Here’s an unavoidable and indisputable fact: today’s consumer is savvier and more demanding than ever. This can be problematic and confusing, made more so because their buying behavior seems to change daily. This makes it difficult for marketers to keep up and nail down strategies that are consistent, measurable, and impactful.
The key is to fine-tune your messaging and embrace a shift in mindset, one that moves away from a product-centric point of view to a customer-centric one.
We call this “life centricity,” and it requires understanding our customers on a deeper level, which includes empathy for the external forces that impact their daily lives. It also puts a finer point on the importance of articulating your value proposition. Here’s why:
- The average person interacts with 6,000 brands a day!
- The average buyer must interact with a brand 26 times before making a purchasing decision.
If that seems overwhelming, you’re right. But the way to break through that clutter is pretty straightforward. Here are some dos and don’ts for standing out in a loud and crowded marketplace.
DON’T:
- Blend in.
- Focus on features.
- Confuse your buyer.
DO:
- Deploy innovative positioning strategies.
- Differentiate your brand.
- Find ways to stand out in the sea of sameness.
And most of all, choose your value power.
Defining Your Brand’s Superpowers
It begins with defining your brand value and remembering that you cannot be all things to all people. When you attempt to become the be-all and end-all to EVERY conceivable potential buyer out there, you create confusion. Applying this kind of targeted selectivity enables you to laser focus your marketing and dramatically reduce the number of times a potential buyer must interact with your brand.
Choosing your value power helps you focus and prioritize, creates a stronger ROI and better efficiencies, empowers your team, develops better customer understanding and loyalty, builds better partnerships, and helps you execute a marketing roadmap to growth, relevance, and success.
Of course, there are many ways to describe your value power. But at Avocet, we have drilled it down to four key areas:
- Price
- Quality
- Customer intimacy
- Innovation
Narrowing your approach and positioning your company’s differentiators within these four categories is vitally important. We start with a thorough competitive analysis, and by doing so, we help our clients zero in on their value power that will ultimately WOW! their customers.
To learn more about this approach – and to find some examples of national brands and even of some of the work we’ve done for our clients – watch this Q&A session with Lori Jones, Avocet’s president and CEO.
