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E.Boineau & CompanyCharleston Regional Business Journal
MARKETING COACH:
Is Your Brand Sending Mixed Messages?
Mar 22, 2004
By Elizabeth Boineau
We have all at one point in our lives gotten mixed signals or messages from someone we are communicating with, be it spouse, friend or business colleague. The result is often confusion, frustration and wasted effort in trying to sort out what is real. We may give up, either on the person or the business, due to inconsistencies and broken promises.
Just as we work to develop meaningful personal relationships born of good two-way communication and understanding of needs, so too does the success of your business depend on staying constantly in touch with and responding to customer needs and then living up to their expectations.
You can achieve this by developing a strong brand, both visually, through high impact graphics, and verbally, through messages that resonate. Remember that to build a brand—defined by marketing guru Philip Kotler as the name, term, symbol or combination thereof, that signifies your product or service and distinguishes it from the competition—you start by zeroing in on your audience and ensuring that your product meets their needs.
Your brand platform, or positioning statement, is born of articulating the “set-aparts,” whereby you offer a compelling proposition explaining why your brand should be the choice. The next step is to promise you’ll maintain both brand image and reputation by delivering against all the things you claim make you uniquely qualified to serve the needs of your audience.
And since customers are known to use brand to drive a purchase decision and are often willing to pay more for a brand product, a savvy manager realizes just how critical it is to live up to the brand promise. In fact, the entire identity and credibility of the business—its very foundation—is built upon it.
Moreover, because that pledge is based on what matters to your customer, and what you guarantee to deliver in order to build and keep a solid core of steady, repeat customers, you’re required to stay in touch with the changing needs, wants and competitive marketplace out there.
Does it take a lot of work?
Yes, since to be fully successful, every person with stake in your organization should be deeply aware of your brand position and message, and understand the importance of carrying the brand banner for you. Employees are not only responsible for delivering uniform and consistent messages, they’re further charged with keeping an ear to the ground in terms of dissatisfaction with the brand and new threats from the competition.
What do you think made FedEx so successful? They promise that they are the brand choice when your package absolutely, positively has to be there overnight. That takes every spoke in the wheel delivering against that expectation, and they’ve done it rather flawlessly, in the meantime growing a hugely successful global brand that has become a part of the lexicon, much as Kleenex is to tissue and Band Aid is to bandages.
Not sure what your own brand position and message are? Time to sit down with your team, get outside help if you need it, and start to hammer out the compelling reason why someone should choose your product or service over the next one.
All too often, this core message—or brand platform as it’s also known—is sorely overlooked. It’s little wonder that customers, staff, vendors, investors and other stakeholders have a hard time defining your business and its “point of difference,” or unique brand position.
Really, it’s as easy as ABC: Who is our audience? What is our business? How do we do it better? What is the benefit of getting it from us, and can we create a compelling reason for the intended audience to pick us?
Pretend that you’ll have less than 60 seconds to deliver that message to a restless audience, and you’ll get there.
Much like sending clear and concise messages in our personal relationships fosters harmony, trust and a lasting relationship, so too does sending a strong, uniform brand message and living up to its promise help attract customers loyal to your brand.
So take the time to evaluate your messages and be sure you’re not sending mixed signals—the success of your brand depends upon it.
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