By Marisa Hochberg : https://jonesroadbeauty.com/blogs/wellness/talking-with-wellness-guru-marisa-hochberg
For every successful brand, there is a market that is willing to pay double or triple the price. In other words, almost everyone wants your product but can’t buy it. It’s called the buyer’s remorse effect and it happens to everyone who buys something from a brand they love. But for brands who want to stay in business, understanding what makes their unique proposition tick is essential. If you want to stand out from your competitors, create a tagline no one else understands, or launch a new product that only you can sell, you need a killer marketing strategy. Here are seven tips on how to build one:
Define your market and problem first
Before you can build a killer marketing strategy, you need to know what your market is and what your customers want. You can’t just assume that everyone will know what you mean. You also can’t assume that your customers will be able to interpret your brand’s communications for themselves. You need to define what issues your customers face, and then come up with ways to problem-solve and solve those issues for your customers. Just as you wouldn’t assume that someone who has a heart condition can’t learn to ride a bike, you shouldn’t assume that a customer with a job that requires them to be on their feet all day can’t come to your store and buy your product. Your product needs to solve a problem that your customers have, and your product needs to be the best option to solve that problem.
Weaponize data
Once you have a general idea of what your market is and what your customers want, it’s time to start weaponizing data. This is the process of using statistics, research, and other means to find trends and target customers that may be interested in your brand, but aren’t necessarily buying right now. You want to find out what products or services are most popular, what products or services are being left behind, and what customers are searching for. You also want to find out what problems your customers are facing, and how your product can help with those problems. Now, don’t get me wrong, this is not the same as market research. Research is important, but data is king. Data is facts, numbers, and graphs that can help you make informed business decisions. But data that represents what your customers are actually seeing and doing can be used to build brand equity, find new customers, and drive sales.
Share your story
Once you’ve found your market and solved their problems, it’s time to tell your story. Stories are powerful and allow you to grab people’s attention, engage them, and win over converts at the same time. You can tell stories that are true, myths, and half-truths. You can also tell stories that are lies, rumors, and myths with facts to back them up. Stories are like bait and switch. You throw out a hook and suddenly, there are facts to back up your lies and seemingly legitimate rumors. You can easily turn a half-truth into a complete lie, and a rumor into a fact with a well-timed, well-researched story. When you tell a story, you can also use it to build your brand equity, increase your social media engagement, and increase the chances of your ads being shown on top of the clutter.
Build a powerful ad
Finally, there’s the matter of the ad itself. An ad is a face your brand is presenting to the world. For example, Apple’s ads have always focused on the benefits of its products. But when you watch an Apple ad, there are almost no visuals. Instead, you get words: reliability, dependability, and quality. These focus on what Apple’s products can do, not how they look. Your ad needs to do three things: grab attention, inform the audience, and get them to buy. When you want to grab attention, an ad needs to be visually interesting. It doesn’t need to be complex or even have a storyline. But an ad that grabs people’s attention will do more to change their perceptions about your brand than one that is boring or obvious. If you want people to remember your brand, an ad needs to be memorable, not forgettable.
Key messaging is key
A powerful ad doesn’t have to be visual, complex, or even have a story behind it. It just needs to get the point across in a compelling way. When it comes to advertising, there are only so many moments in a person’s day when they’re either looking for information or wanting to buy a product. And there are only so many ads that can fit on those social media platforms or TV screens. You need to find a balance between those two needs. People prefer facts, numbers, and graphs over images, stories, and anecdotes when it comes to making branding decisions. That’s because images and stories can be easily misconstrued and Fake Facts are dime a dozen these days. And, when it comes to advertising, graphics will do more to confuse your audience than inform them.
You’re unique. Don’t be afraid to be yourself
We’ve all heard the saying “Be Yourself. And You.” For the most part, that means you have to be yourself. And while you’re at it, you can be as obnoxious and obnoxious as you want as long as people can still understand you. You also can’t be afraid to be offensive. If you don’t know how to make a certain product or service, create a tagline that mixes both fact and fiction. You can’t just say that your brand of soap is the most popular in the world. You have to communicate how much popularity your brand has through wordplay, metaphors, and facts. Even a small change in your tagline can make a big difference in the perception of your brand.
Wrapping up
The best brand marketing strategies are those that are based on understanding your market and your customers and putting their best foot forward in the world of marketing. These tips will help you build a killer marketing strategy, and help your brand stand out from the crowd.
