Position your brand – Velocity Media

17 April 2017

Four questions to ask before you rebrand

Whether you are considering making a small logo tweak or a complete personality change, here are four questions you should ask before you go down the road of rebranding.

What does rebranding mean to you?

A rebrand can mean many things to many people, so it is important you are clear on what you want and what it means to you. For some, it is a simple update to their logo and messaging, but for others, it is a complete brand change, that may include a new logo, brand personality and even business name.

As you can imagine there are significant differences in cost – and not all are financial. If you want to make a big brand change, and you have been operating for a while, there are a few more things you need to consider like:

What is the goodwill associated with your brand (your reputation and implied credibility)?
How recognisable is your brand to your customers and potential customers?
Have you done a lot of work on SEO that you could lose should you change name and domain name?

Why do you want to rebrand?

This is the most important question to answer when thinking about rebranding, and you need to answer it honestly. Is the rebrand because you want or need a change or is it because the customer you want to target is disconnected from your brand?

Doing a complete rebrand can be a big marketing task, and in many ways, you will be starting again so make sure it is for the right reasons. If the reason behind your rebrand is that you want or need a change to feel more energised in your business again, then look at a slight logo update or a change of messaging as opposed to a full rebrand.

Who are your customers and what do they want from your brand?

Your customers should always be at the forefront of any brand decision you make. After all, if they don’t feel connected with your brand they won’t buy from you, and that is a BIG problem!

Look at who your customers are and what they are likely to respond to. Say for instance you want your favourite colour pink reflected in your logo, but your clients are mostly male, it may not be the wisest choice. While this is a basic example, the same applies to the rest of your brand.

Don’t make the mistake of making your brand entirely about you. While you do need to have a connection to it for authenticity, and you may have even founded your company out of a personal need or frustration you are not your customer.

Where are you going?

Peek into the future, what do you want to achieve with your brand? What are the values, vision and mission of your business? What difference do you want to make in the lives of others? What do you want to be known for? What growth and innovation plans do you have? What goals do you want to achieve? Where do you want to be in three, five and ten years?

Now ask yourself, what kind of brand will get you there? What story do you need to tell and sell to capture the minds and hearts of customers and potential customers?

That is the brand you need to create or keep.

Amanda

28 July 2015

Four truths to accept when positioning yourself as an expert

Having the confidence to establish yourself as an expert doesn’t always come easy, particularly for the more humble among us. But to build your profile, and make the difference that most entrepreneurs want to in business, you need to.

To give you a little more confidence that what you have to say is of value, here are four truths to accept when positioning yourself as an expert.

#1 – It’s a matter of opinion

Becoming an expert isn’t just about what you do or how you do it – it’s about what you know, and what you think. Put forward your opinions, derive conclusions based on your experiences and share your passion.

Your opinion and experiences will help you bring a different perspective to the information you share.

#2 – What you know is NOT common sense

This is one of the biggest hurdles you need to overcome in your own mind. We each have skills, strengths and specialties. While something may be easy, or seem like common sense to you, it doesn’t mean it will be the same for others.

Chances are you have studied, researched, serviced customers, learnt lessons, overcome challenges, had wins, sought council and grown in experience to know what you know now. For this reason, most people will never have the distinct skills, knowledge and perspective you do.

#3 – You don’t need to know everything

You don’t need to know as much as others in your industry – you only need to know how to package it better. There will always be someone who knows more than you, but that doesn’t mean what you have to say is of any less value!

You might be able to package up your knowledge in a way that is more relatable, easier to understand, or more profitable to a customer. Your explanation might just be what they need to take action, get the breakthrough they need or achieve the result they want.

#4 – Everything has NOT been said

There is a lot of information out there – and a lot of experts, but that doesn’t mean everything that needs to be said, has been said yet. Times, needs and challenges change and consumers will always want the latest tips, hacks and facts.

Amanda

21 July 2014

How to identify what your customers love about you

While you know exactly what you love about your business and what you think are your biggest selling points – do you really know what your customer’s value and love about you?

More often than not business owners are selling what they want to sell rather than selling what their customers want to buy. To make sure you’re not one of them, here are four quick checks to ensure you’re not assuming what your customers want, but rather listening to what they value.

1. It’s in their frustrations

If you want to know what your customers and potential customers value, look at the common frustrations and stereotypes of your industry. What do people groan and complain about? What are the common bad experiences?

Now that you know what people don’t appreciate, list the opposite and you will start to see what your customers and potential customers will really want.

2. It’s in their objections

Don’t be put off by objections, objections are your potential customers way of voicing their concern and when handled right they give you the opportunity to make a more personalised sales pitch to get them over the line.

Though in saying this it is important to pay attention to them and make a note of the objections that keep coming up. Is there something that your customers and potential customers need that you aren’t providing? Are there benefits or features that you aren’t promoting that you should be?

Through objections your potential customers will tell you what is important to them, what they need to know and give you insight into how they make their buying decisions.

3. It’s in their testimonials

Look over the testimonials you’ve received from your past and current customers. What have they praised you for? What have they valued? What are the common themes through all of them?

Chances are that the key features, benefits and results that your past and current customers loved are also the same features, benefits and results that will appeal to your future customers.

4. It’s in their introductions

Referrals and introductions are also a great way to gain insight into what your customers and business associates value about you. More often than not when someone introduces you in business they will lead with what they see to be your biggest point of difference, key area of expertise or your top benefits.

So the next time someone introduces or refers you, don’t just focus on the new contact, focus on what they have said to get the new contact interested and wanting to talk to you.

When all else fails remember you can ask!

Amanda

16 June 2014

Six questions to position your brand effectively in the mind of your customers

How your customers and potential customers perceive your brand directly impacts your bottom line. So how do you make sure you position your brand effectively in the mind of your customers?

Here are six questions to help you ensure your brand is more engaging and appealing to your customers, now and in the future.

1. What do you want your brand to stand for?

Work out what your brand stands for, what the purpose of your business is – beyond making profit and what you’re passionate about. What is your vision? What difference do you want to make in the world? What do you believe in? What problems are you solving? Do you have a cause?

When you know who you are as a brand, you not only communicate better with your customers and potential customers, you appear to be more authentic. The decisions and actions you take as a business owner can also be considered more carefully to ensure you stay true to what you stand for.

2. Where do you want to be in the market place?

Determine where you want your brand to sit within your market. Do you want to be the luxury, expensive brand of your industry, the cheaper alternative or somewhere in the middle? Do you want to be seen to be more exclusive to a certain group or available to the masses? Are you the optional extra or the essential?

3. What do you want to be known for?

When your customers and potential customers talk about your business or give you a testimonial, what do you want them to say? When someone sees or hears your business name what do you want their first thoughts to be?

Is it your results, professionalism, creativity or innovation? Is it your consistency, quality, simplicity or availability? Choose what you want to be known for and determine what products and services you need to offer, what actions you need to take and customer interactions you need to have in order to achieve it.

4. What personality do you want your brand to have?

Your brand’s personality describes the way your brand thinks, speaks, acts and reacts, which then gets reflected in your social media, blogs, marketing messages and your day-to-day communication with your customers, suppliers and business associates.

Do you want your brand to be humorous or more serious? Relaxed or professional? Enthusiastic or refined? Elegant or cheap? Young or old? Inspiring or more factual and realistic? Innovative or predictable? Choose what human characteristics you want your brand to have in order to make it more relatable and engaging to your customers and potential customers.

5. What emotions do you want to spark?

A brand, by definition is a collection of thoughts and feelings about your experiences with it. When you create the right emotional affiliation with your brand, you increase awareness, sales and retention.

For this reason, it is important to work out what emotions you want your customers and potential customers to associate with your brand. Is it safety and security? Love and passion? Awe and wonder? Confidence and trust? Hope, excitement or happiness?

Keep in mind that this is different to how you will appeal to your customers through your marketing, as you will normally use more negative emotions like frustration, fear or guilt in order to motivate them to act.

6. What do your customers want from you?

Once you have answered all of these questions from your perspective, answer them from your customers’ perspective. What do they need and want? What are they looking for from you and from your industry? What do they prioritise as most important?

While you may own your business, your customers are the ones who keep you in business, so always make sure your brand is aligned with what they want.

How did you go about positioning your brand in the market place? Are you happy with where you are or is it time to make some adjustments?