Build Your Brand Strategy So It Drives Your Growth and Punches Above Your Weight

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It’s amazing, but even with all my branding articles, videos, brand-building masterminds, workshops and speaking engagements, people still ask me, “Do I really need to brand my business or brand strategy?” Or they’ll say, “I’m a B2B startup; can’t I postpone this branding stuff for a bit?”

 

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My answer’s are always the same, “Why would you want to? What makes your service or product special? How are you going to make your brand matter to customers? Why should they choose you over well-established competitors with an established track record? What are you going to do to earn their trust, generate higher perceived value and earn their custom?”

 

 

Take Warby Parker, the fashion eyewear startup that in 2010 decided to take on the establishment — a handful of companies with a virtual lock on the eyewear industry.

 

 

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Image via Warby Parker

 

 

From the first, co-CEO and co-founder Neil Blumenthal and his fellow Wharton School MBA partners stressed over their brand strategy. And it’s paid off: In six years, Warby Parker has grown 500 percent,[1] and Bloomberg reports that investors now value the business at more than $1 billion USD.[2]

 

Suffice to say, if you want to punch above your weight — in terms of the competitors you can take on, the target audiences you can reach and the impact you can have in your industry — you need a really strong brand strategy, a compelling reason for customers to notice, trust, like and buy what you have to offer — product or service. Just consider:

 

  • In 1981—the year Absolut Vodka launched its highly branded ad campaign — it was selling around 20,000 cases of vodka annually. By 1995, annual sales had grown to 3 million cases — a 14,900% increase in the business.[3]

 

 

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Image via Wikipaintings.org

 

 

  • The “Hashtag Nation: Marketing to the Selfie Generation” study looked at more than 10,000 teen and young adult customers and their relationship to brands. More than 60% of 16-34 year olds agreed with the statement, “I encourage my friends to use the brands I really like.”[4] Think how much easier it is for friends to share your message when your brand strategy is clearly articulated — when both you and your customers know what your brand stands for and what makes it different, distinctive, memorable and more likeable compared to your competitors.

 

  • When Singapore’s oldest telecommunications service, SingTel, wanted to promote faster connectivity, it took to Twitter with a highly branded flash campaign: #Need4GSpeed. For more than a day, it trended in Singapore, controlled more than 54% of the country’s Twitter conversations and increased website visits by 39% (visits remained above 30% for the month).[5]

 

  • And if you want to beat the competition, take a page out of the Dollar Shave Club playbook. In just five years, their well-articulated brand strategy attracted more than 3 million members,[6] and Unilever’s decision to buy the startup for $1 billion USD.[7]

 

Having a brand strategy lets you promote the value of your products and services rather than the price. It’s that simple. And who wouldn’t rather sell value than try to compete on price?

 

 

Top Six Steps to Build a Powerful Brand Strategy

 

Here are six steps to help you develop a powerful brand strategy for your SMB / SME or new business. Although many of the examples and case studies below are from B2C businesses, virtually everything these businesses are doing will work in your B2B brand strategy.

 

 

1) Put Strategy Before Tactics…Find Your Point of View

 

Before you create a logo, pick your brand colours, settle on messaging or design your brand collateral, you need a brand strategy. Everything you learn in the process — about yourself, your customers and your competition — will help direct your tactics, your brand voice, your media choices. It all becomes so much clearer when you know your point of view and what you stand for. Apart from anything else, creativity without strategic rigour is a waste of money.

 

 

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Image via Warby Parker

 

 

With a clear brand strategy, you won’t wonder if the world needs yet another cookie company, holistic healthcare business or financial or professional services business. You’ll know your reason for being and what makes you different…even unique.

 

Case Study #1: Warby Parker

 

Warby Parker co-CEO / co-founder Neil Blumenthal calls their brand strategy having a “point of view.” In turn, that point of view has helped establish a company culture that:

 

  • Appeals to the value buyer (quality, style and affordability)
  • Helps others with its CSR at the heart of the brand (“buy a pair, give a pair” helps low-income people who need glasses)
  • Cares about the environment (the only carbon-neutral eyewear manufacturer)

 

 

warbyparker-home-page

Image via Warby Parker

 

 

The funky name, based on a couple of Jack Kerouac characters — Warby Pepper and Zagg Parker — the great customer service, brand culture, what the brand stands for and its fabulous user experience are all part of executing on the brand strategy. As Blumenthal explains, it’s easier going forward when you have everything worked out up front:

 

 

 

Takeaway: Notice how Warby Parker distills the financial premise behind its brand strategy: Intuitively it didn’t make sense that glasses cost as much as an iPhone. That’s brilliant.

 

 

2) What’s Your WHY?

 

You can’t have a truly successful strategy until you get down to the essence of WHY you are doing what you do…and then finding the words to explain your why to your audience. Listen to Simon Sinek’s TED Talk, “Start with Why:”

 

 

 

 

As Sinek explains, “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.”

 

When you can bond with customers at an emotional level, you have brand loyalty. According to the Gartner Group, “80% of your company’s future revenue will come from just 20% of your existing customers.”[8] These are your loyal fans.

 

But what if you could expand your loyal fan base and even increase their ardent devotion? That’s the potential when you can map your WHY, HOW and WHAT (Sinek’s Golden Circles) to how our brains make first an emotional connection and then a rational decision:

  • Why – Lizard Brain (the old brain/our emotional gatekeeper)
  • How – Amygdala (part of Limbic brain/responsible for emotional motivation)
  • What – Neo-cortex (the rational brain)

 

It’s in the WHY where we feel and trust and develop loyalty. It’s emotion that drives behaviour. It’s emotion that drives customers to purchase your brand before over a competitor. Rational decisions only kick in after emotions are satisfied — the rational reinforces the emotional decision to buy.

 

As an exercise, think about what you believe in and the brands you admire because they share your values.

 

simon-sinek-golden-circle

Image via Simon Sinek

 

 

To help you focus on your WHY and integrate it into your brand strategy so you can leverage throughout your SME / SMB business, Persona Branding and Design offers a variety of branding masterminds and masterclasses. These programmes are transformational. In particular, the Persona Brand Building Blueprint™ Mastermind is a comprehensive, two-day brand building intensive. In fact its an in-depth 10-step programme that will enable you to create your brand strategy from the ground up whether you’re revitalizing an existing brand or creating a new one.

 

 

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Case Study #2: Apple Inc.

 

Although Apple makes great computers, tablets and phones, that’s not the message that generates brand loyalty. It’s the company’s willingness to think differently about how people interact with products, and that’s the message that comes through loud and clear in their brand strategy, product design and marketing.

 

Take a look at the legendary 1984 ad that only ever ran once — during Super Bowl XVIII. Notice how Apple connects emotionally through visual cues and very few carefully chosen words:

 

 

 

 

In 1997, Apple gave words to their WHY—“Think Different.” Almost two decades later, in its 2014 Perspectives ad, the company has remained focused on this enduring brand strategy:

 

 

 

 

Takeaway: While it doesn’t take a lot of words to convey your WHY, it does need to permeate everything you do. When you live and work by your Brand WHY, you generate incredible loyalty among your customer base.

 

 

3) You Can Brand Anything…and Probably Should

 

Intel’s distinctive bing…bong, bong, bong, bong is the audible signal that your PC is loading and all is right with your computing world. For us, it’s also an important reminder that you can brand virtually anything. Even products and components that are part of other companies’ finished goods. It’s called Ingredient Branding, and Intel first proved its effectiveness.

 

 

Case Study #3: Intel Corporation and Swarovski

 

In 1991, Intel Inside® revolutionized branding and proved that you can brand something that most customers will probably never see. In this case, Intel successfully branded a bit of silicon real estate on the computer’s motherboard. As Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, explained, “…with consumers at a loss in trying to figure out what made one [computer] better than the other, Intel saw an opportunity…Intel’s leadership was convinced this was the way to grow market share…”[9]

 

 

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Image via Intel

 

 

Intel wasn’t selling speeds and feeds; it was selling trust and peace of mind. This branding strategy drew customers to computer brands with Intel Inside and refused to buy products without the Intel Inside brand promise. Through its revolutionary ingredient branding of an essentially invisible product, Intel achieved incredible trust with its customers.

 

 

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Image via Swarovski

 

 

Today, many companies use ingredient branding to build awareness and generate demand with manufacturers. Swarovski does this with its quality crystals. They’ve created such a high degree of caché for the Swarovski name, that its primary consumers seek it out on everything from clothing to shoes to quality lenses for eyeglasses to crystal-encrusted fake fingernails and more.

 

 

 

 

And even Jimmy Choo shoes:

 

 

 

Takeaway: The next time you wonder what an innovative branding strategy could do for your product or service, do like Intel: Open your mind to the possibilities and dare to think in a more original and creative way.

 

 

4) Be Your Authentic Self

 

There’s a phrase popular in American business, especially among SME / SMBs and startups still looking for their first big breakthrough: You have to “fake it until you make it.” In other words, you have to look bigger, more innovative, smarter and more established than, perhaps, you are…and certainly more than the competition. The good news is this is precisely what a strong, well developed brand strategy can do.

 

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Image via Digital Intelligence Today

 

 

Faking it should never be about lying to or deceiving prospective customers. That’s always been unethical. And today when customers are looking for authenticity, anything less than your best will destroy your relationship with prospects and customers alike.

 

Here’s author Mike Robbins on the Power of Authenticity:

 

 

 

Co-founder of the Covey Leadership Center, Will Marré, talks about what authenticity means to your brand:

 

 

You become authentic, you convey your authenticity by walking the walk and making that part of your who, what and why. Think of it this way: If your WHY helps you build an emotional connection with customers, your authenticity enables you to keep those connections and even strengthen the bond.

 

While authenticity certainly is the way to the Millennials’ hearts,[10] it works with everyone — as we pointed out in our post, “Branding with Authenticity to Achieve Massively Increased Market Share.”

 

But beware. You can lose your authenticity with a few missteps…all the more reason to make it part of the core of your brand strategy.

 

 

5) Now Tell Your Amazing Story

 

So how do you begin to bring your brand strategy to people? How do you tell them your amazing WHY? How do you convey your authenticity? One way is to share your story — a topic we’ve discussed often here on our blog.

 

Our most recent two-part post entitled “Brand Stories: 5 Compelling Examples That Sell Themselves” is a good place to start: Part 1 and Part 2. And make no mistake, stories that are yet another extension of your brand strategy need to be part of your growth strategy.

 

We all love a good story. It connects with our hearts and sticks in our heads longer than a recitation of facts and figures and bold claims. But before you panic, you don’t need to be a novelist or even a great writer to tell your business story. You just need to speak from your heart, dig deep and tell the world who you really are and why you do what you do.

 

If you need help telling your story, Persona Branding and Design offers a six-step Brand Story Selling System™ designed for SMEs / SMBs, business owners and brand managers that want their stories to resonate with customers and prospects.

 

Angela Ahrendts, former Burberry CEO and now senior VP of Apple retail, explains how to weave authentic branding into story:

 

 

 

You can tell your story on YouTube and post it on your website. You can even share it on social media as an ongoing story that keeps people coming back for more as your story unfolds.[11]

 

 

Case Study #4: Norrøna

The Norwegian outdoor clothing company Norrøna has been a family-owned business since 1929. Today they are passionate about manufacturing durable, highly functional clothing and gear for adventurers — hikers, skiers, mountaineers, bikers and hunters.

 

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Image via Norrøna

 

 

In their video “Who Am I?” Norrøna tells its story in parallel with imagery that tells the story of its customers. In effect, Norrøna conveys its passion through the passion of its customers.

 

 

 

Takeaway: Be authentic, share your personality, create characters and give your story a beginning, middle and end. Above all, be compelling.

 

 

6) Brand Persistently, Extensively and Consistently

 

In addition to telling your story, your brand strategy needs to permeate everything you do. That’s the true key to being authentic. But extensive and persistent expression of your brand strategy is also about creating a consistent brand message and presence — giving your customers a safe harbour on which they can rely and trust.

 

And don’t forget to involve your employees: “Maximizing Profitability: Training Your Employees to be Brand Champions.” When you involve them in planning your brand strategy and keep them informed and engaged, they are your best brand ambassadors.

 

Here’s Sabrina Stoffregen, Intel’s former director of Intel Ambassadors, on the power of engaged employees:

 

 

 

 

Be bold. Be original. Be yourself. Just as your product, service and company are distinctive, so too should your brand. Consider the ways you can leverage your business through your brand so you won’t be dragged into the price or discounters rat race. That’s a losing game.

 

When you have a robust brand strategy, you’re ready to go out and share it with the world and compete above your weight.

 

And now you’re ready to think about tactics, but that’s a story for another day.

 

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8 Tips for Using Your Brand Strategy as Your Business Blueprint

 

  1. Your brand strategy is the blueprint for your brand that keeps you focused on your WHY, your unique point of view and your message.

 

  1. Outline your target market — detailing who they are, what they want and what they expect from a brand. If you decide to change or expand your audience in the future, make it a strategic decision that is reflected in your brand strategy.

 

  1. As you develop a brand personality that represents you, your business, your sense of purpose, codify that into your brand strategy so you don’t lose your focus or deviate from a consistent presentation of your brand.

 

  1. Understand where you fit in the competitive jungle. While you don’t need to be overt in positioning yourself against the competition, you do need to understand how you fit…so you can find and carve out your own space.

 

  1. As you identify your most competitive or disruptive features, use your brand strategy to define the promise on which you will deliver.

 

  1. Use your brand strategy to cement that critical emotional connection with customers and prospects. Empower them to feel they are a part of your story.

 

  1. Be consistent; that’s key to establishing a brand identity that resonates viscerally. Whether people see your logo, a brochure, a video or a social media comment, they should immediately know it’s you.

 

  1. Make certain that your brand strategy permeates every aspect of your business.

 

 

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[1] http://www.inc.com/eric-markowitz/3-reasons-warby-parker-is-killing-it.html

[2] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-04/warby-parker-said-to-draw-fund-interest-at-over-1-billion-value

[3] https://www.amazon.com/Absolut-Book-Vodka-Advertising-Story/dp/1885203292

[4] http://www.slideshare.net/HavasWorldwide/hashtag-nation-marketing-to-the-selfie-generation-3942773

[5] https://hbr.org/2013/06/make-your-brand-story-meaningf

[6] https://www.unileverusa.com/news/press-releases/2016/unilever-acquires-dollar-shave-club.html

[7] http://www.marketingprofs.com/opinions/2016/30706/market-disruption-your-brand-needs-to-create-a-ruckus

[8] http://www.forbes.com/sites/jerryjao/2014/11/19/why-customer-retention-is-king-the-evolution-of-retention-marketing-part-1/#72bd1cfe3eb7

[9] https://www.fastcompany.com/3004135/marketing-backstory-how-intel-became-household-name

[10] http://www.forbes.com/sites/karlmoore/2014/08/14/authenticity-the-way-to-the-millennials-heart/#19221983444a

[11] http://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2016/02/22/how-to-tell-your-brand-story-on-social-media/#bc6487b2d3a6

 

Brand Audits – How to Use One to Grow Your Profits

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Perhaps you’ve seen some of the headlines. This one from Bloomberg pretty well sums up the lot: “Snoopy, Loved as Friend, Lacking as Leader, Gets Boot at MetLife.”[1]

 

Yes, after a 30-year run, MetLife is dropping Snoopy and the Peanuts gang. If you’re wondering why a company would break up a winning partnership and transform a brand that has worked for three decades, you’ve come to the right place.

 

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While the decision to drop the iconic dog and his cartoon friends may seem capricious, you’ll see that, in fact, this is the case of a company that understands the critical connection between its brand and its business decisions. Markets change, new trends emerge, disruptive competitors alter long-standing rules and customer preferences evolve — all of which impacts your brand and consequently your business strategy.

 

Regardless of their size, companies that are trying to stay relevant, keep growing, expand their customer base, maintain high recognition and recall and convert awareness into greater familiarity are constantly wrestling with questions about their brands. And the most effective way to answer those critical questions is through a brand audit; see one of our previous posts entitled “Brand Audits: Why You Need Them and How to Perform One.”

 

 

 

 

 

Why is this important? Consider the findings in the 11th annual Accenture Global Pulse Survey: Once you lose a customer, 68% will not come back.[2] If better brand management can help retain more of those customers, then you need to invest the time, the thought and the effort into ensuring that your brand is delivering. And a brand audit is one of the most effective tools to measure and evaluate your brand performance.

 

 

“There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”

Sam Walton

 

 

What’s in a Brand, and Why Brand Audits are Key to Growing Profits

 

If you want to evaluate your brand in terms of its capacity to deliver profits or return on investment (ROI), it pays to be ruthless in your analysis. In other words, take a page out of Forbes and its technique for assessing the value of a brand.[3] When compiling its annual list of Most Valuable Brands, the magazine’s analysts focus on the numbers — not “fuzzy consumer surveys” — and the ability of the top brands to generate revenue.

 

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Image via livesicilia.it

 

In 2016, Apple again takes the Number 1 spot with Forbes estimating the brand’s value at $154.1 billion — definitely a brand worth polishing. If your brand is worth even a fraction of that, you can see why your brand deserves more diligent attention. And even if it’s not there yet, you can appreciate the potential, which makes a brand audit an invaluable tool for brand growth. Any asset with this much value (or potential value) is worth caring for with a regular health check.

 

 

And Speaking of Brand Value…

The findings of The Chartered Institute of Marketing’s survey indicate that 75% of marketers consider their brand value and positioning when making any major business decisions. However, respondents also acknowledged weak follow-through and a lower brand experience for customers when management, employees and customers fail to understand and/or appreciate the brand’s role in the business.

 

Takeaway: A brand audit is not a fluffy light weight marketing exercise. It’s a strategic tool capable of giving you valuable insight into aligning your branding with your business decisions, and needs to be understood by management and employees alike.

 

 

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Image via The Chartered Institute of Marketing exchange.cim.co.uk

 

 

 

Case Study: MetLife. Navigating Life Together

 

 

This video from the Wall Street Journal captures clips from MetLife’s long association with Snoopy. But in its October 20, 2016 press release, MetLife global CMO Esther Lee explained the decision to move away from Snoopy and the Peanuts gang: “We brought in Snoopy over 30 years ago to make our company more friendly and approachable during a time when insurance companies were seen as cold and distant…as we focus on our future, it’s important that we associate our brand directly with the work we do and the partnership we have with our customers.”[4]

 

 

old-metlife-logo

Image via MetLife

 

 

Today, MetLife is in the middle of a significant corporate realignment. It’s spinning off its domestic retail life insurance business in the United States to focus more on group life insurance sales and international business operations. Consequently the old logo must give way to a more corporate and international style reflective of its changed positioning:

 

 

metlife-logo-2016

Image via MetLife

 

 

But a rebranding of this magnitude, the decision to drop the cartoon characters, create a new logo, and change the tagline are only part of the process. It’s the result of a thorough analysis and understanding of the brand —in terms of the company, its competition and its customers and prospects.

 

 

metlife-brand-collateral

Image via MetLife

 

 

You face many important tasks as you begin a rebranding process — potential pitfalls and mistakes as well. To help you prepare, download our free report, “Top 20 Rebranding Mistakes to Avoid.” Sign up with your name and email address, and we’ll send you a copy.

 

 

 

 

 

Are You In Need of a Brand Audit?

A total rebrand or brand refresh is only one reason to consider a brand audit as a place to start when determining if your brand is performing. Listed below are key business reasons for conducting a brand health check…and why your brand may not be delivering significant profits:

  • Losing market share to your competition in your industry or product segment
  • Your business or organizational focus has changed
  • Poor performance in online search, no longer landing on page one with Google or insufficient impact in digital media
  • Numerous business changes coupled with endeavours along the way to adjust your brand may have undermined your brand identity and created confusion both in your customers’ minds and amongst your internal team and stakeholders alike
  • Your sales are declining and your marketing strategy is not delivering the required results
  • When questioned about your brand, customers and prospects seem to have little or no brand recognition and low brand recall

 

 

Brand Audits Help You Grow Profits

When you conduct a brand audit effectively, driven by clear objectives, you can:

  • Pump fresh interest into your brand
  • Present a more consistent (and stronger) identity aligned more closely with the goals of the business
  • Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses so you can identify what to build on and what to work on, or eliminate and where to improve performance
  • Gain a greater understanding of your customers — what they like, what they need and what they want from you and what they don’t like — and how your business and your brand can better meet their needs
  • Take advantage of the brand audit process to build greater communication internally across the company (with employees and partners) and externally (with customers, prospects, general public and target markets)

 

For additional resources and tips, check out our article “Brand Audits: 10 Things Successful Brand Owners and Managers Must Know.”

 

 

Start Your Brand Audit with Well-Articulated Objectives

Start your brand audit with a thorough understanding of what you want to accomplish. What are your objectives? Are you trying to determine why your market share is dropping? Do you need greater insight into how to reposition your company going forward? Are you trying to build a recent acquisition or change in direction into your brand image and messaging? Do you need to convert customer or prospect awareness into stronger brand familiarity? Do you need to measure sentiment for your brand in the marketplace?

 

Even if your brand is performing reasonably well, avoid complacency at all costs — now is the time to give it a health check to prevent any downward turn so you can leverage it more strongly to accelerate your profit growth.

 

While you’re thinking about these and other questions, take a look at our step-by-step brand audit ecourse. If you want to give your brand a health check yourself, our Auditing Analysis Accelerator™ programme can help you with an under-performing brand, a routine brand health check or a comprehensive analysis to identify your strengths, weaknesses and growth opportunities.

 

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By keeping your focus squarely on your objective(s) you’ll end up with a report, a set of recommendations and a blueprint for going forward that is an actionable document that will help you make the right decisions. You’ll come away with a strategy and a starting point for developing the necessary marketing tactics.

 

 

Elements of Your Brand Audit Methodology

There are many ways to audit your brand, and not all audits will require every possible type of analysis. In fact no two brand audits are exactly the same. The depth and scale of a brand audit is dependent on your objectives, resources and timelines. Your questions will help you determine your choice of methodologies and the metrics.

 

Takeaway: There is no right or wrong brand audit…only the one that gets you the information and answers you need to make the right decisions going forward so you can accelerate your growth.

 

 

Here Are 6 Keys Steps and Questions to Get You Started With Your Brand Audit:

 

Step 1: How does your brand align with your target market?

 

With your basic questions in hand, you can begin the research phase of your brand audit.[5] You’ll need to collect a lot of background information: Google and Bing searches are a good place to start. You can also hire a professional to conduct an in-depth analysis of your industry. And in addition to visiting your competitors’ websites and social sites, you can collect competitive intelligence through resources such as Hoovers, Dun & Bradstreet, SimilarWeb and Alexa. Some of the topics you’ll want to research:

  • Market Intelligence: Market niche, target audience
  • Company Information: Mission, vision and Unique Selling Proposition (USP), sales trends, customer support results, logos and brand image documents, brand collateral material
  • Industry Insight: Industry trends, competition (who are they and how do they compare in terms of price, support, customer experience, product offerings?)

 

 

Step 2: Does your brand deliver on your business objectives? Market intelligence? And industry insight?

 

With the raw data in hand, you need to assess your brand image, message and actions in the context of your company, your products, your market and the industry. How effective is your brand? Is a weak brand resulting in business being left on the table? Are you losing to stronger, more recognized brands? Do your employees, customers and prospects align with your brand? Can they articulate what your brand stands for and what makes it different to your competitors?

 

  • Discuss the your brand internally with management and employees
  • Query customers and prospects with online polls, phone surveys and email questionnaires

 

 

Case Study: The IKEA Brand Starts With Its Customers’ Needs

 

The IKEA Group reminds us that both good business ideas and good branding starts with a thorough understanding of customers and their needs. In “The Story of How We Work,” IKEA has turned the story of how they deliver the right products at the right prices with the right corporate culture into the brand.

 

 

ikea-brand-vision Image via IKEA

 

 

Takeaway: Using digital illustration to sketch the business process reinforces the how-to and DIY aspects of the IKEA brand. The fact that the story comes full circle—back to the customer—proves that people and their needs are always central to the business and the brand.

 

 

 

 

 

Step 3: What’s your SWOT?

 

Conduct a SWOT-type analysis of your brand to identify and list your brand’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

  • What are the best assets associated with your brand — e.g. visual, message, trust? These are strengths you can leverage
  • What are your weaknesses and liabilities — e.g. negative press, limited recognition, small audience? Not only do you need to know about any downsides you need to decide if liabilities can be turned around or offset
  • Where are your opportunities — e.g. new or untapped audiences, new products well positioned in the market, potential market disruptors? Once identified you can consider the strategy and tactics that will enable you to take maximum advantage of opportunities
  • Where are the threats — e.g. new competitors, changing market trends, next-generation technology, challenger brands? Once you know the threats, you can develop ways to mitigate their impact

 

 

Case Study: Burberry Leverages its Origins

 

When Angela Ahrendts joined Burberry in 2006 as its new CEO, she and then Chief Creative Officer Christopher Bailey focused on new and innovative ways to leverage their strength. Burberry asked, “What do we have that they [the competition] don’t?”

 

 

burberry-brand-provenanceImage via Burberry

 

Takeaway: Burberry went back to its strong roots: British origins and the iconic trench coat. With this insight, the implementation was simply a matter of using creativity in presentation, social media, music and models to build a brand that worked in the 21st century.

 

 

 

 

Step 4: What’s the brand recognition and recall factor for your visual elements, your messaging and your actions?

 

Questionnaires, polls and one-on-one conversations will help you understand how effectively your brand is connecting with customers and prospective customers. This is a somewhat subjective process — since you’re relying on people to tell you honestly what they think. It will, however, help you understand the associations and awareness surrounding your brand. Ask customers and prospects about all aspects of your brand, including:

 

 

 

Step 5: Is your social presence aligned with your mission, vision and business objectives?

 

Given the strong digital presence of most marketing today, you may want to do a social media audit to determine if your brand comes through loud and clear and consistently and congruently on all your social platforms. For example:

 

  • Do you have a consistent brand image and congruent messaging across all your social sites?
  • Is your website’s user experience consistent with the brand experience you want for customers and prospects?
  • Are you taking full advantage of the features and strengths of each social platform to best position your brand while maintaining consistency?

 

 

Step 6: What’s your traffic analysis?

 

You’ve asked customers and prospects for their opinions about your brand. By measuring online behaviour you can separate what people say from what they actually do and how they respond to your digital brand marketing?

 

  • Are the number of visits to your website, social sites, digital ads increasing?
  • How many unique views do you have each month?
  • How many are return visits?
  • Are your Likes growing along with sales?
  • What’s your bounce rate? Are people spending more time on your sites? Are they downloading lead generating brand collateral?
  • How many conversions do you have? Are people clicking through, responding to your call to action and/or buying?

 

 

An Inspiration and Reminder to Think Different

In 1997, Steve Jobs had just returned to Apple, and one of his first tasks was to rescue the brand. After several years of confusion and poor management, Apple products and the brand itself had declined and the company faced the possibility of failure.

 

In this video, Steve Jobs explains his plan to revive the business and the brand by focusing not on speeds and feeds (features) but the value of human innovation and positioning Apple as the company that understood, respected and supported those among us who Think Different.

 

 

 

 

Jobs’ explanation, serves as our reminder to focus our brand audits on our strengths and our customers. We increase our chances of succeeding when our brand audits bring us in touch with our strengths and our customers’ needs and help us put both in the context of our industry, our target markets and business objectives. Writing in Forbes in 2013, Columbia University professor Panos Mourdoukoutas explained brand value: “Those attributes must ‘seduce’ the consumer’s mind, address genuine consumer anxieties and emotions — and be innovative.”[6]

 

 

Five Tips for Using Your Next Brand Audit Health Check to Increase Your Profits and Grow Your Business

 

  1. Business decisions and brand go hand-in-hand. Tie any significant changes in the business (e.g., acquisitions, future plans, product restructuring) to the brand. A brand audit will help you understand where you stand today and what it will take for the brand to engage customers going forward.

 

  1. Focus on context. Your greatest opportunities lie at the point of convergence across company values, customer desire and the state of the market.

 

  1. Leverage your strengths. Start from your core values — the attributes that built your business. Then determine how you can carry them forward. Whether it’s a matter of getting back to basics or pumping new life into trusted values, don’t loose what you’ve spent years building. Reassure customers that you are who you’ve always been and will continue to be.

 

  1. Reach out to customers. You can’t make business decisions and establish your brand identity in a vacuum. Talk with customers, social and website visitors and, in some cases, random members of the public. Invite them to take part in surveys, phone interviews, focus groups and one-on-one interviews.

 

  1. Don’t overlook your digital branding. Today your brand extends to everything you do online — websites, social sites, digital ads, YouTube videos and more. Plus, with new tools and marketing automation technology, you can quantify more of your results. You can see what people are doing and compare results with what they tell you.

 

AAA-eProduct-Promo-Start-Today-800x700px

 

 

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-20/metlife-to-phase-out-snoopy-branding-as-ceo-reshapes-insurer

[2] https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insight-digital-disconnect-customer-engagement

[3] http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2016/05/11/the-worlds-most-valuable-brands-2016-behind-the-numbers/#126ce3897383

[4] https://www.metlife.com/about-us/brand/MetLife_Launches_New_Brand-Press_Release.pdf

[5] http://www.inc.com/guides/201105/10-tips-on-how-to-research-your-competition.html

[6] http://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2013/10/05/apples-most-important-branding-lesson-for-marketers/#46c5410e18e2

Brand Stories: 5 Compelling Examples That Sell Themselves (Part 2)

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(see Part 1 here)

 

“Exactly how do I tell my brand’s story?” is one of the most frequently asked questions we receive. Simply start at the beginning and consider the following guides as you draft out the core ingredients of your brand story:

  • Do: Tell a story
  • Don’t: Fudge the facts
  • Do: Use visuals and photos
  • Don’t: Use copyrighted photography
  • Do: Use numbers
  • Don’t: Write a novel
  • Do: Show your brand’s personality[1]

 

If you’re struggling with writing the heart of your compelling brand story so it’s shared time and time again by word-of-mouth then the Persona Brand Building Blueprint™ Mastermind is the perfect fit for you. There are ten key areas we focus on during this two day brand building intensive all of which are fully immersive and strategic in nature. Your brand story is one of the core areas of immersion.

 

lorraine-carter-persona-brand-building-mastermind-700x344px

 

If you want to transform your brand and increase your sales then this two day intensive shared with a small group of like-minded peers is a must for you so you can take your brand further, faster.

 

More information and registration for the Persona Brand Building Blueprint™ Mastermind can be found here.

 

The Small Business Brand Advantage

Small businesses are at an advantage. Everyone can identify with an authentic, personal story in a way that big brands cannot achieve. We commonly see these kind of ‘About Us’ write-ups on the websites of SME’s, and they’re just about right.

 

emerald-auto-story

Image via Emerald Auto and Brake and Vertical Response

 

Small to medium-sized businesses can also tell a brief personal story about each employee, another opportunity to claim real estate on the web, to create pride among staff, to introduce ice-breakers for clients, and to humanize the brand — an opportunity not to be overlooked.

 

marker-real-estate-story

Image via Marker Real Estate

 

In part one of this blog title, we introduced 5 exceptional big brand storytelling examples: Airbnb, Amazon, Dollar Shave Club, Facebook, and Guinness. Part two takes a look at five more brands that have hit the nail on the head and discusses universal takeaways for marketers of brands, no matter what size.

 

 

  1. Brand: Harry Potter

 

Backstory:

Author JK Rowling’s own story is one of rags to riches, from living on state benefits, catapulted to multi-millionaire status within five years. The book grew into a series, the series became blockbuster films, and then came the theme parks and global entertainment franchising…some real magic indeed.

Problem:

Literacy. James Thomas, professor of English at Pepperdine University, says the books do more than entertain. “They’ve made millions of kids smarter, more sensitive, certainly more literate…I don’t know of any books to have worked that kind of magic on so many millions of readers in so short a time in the history of publications.”[2]

 

Solution:

Perfect timing, perfect emotional connection. “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,” released in the UK in June 1997, was the first book in decades that schoolboys (including those who weren’t avid readers) just couldn’t put down. At that time, the internet was dial-up, Google wasn’t yet founded, and Nintendo 64 had only just hit the shelves. The thriller storyline of Harry Potter books delivered addicting fantasy adventure in large, un-Disney, doses.

 

jk-rowling-story

Image via JK Rowling

 

Success:

The Harry Potter brand is worth $25 billion. The movies grossed $7.7 billion worldwide and the best-selling series of books in history, translated into 73 languages, have made just as much. J.K. Rowling has been named the world’s richest author, with a net worth of $1 billion.[3]

 

jk-rowling-worlds-richest-author

Image via Money Magazine

 

Takeaway:

Start small, be patient, persevere. Bloomsbury offered JK Rowling $2,250 and agreed to print 1,000 books after she’d been turned down by many other publishers.

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Brand: SoulCycle

 

Backstory:

A decade ago, SoulCycle was a boot-strapped startup by two mothers who met over lunch and decided there was a hole in the market for fitness classes that didn’t require a gym membership.

 

Problem:

Gyms are everywhere. Why would anyone need another fitness centre chain that only offers 45-minute cycling classes? Or, is a no-membership fee model enough to carve out success?

 

soulcyle-about

Image via SoulCycle

 

Solution:

Imagine a darkened room lit by candles scented of citrus, rows of stationary bikes, deafening music pumping away, a good-looking, fit, inspirational instructor urging you to spin faster in your special shoes clipped onto the pedals of a yellow bike with wheels decorated like a lemon. That’s SoulCycle…it’s meant to go beyond a workout — to be good for your body and nourish your soul. It’s as much a cult as a class, thanks to a deeply loyal following that’s sprinkled with celebrities.

 

soulcyle-story

Image via SoulCycle

 

Success:

A leader in the luxury exercise trend. Nearly 70 prime studio locations in 11 states, concentrated in New York City and California, which accounted for 97 percent of the $112 million in revenue in 2014, 50 percent higher than the year prior.[4] Equinox purchased a majority stake of 97 percent and the two founders walked away with $90 million each.

 

soulcycle-700x291px

Image via Racked and SoulCycle

Takeaway:

Relate to a niche audience and put a spin (pun intended) on a core product. Wearing the tagline, “Aspirational lifestyle brand,”[5] SoulCycle markets itself as “the place people come, regardless of their age, athletic ability, size, shape, profession or personality, to connect with their best selves.”[6] In 2016, Fast Company placed SoulCycle on its list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies.[7]

 

 

 

  

  

  1. Brand: Spanx

Backstory:

“Spanx founder Sara Blakely was getting ready for a party when she realized she didn’t have the right undergarment to provide a smooth look under white trousers. Armed with scissors and sheer genius, she cut the feet off her control top pantyhose and the Spanx revolution began.”[8]

 

Problem:

Eliminating VPL (visible panty line) and offering an alternative to uncomfortable body shapers.

 

get-your-spanx-on

Image via Spanx

 

Solution:

Armed with $5,000, a focus on solving wardrobe woes, and a brand persona (meet Sunny) to make the packaging stand out, the Spanx brand has grown to offer dozens of products including leggings, bras, maternity shapewear, a men’s line and more.

 

spanx-home-page

 

Success:

Meet America’s youngest female self-made billionaire. With annual sales of $400 million-plus[9], Sara Blakely’s nonprofit foundation has contributed $24 million to women’s causes.

 

spanx-inc

Image via Spanx


Takeaway:

On the pages of a trusty spiral notebook, the kind where her first scribbles and notes appeared in 2000, Sarah Blakely keeps the narrative going with “Years of Great Rears” published on the Spanx website.

 

 

 

 

  1. Brand: Uber

 

Backstory:

The app-based car service was hatched pretty much on the back of the napkin, according to Travis Kalanick, co-founder of Uber. The co-founders were a couple of serial entrepreneurs hanging out together after hours during a tech conference in Paris.[10]

 

Problem:

People want reliable, affordable, fast door-to-door taxi service. San Francisco had a notoriously lousy taxi service, where Uber was launched as an experiment in 2010 following a three-car trial in Manhattan.

 

 

 

 

Solution:

One long-time user explains the Uber lifestyle thinking:[11]

  • They realized they’re not a transportation company, but a logistics company to dispatch things to people who want them. Usually it’s cars, but sometimes it’s ice cream, a mariachi band, or even kittens from shelters.
  • If you can do it in San Francisco, you can do it in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Sydney, Paris, and anywhere in between.
  • Since a lot of people use the service not because of how good it is, but how bad taxis are let’s make a cheaper option.

Plus, you don’t need cash. You just hop out.

 

uber-ireland

Image via Uber

 

Success:

Uber is one of the world’s fast-growing companies. Currently valued at $63 billion, Uber operates in 527 cities in 77 countries.[12] However, like Airbnb, another giant industry disruptor, the area in which Uber struggles is regulatory; there is room for improvement in their storytelling.


Takeaway:

Kalanick says, “Transportation should be like running water and we want to make that happen absolutely everywhere, for everyone.”[13] Make sure your brand has clearly identified its core message and crafted a story to tell it well. Furthermore, keep the narrative up-to-date if and when external factors impact it.

 

 

 

 

  1. Brand: Warby Parker

 

Backstory:

One of four co-founders from Wharton Business School, Neil Blumenthal, explains the idea came when a friend left a $700 pair of glasses in an airline seat pocket. Having seen how cheap glasses are made in Asia at the same factory that made the expensive ones, Blumenthal imagined a lifestyle brand that addresses price, style and the need for an optometrist visit.[14]

 

warby-parker-home-try-on

Image via Warby Parker

Problem:

As a technology that had been around for about 800 years, modern eyeglasses were needlessly expensive. Why? Because the industry was monopolized by one giant company. Warby Parker says everybody has a right to corrective lenses that are fun, free, and affordable.

 

Solution:

Warby Parker transformed the eyeglasses industry by designing in-house, selling direct-to-consumer to avoid retail markups and offering a free try-on at home service by mail. In addition, CSR is also at the heart of this brand story, for every pair of frames sold one pair is distributed to someone in need. So, “Buy a pair, give a pair.”

 

warby-parker-story

Image via Warby Parker

 

Success:

Eyeglasses for $95 was a groundbreaking proposition and an overnight success. Word-of-mouth took off (15 percent of the population wears glasses). Warby Parker now has 42 locations in North America in addition to e-commerce; the company founded in 2010 was valued at $1.2 billion in 2015.[15]

 

Takeaway:

Every brand idea starts with a problem. Express yours in plain language, such as this: “We believe that buying glasses should be easy and fun. It should leave you happy and good-looking, with money in your pocket. We also believe that everyone has the right to see.”

 

 

 

 

Want to write your compelling brand story? Want to attract your ideal customers so you can sell your brand way more effectively? The Persona Brand Building Blueprint™ Mastermind is the perfect fit for you. There are ten key areas of immersion we focus on during this two day brand building intensive, one of which is your brand story.  You work on your brand over the two days with our direction so you can seriously accelerate your growth.

 

lorraine-carter-persona-brand-building-mastermind-700x344px

 

If you want to transform your brand and increase your sales then this two day intensive shared with a small group of like-minded peers is a must for you so you can take your brand further, faster.

 

More information and registration for the Persona Brand Building Blueprint™ Mastermind can be found here.

 

 

Six Questions For Brand Owner Managers to Consider About Brand Storytelling

  1. Have your defined your brand’s story and found a compelling way to share it with your customers and potential customers?
  2. Does your brand story present and solve a unique problem?
  3. Is your story told in an authentic human voice rather than a corporate one?
  4. Is there an emotional connection in your brand storytelling?
  5. Does your brand story have a beginning, middle and an end? Lastly, is there a call to action?
  6. Have you considered getting input from your customers to help you determine your brand messaging? Their feedback can help you clarify and define the voice behind your company.

 

 

PPP-eProduct-Enroll-eCourse-Here-800x700px

 

[1] http://www.verticalresponse.com/blog/7-dos-and-donts-for-writing-your-companys-story

[2] http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/personoftheyear/article/0,28804,1690753_1695388_1695436,00.html

[3] http://time.com/money/4279432/billion-dollar-spell-harry-potter

[4] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3531018/SoulCycle-founders-resign-company-year-making-90-million-selling-Equinox.html

[5] http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-soulcycle-ipo-20150731-story.html

[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/upshot/soulcycle-you-say-cult-i-say-loyal-customer-base.html?_r=1

[7] https://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies

[8] http://www.spanx.com/about-us

[9] http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20161011_Reuters_tagreuterscom2016newsmlMT1VRT1201884257_Spanx_Founder_Sara_Blakely_Gives_Back_to_Empower_Women__Small_Businesses.html

[10] https://newsroom.uber.com/ubers-founding

[11] https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-story-behind-the-creation-of-Uber

[12] http://uberestimator.com/cities

[13] https://www.marketingweek.com/2015/09/17/uber-ceo-we-need-to-get-better-at-telling-our-story

[14] https://techcrunch.com/2013/05/07/the-three-things-warby-parker-did-to-launch-a-successful-lifestyle-brand

[15] http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2016/03/23/whats-behind-warby-parkers-success/#7d24b3406395

Brand Stories: 5 Compelling Examples That Sell Themselves

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Part 1. (see Part 2 here)

Once upon a time, there was a brand that told its very own compelling story. It had a beginning, a middle and an end. It was the story of how it adds value to people’s lives, how it uniquely solves a problem, how it authentically reaches people, builds an emotional connection with them and gains their trust.

 

 

“It makes “selling” a whole lot easier when your customers actually understand what they’re buying.” (And why). – Kelly Lucente, author

 

 

In fact, that’s what all good brand stories do, from “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” to iconic brands like Apple and Virgin Group.

 

  • Beginning: Problem. Explain the problem that you set out to solve.
  • Middle: Solution. Describe how you solved it.
  • End: Success. Get excited about the success this produced.[1]

 

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” – Albert Einstein

 

 

It’s no coincidence that some of the world’s most powerful brands are ones that have successfully told their brand stories in a relatable human, non-corporate way so that customers embrace it and are keen to continue sharing that story via world of mouth.

 

great-stories-are-pollen-hugh-macleod-gapingvoid

Image via Gapingvoid, © Hugh MacLeod

 

 

 

 

“A story is how we construct our experiences. At the very simplest, it can be: ‘He/she was born, lived, died.’ Probably that is the template of our stories – a beginning, middle, and end. This structure is in our minds.” – Doris Lessing, author

 

 

Here we take a closer look at 5 great brand story case studies to see who nailed it, how, and why. SMEs / SMBs can successfully apply many of the universal lessons learned here to smaller brands. The key learning for a company of any size is to remain sharply in focus on: “What are we for? What problem do we solve?”

 

5 Great Brand Stories that Sell Themselves

 

  1. Brand: Airbnb

 

Backstory:

“In fact, by conventional wisdom, it seems like a pretty dumb idea. Who would want to rent spare rooms to strangers from strange cities in their homes? And would you rent a room in someone’s house, instead of a hotel?” in 2011, the technology journalist Om Malik probed for answers to such basic sharing economy questions as he interviewed Brian Chesky, CEO and founder of Airbnb.

 

Problem:

A housing problem occurs when cities sell out during high demand periods. The idea came to Chesky and his college buddy who had a couple of air mattresses to rent out when conventions put too much demand on hotels in San Francisco. That grew to the idea of booking a room anywhere for as short as one night.

 

Solution:

“Live like a local,” is the Airbnb story for this online service that matches people seeking vacation rentals and other short term accommodation needs with hosts who have rooms, apartments, houses or other unique spaces to rent.

 

airbnb-guidebook-things-to-do

Image via Airbnb

 

Success:

Airbnb caught the wave of both the sharing economy and online commerce. In 2016, Airbnb grew at a faster rate than the entire hotel industry, offering 2.3 million housing units in its inventory.[2] The 8-year-old company has a valuation of $30 billion.[3]

 

Takeaway:

Classic design approach. Think through the customer experience, even before they arrive. “Become the patient is a core value,” says Joe Gebbia, Co-founder Airbnb.[4]

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Brand: Amazon

 

Backstory:

Customer-driven Amazon.com sold its first book online in 1995, and since then has defined and redefined online retailing for the rest of the Internet retail world.[5] Amazon’s mission statement reads: “Our vision is to be earth’s most customer-centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”[6]

 

Problem:

Electronic shopping looks to fill the void of shopping by catalogue as the popularity of the internet explodes.

 

Solution:

Working from in his Bellevue, WA garage in 1995, Jeff Bezos identified five products to sell online: CDs and videos, computer hardware and software, and books. Beginning with books, Bezos focused his new avenue for commerce on the web on search, the customer experience and fast delivery.

 

oprahs-favourite-things-on-amazon

Image via Amazon

 

Success:

One of the top five U.S. companies[7], Amazon attracts over 140 million customers per month to its US website as of late 2016.[8] With 36 sub-brands in 13 countries, in 2015, Amazon became the nation’s most valuable retailer. [9]

 

Takeaway:

Experiment, measure, experiment, measure…repeat. “If you double the number of experiments you do per year you’re going to double your inventiveness.” – Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder and CEO.

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Brand: Dollar Shave Club

 

Backstory:

In 2012, Co-founder Michael Dubin personally introduced his product in a humorous video produced for only $4500, which launched on YouTube and went viral. Nearly 24 million views later, see how well the video lays out the problem and the solution.

 

Problem:

Razor blades are way too expensive. They’re loaded up with unnecessary technology, locked away on the shopfront floor, and carry too much costly packaging and advertising overhead.

 

Solution:

“Shave time, shave money.” A low-priced, convenient, internet-based subscription model mails razors right to the customer’s door, disrupting giant retailers in the men’s shave market.

 

dollar-shave-club

Image via Dollar Shave Club

 

Success:

In year one, Dollar Shave Club did $4 million in sales. Year two was $19 million and year three was $65 million.[10] In 2016, Unilever purchased Dollar Shave Club for $1 billion to challenge Procter & Gamble’s Gillette, the market leader.

 

Takeaway:

A message for challenger brands: “One category after another is being transformed by new brands as consumers demand more personalized offerings.”[11]

 

 

 

 

  1. Brand: Facebook

 

Backstory:

Founded in 2004, Facebook’s mission was to give people the power to share, to make the world more open and connected through friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.

 

Problem:

Facebook is about to reach its teen years. How can the blistering pace of growth to 1.59 billion users be sustained?

 

facebook-daily-active-users

Image via TechCrunch

Solution:

Although Facebook is hitting saturation in some markets, there’s room to grow in many developing countries. In 2016, Mark Zuckerberg expressed his vision for Facebook’s future at the annual developer’s conference: “Over the long run, we’re building planes and satellites to connect everyone to the internet; artificial intelligence to help us interact with services more easily; and virtual reality to help us experience the world in a totally new way.”

 

facebook-community-update

Image via TechCrunch

Success:

There are another 900 million users on WhatsApp, 800 million on Messenger, 400 million on Instagram, all Facebook properties. Revenue generated from mobile ads jumped 80 percent in the second quarter, faster than Facebook’s overall 59 percent advertising growth rate.[12]

 

Takeaway:

Listen to Mark Zuckerberg talk about the low points in Facebook’s young life. Learn. Evolve. Grow. Rebrand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Brand: Guinness

 

Backstory:

“How does a local brand from a small country resonate around the world? How does a brand become inherently part of a nation’s DNA? How does a brand instil pride in it’s country people even though not everyone wants to drink it?…I love the brand, not the product. Walk through the city centre in Dublin any morning, any day of the week and you’ll experience the smell of Dublin, barley roasting in the Guinness Brewery at St James’s Gate, where Guinness has been for over 250 years. You can smell it all over the city. It defines the city.”[13]

 

Problem:

1759 was a long time ago. The brand has a devout cult following. But it also has a corporate owner. How can Guinness connect with each new generation? Can the brand stay young, fresh, innovative? Can Guinness shore up sales as small craft brews gain in popularity?

 

Solution:

“Our Story” figures prominently on the Guinness website. With a 90-second ad, Guinness turns the problem into a solution by positioning themselves as legendary, almost mythical. The video takes us behind the brewery gates for an inside look. “We’re only 255 years into a 9,000-year lease,” Irish actor Cillian Murphy says in a lilting voiceover. “We have a lot more beer to make.”

 

guinness-our-story

Image via Guinness

 

Success:

Guinness defines the category and remains the top producer of stout on the planet. One of only a few truly global beer brands, Guinness sells over 2 billion pints every year in over 150 countries.

 

Takeaway:

Deliver a sense of place for your brand by sharing the insider’s story. “Our greatest work is yet to come,” provides a sense of anticipation…watch this space, it suggests, allowing customers to peek at tomorrow.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nXEDZ4Ru2I

 

 

De-Mystify the Black Art of Branding

 

Successful brands stand out by telling great stories. To earn a strong and positive position in the minds of your customers, your message must be both simple and focused. What takeaways, tips, questions, checklists, insights, and facts can you take from these compelling brand stories and apply to your brand?

 

If you’re struggling with writing and choosing the golden nuggets of your compelling brand story then the Persona Brand Building Blueprint™ Mastermind is the perfect fit for you. You see, there are ten key areas we focus on during this two day brand building intensive all of which are fully immersive and strategic in nature. Your brand story is one of the core areas of immersion.

 

lorraine-carter-persona-brand-building-mastermind-700x344px

 

If you want to transform your brand and increase your sales then this two day intensive shared with a small group of like-minded peers is a must for you so you can take your brand further, faster.

 

More information and registration for the Persona Brand Building Blueprint™ Mastermind can be found here.

Six Questions For SMEs / SMBs to Consider About Brand Stories

  1. Have your defined your brand’s story and found a compelling way to share it with your customers and potential customers?
  2. Does your brand story present and solve a unique problem?
  3. Is your story told in an authentic human voice rather than a corporate one?
  4. Is there an emotional connection in your brand storytelling?
  5. Does your brand story have a beginning, middle and an end? Lastly, is there a call to action?
  6. Have you considered getting input from your customers to help you determine your brand messaging? Their feedback can help you clarify and define the voice behind your company.

 

PPP-eProduct-Enroll-eCourse-800x700px

 

 

[1] https://blog.kissmetrics.com/create-authentic-brand-story

[2] http://archives.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2016/05/25/airbnbs-enormous-success-is-bigger-than-you-think

[3] http://www.wsj.com/articles/airbnb-raises-850-million-at-30-billion-valuation-1474569670

[4] http://firstround.com/review/How-design-thinking-transformed-Airbnb-from-failing-startup-to-billion-dollar-business

 

[5] https://www.thebalance.com/amazon-mission-statement-4068548

[6] http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/amazon-com-inc-history

[7] http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/23/amazon-climbs-into-list-of-top-five-largest-us-stocks-by-market-cap.html

[8] https://siteanalytics.compete.com/amazon.com/#.WBva-2QrJdg

[9] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html?_r=0

[10] http://fortune.com/2015/03/10/dollar-shave-club-founding

[11] https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/22/why-did-unilever-pay-1b-for-dollar-shave-club

[12] http://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-posts-strong-profit-and-revenue-growth-1469650289

[13] http://www.trulydeeply.com.au/brand-identity/guinness-art-brand-storytelling