Category: Strategy

Entrepreneur’s guide to marketing: A 60-minute strategy

Posted on by Jillian Whitmore

So, you’ve got a cool idea for a business or product? Great! You’ve been out there talking to people and getting your hustle on? Amazing! Validated your product-market fit? Incredible!

But… Don’t have a website with clear messaging? Not sure how to jumpstart your growth journey? You can’t possibly talk one-on-one to all of your customers. Need to up your online presence? That’s where your marketing strategy comes in, and it doesn’t need to take you months to write. Start with the basics, build and optimise.

This article will take you through a simplified entrepreneur’s marketing strategy for any new business looking to gain more awareness and drive conversions for your new great idea!

Let’s dive in.

The 60-minute entrepreneur’s marketing strategy

Download the lean marketing strategy template.

1. Define your brand vision, mission and values.

Every successful business starts with a clear understanding of its core brand values, mission, and vision. This foundation sets the tone for your brand and helps you align your marketing efforts with your business’s purpose. Take a few minutes to reflect on what your brand stands for, what it aims to achieve, and the values that guide it. 

Complete these sentences: 

Vision statement 

I see a future where [your target audience] no longer experiences [pain point] and they are free to [make the change you help them with].

Mission statement

I want to help [target audience] to [make a change] by offering them [your product or service]. 

Values

List things that your brand is and is not under the headings:

We are / We are not

Use verbs (action words) to describe how you want to behave and achieve your vision and mission. 

Extra for experts – try these templates to dig deeper

Brand vision worksheet | For teams

Bring clarity to your brand vision by taking your team through this simple exercise. Download the brand vision worksheet.

Brand purpose worksheet

Brand purpose worksheet | For entrepreneurs

Build confidence as a small business owner by discovering your brand purpose. Download the brand purpose worksheet.

2. Define your ideal customers

Understanding your target audience is crucial for effective marketing. Create detailed customer personas that encompass their demographics, behaviours, pain points, and aspirations. This will help you tailor your marketing efforts to resonate with the people most likely to benefit from your product or service.

Demographics of your target audience:

Their biggest pain points / challenges:

Their goals and aspirations:

Dig deeper with this persona template:

A simple marketing persona template to help you define your target audience and improve your brand positioning and messaging.

3. Define your positioning statement – how you are going to stand out from the competition

Your positioning statement is your unique value proposition. It should articulate how you plan to stand out from the competition and why customers should choose your brand. Keep it concise and impactful so that it instantly communicates what makes your business special.

List your top 3 competitors:

What are their strengths and weaknesses:

How are you different and better than your competitors:

Dig deeper with this competitor analysis template

A simple 6-step guide, this competitor analysis template will help you work through the overwhelming task of competitor research and help you position your brand for more growth.

4. Decide on your growth channels

Identify the platforms and channels where your target audience spends their time. It could be social media, search engines, email marketing, or even niche forums. Choose the channels that are most likely to yield the best results for your specific business.

List the top 4 places your audience will be:

5. Build your funnels / growth loops

Funnels and growth loops are essential for converting potential customers into actual customers. Design a clear path that takes your audience from awareness to interest, and ultimately to action (e.g., making a purchase). Implement strategies to retain and upsell existing customers to achieve sustainable growth.

Create a plan for how your audience will find out about you. How you will convince them of your value. And how you will call them to action to make a purchase.

6. Promote your business with relevant and valuable content

Create content that speaks directly to your target audience. Your content should provide value, address their pain points, and highlight how your product or service can help. Distribute this content through the channels you’ve chosen in step 4. Consistency and quality are key.

Create 4 key messages in each of the following stages of your funnel and run test campaigns to see which has the most impact. 

Awareness – Highlight pain point and educate your audience on your solution.

Consideration – offer proof that your solution works to solve pain point. (eg. testimonials). Why should they trust you?

Conversion – call then to action and make it easy for customers to purchase. 

After the test, take the unsuccessful ones out and test again with new messaging. Rinse and repeat until you find what works.

Entrepreneur’s marketing strategy – on a page

Creating a one-pager that encapsulates your marketing strategy, highlighting key points, goals, and action items will serve as a quick reference and a way to keep you focused and your team aligned with your vision.

In just 60 minutes, you’ve defined your brand, identified your ideal customers, crafted a unique positioning statement, chosen your growth channels, built your funnels, created compelling content, and documented this on a one-pager for easy reference. 

With this strategy in place, you’re well on your way to boosting your brand awareness and driving conversions for your fantastic idea. Get ready to watch your business grow!

Need help working through these steps?

Book a free brand consultation to get extra help.

Book now for free
Jillian Whitmore

Brand authenticity and why is matters

Posted on by Jillian Whitmore

In a world of make-believe and AI-generated content, it’s harder than ever to truly tap into the authenticity of your brand, let alone yourself. Yes, our mums told us we were special, but if we’re all special how do we stand out from the crowd? How do we build new connections with people when we want to earn their trust, gain their preference and keep them coming back? There’s only one way you should be doing this – and that’s with authenticity. 

Brand authenticity has become more than just a buzzword, it’s a defining factor for success. Whether you’re a small business owner, an aspiring entrepreneur, or a recent marketing graduate, understanding the importance of authenticity in your brand is crucial. 

In this article, we’ll explore what authenticity truly means, why it’s vital for your business, and how to build an authentic brand that resonates with your audience.

What is authenticity?

Authenticity, in the context of your brand, means staying true to your core values, beliefs, and promises. It’s about being genuine, transparent, and consistent in your business practices. When your brand is authentic, it reflects the essence of who you are and what you stand for. 

It’s the difference between doing something for the sake of earning money versus doing something that truly aligns with your brand vision. Which is easier said than done.

Why is brand authenticity important?

1. People should know who they are doing business with:

Customers want to connect with the face behind the brand. When your business exudes authenticity, it’s easier for people to understand and relate to your mission and vision. This humanizes your brand and fosters trust. 

2. Build trust with people: 

Trust is the foundation of long-lasting customer relationships. Authenticity is the key to building and maintaining trust. People are more likely to engage with and remain loyal to a brand they trust.

3. People will tell others about you:

Satisfied customers become brand advocates. When they experience an authentic connection with your business, they’re more likely to share their positive experiences with friends, family, and online communities. Word-of-mouth marketing is invaluable.

4. It helps you grow organically for a long time: 

In an era of ever-changing trends, chasing quick profits can lead to short-lived success. On the other hand, authentic businesses focus on their unique purpose, addressing real problems and providing value. This long-term perspective allows you to grow steadily, rather than seeking fleeting gains.

How to build an authentic brand?

1. Define who your brand is and what it stands for:

Start by identifying your brand’s core values and mission. What do you want to achieve, and what principles guide your decisions? This foundational Brand Marketing Strategy will be your North Star.

2. Align your business activity with this purpose: 

Every business decision should be measured against your brand’s purpose (vision). Create a culture within your organisation that encourages questioning if a decision aligns with your values and mission.

3. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes:

Empathy is a powerful tool. Continuously consider how your customers perceive your brand. Be honest, and transparent, and ensure your actions match your words. Remember, customers are excellent lie detectors, if they sense you are not telling the truth they are more likely to tell people about it. 

People are more likely to tell their friends about a bad experience than about a good one.

For every bad review or customer you lose, make sure you understand their experience and put in place better systems or processes to make sure it doesn’t happen again. 

4. Learn from your mistakes: 

It’s impossible to please everyone all the time. When you encounter negative feedback or lose a customer, take it as an opportunity to improve. Listen, learn, and adapt. By doing so, you demonstrate your commitment to growth and authenticity.

5. Don’t be afraid to be yourself:

Authenticity should start with you. Share your story, your passions, your vulnerabilities, and your strengths. When people can connect with the human side of your brand, trust is nurtured. Be approachable and relatable.

How to find your brand authenticity

1. Soul-searching:

Begin by asking yourself what inspired you to start your business. What values and principles guide your decisions? Your brand’s authenticity often mirrors your personal values. For example, brands like Ecostore are driven by values of sustainability and eco-friendliness. By emphasising natural ingredients, responsible packaging, and a commitment to reducing their environmental footprint, these brands appeal to consumers who also value sustainability and ethical practices.

2. Customer feedback: 

Pay close attention to what your customers are saying. Their comments and suggestions can help you refine your brand’s identity and offerings to align with their needs better. Build a system for capturing customer feedback, you can do this through surveys, interviews or automated NPS software. Put time aside each month to review the feedback and implement improvements to your offering. Don’t forget to thank your customers for their feedback, they are doing you a favour by sharing their opinion. 

3. Competitor analysis:

Study your competitors to identify gaps in the market and areas where you can stand out authentically. This market research will help you position your brand uniquely. If 12 brands are offering the same product or service, what makes yours special and unique? Yes, all software has the benefit of ‘saving you time’ but what is it about you that makes your software unique? Lean on your authenticity and brand purpose, and give your customers a reason to choose you over the competition. 

Brand authenticity isn’t just a trendy concept – it’s a business imperative. By staying true to your values, consistently delivering on your promises, and engaging with your audience authentically, you can build a brand that people not only trust but also passionately advocate for. In the long run, authenticity will be your greatest asset on your journey to business success.

Need help to define your brand vision?

Book a free brand consultation to clarify your brand and start building it confidently with authenticity.

Book now for free
Jillian Whitmore

How to create marketing personas that actually work

Posted on by Jillian Whitmore

Personas are one of the most important tools in your business’s tool kit. They outline who your customers are, their challenges, desires and goals, this is incredibly important because after all, without your customers, you wouldn’t have a business. Yet even as a crucial business instrument, it’s common for small businesses to have only created them during their draft business planning stage but haven’t looked at them since.

A survey conducted by Keap found that only 29% of small businesses use buyer personas to guide their marketing efforts. The survey also found that the majority of small business owners struggle to identify their target audience and understand their needs and preferences.

My marketing ears bleed when I hear this! Let’s work through this together.

What is a marketing persona? 

Marketing personas, also known as buyer personas or customer avatars, are fictional representations of your ideal customers. They help give you a deeper understanding of your target audience by identifying their needs, interests, preferences, and behaviours. 

There are many different formulas to create personas, however they all follow a fairly similar structure. Creating a persona and locking it in a drawer will not help your business, you’ll need to actually use the information within it to help guide your business. 

A good persona can outline a positioning strategy for how your business can solve more of your target market’s problems. You can do this through testing and improving your marketing messaging, by developing better solutions or by building different product offerings that can better serve your customers and offer new revenue streams for your business.

Here’s a guide for creating effective marketing personas

Define your target audience: 

Start by defining the demographics of your target audience, such as age, gender, location, education level, income, etc. You can use customer data, market research, or social media analytics to gather this information.

Conduct research:

Conduct qualitative and quantitative research to gather more information about your target audience. This can include surveys, focus groups, interviews, social media listening, and website analytics. Use this data to identify patterns and trends that can help you create more accurate personas.

Identify pain points and goals: 

Identify the pain points, challenges, and goals of your target audience. This will help you understand their motivations and what drives them to make a purchase. You can gather this information through surveys or interviews.

Create personas: 

Based on the data you’ve collected, create a list of fictional personas that represent your target audience. Each persona should have a name, age, job title, and a brief summary of their background, goals, challenges, and interests. Use visuals, such as photographs or illustrations, to bring your personas to life. 

Create at least three personas who are most important to your business, these can be the purchase decision makers or the influencers of those decisions. Pick your top three and explore their challenges, desires and goals.

Note in each one what they are influenced by, are they likely to be convinced by their friends or children to make a purchase, or are they making the purchase on behalf of their business?

Download this free marketing persona template.

Marketing persona template

Download this free template and start defining your target audience today. Includes instructions and an example persona.

Download marketing persona template

Use personas for marketing: 

Once you have created your personas, use them to inform your marketing strategy. Create content, ads, and messaging that speak directly to the needs and interests of each persona. Use their pain points and goals to create targeted campaigns that resonate with them. 

Draw on the language and words they use to describe their challenges, speaking in a language they understand. They will recognise that you understand their challenges and therefore likely have a good solution for them. 

Note where they ‘hang out’ and where they learn new information. Are there certain websites or social media platforms where they spend a large portion of their time? This could be news sites, Tiktok, Medium or LinkedIn. They could also be part of Facebook groups or community groups where you can target your advertising strategy to these audiences. 

Update personas regularly: 

Your target audience will likely change over time, so it’s important to update your personas regularly. Keep an eye on market trends and customer feedback to ensure your personas remain accurate and relevant. It is recommended you update your personas at least once a year, or more often if there are significant shifts in your industry. Keeping your personas up to date will help you keep a competitive advantage in your market.

In conclusion, marketing personas can help you create more effective marketing campaigns by identifying the needs and interests of your target audience. By following these steps, you can create personas that accurately represent your target audience and help you achieve your business growth goals.

More marketing tools to grow your business

What is brand positioning

Brand positioning is the strategic steps you take to create a positive perception of your business in the minds of your customers. 

How to conduct a competitor analysis

A simple 6-step guide for small business owners to conduct a competitor analysis to inform a positioning strategy.

Why is competitor analysis important

Posted on by Jillian Whitmore

When was the last time you did a competitor analysis?

Scratch that… have you ever done a competitor analysis? 

It’s very common for small businesses to not know who they are competing with. However, if you are serious about scaling your business and want to win more sales in your target market – you need a game plan of how to position your brand as the preferred option among competitors.

85 percent of consumers conduct online research before making a purchase online

When your customers go searching for a solution, don’t you want to stand out from the crowd?

That’s where positioning comes in, and competitor analysis will help you create a strategy that’s sure to turn a few heads.

What is competitor analysis?

Competitor analysis is the investigation of other businesses that offer the same or similar solution for your target market. It’s the process of analysing the strengths and weaknesses of these businesses and comparing them to your own. Competitor analysis allows you to gain important insight to help you position and grow your brand.

Why is competitor landscape analysis important?

Competitor analysis or competitor landscape analysis is important to inform your strategies on how to:

  • grow your business
  • make better products and design better services
  • communicate clearly with your customers
  • remain the top choice for your customers
  • build your brand equity
  • differentiate your brand as unique
  • stay on top of market shifts
  • pivot faster when the market and customer needs change

Competitor analysis not only informs you of who else might be serving your customers, it also allows you to understand how your customers search for solutions and make comparable decisions between choosing your product or someone else’s. 

By understanding the competitive landscape you’ll identify whether you are dealing with selective or primary demand, which can greatly impact your marketing and brand positioning strategy. 

Difference between selective and primary demand

The difference between selective and primary demand can help determine the type of marketing decisions and messaging you place in front of your target market. 

Selective demand 

Selective demand is where the customer understands they have a problem and they decide to select a product or service to solve their problem. This is the case with highly competitive markets where there are many options for one type of solution. If your solution sits within a selective demand market, you might want to look closely at your competitors to make sure you are differentiating and offering more value to the customers making their selection.

Primary demand

Primary demand is where customers do not recognise they have a problem that can be solved for them. This is often the case with new products or services that do not already exist in the market. Messaging can be focused around educating the market about your new solution. Highlighting the problem they might not know can be solved with your one-of-a-kind solutions on the market.

How to differentiate your brand

Once you have a solid understanding of your competitive landscape and their strengths and weaknesses in comparison to yours. You can begin to start building your differentiation strategy or brand positioning strategy.

Conduct a competitor analysis

Researching your competitors will help you understand where you sit in the minds of your customers. You wil gain an understanding of what you offer your customers that no one else in the market can. Then using this as your unique selling proposition, you can differentiate your solution as bringing more value to your target market. Read more about how to conduct a competitor analysis.

Leverage your unique selling proposition

No one can build the brand you have set out to create, just like people, we are all unique and there are no two alike. If you have a thorough understanding of your customers needs and wants, use your unique-ness to offer them more value. While there may be similarities in your branding, language and pricing, the key here is to position your brand as different and offer something that your competitors simply cannot.

Highlight your competitive advantage

Don’t be shy to shout about your advantages over your competitors, chances are your customers have done their research online and will be comparing your solution against theirs. Make your advantage known, talk about it on your homepage, on your landing pages, on your social media and in your emails. And, like anything – test, measure, and try again.

Remain the top choice for your customers

Competitor analysis can be a daunting task if you’re a small business owner, entrepreneuer or an marketing team of one. However, it’s a key part of your growth strategy and something you need to stay on top of if you want to remain the best choice for your customers. You will need to constantly position your solution as the better choice in the eyes of your customer. Now how can you do that without monitoring what they are finding online so you can position your brand as more desirable? 
When asking yourself how often you should review your competitors, best practice says quarterly, if not monthly if you have the time. However, it’s wise to not dwell on the competition too much. Focus on what you can control, your brand and meeting your customers needs.

Don’t know where to begin?

This simple 6-step guide to competitor analysis will get you started!

Download Template
Jillian Whitmore
Jillian Whitmore, Author

I’ve worked with companies in both start-up and scale-up phases. I love helping new small businesses make sense of marketing fundamentals and empowering them to take their business growth into their own hands. Confidently scaling their businesses. Read more insights here. Subscribe to the Mood Marketing newsletter to receive insights direct to your inbox.

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How to conduct a competitor analysis

Posted on by Jillian Whitmore

A competitor analysis is not as technical as it sounds, you just have to be brave enough to start looking.

As a small business owner, this can sometimes be daunting if you have never seen who you are competing with to win your customer’s attention and business. Conducting competitor analysis has three main components. Understanding who your competitors are and the difference between direct and indirect competitors, doing the competitor research. Finally creating perceptual maps to visualise your findings and identify gaps in the market to inform your positioning strategy. 

Difference between direct and indirect competitors

A key step in analysing your competitors is understanding the difference between direct and indirect competitors.

A direct competitor is someone who offers the same solution to your customers, to solve the same need. Comparing apples with apples.

An indirect competitor is someone who solves the same problem for your customers but whose offering is different. Comparing apples with oranges.

For example, restaurants that sell cheeseburgers are all direct competitors for each other. Whereas, Subway is an indirect competitor for these restaurants because while they may offer a product that can solve the same problem (hunger) the products themselves are quite different.
Understanding your competitors will help you determine your market share and think deeply about the way you position your brand. You’ll learn what your customers see by researching products similar to yours or typing a question into Google to find out who is serving a solution to a problem.

Competitor analysis research

For small businesses with small budgets, simple competitor research can be done easily through Google. There are expensive agencies that can provide research for you, but with a bit of spare time it’s easy to gain enough understanding of your competitors to start building a positioning strategy yourself. There are 6 main steps for how to do competitor research and they can all be done with a laptop and a bit of snooping.

1. Define your offering and who you serve

First and foremost, you will need to define your market, your products/services and the benefits you offer your customers. This way, when researching for other competitors, you know what to look for. Many new businesses have a hard time defining what it is that they do, this is especially common for newer products and services that have yet to be tested in the market. Make sure you know what it is you offer, who it’s for, the benefit and the problem you are solving.

2. Research competitors who offer a similar service (direct competitors)

Start to look at competitors who offer the same services/products, solve the same problems and serve the same people. Narrow down your search to be relevant to the market you serve, for example; in a geographic region (people who live in Wellington, New Zealand). Search for the problems you solve by thinking about what your customers will be asking Google. Take note of how your competitors are offering and positioning their solutions in comparison to yours.

3. Compare their features and benefits to yours

Feature comparison is a key decision-making factor when your customers are choosing a product or service. Look at your competition’s product or service and take note of the features and value they describe. Read their websites while putting yourself in your customers’ shoes. 

Ask yourself: 

  • How does the customer journey feel? 
  • Do they have useful information?  
  • Are they making it easy for a customer to purchase a product or book a service?
  • What value do they offer that might be different to yours? 
  • Do you have more or better features than they do? 
  • Do you offer something that they don’t, or vice-versa? 

An easy way to make this comparison is to create a simple list of features and benefits that you offer and then plot where each of your competitors sit in comparison.

You may find that you are the only business offering a certain feature and you know it solves a massive problem for your customers. You can then make strategic decisions to highlight this feature in your marketing and offer it from a place of confidence. Using your key feature differentiator to position your product as more desirable because of its lucrative feature.

4. Discover what language they use to describe their value

Look at how your competitors position their solutions. You can do this by reading the language they use to describe their solution and the problem they solve. 

Ask yourself: 

  • What language do they use? Is it highly emotional, passive or direct? 
  • What benefits do they highlight? 
  • Do they have social proof from their customers? 
  • Do they have testimonials on their website? 
  • Do they have online reviews that validate their website messaging?
  • How would your customer feel reading their website?

A lot of businesses have a core brand language that they use to consistently communicate with their customers. Think about the language they are using and how it compares to yours all while putting yourself in your customer’s shoes. Take note of how they describe their solution, if you realise you are using the same adjectives, it might be worth thinking about changing yours up to grab more attention.

5. Understand their audience size and engagement level

Look at their social media followers and online presence, are they featured in the news regularly, do other publications and news sites talk about them? From this, you can gauge how big their reach might be in comparison to yours. This might also give you some ideas about how your business shows up online, and how you engage with your target audience.

6. Compare their pricing and packaging

Look at their pricing, do they offer a cheaper solution than yours? Is their pricing higher than yours? Does their pricing reflect the benefits they discuss on their website?

Pricing and packaging can be a difficult thing to compare. It comes down to how your customers value what you offer. Is there an additional feature or service you could offer to your package to make it stand out to your competitors? Can you group your products or services together that offers more value to your customer? 

Perceptual mapping

A perceptual map (or positioning matrix) is a visual graph that highlights where your brand sits in the minds of your customers in comparison to your competitors. This is a great tool to identify gaps in the market where no one is currently serving your customers, and it can also aid in positioning strategies to differentiate your brand and compete more fiercely with others in the market. 

Start by selecting the points of differentiation that are important to your customer when they are comparing solutions and place them on the axes. Plot yourself and your competitors on the matrix like the example shown. From this, you should be able to recognise who your biggest competition is and strategize to position your brand as the preferable option. Doing this exercise may also present opportunities in the market that you could look to fill. Don’t just do one matrix, think about other points of importance for your customer’s decision-making and develop a range of positioning graphs.

A key thing to keep in mind is that a traditional perceptual map needs to reflect the actual perception of your customers and not your biased opinion of where you think your brand sits among others in the market.

However, you can also use it to map your competitors against your own without having to rely on customer research and expensive data sources. Using this matrix as a positioning tool can help you define your positioning strategy and stand out from the competition. 

Next Steps

If you are a small business owner, revisit your competitor analysis at least twice a year to stay ahead of your competitors. If you are a larger business with larger growth goals and in a highly competitive industry, think about dedicating time at least every quarter to reassess the competition and re-evaluate your positioning strategy. 

After all your competitors may very well be analysing your positioning and trying to win top choice in your customer’s minds too. Staying on top of the changes in positioning will mean your business is more agile and can pivot appropriately to maintain the top spot. Read more about why competitor analysis is important.

Download the free competitor analysis template to get started!

Download template
Jillian Whitmore
Jillian Whitmore, Author

I’ve worked with companies in both start-up and scale-up phases. I love helping new small businesses make sense of marketing fundamentals and empowering them to take their business growth into their own hands. Ready to scale up their businesses. Read more insights here.

What is brand positioning

Posted on by Jillian Whitmore

What is brand positioning?

Brand positioning is the strategic steps you take to create a positive perception of your business in the minds of your customers. It’s how you position your solution against competitors in the market and endeavour to make yours more favourable. 

Brand positioning is what you want your brand to be known for. It’s the way you connect and communicate your products and services to your customers. With a goal of creating a desire to purchase that leads to advocacy. Successful brand positioning is meeting the needs of your customer better than any other competitor in the market.

In their book, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, Al Ries and Jack Trout talk about, “How to make and position an industry leader so that its name and message wheedles its way into the collective subconscious of your market and stays there.”

Sounds easy right? Brand positioning is basically mind control.

Why is brand positioning important?

A brand positioning strategy is a well researched plan to scale your business and achieve your desired market share. The more minds your brand can influence, the more referrals, word of mouth, and brand awareness your business will have. How you position your brand and how you wheedle your way into your customers minds is key to your brand growth strategy.

Brand Management Mood Marketing

What is an example of brand positioning?

In New Zealand, this could be as simple as, “where everyone gets a bargain.” We all know that’s The Warehouse, not just because of the catchy jingle, but we honestly feel like we can go to The Warehouse to get a bargain. They know their customers want a bargain, so that’s what they deliver to the market and position their brand accordingly. 

Brand positioning is the proof of a company living their values and delivering on their promises. As The Warehouse says on their website page, Here for Good, “…we are committed to making sustainable living easy and affordable for everyone.” Although, it’s not just what they publish on their website, it’s how their brand has been positioned in our minds. Next time you’re in need of an affordable piece of homeware, clothing or halloween costume – where do you instantly think of? The Warehouse!

What is a brand positioning strategy?

A brand positioning strategy aims to increase customer loyalty, brand equity, and the willingness of customers to purchase from your business. The Branding Journal defines a brand positioning strategy as a combination of customer wants, business capabilities, and competitors in the market. These three components of your brand positioning strategy involve quite a bit of thought and require ongoing consideration as the market changes. 

Let’s break each of these down further.

Brand positioning strategy mood marketing

Customers

Your brand is what your customers think, not what you say.

If you’re wanting to wheedle your brand into the minds of your customers, you better have a good understanding of what they want. Knowing the needs and desires of your customers is how you develop better solutions to their problems and create messaging that resonates with them. Your first step to building a brand positioning strategy is to gather insights. 

Customers won’t pay attention to things that don’t offer them something they need. You want your messaging to be thumb-stopping and not to ‘feel like marketing’ but be something that is useful and of value to your customers. Be the solution they would love to tell all their friends about.

Market research and digital surveys are a great way to understand your customers and build your personas. However, the best form of customer research is to go out and actually speak to them, face-to-face. Hear straight from the horse’s mouth! Take this opportunity to ask questions about their problems. Don’t talk about your solution, you aren’t there to sell them anything, you’re there to listen to them.

Capture the words they use to describe their frustrations and use them in your marketing. Ask them what they know and think of your brand, what they like or dislike about your brand, and how they feel about competitor brands in the market.

This is valuable research and a crucial component of your brand positioning strategy. Don’t just talk about your promises to solve their problems. Prove to them in all your brand behaviour that you are true to your messaging and make sure you can deliver the solution.

Capabilities

Make sure your business has the capability to deliver on your strategy. 

It’s one thing to define a brand positioning strategy but if you cannot commit the necessary resources and time to delivering it, you will never reach the position you are aiming for. For example, say you want your brand to be in the top five choices in your product category. You learn how your customers think, you find out what their problems are and you come up with a new product and a marketing plan to go to market. But, then you get swamped by running your business and serving your existing customers. What about those positioning goals? What about the growth forecast you’ve sold to your investors?  

With any strategy, it’s not just about the actions of how you are going to achieve your goal, more importantly it’s how you are going to find the resources and funds to deliver the strategy. 

Don’t let your hard earned research and strategic ideas go to waste, build a plan and resource it appropriately. This may involve out-sourcing some of the deliverables, which can be a great way to access talent you might not have in-house. Grow your brand equity by ensuring your strategy is resourced appropriately.

Competitors

Differentiate your solution against competitors in the market. 

Think about your customers and their decision making journey, how do they research problems and find information? By following their journey you can easily see who else is in the market offering a similar solution to you.

Desktop research is a simple place to begin and can give you an idea of what your customers might see during their research. This involves a little bit of snooping, it’s not cheating to look over your shoulder to see what the other guy wrote for question 3. It’s a necessary part of competitor research and developing your brand positioning strategy. 

Compare your offerings, features, and how they describe their solution. What language do they use and what promises do they make? You can learn a lot from a humble laptop and a few hours of googling. Don’t feel disheartened if you find out your competitors are doing the same thing as you. Use this information to fuel your positioning and differentiate your brand from the competition. 

Strategically position your brand for the customer, become the preferred option and meet their needs better than any competitor in the market.

Have you thought about your brand positioning strategy?

Book a brand positioning consultant today!

Brand marketing strategy

Posted on by Jillian Whitmore

What is brand marketing?

Brand marketing is a long-term plan for a business to position itself in the market as the preferred option among buyers. A brand marketing strategy is about how your business connects with your audience emotionally and humanly.

Marketing is, after all – human – it’s about connecting a product or service with those who are in need of or want it. It’s about telling the story of how your solution can provide the change your customer desires. Why people should buy your product and the reason to fall in love with your brand and feel aligned with your purpose. 

Your brand is more than just your logo and your advertising, it’s the soul of your company and the north star to every decision you make. For small business owners looking to create love for their brand, this simple framework will help you to develop a brand marketing strategy. We call it a Brand Playbook.

What is a Brand Playbook?

A Brand Playbook is a guiding document that aids consistency, collaboration and clarity across your business. It is a living, breathing document that helps you make strategic decisions about your business, your marketing and your overall vision for the future. It’s a bit like your business bible, you and the people who work for you have to believe in it.

When considering how to build an authentic brand, everyone on your team should be singing from the same song book. Because when you don’t, your customers get confused about who they are doing business with and they second guess their decision to part with their money. Consistent brand building creates trust from your customers which leads to your greater share of the market. Keep reading to learn more about how to build your brand marketing strategy consistently and authentically.

Components of a Brand Playbook

There are four main components of a Brand Playbook that you should consider carefully and define clearly before diving into any marketing or business decision, these are your vision, mission, position and behaviour. Without a Brand Playbook as your north star, how do you make strategic business decisions with confidence? Gut feelings can only get you so far, and not everyone in the business will have access to your gut! 

Every small business owner or entrepreneur will tell you – to scale your business, you cannot do it alone. With this brand marketing strategy your team will be empowered to make decisions with confidence.

Vision
Mission
Position
Behaviour

Let’s break each of these down in detail:

Vision

A brand vision is a statement that describes why your company exists.

Guiding

Your vision will act as your company’s north star. When reviewing the past quarter of activity of your business, you should hold up your vision statement and ask – ‘What progress have we made in achieving our brand vision?’ It should hold your business accountable for what it sets out to do and be a tool at decision-making time. When considering who to hire, who to partner with and what services or product to develop, they should all strongly align with your brand vision.

Inspirational

Your vision should inspire customers to want to do business with you and your staff to want to work for you. It should be something that people can align with and feel something towards. Your brand vision should give your staff a purpose and a reason to jump out of bed in the morning – they should be able to believe in what they are doing and feel like they are making the difference you set out to make.

Lofty

Your vision should be aspirational, almost to the point where you wonder if you’re dreaming. You should aim high and make it something that will change the world in a significant way. It should be something that will sustain your company vision for a long time. Don’t make it something that can be achieved within the next 3 years. Think of a purpose that will be big enough to allow your company to grow long into the future. Once you have created a powerful vision statement you can then shorten it down into a memorable slogan.

Examples of vision statements: 

Create your own brand vision

How to create a vision statement

Start by gathering your team, get in a room and invite the founders of the company, learn their story and document the businesses origins. Don’t be a hero and write it yourself, get as many opinions and eyes on it. Simon Sinek’s Start with why is a great read to get you in the right frame of mind.

  • Why does your company exist?
  • Why are you driven by your goal?
  • Why do you seek to change the world?
  • What is your goal for a future state? 
  • What vision of the future do you have? 
  • What change do you want to see in the world? 
  • What difference do you want to make?
Download brand vision worksheet

Run a brand vision workshop with your team.

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Mission

A brand mission defines who you serve (your market) and what you do (your products and services).

Defining these two things as your mission statement will give your team direction and focus. As part of this focus you should have a solid understanding of the problems your customers face and the value your products and services bring to them. It’ll help make your product and services better and your messaging clearer.

Personas

Define who you serve. Create target personas and think about their demographics, psychographics, and influences. Understand their pain points, desires and challenges. There are often different motivators for a B2C customer than a B2B customer. Consider the buyer journey and the decision making process. At the end of the day you are marketing to humans, you must understand them to be able to serve them.

Market research

Now you have identified who you are targeting, it’s a good idea to validate your efforts by ensuring your target market is large enough. Make sure you gather research from valid sources and go and speak to as many real humans as you possibly can. You may find that this exercise informs and enhances your personas and can help you develop better products and services and target the right people for marketing campaigns.

Define what you do

This may change as you refine your products and services to better serve your market. It’s a crucial step to not only give your team a clear direction on what they work on every day, but to inform your customers on what exactly you can do for them. What are you selling? Sometimes marketing messaging can be so focused about the benefit that they forget to mention what they are actually selling.

Position

To strongly position your brand you need to be aware of market competitors. You should have an understanding of the competitor landscape to not only measure your market share but to understand how your customer might compare your solution to a competitor’s. Learn what other businesses do by conducting competitor research. Use this knowledge to market your offering more effectively than the competition. 

Competitor analysis

Most small businesses have never researched their competitors which is an alarming discovery for most. Oftentimes they are too scared to look outside the walls of their company and would rather not know who they are competing with.

“Many businesses find themselves wrong-footed, not because they did something wrong, but because they failed to anticipate changes in the market.” Source: Qualtrics

Simple competitor research can be done by searching online for similar solutions in your market. Be brave, do your research, understand what’s out there and then build a strategy to offer something better to the market.

Perceptual maps

Once you have identified who your biggest competitors are it’s a useful exercise to develop perceptual maps. A perceptual map is a visual representation of where your brand sits in the minds of your customers in comparison to other solutions in the market. The key here is not to use your biassed opinion, but to gather real feedback from customers in the market. Understand what’s most important to them when they are considering your solution. This will help you differentiate your unique selling proposition (USP).

Branding

The biggest confusion out there is making an assumption that ‘brand’ is just the logo and the font of your business. Brand is about the soul and meaning of your business. Your branding on the other hand, is about the visual elements that become the visual identifier for people to associate a certain feeling for your brand when they see your branding. There are a few things to consider when creating your branding and positioning its visual elements in the market.

  • Make sure your branding is unique to your competitors. Stand out from the crowd.
  • Think about colour psychology in relation to how you want your customers to feel.
  • Choose colours and visual elements that are harmonious and not jarring.
  • Get input from your customers, what aesthetics do they like?
  • Hire a graphic designer to help develop your branding guidelines.

Stick to your brand guidelines

Brand Managers will tell you that sticking to your guidelines is one of the most important rules for building a brand. Sticking to brand guidelines is not just about using consistent language and messaging, it’s also about creating recognition of your solution through the branding applied. The more people who associate your logo or your brand colours with your solution the more recognition, brand awareness and brand love you can gain.

Behaviour

Brand behaviour or brand values are a set of guiding principles for how you behave with people in the market. It’s how you make them feel, how you talk to them, and how you build relationships with them. This is where your brand can come to life.

Brand values

Brand values are often the boring, corporate list of words that don’t mean anything to anyone. You know the ones, integrity, excellence, innovation, blah, blah, blah. Your values should be meaningful, they should be actionable (verbs), and they should be developed with your team’s input not from the business owner alone. 

Authenticity is a key part of building a brand and growing your audience. However, when you have defined a specific set of values to work towards, it can be difficult to come across as authentic, especially if you have had to ‘tell’ your staff how to act. 

Actions

There are tactics to make this easier and it starts with clarity, and ensuring you are hiring the right kind of people who align with the values you have defined. You cannot simply tell your staff to be ‘innovative’ and expect them to understand what you mean. Make sure your values are ingrained in the way you do business. For example, if you want to create a culture of innovation, give your staff the creative space and permission to think wildly about a problem.

Software company Atlassian has done an incredible job of building a culture of innovation. Likewise if you want to create a culture of ‘integrity’, make sure you are setting a good example of what that means. Reward your staff for ‘living and breathing’ the brand values to encourage the same behaviour from the rest of your team. 

Relationships

Relationships are a key part of business growth, but humans are messy and it can be difficult to create a consistent experience for customers when multiple members of your team are involved in delivering the solution. Think about the customer journey and the experience you want them to have with your brand. How do they feel when they speak to different members of your team? Do they feel like those people are giving them the same experience?

HubSpot does a great job of creating a company we love, by making every touchpoint feel the same. You feel from every sales rep, onboarding specialist and customer support staff that they truly want you to succeed. It should feel like they are on your team and rooting for you. You walk away from an interaction with them having ‘felt’ like you know them and appreciate the culture they have as a company, and it makes you fall a little bit in love with their brand.

Personality and tone

Define your brand language guidelines to describe how you want your brand to sound. Is it cheeky? Is it formal? Do you have a mascot or character that helps bring your brand to life? Make a list of do’s and don’ts with examples of written copy for each. Define the words you use and the meaning they have. Again, think about how you want your customers to feel when reading or hearing your words and tone. What emotions do you want them to associate with your brand?

Defining the personality and tone of your brand is equally as important as the visual branding guideline. Your brand language guidelines will allow your staff members to individually produce consistent work that sounds like your brand. By having these guidelines in place you will be able to build trust with your customers and meet their expectations at every touchpoint.

Next steps

So there you have it – a guide on how to develop a brand marketing strategy. Next comes the fun part, putting it into practice and using it to grow your business, consistently and authentically.

Use your Brand Playbook when making key strategic decisions about your business. As your north star, it can guide you towards your purpose, allowing you to make business decisions with confidence. Start building your playbook today!

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