If your business is driven by a specific cause or belief, a why statement can help consumers understand why you do what you do and why they should opt in for your services. The Infinite Game writer and branding services expert Simon Sinek once stated, “people don’t buy what you do, but why you do it”. Through this statement, he highlights the reason every business needs a why statement.
Branding workshop exercises can help you understand how starting with “why” allows your company to create more authentic content and craft more effective advertisements, as well as help you implement strategies that fully incorporate those teachings.
An effective why statement should state your firm’s primary contributions, then define the impact of those contributions. Ideally, the resulting why statement will be simple, clear, actionable, and expressive. With this statement on hand, your company can better create brand assets that fall in line with your company’s true vision.
How can you sell your products effectively if you don’t know exactly who you are trying to sell them to?
Many companies cast a broad net to attract any customers they can get, rather than targeting specific audiences with pinpoint precision. Our brand marketing agency in Nashville believes in using specific buyer personas to allow for a more targeted marketing effort.
Buyer personas are detailed descriptions of people who would represent your target customers. They’re not designed to be a specific customer, rather fictional characters that embody the common characteristics of your ideal potential customers. With a thoughtfully crafted set of personas, you’ll be able to more easily attract high-value prospects, like we do through our social media advertising services, that appreciate the extra touches your business offers.
You can create buyer personas on your own, or seek professional help. If you’re unsure about the process, consider talking with brand marketing consultants or a brand marketing agency on how to better understand your target audiences. Just beware, not all branding agencies are created equal.
Are you the cheapest of your competitors?
Do you use higher-quality products than your competitors?
When deciding on how to market and advertise your business is best to understand where your business stands in comparison to your top competition. If you advertise your price in your ads before understanding that you are actually the most expensive option in your service area then your ads are likely to fail, for example.
A buyer considers a number of factors when making their decision, but there are 7 decision-making criteria they will always consider (Price, Quality, Speed, Convenience, Specialization, Disruption, Reach). Each is a spectrum, as a customer isn’t always looking for the cheapest or most convenient solution. Sometimes a client is looking for something luxurious or something exclusive. It all depends on your business model. When planning your business operations always consider how you stack up against your competitors.
If your goal is to gain a competitive edge against other companies in your industry, you will need to openly declare what makes your company stand out.
A value differentiator is any characteristic that sets your firm apart from its competitors. The best value differentiators are completely true and tangible. For example, many companies state that they are, “the best in the business”, but this isn’t objectively true in most cases, so it doesn’t stand as an effective differentiator, instead, it sounds like typical marketing jargon.
A better alternative would be, “We guarantee our clients can talk to a live representative within 5 minutes of calling our support line 24/7/365.” If you are in an industry that often fails to offer satisfactory customer service, this differentiator could help you win business. This is so important to your company’s future success that it can often help to get a fresh set of eyes on what makes you special: brand marketing consultants can be worth their weight in gold to help you identify your true value differentiators. There are many branding workshop exercises that can be completed to determine which differentiators are noteworthy in your business.
If you’re a fan of literature, you’ve probably noticed that many stories feature fictional characters that are written using broadly defined paradigms, or archetypes, that help viewers understand the characters’ actions and values. Similar to the archetypes used to define fictional characters, businesses can also adopt archetypes for their brands. By sticking to a specific brand archetype, you can position your business to create far more effective marketing materials and increase revenue in the long term.
Creating brand materials that perfectly align with your preferred brand archetype can be difficult without specific industry knowledge and understanding. Some online branding workshop exercises may help you get a base level understanding of which brand archetype your company conveys best, but if you’d rather not attempt this on your own, any professional branding company in Nashville can connect you with brand marketing consultants who can provide all of the branding services you need.
Maintaining consistent branding across all of your company’s communication channels can be difficult without set guidelines for your brand’s marketing. As a solution to this problem, many branding agencies in Nashville provide branding services that are intended to help you create customized style guidelines for your company.
Style guidelines are multifaceted, and they should provide rules for images, text, and video if applicable. Through them, your employees and any brand marketing consultants you work with should be able to get a baseline understanding of your company’s voice, tone, and preferred messaging. The document can also be used to define editorial standards and rules of engagement between your company and marketing contractors.
Having a well-made style guide created for your company is a cost-effective decision that will certainly streamline your company’s content creation process. As things move more efficiently, you’ll save more on the related labor while still producing content that aligns with your brand.
The global soft drink company used imagery from Black Lives Matter protests to create a cinematic scene that includes protestors smiling and laughing as model Kendall Jenner hands a Pepsi to a police officer. People were incredibly offended by this advertisement, as it was completely out of left field for the company, and an obvious attempt to capitalize on racial tensions.
Since Dove’s Real Beauty advertising campaign launched in 2004, the brand has been 
North Face is known for promoting a sense of adventure, and doing so responsibly. In fact, two of the company’s internal guiding principles are community and integrity, so consumers trust it to act in the best interest of the common good.
AT&T caused an uproar in 2013 when a tweet reading “never forget” showed a smartphone depicting the Twin Towers Tribute in Light memorial on its screen. The Twitter audience quickly labeled the tweet tasteless and offensive, causing AT&T to take it down within an hour.
airbnb fosters a sense of togetherness and values individuals over corporations. Part of its mission is to treat hosts and guests “like members of a community, not commodities.”
