Know-How Exchange : Branding

Orla,

Branding is part of a marketing strategy. As in dentistry, where you would not do an extraction without first prepping the patient and administering an anesthetic, you don't jump into branding without doing the up-front work in marketing.

Marketing is a three part process: Strategy - in which you do analysis and set direction; Planning - for which you set goals, devise activities, and develop measurements of your success; and execution - where you carry out the activities, assess your success, and take corrective actions. Because this is lengthy and the forum doesn't support answers this long, I will describe the process in a three part answer - Analysis, Direction Setting, and Plan and Execution.

Part I: Marketing Analysis
In the strategy piece, we start with analysis. Marketing is about people so first you start with the customers and markets:
Market and Customers

• Who are the customers? Each town and area within a town is different. So what is the area from which your customers come like?


• What are their needs?


• How can you group them according to their needs (rank these “segments” from largest to smallest)?Families have different needs than senior citizens or professionals. And probably each group of customers has a different "profit margin" - so which group do you target? This isn't to mean that you won't serve ALL customers - but which ones would you like to attract with your marketing efforts?


• What are their influencers and motivators? If you are picking a brand, you have to know how to make this visible to your customers. To do that, you need to know what influences them - images, words, phrases.


• To which media do they subscribe? And more importantly, which media do they gain information that influences their "buying" decision for your products and services? Newspapers? Radio? TV? eZines? Word of mouth? Each one will take different marketing activities and you need to pick the most effective activities for your marketing money.


• What messages and forms of messages are they prone to be drawn to?


• Which customers for each segments do you go after first and why? Expand share at existing customers? New customers?

Next, you focus on the competitors. Your brand should have some elements common to the industry - or you won't fit in. You wouldn't want to be the only dentist with a waiting room that is a cigar bar because you want your patients to be relaxed. Good goal, bad branding method. And for some elements, you want your brand to be distinct. For my brand, I am always dressed in my "A" suit - no matter what. Visiting customers, at business networking events, professional organizational meetings....My brand is that I am a successful professional businessman and I can help you become one, too. So, I never break brand. My peers will come into an event in jeans, open shirts - business casual and down-home. I stand out. And in a good way (can't go wrong in an "A" suit). You want to stand out from your competition in a good way.
Competition

• Who are the competitors?


• What are they strengths and weaknesses?


• How well do they satisfy the customers’ needs (by segment)?


• How do they market themselves? Position, branding?

And then, move into your business.
Your Company

• What are the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT)?


• What are the core competencies of the company? i.e. What can the firm do best?


• How can the company use its core competencies to:
  
  • take advantage of its strengths to exploit the competitions’ weaknesses
  
  
  • make its weaknesses into strengths
  
  
  • take advantage of opportunities
  
  
  • avoid threats
  
  
• How can the firm leverage theses core competencies to satisfy the needs of the customers?

Stay tuned for Part II: Direction Setting.

Wayde

Part II: Direction Setting

Next, we move to the direction setting part of the strategy. First, we want to use the competitive strengths and weaknesses and your business' strengths and weaknesses to look for core competencies. Take the data you gathered and make a table with strengths in the first column - each as a different row. Make weaknesses into "strengths such that if you don't possess a strength, this is a weakness. Along the top of the table (row 1) - for column 2, put your business name. In columns 3 - ?? put your competitors. Add additional columns "Customer Need" and "Benefit." For each strength, place an "x" in a row for which each competitors (and your business) possess a strength. Now, make a copy of this table for each for EACH segment of customers. For each table, highlight strength rows based on if it satisfies a customer need, fill in words that express the "Customer Need" satisfied by this strength, and the benefit to the customer this strength brings about. You do these last three actions BY CUSTOMER SEGMENT because needs are different by segment.
You should see some patterns.

• Where a predominance (75% or more) of competitors have strengths AND the customers has a need - this is an INDUSTRY STANDARD. This means in order to be successful in that industry, you need to have this strength.


• Where a predominance (75% or more) of competitors have strengths AND YOU DON'T and the customer has a need, this is a HOLE. This has to be filled - you need to develop a strength - or you won't be successful.


• Where you have a strength and a minority of your competitors (less than 25%) lack this strength AND the customer has a need, this is a CORE COMPETENCY. Core competencies are coveted and exploited! You use this as a differentiator.


• Where you have a strength and a minority of your competitors (less than 25%) lack this strength AND the customer DOESN'T had a need, this is a NICHE. Changed are you can find a customer segment that needs this strength and is willing to pay more for someone who provides it. Or, maybe the customers don't realize the value of this strength and with a little promotion, you can draw customers into this - again ones that would most likely be willing to pay a little more.

Strategic actions from this analysis are to:

• Fill HOLES


• Exploit CORE COMPETENCIES


• Develop NICHES

Next, you look at your SWOT. Build a 4x4 table. Draw an arrow from the bottom left corner to the top left and label it "Risks." Draw an arrow from the bottom left corner to the bottom right and label it "Rewards." Place a label on the left side of the top two boxes "Weaknesses." Place a label at the left of the bottom two boxes "Strengths." These are "internal" components to your business. Label the top of the left two boxes "Threats." Label the top of the right right two boxes "Opportunities." These are the "external components of your business. Each of the four quadrants means a different strategy:

• For the lower right box, you have strengths that can help you take advantage of opportunities (S-O). These are your BASE STRATEGIES. You spend most of you time executing these strategies because they represent high reward and low risk. These are "low hanging fruit" for you.


• For the top left box, this is where you have weaknesses to combat threats (W-T). These are SURVIVAL STRATEGIES. These are areas of high risk and low reward (probably negative reward or penalty). These are areas that can put you out of business and you spend much of your time either fixing weaknesses or mitigating the threats.


• For the upper right box, you have weaknesses holding you back from taking advantage of opportunities (W-O). These are EXPANSION STRATEGIES and offer you high reward if you can overcome the risk. If you repair weaknesses, you can expand your business in new area. You prioritize the opportunities and execute these strategies when you have resources to devote to them based on that priority.


• For the lower right box, you have strengths to combat threats. These are DEFENSE STRATEGIES. You have to pay attention to these and execute when you need to.

Next, we go into product/service definition.
Product/Service Definition

• Based on the industry standards and core competencies, and your SWOT analysis, define the set of FEATURES you want for your products/services to better satisfy the needs of the customers (again by segment - targeting the most profitable segments first).


• Make a metrics of features in rows versus customer needs across the top - with benefits listed for each feature in the last column.


• Add other column for VALUE PROPOSITION. Quantify the benefit for each feature into dollars or time save for the customers (dollars are more powerful).
  
• Develop UNIQUE SELLING POINTS (USP's) based on the features, benefits, and value proposition.

Then, put together your position statement.
Positioning

• Create a position statement. The position statement is a part of the strategy and communicates to those inside the company the any and all of the following:
  • Placement within a market segment (which segments do you target?)
  • Placement of the product relative to other products categories and application
  • Placement versus competitors' products
  • Placement of the product in terms of features and benefits
  
  The position statement is critical to have in place before the marketing "production" work is completed because it ties everything together.

Now branding! Branding should support the position statement. It should communicate in the language of the targeted customer segments - images, words - your core competencies, benefits, and value proposition.
Branding
The key aspect for branding is CONSISTENCY. Whether you PROMOTE a brand or not, a brand establishes itself in the mind of the customer. If you don't manage it, you leave it to chance as to what that brand is. So you standardize elements of your brand and emphatically enforce those standards to drive the desired image into the mind of the customer. Through consistent repetition, the brand is established.

• Name


• Logo


Collateral materials (brochures, website, letter head, envelops, business cards, packaging materials, etc) - colors, features colors, font styling, logo placement

• tag lines


• How customers are greeted by everyone in the company


• Quality of service and products

Now comes the marketing plan. This is the set of activities to reach the customers. You base the activities based on the analysis you did to best reach your customers. Each and every action supports your position statement and brand.

Stay tuned for Part III: Plan and Execution

Wayde

Part III: Plan and Execution
Now comes the marketing plan. This is the set of activities to reach the customers. You base the activities based on the analysis you did to best reach your customers. Each and every action supports your position statement and brand.
Marketing plan
Set up a plan with who/what/when details for each of the following activities that makes sense. Develop a metric - how many customers you expect to respond, sales you can attribute, profits you can attribute - to each activity and a way to measure it.

• Direct sales


• Networking


• Trade shows and conferences


• Seminars targeted to the customers’ industry


• Press releases


• Trade magazine articles


• Advertising (aligned with what media the customers subscribe to)


• Brochures


• White papers


• Web pages


• eMail/eZines


• Direct mail

Finally, the execution.
Marketing Plan Execution

• Set up regular reviews - daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly


• Track the who/what/where of the action plan for each activity on a daily or weekly basis as it makes sense


• Track the metrics for each activity on a weekly or monthly basis, as makes sense


• Review your Marketing Plan and Strategy on a monthly or quarterly basis, as makes sense


• For each review, develop a plan for "corrective action" if the desired goals are not achieved

So, this is how branding fits into the marketing process. Yes, it's a lot of work. And, yes, you can skip parts. But remember: The more you skip, the more the results are out of your hands. The process is iterative so you can do what you can do early, implement what you can, and then based on the reviews you have, you can define additional actions for analysis, direction setting, and planning as corrective actions.

I hope this helps!

Wayde