You want to do all the things that the “new year articles” encourage for businesses - new advertising, improving messages to increase sales, open business through more channels, viral advertising…
But too many people get caught in hype without understanding the importance of the alphabet. Yes, remembering to do things in alphabetical order will improve your return on investment. You can’t sell without marketing, but you can’t market until you define the brand.
What is branding?
It’s much more than a catch-phrase, and often times successful sales staff think their pitches are branding — they’re not really, but those pitches are based in what the strategic branding teams have tested for the marketplace and how great companies break through the noise in culture.
Branding is like the smell of freshly baking cookies when you walk into a home. It’s what lures someone to come closer in an attractive way (not as in the wicked witch with a poisoned apple technique). It reveals the essence of what you want people to experience with the five senses.
When you consider the things necessary for a great response to your product and company, it’s generated through branding — the strategic step communicating identity and solution-offerings. This is the process by which the lifestyle associated with your product is articulated, the attributes of your offering is delineated with pinpoint accuracy, the crowd will be charged with excitement over your solutions.
Like last week’s article relayed, you need to shift your approach. Understand that B - branding - comes before M - marketing, or you will miss clarifying your image and offerings to customers. When you’re ready for that stage, that’s marketing.
So how is marketing different than branding?
Many people get these areas of expertise confused. If you have in the past, too, then you are in the majority. But who wants to be lumped with the crowd (especially when the crowd is wrong)? Here’s your chance to be better.
Marketing identifies the “who” behind your “what” in the world. The marketing experts look at The Four Ps - product, price, position, promotion - and the Five Forces the influence the success - power of the customer, bargaining power of suppliers, new product rivals, substitutes and industry rivalry - in order to create clear concise purchase messages for the market.
Sales teams then can use these messages because there is a lot of science in the art of marketing to generate sales. You can’t just “whip something up” in the kitchen or throw something into the marketplace expecting to be successful. It takes time and experience to know how to make the upper-level themes useful for the gut-driven and data-crunching sales teams — this is how everyone working together makes money for the company.
What do I need to do for my company first?
Thoughtful assessment and consideration, similar to “Game Theory” in economics, are required with both branding and marketing to get the most for your dollars as a customer and as a company. And true, while Peter Drucker identified that innovation and marketing are the only things that make money, the cost associated with branding is returned many fold when completed by those who are trained to let you be both seen and heard in the best light.
You may have to contain your excitement for getting out there and selling your concept right away or getting boots on the street to sell your new entrepreneurial idea, but having the strongest return on investment is what counts.
The after-steps of great marketing are the launch of the sales campaign in a variety of channels using carefully crafted messaging. Just apply patience to follow the alphabet - Branding, then Marketing…
Next, you’ll have to consider if you want to satisfy or “be satisficing” - that will be next week as we cover another aspect of the sales funnel for services and product success.
Heather M. Hilliard is Principal and Chief Strategist for R. Roan Enterprises, LLC, a professional services consulting firm supporting businesses in pointed areas of expertise as well as with individuals for targeted projects or career development. For more articles like these, visit her posts on LinkedIn or on G+.
#seizetheday, #makeithappen
