Three powerful brand-positioning strategies to enhance the reputation of your small business.
The multiple restrictions, lockdowns and compliance obligations of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated flow-on impacts have required small-business owners to pivot, adapt and evolve like never before. And now the marketplace has opened up, small businesses need to adapt some more, particularly in the way they market themselves because everything has changed, especially consumer and employee expectations and behaviour. Here’s what some of the research is telling us.
Beliefs and values now rule
What people believe and most highly value now drives their choices and decision-making when it comes to buying and working. Research conducted for the 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer found that: 58 per cent of people will buy from, or advocate for, brands based on their beliefs and values; 80 per cent will invest in brands based on their beliefs and values; and 60 per cent will choose their workplace based on their beliefs and values.
Mistrust is now the default emotion
The Edelman research also found that nearly 60 per cent of people now tend to distrust something until proven otherwise. With quality of information a key determinant of brand trust and credibility, small businesses can help restore trust by becoming a trusted source of information – for their employees, customers and communities – by ensuring their content is truthful, unbiased and reliable.
Purpose a key driver, particularly for Millennials
People now expect brands to be purpose-driven, to stand for more than just profit and products by acting in socially conscious ways to help create a better world. PwC data shows that Millennials are 5.3 times more likely to stay with an employer when they have a strong connection to their employer’s purpose, compared with 2.3 times for non-Millennials. By understanding the current environmental context and what’s shaping consumer and worker mindset and behaviour, small-business owners can work towards building a brand people want to work for, buy from and invest in. Brand positioning is central to achieving this.
So, what’s brand positioning all about?
Brand positioning is the strategic framing of a person, product or company within the minds of the target market so it is viewed more favourably than competing alternatives. Positioning requires outside-in thinking, because you have to understand your target market’s worldview – their beliefs and values – to make a connection. Here are three powerful brand-positioning strategies to help you get inside the mind of your target market and cut through the clutter and distraction of the marketplace.
1. Stand for something
Define a purpose that moves humanity forward
When businesses embrace a higher purpose beyond making money, they can make a stronger emotional connection with their target audiences. Customers will understand what you stand for as a brand and employees will be able to answer the question, “Why am I here?” For example, a global survey of business executives conducted by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services and EY Beacon Institute found that those companies that clearly identified an aspirational purpose that benefits society reported that their customers were more loyal and their employees more engaged.
Live by your principles
Principles are the core values that guide our thinking, decisions and behaviour. The author of Good to Great, Jim Collins, found that a vital need for a good company to make the leap to becoming a great company was a core ideology, consisting of core values and a core purpose – a reason for being beyond just making money. A good way to bring your principles to life is to turn them into trademark behaviours, actionable statements that define how people representing your brand will conduct themselves.
Declare your manifesto
An eloquent way of expressing your purpose and principles is to embed them in a manifesto – a public declaration of your intentions, beliefs and values. A brand manifesto becomes a powerful beacon for a small business, attracting those whose beliefs and values are aligned with yours. There are no set rules about the length of a manifesto but it needs to be long enough to impart meaning and practical enough to fit on a webpage and marketing collateral.
2. Solve a problem
Understand the client’s present and desired future state
Customers are looking for products and services that take them from where they are now to where they want to be. When we understand that products and services are mere vehicles to solve problems, meet needs, quench desires and alleviate pain points, our marketing messages can make a stronger emotional connection with target markets.
Define your value
The value you provide goes far beyond the products and services you deliver. Strategic brand positioning involves communicating the holistic value of your business, including:
- Tangible value: results, ROI, money or time saved, tangible metrics
- Intangible value: feelings, sensory experiences, engagement
- Service value: quality of advice, experience and expertise
- Relationship value: trust, respect, confidentiality
- Bonus value: added extras.
Create a compelling value proposition that closes the gap
The gap is the distance between a customer’s current state and their desired future state, and represents the client’s ‘currency’ of the value exchange. Do they want more time, visibility, wealth or influence, or improved health, confidence, connection or belonging? Once you know the gap you close based on the customer’s currency, articulate a compelling value proposition that encompasses how the unique package of benefits of your product or service closes it.
3. Be remarkably different
Define a brand image
Successful brands have a strong sense of identity and project an image with a unique style and attitude. The archetypal framework helps us build a human-like brand persona that matches the desired image we wish to project. The idea is to identify with an archetype that mirrors the hopes and aspirations of your clients to connect instantly with your target audience. This connection happens because the audience sees aspects of themselves reflected in the image of the archetype.
Speak the language of your brand
Use words and tonality aligned with your brand’s image. For example, if you’re a prestige brand like Mercedes-Benz, you speak the language of excellence with a confident tonality, consistent with an image that values status and significance. When you use words and tonality aligned with your brand’s image, beliefs and values, you build brand trust and credibility from the consistency of voice across marketing channels and customer touchpoints.
Own a brand space in the marketplace
The car market provides a good example of how vehicle manufacturers leverage their point of difference based on a specific attribute. For instance, Volvo leverages the attribute of safe, Mercedes-Benz, prestige and Jeep, adventure. Each of these car brands wraps all of its business operations and marketing efforts around the differentiating attribute it has claimed. What brand attribute can create a compelling point of difference for your brand? It could be heritage, market specialty, technology, methodology, innovation or unique product features, to name a few.
May the positive ripple effect of your work enhance your reputation.
This article first appeared in issue 39 of the Inside Small Business quarterly magazine
