Competitive differentiation delivered through brand strategy can support and provide advantages to your brand’s push to dominate a niche, and achieve leadership or excellence.
The pathway towards becoming a go-to brand for your industry is littered with the failures of those organisations that have tried, failed. Some tap on a degree of foresight, or activate a back-up plan and pivot to another niche and succeed. Many others throw in the towel and perhaps go on to live another day by telling a new story.
We have suggested in a previous article that there are three disciplines that can help a business differentiate themselves against their peers and competitors. There disciplines are leadership, operational excellence and being customer-first. Most businesses try to spread themselves across all three; but the competitive advantage lies in being able to do any one of them extremely well.
We also offered a series of steps to consider when it comes to carving a niche area for your business to dominate. Focus and positioning is critical as well as offering specific outcomes that your customer finds valuable.
Imagine the earlier steps as preparation and putting on your armour before entering the battlefield. Now both physically and mentally prepared, how will you conduct your activities in order to dominate your niche? How would you plan your advance in order to surprise, flank and win your competitor?
“No one ever got fired for buying from IBM.” Replace and insert your choice of market leader and the statement continues to hold. As shared by Marketing Maven, a strong brand mitigates the perception of risk and alleviates some of the fear that buyers inevitably experience when facing a purchase decision.
An important tool in your arsenal to remember to arm and activate is your brand. A strong, recognise brand can offer advantages in securing customer preference through recognition, the ability to charge a higher margin for added revenue or the space to make mistakes without immediate negative consequences.
Each successful battlefield outing increases your brand strength and recognition lending more points towards developing a strong brand.
What strategy can you deploy to achieve this tool faster and enjoy the compounding effect each time you successfully execute on a brand or marketing tactic?
Repeatedly provide a solution that customers find valuable. You have stated your intent to dominate a niche. Prove it. Over and over again until it is indisputable that you are the leader in and on the field. This is both attack and defence. Competitors that do a cost benefit analysis will look for other areas to compete in instead.
Consider whether your brand values are aligned to those of your core customers. Do you speak the same language? Do they understand what your brand mission is, and how it will provide value to them? Run a gap analysis and figure how to close the gap. This works best when you are building a early, core group of customers that you will nurture into advocates.
Frame your brand and values in a way that customers understand. Forget corporate speak (unless you are a corporate brand) and prioritise relatability above legalese. It is not about leaving your business open to risk and liability. Instead look for opportunities to align your messaging and context with brand values and those that your customers are aligned with. Speaking your brand to them in both phrasing of language and with the right context can earn you both revenue and loyalty.
Identify and find a group of influencers or early adopters of your product and service before convincing them you are the best solution and value to their problem. This is not influencer marketing. This is more important. It’s about sharing your brand’s perspective with this group and convince them that your solution does what you say it does. It’s reputation, credibility and recognition building by offering tangible proof. If done right, it earns your brand story and message access to networks of potential adopters and prospects.
A brand strategy consists of more than tactics and should optimally be supported by research, goal setting, objectives, approaches, frameworks and tactics. This can be challenging due to environment, internal capability or prioritisation of resources. Brands that are interested can decide whether they are leaning towards engaging external support or building internal capability.
Brands that are Singapore-incorporated, or that fit the following criteria, can consider tapping onto Government grants that can help defray costs associated with strategy, planning and positioning. SMEs can get a grant up to 80 percent of qualified costs; while non-SMEs can get up to 60 percent until 30 September, 2021.
We are Brand Utility is a business consultancy. We work with brands in the corporate, professional services, retail, travel and technology spaces.
Our principal founder is a registered management consultant, certified and recognised by the Institute of Management Consultants Singapore.
We offer strategy and tactics to support growth outcomes - revenue, scale, regional expansion and market entry – for our clients.
Areas of support include:
· Strategic communications: Approach to market, brand concept and map, positioning, messaging, story and narrative, thought leadership
· Marketing: Campaign/programme planning, story-based marketing execution, digital marketing, community amplification, content planning and production, go-to-market execution
· Lead generation: Digital advertising, social media advertising, social commerce, e-commerce
· Integration of marketing with business operations: We plan and execute as a seconded marketing and/or PR lead for your brand
Discover more about our services at our website or book an exploratory consultation through this link.
Photo by Kristopher Roller on Unsplash
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