Monday we presented the common challenge of brand ambiguity. Today we offer key strategies to take brand ambiguity to brand clarity.

Is it clear to your prospects, who you are, what you offer and your value? How your business is perceived in the market is a key factor in turning prospects into buyers. While this may seem intuitive, and even obvious, a brand can easily (and usually unintentionally) become abstruse.

The purpose of a brand is to be recognized for something in the marketplace: to draw people to you by creating a promise for their improved condition. And clarity of your target market is important to direct focus and hence, brand differentiation. So, establishing brand clarity begins with aligning who you are (what you do) with a viable market niche’. (Note – viable is the imperative word. Believe it or not, many overlook this and exuberantly jump into business based only on their passion and neglect understanding and calibrating for the “demand” piece.)

To help you build brand clarity, consider three cornerstone strategies:
1. A base analysis of your market: who you serve (primary customer), refined into your niche’ (what specifically do you offer to them); and, is there market demand (or at least a strong forecasted opportunity)?
a. Understand what the customers in that market value most- that will help you refine your niche’, value proposition and differentiate yourself (that is, be different or better than your competition.)
2. Ensure your brand messages and touch points (website, marketing materials, etc.) clearly articulate and represent your brand and value proposition.
3. And equally important, and thereafter – is your ability to consistently deliver on your brand promise (this is your operations); otherwise, you are creating a huge and common brand ambiguity – saying and doing, differently.

The old saying goes- you can’t be all things to all people, and this holds true in business too. If you do too many things (unless of course you are a large shop), it’s hard to excel and people may not be able to decipher what it is you do; and hence, will overlook you.

©2011 Kubica LaForest Consulting

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 26th, 2011 at 7:42 am and is filed under Brand Building. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.