We have been tackling the different characteristics you should focus on when developing your business brand. Being unique and simple, authentic and emotional. In this post, we are going to touch on creating purposeful and focused brands.
Many business owners are hesitant to be laser-focused on who their target market is, but there are some huge benefits to doing so! Combining your greater purpose with your brand will help you connect with your target audience in a deeper and more meaningful way.
Creating a Purposeful Brand
Branding is all about intention. What are you here to do and how do you fulfill your purpose each and every day? People love to join a cause!
This can be one of the harder parts of your brand to tackle. This is your “why”. Why do you get up every single day and do what you do?
When you are developing your brand it’s important to tackle your mission, vision and values early on. It will help guide the brand development process and give you a lens to determine other brand elements.
When your why is clearly defined, then making business and branding decisions becomes so much easier. Do your marketing and branding choices relate back to your why? Does the way you speak to customers come from your why? And maybe even most importantly, does the way you deal with a dissatisfied customer, or even conflict come back to your why?
For example, our why at Paper Lime Creative is to help people fall in love with their businesses. At the end of the brand development, we want you to love your new brand and to be excited and ready to show it off to the world! If you’re dissatisfied with something? You bet we’re going to fix it!
Your purpose can also be bigger than your business, or perhaps you have a personal “why” that plays into it as well. My personal why is to create moments of wow that remind us that our ride on this rock is awesome.
If you’ve ever received baking from me or a heartfelt gift, that’s where it comes from! It’s also a big reason why travel is so important to me.
Adding Purpose to Your Day-to-Day Brand Strategy
As social enterprise becomes more popular there are many businesses that make a greater purpose front and centre of their marketing.
Tentree plants ten trees every time you purchase something from them. It’s in their name, and it’s all over their marketing materials. As we become more aware of the environmental impacts of fast fashion, buying from Tentree can feel guilt-free!
There are dozens of examples that give back with every purchase. It can be as small as a monthly donation from your profits, or all the way up to giving actual products or services away like Toms Shoes.
If you have a strong purpose it’s important to include it in your content marketing, people love getting on board with a cause and knowing that their purchase is making a difference.
Focused Brands are Strong Brands
If you try to connect to everyone through your brand you’ll wear yourself out. Remember the fisherman’s rule: One salmon is not equal to 200 goldfish.
Building a focused brand ties in with being authentic. I find that this is one that business owners grapple with because people struggle with the idea of customers picking a competitor’s business over theirs OR they don’t like the idea that if they turn away a customer it means less revenue for them.
I’ve heard hairstylists say “anyone with hair is my ideal customer” or utility providers say “anyone who pays for utilities is my dream client” or car salesmen say “anyone who wants a new car I’m happy to help”.
These are week positioning statements and there are a couple of problems with them. First, when you try to talk to everyone you talk to no one. It’s rare that when someone says “anyone who wants a car” you can think of a friend off of the top of your head that may be in the market for a vehicle.
However, when someone asks if you know someone that is growing their family. Perhaps has a toddler and another one on the way and they’re driving a vehicle that is 5+ years old, or driving a vehicle they bought used, you might actually be able to think of someone like that in your life.
Second, it’s not actually true. Rarely does a hairstylist just want to work with anyone who has hair. I need you to take a step back for a minute and think about your current job or a past job while I tell you an anecdote from my past…
Why You Should Create a Focused Brand
I used to work at a clothing store when I was in university, working my way through my graphic design diploma. With the business pitches above, maybe you would say our ideal customer was “anyone who wanted to buy clothes”.
I promise you my ideal customer was not anyone who wanted to buy clothes. Because we all know that person we do not want to walk into the store. For this clothing store… let’s paint a picture of what this person might look like.
This is a woman in her late 30s/early 40s and she’s got the “can I speak to the manager” haircut. She probably has a 10-13-year-old kid in toe and she hates our credit card policy and she’s yelling at a 17-year-old that has no control over how the head office in Ontario builds their store policies.
This is “anyone who wants clothes” but she wants it at a discount because there is a loose seam and it’s a birthday gift for little Timmy even though there’s one with a perfectly fine seam on the rack she just doesn’t want to pay full price. She’s threatening to “take her business elsewhere” and you think to yourself “Please please please take your business elsewhere”.
When you ask for “anyone who could use my services” remember that this is who falls under that category. This person genuinely wants to buy clothes, but at a discounted price and stir up some drama in the meantime.
When you create a strong brand and get specific about the people you want to be your patrons you can direct your brand messaging right to them. If you’re not quite sure where to start, think of a client that you already love working with, interview them, ask them what attracts them to your business, or any business for that matter and leverage that.
You will always get the odd person on the peripheral that will yell at you about your credit card policy. Don’t worry, you will still get to enjoy that thrill in business. But how business-changing would it be if you get that client you loved over and over again?
Need a Focused Brand Identity?
A Brand Audit can be an awesome way to review your brand positioning and laser-focus on the people you want to work with and your bigger purpose! If you need help with your mission, vision and values, we recommend our friend Eric Lee with Starfish Coaching!