The downfall of every business is the race to the top. Unprepared runners run out of energy, strength and determination before the race ends, failing at completing their goal or sluggishly crossing the finish line with nothing to show for it. Marketing your business is no different than running a marathon, you have to be prepared, know how you’re going to run, and be consistent the whole way through.
Delivering a consistent brand message starts with one thing; the preparation and foundation.
Brand Messaging Foundation
Before you launch your website, social profiles, flyers and everything else you need to dwell on your business. Your brand message is the promise that you make to your audience and customers. It’s the first impression, the initial meet-and-greet, the make-or-break moment. From the beginning of time, first impressions have meant everything, and now that first impressions are made in a variety of ways and on a variety of platforms, everything must send the same message.
- Determine Your Target Audience – Is your market young adults, children, retired men or women? Where do they live? What do they do in their spare time? What are their passions? Determining your target audience is crucial to building your brand message foundation.
- Understand Your Audience – Once you have determined the demographic and statistics of your audience, it’s time to understand what they think. Use social media tools to really listen to your target audience and gain an understanding of the brands they like, images that catch their attention, music they listen to, and books they read. All of this information can be categorically transformed into the foundation for your brand.
- Be At One With Your Brand – You know your audience inside and out, so it’s time to translate that into your company message. How will your brand speak to your audience? What will it promise them? How can it keep that promise through thick and thin? Your brand is literally entering into a marriage with its audience, making a promise that will stand through good times and bad. What can your company offer that will adhere to this promise?
- Know Your Competition – What can your company promise that you’re competition cannot? As you research your audience and moods associated with different brands, get to know how they feel about your competition. Gain an understanding of what they love and hate about the competition.
- Be Flexible yet Strong – Sure, this tip seems incredibly contradictory, however when you consider the greatest brands of all time like McDonald’s and Coke their foundation has always remained strong and strict to their brand, yet the factions of that brand are able to speak to new generations with different voices.
The foundation is what every aspect of your business message will be based off of. It must be strong, unbreakable, true, and withstand the test of time. Some of the greatest brands of all time have been around forever, unchanging and unwavering.