Do you Need to Develop Your Branding Before Launching Your Marketing?

Why Developing Your Branding Before Marketing Leads to Greater Small Business Success

The ultimate goal of your small business is to be easily found by your ideal customers when they need your product and services, while also standing out from the competition. While all small business owners want to achieve success, many skip one of the most vital steps to do so -- developing their brand messages.

As we’ve shared before in our blog, branding is the process and actions that a business takes to shape the prospects and customers perception about their business, product or service, and how it’s perceived in the competitive marketplace.  It identifies:

• Who exactly your product or service help solve a crucial problem for the most,

• How it does this better or different than anyone else out there

• What the guiding principles and fundamental beliefs that the business stands for (e.g., integrity, sustainability etc.)

• Why the business makes or provides this product or service (their mission)

• The promise it makes to each customer when they use or buy your products or services

What Happens If You Implement Marketing Before Developing Your Brand Messages

When you skip the branding stage and jump right into marketing without answering these (and other) foundational brand questions, the following can happen:  

1. There won’t be a clear target audience to talk to and instead your marketing targets “everyone” which waters down your message and can’t cut through the competition nor clearly say to your ideal customer that you have the services and solutions they need.

2. Marketing channels won’t always align with where your idea customers are looking for services and solutions you provide

3. Money and time will be wasted trying to see what works from a vast net of marketing ideas, vs. testing smaller, specific messages to see what among them resonates most with the audience you know is waiting for you.

Start with Our Branding & Marketing as a House Concept That Begins with a Brand Foundation

At Simply K2 Marketing, we believe that every business or brand needs to start with a strong foundation, just like a house. In our Branding & Marketing as a House concept, your brand messaging is the foundation off of which all of your marketing is created. Think about it, if you can't succinctly talk about your business or services, prospective clients will either miss you altogether or won’t go out of their way to seek you out because they won’t have a clear sense of what you can do and how you can help them. Starting your marketing without your branding a waste of time, money and won’t get you noticed.

Your Marketing Strategy or Go-to-Market Launch is Your Blueprint

The Next Step We Recommend Implementing Before Marketing is a Marketing Strategy or Plan

When building anything a house or a marketing plan, you need a strategy (or blueprint), otherwise the direction, steps you take and the end-goal is unfocused. The marketing strategy provides insight into where you can find your ideal customers, what messages will resonate and what your competition is doing. If you skip this step it’s time and money wasted.

When we develop marketing strategies and marketing plans for clients, we review and research the:

• Target audience first and foremost. We take into consideration their demographics, and psychographics like shopping habit (where and how they like to shop), favorite brands and more.

• Competition - where do they show up (what channels), what are they saying about their product and services, their position in the market and more.

• Client Unique Selling Proposition – What makes this product or service stand out? What would compel the ideal customer to buy?

• Channels – which provides the best access to the prospects, creates the most visibility and ROI (Return on Investment). We also look at the other brand messages and how these can be incorporated in the marketing messages and channels.

Don’t Forget About Brand Awareness, Similar to the Furnishings/Decor in a Home

The final step in our House concept, is Brand Awareness (or the furnishings and décor.) It’s in this step where you make your messages “pretty” or better said, targeted to your specific audience. The foundation step will allow you to speak clearly about your business or brand. Your messages will be placed everywhere your prospects will look for them and your business is positioned as the clear choice to solve the customer’s pain points as seen on social, blogs, emails and in your public relations or press.

This Branding & Marketing as a House Concept makes it easier to visualize don’t you think?

Develop Your Branding Before Launching Your Marketing For Small Business Success

Sometimes the steps and process really matter. This is true with marketing. When business owners jump right into marketing to drive sales or because they think developing their brand messages is too time-consuming, they do a disservice to the business in the long run. This is why you need to develop your brand foundation before your marketing. Doing so creates a clear path to speaking to your ideal customers who want and need your products or services. You’ll spend less time guessing or launching unfocused efforts finding interested clients who want to come buy time and time again.

Did you start out developing your brand messages first or did you dive right in? What were your results? We’d love to hear.

COMMENT BELOW and Tell us what you think about our Branding & Marketing as a House Concept too!

Need more support? We help small businesses like your explore and develop brand messaging every day. The difference has been increased sales, more website traffic and lead generation. Why not talk to us via our FREE Intro call.

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