When people come to me asking for help defining their brand, I start with three questions:
- What is the value of your product or service?
- Who is your product valuable to?
- What are your values as a company?
- Know Your Value
When determining your branding and marketing strategy, your value is the foundation of the brand. If the product or service that a company is trying to market isn’t valuable, there is very little we can do. Sometimes companies approach us wanting to make their product appear different than it really is. My response? “Ain’t nobody got time for that!” On the other hand, if a client has a great idea that just needs to mature and is committed to realizing it, I couldn’t be more excited. I will go through the trenches with them, battling dragons and demons until they succeed.
In the world of branding and marketing, we are constantly assaulted with romanticized marketing campaigns that try to portray products as more than they are. In many ways, marketing has become a world of smoke and mirrors, but I am committed to supporting clients who are really adding value to the world.
Know Who Needs You
Once clients are clear about the value they are offering, we need to identify who their customer is. Who can really benefit from that value? Who is it important to or who could it be important to that has perhaps not been considered? When we understand the “WHO” we can figure out how to communicate in a way that means something. We can get to know the audience. When we understand how they live, how they see the world and their lives, we can frame the value of the product in terms that make sense to them.
Know Yourself
Once we know our value and our customer, the next step is to know ourselves. Who are we as a company? What matters to us? What are we willing to do and what aren’t we willing to do in business? Knowing who you are matters! It is your compass and your guide, and it matters to your customers as well. Sometimes clients are afraid to be themselves. They ask: should we sacrifice who we are to get a customer? My answer: no.
At the end of the day, we all have to be able to live with ourselves. Don’t betray yourself and don’t hide who you are. This may seem like an oversimplification, but it is called the golden rule for a reason. It works. The customers that matter will respect you for it. It can be challenging and being yourself will exclude and may even turn off some customers, but in the long term, you will be better for it. At Integrity, we don’t work with everyone. We have certain values that we won’t compromise and neither should you.
Once you know your value, know who you are serving and know yourself, your brand will start falling right into place. That knowledge will direct and inform any and all decisions from the copy on your website, to the color of your logo.