There’s an art to showing that you are different to your competitors and very few businesses get it truly right (regardless of their size and marketing power). When communicating to your customers, a lot of businesses fall in the trap of repeating perceived benefits that the customer takes as implied or built into the price.
Let’s assume for a second that all of your competitors are offering these 2 elements:
• Good quality product
• Great service
So, if you cannot explain quickly and succinctly why your product is different or how your service is better, let us ignore these 2 points and focus on what you can do to separate yourself from the pack. Communicate only the benefits
A Sunshine Coast based plumbing business was able to communicate how his service was better (and subsequently was very successful in the marketing of their business):
Their service promise consisted of:
• We will turn up when we promise to turn up
• We offer a fair price and we guarantee the quality of our work 100%
• We treat your home with care and take off our boots when working inside
Very simple, but highly effective. They identified all of the issues associated with their competition and tackled them all head on. But more importantly, they actually followed through on their service promise and their brand grew.
Once you have the message right, it is purely about getting it to market. We helped them with elements such as direct mail printed and delivered to homes within their geographical reach, low-cost gifts that were given to each customer to thank them for their support and to reinforce they made a great choice and a consistent branding theme across work uniforms and vehicle signage.
The fitness industry was another great example of the ‘brand promise’ from 24/7 clubs like Jetts Fitness. It was identified that lock-in contracts, inflexible workout times, high weekly membership costs and bells and whistles that were rarely used by the majority of members. 24/7 clubs offered a solution without these issues and the rest as they say, is history.
If there is one element of your branding that needs more attention, I guarantee it is the brand promise you make to your customers that isn’t quite as defined as it should be.
Red Energy Promotions has a core mantra and established systems – it has been this work, completed in our early stages, that has allowed the growth of the business. If customers are central to your business success, then ensure that their needs are identified, met and exceeded (it sounds basic, but you’d be surprised at how many brands lose sight of this).
For ideas on how to polish your brand and present to the market, talk to our team – every brand is different, so the right approach needs to be custom made to suit your goals.
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