In Marketing, Your Brand Cannot Be All Things To All People
I had a client tell me the other day that he wasn’t getting enough referrals.
He said he has a stack of favorable letters from clients saying that he was “dependable”, “able to deliver at the lowest price”, “fair and reasonable”, etc., but he just wasn’t getting people to refer him enough.
These are all very nice and admirable traits, I told him. But they just didn’t match up to the image that he was trying to represent as a financial consultant to Fortune 500 companies.
This got me thinking about the image that companies are trying to portray..and how customers really feel about them.
Does your website match the image you are trying to present?
Do your ads and other collateral material match your website– or do they have different messages?
Do your promotions and marketing programs tie-in nicely with your other campaigns, or are they all hit-or-miss or a cornucopia of messages?
Do you know what your customers are saying about your brand? Are you monitoring the conversations? Do you care? Have you asked any of them?
Bottom line, your brand cannot be all things to everyone… or it will be nothing to all.
Define your audience and make sure all your communications match and align themselves.
Find out how your brand is thought of, and adapt or adopt.
But you need to understand the perceptions that people have of your brand before you can take the next step.
Run a focus group. Talk to customers. Talk to your employees. Find out if the image in your mind matches the image in your customers’ minds.
One mesage for your brand has to stand out.
What does your brand represent to your customers?
