web through one entry page.

    Best.
    William
    www.reachcc.com/thebrandcoach

  • Posted by BobetteKyle on 2/11/2004 at 7:48 PM Accepted
    I agree you should definitely keep the two separate. Putting each under an autonomous brand - with completely separate marketing material and Web sites - is one way to do this. As you mentioned, however, this can present problems.

    Another thought with respect to marketing materials is to position these as two different brands under a company "umbrella", similar in structure to the way many consumer packaged goods companies are structured. Nestle is an example. In the US, they operate under the company umbrella of Nestle USA and market a wide variety of brands under that company name - Alpo, Carnation, Wonka, etc. https://www.nestleusa.com/

    Putting both brands under a single corporate umbrella would also open up opportunities to compare and contrast your services. This could be done in a way that leads potential clients to information about the service that is best for them. On your site, for example, the home page copy can be a company overview, with details of each brand in a separate section.

    Charles Schwab does this according to type of trading activity: https://www.schwab.com/
    Kraft segments site visitors according to geography: https://www.kraft.com/brands/
    Real estate sites segment according to whether visitors are buyers or sellers.

    You could do something similar according to the client’s company size. This way, you lead each market to its own copy.

    As far as business cards, I think it would be okay to have a card with your overall company information on the front. The back could be simple text listing your two separate brands, with a one or two sentence positioning statement next to each.

    Hope this gives you some useful ideas!

    Bobette Kyle
  • Posted by ReadCopy on 2/12/2004 at 5:13 AM Member
    I know this response is late, but I personally wouldn't recommend have competely separate brands, still keep your main brand as the key identifier.

    As per the Kraft comment above, most people know that they are buying a Kraft product, even through the brand name underneath it may be different.
    Consumer goods are really good at that, and I think we in business MUST learn from it.

    SUMMARY:
    Your overall brand image (your business) is the delivery promise, your sub-brands inform your prospects/customers what service they will get from you, and what the experience of that sub-brand will be.
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