Why Brand Messaging and Brand Exploration are so Important

I’m back to tackle two of the most asked questions at Simply K2 Marketing.

• “Why is brand messaging so important for a small business?” and

• “Which brand messages are the most important for a business to have, especially if I have limited time to work on them?

  

  
  

First Let’s Define Brand Messaging/Branding 

At the core of every business is brand messaging. It is the unique identity you create for your products, services or company that sets it apart from the competition though messaging and imagery. The goal of branding is to build a strong, recognizable identity for your biz or product that fosters customer engagement, loyalty and trust.

It Describes:

• What you do,

• Who you do it for,

• What sets you apart from your competition and

• Why what you do and how it matters to your customers in solving their needs.

Note: If you don’t personally address your brand identity, others will make assumptions and talk about your brand for you. If left too long, it can be hard to reverse a incorrect perception you had nothing to do with and is incorrect.

Core Brand Messages -- What Every Business Should Know and Communicate

Let’s break down what core messages every brand needs to have in place. While this list may vary, these are the three messages I most recommend that will help you build a following and engage with your ideal target customers.

Here is my list of the three most important brand messages you need to know:

1. Target Audience

2. Positioning

3. Mission Statement

These are my top three. I’ve found that if you can’t define these three components of your overall branding, your content and offers will suffer because you aren’t really marketing, you’re simply putting out random messages to see what sticks. Now let’s break these down one-by-one.

Identifying Your Target Audience

At Simply K2 Marketing, we often hear clients say that their customer is “everyone,” which is nearly impossible. You can’t effectively market to everyone. Instead, you want to focus on your ideal customer—the one who will return and buy from you again and again. A well-defined target audience is based on both demographics (like age, gender, income, and location) and psychographics (like values, spending habits, lifestyle, and shopping preferences). The more clearly you understand these qualities, the more effectively you can craft offers and content that will resonate and drive engagement.

It’s also important to note that while your target audience still can’t be everyone, you can have more than one ideal customer. Your primary audience is your core customer. It is the group who buy from you consistently, while a secondary audience may be influenced by what you do but in a different way or for different reasons. They may or may not be related to your ideal client.

What is the Core Mission of your Business, Product or Service? What Drives It/You Forward?

Your mission statement is a short (1-2 sentences max), internal-facing statement that describes what you do, who you do it for, and the benefit it provides. (In other words, your purpose for being.) It is often used to motivate and inspire employees. It should be a statement you or they would be proud to share.

An inspiring mission statement answers four key questions:

1. What is our business? The answer should encapsulate your company’s core operations.

2. How are we doing it? The answer should be a values-based description of how you operate and what you’re hoping to achieve as a business or with your product or services

3. For whom are we doing it? The answer describes your core customer base.

4. What are our core values? The answer is the “why” of your company's existence

Rounding out my top three brand messages you need, and all truly are pretty equal, is your positioning statement.

How You Are Positioning Your Brand Against Your Competition Matters

Your positioning statement goes hand-in-hand with your target audience. It should directly speak to the benefits of what you do, and for whom, and most importantly, how you do it differently than your competition. Some refer to positioning as their USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and while I believe they are highly similar, to me, this one goes a little deeper, especially on the why you differ than your competition.

When crafting your brand positioning statement you clearly want to tell a prospective customer what you offer and why they should choose you over everyone else as related to your product(s) or service(s). Many familiar positioning statements include “the only,” “the first,” or “the best,” but that’s hard to do if you 100% cannot own that claim. Instead think about your process or the value. While you could go toe to toe on almost every benefit with your competitor, is there something you both do that neither one of you has claimed or called out? This can set you apart simply in sharing it first as your lead positioning statement.

Crafting Your Brand Statements

I recommend finding a quiet place to reflect when you’re crafting your positioning and mission statements and defining your target audience. Brand messages to some degree, shouldn’t be an “easy” task. It should take thoughtful consideration, a deep knowledge of your brands strengths and approach and awareness of your competition and their strengths and weaknesses. The time you take will be worth it. Offers, content and engagement will be deeper, stronger and you should experience more conversions.

One final note. Whatever brand messaging you land on, this may not be the final messaging for all time. It could be, but you may find that you need to pivot what you do or gain consumer insight that changes how you think about your core benefits for customers, and you’ll want to make updates. That is 100% OK -- just look at brands like Coke, Staples and Wayfair who we’ve all seen make adjustments.

Does your business or product have all of its core brand messaging in place? If you haven’t yet, why not?

Simply K2 Marketing conducts brand development explorations with small businesses throughout New England and all the way to Napa Valley. We get to the root of what really matters and for whom needs your brand or services. Reach out for a free consultation to see if we are the right fit to develop yours.