I’m often asked, “How can you add value to our marketing?” My answer is always the same, if your planning can accurately answer these questions, you probably don’t need a brand strategy consultant:   

• Which segments are you targeting and what data supports your choices?   
• Do your target segments know you exist, and what do they think about you?    
• What is your brand positioning to each segment targeted?    
• Strategically, what are you trying to achieve with your segments?    
• Creatively, how will your brand be unmistakeable to your segments?

I’m slightly biased on this topic, but I have outlined below, 5 reasons why you should seriously consider hiring a brand strategy consultant to work with your existing teams. Your brand strategy consultant can help you…

..Conduct diagnosis and segmentation. A brand diagnosis will help you segment your market, prioritise segments to target, identify problematic steps in your funnel, establish negative associations that need addressing and much more. Diagnosis is about gathering evidence to mitigate marketing investment risk and ensure smarter decisions are made.

..Stay market orientated. Market orientation takes a 180-degree look at how customers see you, not how you see them. Talking to customers or observing them, it needs a willingness to learn; from negative brand associations to competitor preferences, barriers to purchase to perceptions of value and a lot more.

..Better define your positioning. When it comes to brand positioning, less is more. If you can’t distil your positioning into 3 or 4 meaningful statements outlining your most valued associations, start again. Bin complicated brand books or models which use a plethora of ways to define your brand, they’re confusing, unnecessary, and ineffective.

..Find balance across ‘long’ & ‘short’. Only 5% of a category is ‘in market’ ready to buy, with 95% being ‘out of market’ future buyers. Marketers who understand this 95:5 rule will invest in emotive, year-round brand building campaigns to position the brand, grow salience, and accelerate the performance of short-term lead generation activities.

..Focus on distinctiveness before differentiation. Too many marketers are pre-occupied with fudging differentiation and ignore the use of distinctive brand assets. Distinctive assets act as triggers in the minds of buyers, helping them easily recall brands in buying situations by using patterns, shapes, colours, slogans, characters, jingles and other design assets.

Marketing Lab is a brand management and marketing consultancy working with regional, national, and international businesses to mitigate marketing investment risk, ensuring more informed decisions are made with a view to improving sales and profitability, growing market share, and building brand equity. Request a FREE 30-minute brand management consultation.