Defining Your Brand: The First Step In Your Marketing Strategy

Truly defining your business is a critical first step in developing your marketing plan. Through a continuing series of stories, we've been examining how to build a compelling brand experience that will drive customer loyalty -- highlighting the principles of big brand marketing so that small business owners can replicate those kinds of successes. But before you can start building your brand's experience for customers, you need to take some fundamental first steps to define the kind of brand you want to be.

 

To guide our marketing plan, we need a very well-crafted statement of the type of business we are in, the type of customers we serve and how we serve them. We have to define what we stand for and the types of products and services that our customers can expect from us. This truly is the first step in the branding process.

 

 

At first glance, defining your brand may seem easy, but it takes some soul searching, decision making and data gathering.

 

Take, for example, someone going into business as a lawyer. It's pretty easy to define that brand -- a person who practices law, right? But to build a brand around his practice, a lawyer needs to determine specifically what kind of law he focuses on and what kind of client he is targeting before any marketing can begin. That means thinking through what regions of the world, categories of law, style of service and other offerings he brings to the table.

 

Related: 6 Strategies to Build a Global Brand

 

When defining your brand, put as much clarity as possible into how the brand and business is described, so that you can build a specific brand experience to match it. Here are three key steps to help you get there:

 

1. Make an inventory of your skills. List out what you are especially good at and what you want your customers to think of when your brand comes to mind. Your unique set of skills will form the basis of your brand definition.

 

2. What are your customers' needs? From your list of skills, identify those that your customers particularly need. Think through the kinds of things you do that your customers will come to you for. You should define your brand based on your ability to fulfill such demands.

 

3. Focus on what differentiates. It's important for your brand to be different than other similar options available to customers. Of course your brand experience will ultimately differentiate you, but being unique starts with deciding what attributes set you apart from others. Your goal is to be different and better than your competition.

 

Related: The Secrets of 7 Successful Brands

 

Let's revisit our lawyer example. A well-defined lawyer wouldn't just say he "practices law." He would be much more definitive and specific about his focus if he wants customers to see his business as a brand. So instead of calling himself a "practicing lawyer," he may define his brand as a "compassionate attorney specializing in family law in the state of California, servicing women who need help getting through the tough times in their lives."

 

Notice the clarity in the brand definition?

 

While it's important to be as specific as possible, you also want to be careful not to box your business in with a tightly constrained brand definition. For example, if a hair salon only defined itself as providing "women's short haircuts," it would close itself off from business that could come from customers seeking other hair styles, salon services like coloring or straightening and other demographics like children or men.

 

If it makes sense to be super specific because you have identified a strong niche market, just be sure to do this consciously. I've seen many salons that specialize in just curly hair or blowouts. If the business is large enough, those could be very well-defined, successful brands. Just be careful not to define the brand too strictly, which would close out future business-building activities.

 

The trick is to balance specificity, focus and differentiation with the ability to expand. When defining your brand, make sure to describe the type of business in a way that allows for growth over time.

 

Jim Joseph is the North American president of New York-based communications agency Cohn & Wolfe, part of the media company WPP Group PLC. Author of The Experience Effect (AMACOM, 2010) and The Experience Effect for Small Business (Happy About, 2012), Joseph also teaches marketing at New York University and blogs at JimJosephExp.com.

 

The author is an Entrepreneur contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

 

Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226603#ixzz2U1k3U7Mx

 

 

 

给你的业务下一个真正的定义是展开你的营销计划的关键性第一步。从过往的一系列成功案例中，我们一直在分析如何建立起一个强力的品牌体验，以便激发消费者忠诚度——弄清楚大品牌的营销原则，那些小公司就能效仿他们的成功模式。但是，在为你的消费者建立一个独有的品牌体验之前，你还必须有一些奠基性的起步动作——你必须想好你要构建怎样的品牌。

 

为了指引我们的营销计划，我们需要对我们的业务类型做一个精心准确的表述，我们服务于什么类型的客户，我们怎样为他们提供服务。我们要定义好我们会以什么为立足点，我们会以哪种类型的产品和服务来迎合消费者对我们的期待。这，就是 品牌化过程的第一步骤了。

 

定义你的品牌乍一看是很简单的事，但是这其实需要深刻的研究反省，不动摇的决心，还有数据信息的全方位搜集。

 

打个比方，要是某个人想要涉入律师业务。那么，他的品牌很容易初步定义——一个法律执业人员，对吗?但是，如果想要针对他的经历打造一个品牌，身为一个律师，在进行营销之前，他需要明确界定好自己会偏重哪一类的法律业务，他针对的是哪一类的客户。这也就意味着，他需要思考自己打算涉足世界上哪些地区，哪个领域的法律，打算提供何种类型的专业性服务。

 

在定义你的品牌的时候，要尽可能清晰地表述你的品牌和业务特征，这样，你就可以规划出一个特色性的品牌体验来跟它配套。以下是能够帮助到你的三个要点步骤：

 

1. 罗列出你的优势。罗列出你尤其擅长什么，以及当你的客户想到你的品牌的时候，你希望他们第一时间联想到什么。你的独一无二的专长会构成你的品牌定义的基础。

 

2. 你的客户需要什么?从你罗列出的特长中，挑选出你的客户特别需要的那些。想清楚你做的哪些事会是让你的客户变成回头客的理由。你必须根据你有能力满足的那些需求来定义你的品牌。

 

3. 专注于特色化。重点是，你的品牌必须跟消费者可选的其他同类产品有所区分。当然，你独有的品牌体验才是最终令你独树一帜的关键，不过，独具特色不同凡俗的属性也会是一个令你独一无二的起始。你的目标，就是要比你的竞争对手更有特色，更优秀。

 

让我们回顾一下律师的例子。一个定义良好的律师不会仅仅是一个“法律执业”的律师。如果他还希望他的客户把他的业务看做一个品牌性的服务，他的专业性质就必须更具体、更明确。所以与其把自己称作“执业律师”，他也许更愿意把他的品牌定义为“位于加利福利亚州的，富有同情心的家庭法专业律师，致力于为那些在人生的艰难时刻里需要帮助的女性们服务”。

 

注意到了品牌定义中的清晰性了吗?

 

一方面，要尽可能的详细明晰，另一方面，你也要注意，不能矫枉过正地把你的业务局限在一个束缚性过强的死板的品牌定义当中。好比如说，如果一个发廊把自己定义为“女性的短发修剪”，就会把大量的其他类型的顾客拒之门外——像是想要修剪其它发型的，想要美发或者拉直或者上色的，又或者是儿童或者男性顾客，都将白白流失。

 

如果那种程度的清晰专业化是切实必要的，因为你已经瞄准好了一个强大的潜在市场，那么，你就要有意识地去做到那种程度。我见过很多只专注于卷发或者烫发的美发沙龙。只要业务经营时间够长，它们就有可能成为定义良好的成功的品牌。只是，要注意不能把品牌定义得太过严苛，因为这会堵死你未来的业务提升空间。

 

秘诀就在于平衡好特色化、专业化、个性化和业务的扩展空间。定义你的品牌时，一定要确保随着时间的推移，这个定义所描述出的业务类型依然有着增长业绩的空间。

 

笔者 吉米·约瑟夫(Jim Joseph)是医药公司WPP Group PLC.的下属通信代理公司Cohn & Wolfe(以纽约为总部)的北美总裁，也是The Experience Effect (AMACOM, 2010)以及The Experience Effect for Small Business (Happy About, 2012)的著作人。约瑟夫同时还在纽约大学教导营销课。他的博客地址 jimjosephexp.blogspot.com