THREE BRANDING MINDSETS (TO SHIFT).
Mindset #1 (to Shift): Place Your “Message Stack” Above All.
No, not “above all.” The message stack is vital and valued to your marketing and sales. Indeed, it is the bathwater you keep fresh, clean and healthy, tracking to your business plan and fluid market changes. But the message stack serves The Brand, not the other way around. Your Brand and branding make and keep the message stack differentiated and earning your customer’s trust, respect, and business.
Mindset #2 (to Shift): Ask Your Customers What They Want.
Not really. I mean, what they tell you they want isn’t as valuable as what they WILL want. Interpreting, imagining, innovating what they WILL want will separate you from competitors. Asking them flatly what they want is tablestakes; you ought to know that from consistent dialog (social, customer service, etc). To get to their deeper, WILL WANTs, you have to dig/listen deeper: get to what keeps them up at night not just related to your product and category. Get to what gives them joy and pain in the smallest moments — of their LIVES — not just related to your product and category. Know them as people with lives you want and need to have empathy for. Reimagine and create what they will want, but could never dream up like you can.
Mindset #3 (to Shift): Get Your Business Plan Done — and Sales Up and Running — Before the Branding Stuff.
Resist that Old Think. Whether you’re a Startup or Established business, branding or rebranding will make that empathic connection faster and deeper with customers — creating/boosting sales. Branding reveals and addresses the nuances of the market, either creating a whole new category (to own it) or making a subtle, but significant shift to be smarter and faster, to dominate a category.
So, hey, regarding the trilogy of posts on Creative, Branding and Marketing,
do you, too, have this passion to create from what you need to break?
Sage advice. Nice…