The 9 imperatives for small businesses when building a brand.

Feb 17, 2015 | Branding, Customers, Marketing, Small business

 

 

Build your brand on solid foundations if you want it to last.

Build your brand on solid foundations if you want it to last.

This is the fourth on the series focusing on how to beat the supermarket gorillas at their own game, by building a brand that has a loyal and evangelistic group of customers . The original summary post, here, followed up by the expanded first post on the supermarket business  model, the third advising to be savvy with data, and the most recent suggesting some ideas to leverage category management for the benefit of small businesses.

Reaching consumers via supermarket retailers remains a tough game, one in which the supermarkets  set all the rules, own the referee, and choose who can play with them. In other words, they are holding all the cards, so to remain in the game, you have to be smart, focused and innovative.

Building a brand is not something that happens overnight, rather it happens over an extended time, and requires vision, patience, and investment. However, the fantastic opportunities for small businesses to play with the big league opened up by digital technology has bent the rules a little.

So, following are the key considerations in your brand building challenge:

Know your starting point.

As with any journey, knowing where you are now, where you want to be, and having some idea of the road in between those points is vital to success. Therefore the logical starting point is a review of your current competitive and strategic environment, along with a critical review of your own capabilities, distinctive or otherwise, and the points that differentiates you from your competitors. A part of your starting point is a clear understanding of what drives success in your business, what drives costs and  revenues, how the business model works, and reacts to stress. Being self aware is as important in business as it is in personal relationships.

Have a clear picture of your customer in mind.

“Customer profiling” is for small businesses one of the opportunities they have that can differentiate them from their bigger competitors, but it takes the will to be able to say “No”, to define who you want to attract, and build your brand offering and communications to appeal to those people specifically. It makes little difference if you are B2B or B2C, the same rules apply. The closer you come to being able to define your ideal customer as a person you know, the better. A real part of this exercise is to be able to think like a customer. Some large companies now employ anthropologists to spend time in the homes of their target customers to see how they operate in the context that they are seeing as an opportunity to offer a branded product to deliver value of some sort

Have a clear view of your brand as a person.

Similarly, defining your brand with human traits is of vital importance. People relate to people not brands, therefore to build empathy, a consumer has to be able to impute behavioural characteristics, beliefs, and personality to your brand.

Build a brand differentiated from competitors in some ways of vital importance to customers.

There is little point in being the same, or very similar to everyone else when dealing with supermarkets. Negotiations then just becomes an auction between suppliers for shelf space, and once you have succeeded there, you face a reverse  auction for the consumers dollars. Neither are winning strategies. Small businesses by their nature do not have the scale to serve everyone, so having a clear offer to a small group, sufficiently powerful that they are not  prepared to accept a substitute is the desired outcome. If you can sit in front of one of the gorillas, knowing you only want distribution in one, and knowing that at least some of your customers will be prepared to either change their store choice to get your product, or build a bit of loyalty to their current store because it stocks your product, you  have some leverage in the discussions. It is all about negotiation leverage, and differentiation that delivers value to consumers gives leverage.

Aim for the long term.

‘Lifetime customer value” has become a  bit of a cliché in recent times, but that does not mean it is of less value as an idea. Building in the triggers that will bring our existing customers back time and time again is a far better way of building a brand and a business than to be constantly out fishing for  new customers. The digital tools now available have given us a wide array of tools that assist in the calculation  of the cost of acquisition and retention of customers. Marketing expenditure can be now absolutely accountable for results, and sensitive to even very small changes in tactics, and this is a potent  tool small business can use against their bigger rivals, and to build brand loyalty. Knowing what sorts of marketing activity engages existing customers is of way more value than going fishing for new ones.

 Consistency and predictability.

These two words are factors that always come up in consumer research seeking to identify the foundations of good brands. Consumers know what they stand for, know they will have those things delivered with  no surprises. However, the notion of consistency goes further, to the way the brand is packaged, advertised, an positioned, they are all consistent over  along period of time, change coming as evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Consumers also want to be entertained, intrigued, and engaged with their brands, and that will not happen if they are boring, so the communications have to walk that fine line of being consistent, while being constantly fresh and interesting. Few succeed, but those that do become significant players in their niche, weather that niche be a global market, like Apple, or a local market.

Differentiation.

Whatever else you develop your brand to be, and to do, make it different to everything else out there that could fill the same customer need. Without your own distinctive identity, you will be simply one of the forgotten brands that fight for shelf space on the basis of price, and then all you do is deliver profits to the supermarkets. However, differentiation does not mean a different pack size, or colour scheme, it means genuinely solving the consumers problem or addressing the “job to be done” in a different way, one that adds value by reflecting the job. You must however be very focused about what value you add to who, and why they should buy your brand over the other guy. The final implication here is that you know your competitor well, well enough to counter their obvious and logical competitive responses in the manner in which you build your brand.

Communications must be in the customer language.

Brands that communicate in the language customers use in the context in which the product is used have a chance of success, as the customers relate to the context and language. Many years ago I was a part of the team, an observer really as I was just a young graduate,  that created the “you ought to be congratulated” advertising that gave Meadow Lea margarine a stranglehold on the Australian market for 30 years. In a market with many heavily   advertised brands, Meadow Lea held a share of more than three times its closest rival for many years. The line, and the ads themselves spoke in the language of the primary customer, busy, smart women with families who were juggling multiple roles and responsibilities.

Plan and integrate your marketing activity across platforms.

In the “old days” the scope of available marketing activity was limited to the paid media, paid public relations, sales promotions and a few others. Now, that has changed, and the menu of available marketing tools has exploded. This huge array of options also makes life for the marketers complicated and dangerous, so great care must be taken to be consistent in your message and positioning across the whole array of marketing tools that are employed, and you need to be employing a range of them, rather than  a few, depending on the behaviour of your customers. These days, social media platforms play a huge role in the development of an opportunity to sell, but in fact they do not yet do much in the way of brand-building.  The core of much brand building activity is your website, to which you drive potential customers so they can check you out, and existing customers to reinforce the value of your brand in more “long form” ways like recipes, hints, detailed information, whatever is relevant to the consumers relationship with the product category and your brand. However, the most common problem with websites is that people “set and forget”. They need to be living creatures, fed and nurtured like the family pet if they are to deliver a return.

 

Two final thoughts.

  1.  Even if you do all the above right, better than anyone else, but your product sucks, you will have wasted all that effort , time and money. The consumer is not a fool, they will not mistake good marketing for a good product, at least, not more than once.
  2. If you want your brand to last, to stand the test of time and competition, build it on solid foundations, but make it flexible enough to adjust to consumers as they evolve.

4 steps to identify a Unique Value Proposition

Feb 16, 2015 | Customers, Marketing, Small business

crowd

Being different is fundamental to being profitable, as if you are the same as everyone else in everything you do, then the discriminator becomes price, and being the cheapest is rarely a profitable strategy.

Often this notion is written about as a ‘Unique Selling Proposition”, useful, but in this connected world, you have to be able to demonstrate your value before you have a chance at a sale, therefore it helps to have the value proposition at  the forefront of your thinking.

If consumers think  value is what you have to offer, they will buy it.

First, a definition.

A UVP is something  that clearly differentiates you from your opposition, it creates a point around which your target market can choose you simply because the others do not have what you do, and therefore cannot offer the same value. This does not mean you have to be the “best”, few would argue that a Hyundai is a better car than a Mercedes, but amongst its peers, it offers more electronic “bling” than the others, for the same money. If the bling is what you want, buy a Hyundai.

Second, make your UVP as clear as crystal. There is little point making the investment in identifying and creating the supporting infrastructure of a UVP, and then not clearly telling people what it is. This also acts as a focal point to attract the sorts of customers you specifically want, as they will be attracted by the UVP, others less so, so perhaps they go elsewhere. This creating of a “choice” mechanism is a powerful marketing tool.

Third, how do you identify and develop a UVP?

There are a lot of tools, and tricks, but no substitute for thoughtful, creative and extensive market and customer research and feedback. There is however, a relatively simple series of questions you can ask yourself to uncover the UVP.

  1. Identify clearly the offers of your major competitors. What they do well, what they do poorly, any guarantees they have in place, what they can do that you cannot, and vice versa, and any other factors relevant to a sale in your category, like geography, parking availability, speed of service, and so on.
  2. Understand the trends in your industry, in order to try and anticipate where it may be heading. Things such as the impact of technology, regulation, industry imposed standards, and the general levels of quality, service, and delivery that apply.
  3. Focus on your target market. Every market has characteristics of product, customer, business model, distribution channels and common cost and revenue drivers. Understand as completely as you can what these all are, looking for the typical distribution of characteristics for each parameter of importance. For example, if you are selling men’s suits, the target market is men, identify the typical or average customer, he may be 40 years old, a middle ranking executive, with two kids a wife who works, mortgage and 2 cars. However, that doesn’t not mean that single 25 year olds may not buy, it is just that there are less of them currently, they are less likely to buy, and almost certainly, they do not  buy multiple suits.
  4. Identify your specific ideal customer. The better you can identify the specific person you are targeting the better you will be able to craft a UVP of value to them, and communicate it. To continue the analogy above,  25 year old single men may not need as many suits as their 40 year old counterpart, but the one they want is not for every day wear, so they may be prepared to pay much more for the quality and styling you can offer. It may also be that your target customer is that 25 year olds partner?

When you think that an old head that has done this sort of exercise many times may be able to help, give me a call.

Social media is just a small part of digital marketing.

Feb 12, 2015 | Marketing, Social Media

fly on wall

Social media is usually lumped in with digital marketing, as if it is all the same stuff, part of the same marketing toolbox.

There is some overlap, significantly around the advertising that occurs on social platforms, but not  as much as most just assume.

Think about being at a party, the bloke in the corner holding forth to a small group of people, arguing a point of view, taking questions, and debating the foundations of his views. The person on the right is not talking, not asking questions, but  they are listening.

Are they engaged in the conversation??

Of course they are.

Do they want to be sold to?

Probably not, they are just listening, at some point of they want some clarification, to actively instead of passively engage in the conversation, or to be sold to, they will ask a question, make a comment, or otherwise change their engagement from passive to active.

Social media is the same, a few people are engaging overtly, liking, retweeting, commenting, sharing, and so on, but those “listening” can also be passively engaging, absorbing the flow of the conversation, and they matter.

By contrast to social media platforms, email or digital marketing takes a message, information, or a sales pitch and sends it to you, expecting an outcome, one of which can be that you ignore it and perhaps unsubscribe.

The response rates to email marketing are way better than stuffing letterboxes as we did  in the old days, which delivered 1% if you were really lucky, had a great offer and a good copywriter, simply because it was almost random. The best you could do to profile the potential customers was broad brush demographics of the location of the letterboxes to be stuffed.

social marketing Email or digital marketing however can be hugely more effective, as you market to a list, people who have expressed some interest in hearing what you have to say, and which you can slice and die in all sorts of ways to have a highly targeted and personalised communication that offers the option to becoming a conversation, at the initiation of the receiver.

 

The other point to remember is that everyone influences someone.

4 things you need to demonstrate to build to a commitment

Feb 9, 2015 | Governance, Leadership, Management, Marketing

comittment

Gaining some sort of commitment is the first stage of any commercial process, and repeats continuously up till, and after a transaction takes place. Sufficient commitment to click an opt in button, allocate the time to a webinar, look at your product demonstration, conduct a trial, or commit to a purchase, all require that in a variety of ways, the seller has in some way engaged with you, and built your commitment to them.

It does not matter if you are BHP, a local tradesman or the suburban lawyer, addressing these four pillars will bring you business.

  1. Demonstrate you care. People will be attracted to those who care about what they care about, and who care about them. Showing interest by asking questions and genuinely listening to the answers and responding appropriately demonstrates you care. Next time you phone someone and you get a recorded message telling you that your call is important to them, and then wait 10 minutes to be connected to a call centre in Bangalore, you know  they do not really care.
  2. Demonstrate you can be trusted. Nobody wants to have anything to do with those they do not trust. It follows that demonstrating you can be trusted, that you do what you say you will do  becomes a fundamental foundation of a relationship, even a passing one. pretty important. Trust is the foundation of any relationship, and in a commercial one, a money back guarantee usually goes a long way.
  3. Demonstrate your influence. Being able to get things done, to cut through the complication and hubris that exists in most situations builds confidence in your capacity to deliver on your undertakings. This is sometimes a bit challenging, particularly in the early stages of a relationship, but there are usually ways. Some time ago, I had some work done on my house, and the architect as part of his service took on the task of dealing with the notoriously pedantic and difficult local council. No big deal, no fuss, just part of the service. Clearly he knew who to talk to get things done, and as it turned out, he did.
  4. Demonstrate your authority. In the past your title used to be a demonstration of authority,  but no longer. Just being a lawyer of accountant, or the CEO used to be enough, but we now know that these titles just assure us that there is still a pulse. In these transparent times, authority is usually earned rather than bestowed. Finding ways to demonstrate the authority of your knowledge, leadership and position is a marker to those who may be in a position to seek out your services or products.  Social proof is rapidly becoming the marker of authority, the number of comments and shares of a post, speaking at industry gatherings, published material, all point to some level of authority. Of course organisational authority is still important, but significantly  less so than yesterday, and tomorrow, it will become just a label.

Your marketing challenge is tangled up in these four parameters of relationship building, and working on them all, tiny piece by tiny piece will improve your outcomes measurably in a relatively short time.

Call me when you need help, or trawl through the years of accumulated knowledge demonstrated in these 1400 odd posts.

 

 

26 ways small business can  go broke being successful

Feb 6, 2015 | Governance, Management, Marketing, Small business

 

Wile e

9/10 small businesses fail in the first 3 years, leaving behind a pile of financial and emotional debt that generally weighs heavily on the “owner”.

Often, the failure comes as a surprise to the owner, full of optimism and the sense of freedom and commitment that usually goes with a start-up, irrespective of the nature of the start-up, globally targeted tech innovation, or a sandwich shop in the local mall. However, the signs are usually pretty obvious to an observer who knows the symptoms.

 

 

  • Mistaking sales for profitability
  • Having the wrong customers
  • Not managing their cash
  • Not knowing the difference between cash flow and net profit on the P&L
  • Losing sight of the reason they are in business
  • Poor allocation of limited resources, particularly time
  • Outsourcing tasks to the cheapest available resource, rather than the most appropriate
  • Not understanding the detail of their cost drivers
  • Thinking that the competition thinks and acts like them
  • Mistaking speed for efficiency and productivity
  • Not treating existing customers like gold
  • Not recognising when the horse is dead
  • Poor hiring decisions under pressure to fill a seat
  • Not leveraging the digital productivity tools now available
  • Not understanding their primary customers sufficiently well
  • Failing to leverage obvious collaborative opportunities to engage and serve customers
  • Chasing the next customer rather than obsessing about the current.
  • Taking the money of anything that walks through the door
  • Not being able to say “No”
  • Missing some of the regulatory stuff, particularly in relation to staff
  • Not understanding and leveraging the digital tools available
  • Failure to plan
  • Failure to recognise when an existing plan is leading to a dead end
  • Unclear business model
  • Inconsistent application of the business model
  • Price increase “phobia”

The list can go on and on, I am sure you can add some, but people still keep trying. Being prepared to work 18 hours a day,(or often just being sucked in) be the worst paid in the place, risking the house after  writing a 100 page business plan for the bank against a template you got from the web that you know they will never read, and being patronised by employees of some institution whose riskiest act today will be to have chicken instead of ham on their sandwich.

Who would not want to work for themselves?

In 20 years of being such a dumb-arse, I have seen all the above, and more, while usually making less than I did as a corporate operator, but reveling in the personal and intellectual freedom. If that experience could help you to avoid that “oh shit why didn’t I see that “step, give me a call.

 

 

 

6 steps for lead generation by small business

Feb 2, 2015 | Communication, Customers, Marketing, Small business, Social Media

courtesy toprankingblog.com

courtesy toprankingblog.com

The purpose of a website is either commercial, or it is a hobby.

Assuming in most cases it is the former, the usual commercial rules apply, just because you have a website does not mean everyone apart perhaps from your mother will be excited.

So, to have a successful web presence the same 5 basic  rules of marketing  that have always applied, still apply:

  • Understand the drivers of behaviour of those in your market
  • Have a clear objective.
  • Have a plan that lays out the “roadmap” to achieve the objective.
  • Execute against the plan, but enabling learning from experience to occur whilst you do.
  • Have a few key metrics to track performance towards the objective.

You can make this as complicated as you like, but it will generally not help, just confuse. Nowadays however, navigating through the digital tools and options available  has become a job for a specialist, and that does not mean the pimply teenager down the road who is a Facebook maven.

A website is just another tool of commerce, the starting place that enables small businesses to communicate and compete in ways unimaginable 20 years ago. The digital revolution has also spawned a host of further tools to enable relationships and transactions, but  the basics of finding a customer, engaging with them and moving towards a transaction have not changed one bit.

For small businesses too compete, they need to do a few things well:

  1. Have a really detailed customer profile. Demographic, geographic and behavioural knowledge and insights are what enables them to target messages specifically, as if to one person.
  2. Create and/or curate information of interest to this specific audience. Information that alerts,  informs, and demonstrates your knowledge, has the opportunity to at some point in the targets future, to give them a reason to engage. There are myriads of tools to do this, from those that scrape social media platforms for key words, to following thought leaders and repackaging their ideas, to creating interest focussed newsletters automatically. However, don’t believe that any of this is easy, as you will be sorely disappointed.
  3. Open the chance of engagement.  By simply making the target aware of the content, and giving them a reason to stay on your site or platform, you open the opportunity for engagement. This is where the tools really come in, to sort, organise, and direct the appropriate content automatically once set up. The reach of social media into most segments is now extremely deep, but increasingly the platforms are seeking to be paid for the provision of that reach to you. Advertising, but once you have someone’s attention, by whatever means, you need to make sure you do something useful with it, as you may not get a second chance.
  4. Engage the targets with the content, by demonstrating that you are the one who can and will deliver value  at the time of a transaction.
  5. Enable the transaction. Often this doe not mean buying over  the web, it is much broader, and encompasses all the elements of the sales as well as the logistics channels and after sales service.
  6. Retain the faith of the customer for future sales, and turn them into a source of referrals for you to their networks.

Again I say, none of this is easy, but the point is that none of it was available to small business just 20 years ago. There has been an immense democratisation of opportunity, make sure you use it, and when you need assistance, call me.