Strategy for distinctive brands
With the Distinctive Growth Model
12.01.2024
Distinctive strategy
How do you make sure you stand out among the competition and truly differentiate yourself? The Redkiwi Distinctive Growth Model gives you the right roadmap to overcome this challenge. To address this challenge from all angles, our model is built from four essential building blocks: strategy, creativity, technology and marketing. By giving sufficient attention to each block, communication activities contribute to the desired results. Today we put Strategy in the spotlight.
Strategy
Thinking about your position in the (digital) shopping street. About where you are now and where you want to go. That's where it starts. Dare to make bold choices, be relevant and build the mental availability of the organization.
Connect with stories
Neuromarketing
Customers, suppliers or consumers, they are all human beings. Perhaps surprising to read, but people are not rational beings. If you want to influence their behavior, you need to understand how to communicate to increase knowledge and positively influence attitudes. So we need to think about what drives people. Deep within us come unconscious desires, rooted in our DNA and shaped by years of evolution. This driving mechanism takes place in the subconscious of our primal brain. How we fulfill these desires manifests itself in emotions and concrete needs for products or services.
American marketing guru Seth Godin has interpreted that to mean that you just have to tell people what they crave. Tell them what they want to hear with a story they want to believe in. Facts are less relevant in that because we are not rational. People don't buy services and productions, they invest in personal relationships and stories.
Storytelling
A distinctive positioning includes an authentic and credible brand story and connects with your target audience by tapping into deeper desires. Make sure you respond to the needs of your target audience and that they can identify with your brand. Make the brand story sound as if they themselves would be the storyteller.
At Redkiwi, we use the Duality Model for Storytelling to gather the ingredients for a good brand story.
On the left side, we zoom in on the brand message for trustworthiness and credibility. The right side of the model focuses on the target audience and the emotional brain connection we want to make with them. These elements increase knowledge about the brand and positively influence attitudes toward the brand. All ingredients together help achieve the desired behavioral change and brand preference.
Segment your target audience
Worldview
Today, social and demographic influences have less impact on human behavior. To successfully target your brand to specific groups, you need to think deeper than someone's hometown, age or ethnicity. Better understand what drives people and what they value. This means understanding their lifestyle and basing your targeting on worldviews or worldviews.
Everyone has a worldview that affects how they interpret your brand. It is important to tell your brand's story in terms of that worldview so that it is truly heard and seen. The key word is segmentation: define your target audience more sharply and make bold choices.
Build personas based on worldviews that reflect your potential customer's mindset and vision. By painting a complete picture of your target audience, you gain in-depth insights into their needs, desires, fears and challenges. With this method of segmentation, you build a targeted marketing strategy that perfectly matches your target audience. Your target audience is nothing more than a group of people who share the same worldview. Bring them together and tell your brand story in terms of that worldview to reach them cost-effectively.
Determine what makes you distinctive
Make a strong promise and prove it
There are more players in the market. Therefore, it is essential to give your target audience a clear reason to choose you. Formulate a powerful brand promise that includes your core values and benefits. For example, we formulate our value in the form of a value proposition of 1 or 2 sentences, in which we completely and convincingly describe what we do and what benefits we offer the target audience. We consider the overall service we offer, for which applications and to which specific group we offer it. We consider what our unique, distinctive strength is and how we can meet the expectations of the target audience. More importantly, make sure you deliver on that promise by providing evidence. That makes the brand promise credible and that's how you build trust with the target audience.
Solve your target audience's problem
How can your brand excel? Really stand out among the competition? To stand out, you need to know where you stand and where you want to go. In your propositions, you strive to connect to the desires of your target audience, solve problems, increase enjoyment and eliminate pain. This is how we ensure that we are not only relevant, but also valuable to our target audience.
Mental and physical availability
Define your domain and name the category in which your brand operates. Above all, make it easy for your target audience to recognize you in that category. After all, people rarely think of a brand out of the blue. You have to trigger that thought first. To do this, use cues that trigger the right thoughts, so-called category entry points (CEPs). When determining your strategy, it is essential to know when your target audience thinks of you and how you can be relevant at those crucial moments. Add value in those moments, build a strong connection and increase brand engagement.
Make sure your organization, product or service has a prominent place in your customers' minds. Develop a strong brand strategy, define your position and build a brand personality that matches the worldview of your target audience. Brands exist in the minds of the target audience, so make sure you are mentally available when they need you. Also ensure physical presence in the right places so that customers can easily find you and access your products or services.
Grow with performance branding
Linkedin says so. Harvard business review and McKinsey too. Performance branding is the future. The winning combination of branding with performance marketing.