To create a unique brand strategy that will bring your competitive positioning to life, start by profiling your market. A market profile is not unlike your own. Viewing your profile allows you to see all of the unique features of your face, a face that is different from every other. Each distinct facial feature sets you apart.
A market profile reveals the unique characteristics of your typical customer and customer groups. It paints a picture of whom you are selling to and what your typical customer looks like. A good one will allow you to separate your prospects from those who aren’t interested in your product. Your brand strategy should be focused solely on the people or businesses that fit your profile.
The Classics
Let’s look at the classical approach to creating a market profile. Think about each attribute of your market and quantify that information.
Industries (for B2B)
- What industries do you serve?
- Do you appeal to more than one type of industry/person?
- Are there opportunities in other industries?
- Is the general industry in a growth phase or is it in decline?
Geography
- Where do your customers reside?
- Are your target customers global, national or locally concentrated?
- Does your product cross cultural barriers?
Characteristics
Business-to-Business
- What is the size of your typical target business?
- What stage of development are they experiencing?
- What is their ownership structure: private, public, nonprofit, or governmental?
Consumer Markets
- What is the age, gender, income, marital status, or family status of your target customer?
- Do they have unique occupations, clubs or common interests?
Size & Trends
For Both B2B and Consumer Markets
- How many potential customers or business prospects are there?
- What amount does your target customer spend in your category of business?
- What is their average income or annual business revenue?
- What are the individual demographics or business trends in your target area?
Expressionism
You’ve now learned many of the concrete details about your market profile. Now add the elements of the “touchy feely” buyer persona to the equation. This will add intelligence to your profile, and give you a better understanding of who you’re really selling to.
Consider:
- What problems do your customers face, whether business or personal?
- What are their personalities, pains and desires?
- Who actually makes/approves the buying decision? It may not be who you originally identified.
- What is a typical decision-making process?
- What unique sets of psychological processes do your buyers have in common?
- Are there other people who influence the buying decisions?
Once you’ve painted the precise profile of your market, make sure that the information is available to everyone involved in making strategic decisions. Most of your competitive positioning and strategy choices should be judged through this framework.
Most importantly, when you are making brand strategy decisions, make sure that they resonate with everyone in your market profile. If your profile is accurate and focused, you will lay the foundation for a strong brand that your market embraces.
Carol Hymnowitz’s recent Wall Street Journal article “CEOs Are Spending More Quality Time With Their Customers” highlights a trend that can directly impact your company’s competitive strategy.
CEOs of Nike, Intel and Sun are becoming more involved in the selling process, focusing on tailoring products and services to meet the demands of their top customers.
And it’s more than just a ceremonial visit. These CEOs are overcoming objections and negotiating deals, giving them an intimate understanding of market pain and the value they may (or may not) provide.
From a marketer’s perspective, this is a great trend! A CEO who works directly with customers often gains a new appreciation for the strategic landscape. And that makes it easier for marketers to gain the CEO’s support for strategic initiatives. It can also help marketing gain a stronger voice in C-level discussions on business strategy.
From a CEO’s perspective, a deep understanding of true customer needs is a critical variable when shaping your company’s competitive strategy. It gives you an unvarnished look at your position in the market and a clear understanding of the issues your marketing needs to address.
Better yet, these CEO/customer meetings can trigger big ideas that can take your company in exciting new directions. Take, for example, Starbucks.
In the early 1980s, Starbucks was a wholesaler selling coffee beans. On a trip to Milan, Howard Schultz (a VP at the time) visited a coffee bar and came up with the idea to re-create the Italian coffee-bar culture in the United States.
The company founders resisted Schultz’s recommendation to change their business model from wholesale to retail. Recognizing the opportunity, he quit the company and started his own. He achieved immediate success and bought out the Starbucks founders in 1987. We all know the rest of the story.
Schultz’s first-hand experience gave him the insight to create an entirely new market. But it’s difficult to drive such innovation from a VP position. He had to quit Starbucks to make it happen on his own.
Schultz delivered what the authors of the popular book Blue Ocean Strategy call value innovation. Instead of just trying to beat the competition, make the competition irrelevant. Create a leap in value for buyers and you can open entirely new and uncontested markets.
Every CEO dreams of becoming the uncontested leader in a new market space. It’s also the best spot for marketing directors. After all, defining a new market space is usually more exciting and rewarding than battling in the trenches in a noisy market with established competitors.
But it’s rare for companies to achieve this goal. Logic tells me that meaningful value innovation comes from a deep understanding of the market and customers. It’s more than data and customer surveys. It takes big-picture right-brained thinking — empathy, synchrony, creating meaning.
Remember what Henry Ford said?
“If I’d built what people were asking me for, I’d have delivered a faster horse!”
It seems pretty clear that value innovation is an enormously powerful business strategy. And since CEOs need to drive strategic changes, it’s important to know the market like the back of their hand. But they need to know more than just the numbers. They need to understand customer experiences to truly innovate.
What better way to learn than to experience it than by selling?
What sets your product, service and company apart from your competitors? What value do you provide and how is it different than the alternatives?
Your value proposition is the foundation of your entire business and the offers you take to market. When your market clearly recognizes (and appreciates!) the value you provide, it’s easier to generate new prospects and guide them to buy.
Now … what if you don’t have a clear value proposition? Well, it takes more time and money to show prospects why they should choose you. And as a result, you often end up competing on price – a tough position to sustain over the long term.
So how do you define a value proposition? First, there are three essential types of value:
- Operational excellence
- Product leadership
- Customer intimacy
But don’t just randomly choose one of these options. Your company’s mission, processes and team need to be completely aligned to deliver on this value – and each value prop means something different for your organization. After all, you can’t just say it … you have to DO it, and that makes it easier to win in the market.
Which of these scenarios best describes your company and offerings?
Operational excellence
- Your customers just want a good product at the lowest possible price. New bells and whistles aren’t particularly important – it’s price that counts.
- You’re not trying to come up with new or better products; you just want to produce more volume at a lower cost.
- You focus on creating operational efficiencies to keep your costs low.
Product leadership
- Your customers care most about the product itself – they want the best. Period.
- Your team and company culture is completely dedicated to innovation and quality.
- You’re constantly working on improvements and innovations that you can bring to market.
- You know what your competitors are doing and are completely focused on staying one step ahead in order to capture a greater share of your market.
Customer intimacy
- Your market is flooded with products or services like yours at all ends of the price spectrum. But your customers want more than a standard product or program; they want customized solutions.
- Your mission is to know as much as possible about your customers’ businesses and build successful relationships so you can deliver the correct products, services and/or solutions over time.
- You know you can’t just say “We offer great service.” Instead, your team just does it – in every interaction they have with prospects and customers.
Prioritize & focus
As a company, you should be able to do one of these three things very well. You can probably tack on a secondary value proposition and do it fairly well. But it’s nearly impossible to do all three.
Once you’ve selected a primary and secondary value proposition, you can narrow in on a more specific benefits in your offerings – for example, a particular TYPE of product leadership or customer intimacy that fills a need in your market in a unique way.
As you’re going through this process, think impartially about the wants and needs of your customers and what your competition offers. You may find an unmet need in the market, or you may realize that you need to find a better way to differentiate from your competitors.
As a result, you may decide to promote a different attribute of your product, or you may find entirely new opportunities to create new products and services. Either way, you’ll strengthen your business in both the short and long term.
And what should you do after you’ve defined your value proposition? Create a brand strategy to support it. You can learn more about branding in these posts. Or here’s a free marketing guidebook that covers positioning, value props, branding and other marketing strategies & tactics.
If you have any questions, comments or examples, please share your thoughts in our comments section below.
