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Strategies: Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning (STP)

How to use Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning (STP) to develop marketing strategies

Today, Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning (STP) is a familiar strategic approach in Modern Marketing. It is one of the most commonly applied marketing models in practice. In our poll asking about the most popular marketing model it is the second most popular, only beaten by the venerable SWOT / TOWs matrix. This popularity is relatively recent since previously, marketing approaches were based more around products rather than customers. In the 1950s, for example, the main marketing strategy was ‘product differentiation’.

The STP model is useful when creating marketing communications plans since it helps marketers to prioritise propositions and then develop and deliver personalised and relevant messages to engage with different audiences.

This is an audience rather than product focused approach to communications which helps deliver more relevant messages to commercially appealing audiences. The diagram below shows how plans can have the flow from

Audience options > Audience selection > Production positioning

STP is relevant to digital marketing too, where applying marketing personas can help develop more relevant digital communications as shown by these alternative tactical customer segmentation approaches.

In addition, STP focuses on commercial effectiveness, selecting the most valuable segments for a business and then developing a marketing mix and product positioning strategy for each segment.

How to use STP?

Through segmentation,you can identify niches with specific needs, mature markets to find new customers, deliver more focused and effective marketing messages.

The needs of each segment are the same, so marketing messages should be designed for each segment to emphasise relevant benefits and features required rather than one size fits all for all customer types. This approach is more efficient, delivering the right mix to the same group of people, rather than a scattergun approach.

You can segment your existing markets based on nearly any variable, as long as it’s effective as the examples below show:

Well known ways to segment your audience include:

1. Demographics

Breakdown by any combination: age, gender, income, education, ethnicity, marital status, education, household (or business), size, length of residence, type of residence or even  profession/Occupation.

An example is Firefox who sell ‘coolest things’, aimed at younger male audience. Though, Moshi Monsters, however, is targeted to parents with fun, safe and educational space for younger audience.

2. Psychographics

This refers to ‘personality and emotions’ based on behaviour, linked to purchase choices, including attitudes, lifestyle, hobbies, risk aversion, personality and leadership traits. magazines read and TV. While demographics explain ‘who’ your buyer is, psychographics inform you ‘why’ your customer buys.

There are a few different ways you can gather data to help form psychographic profiles for your typical customers.

Interviews: Talk to a few people that are broadly representative of your target audience. In-depth interviews let you gather useful qualitative data to really understand what makes your customers tick. The problem is they can  be expensive and difficult to conduct, and the small sample size means they may not always be representative of the people you are trying to target.

Surveys: Surveys let you reach more people than interviews, but it can be harder to get as insightful answers.

Customer data: You may have data on what your customers tend to purchase from you, such as data coming from loyalty cards if an FMCG brand or from online purchase history if you are an ecommerce business. You can use this data to generate insights into what kind of products your customers are interested in and what is likely to make them purchase. For example, does discounting vastly increase their propensity to purchase? In which case they might be quite spontaneous.

An example is Virgin Holidays who segment holidays into 6 groups.

3. Lifestyle

This refers to Hobbies, recreational pursuits, entertainment, vacations, and other non-work time pursuits.

Companies such as on and off-line magazine will target those with specific hobbies i.e. FourFourTwo for football fans.

Some hobbies are large and well established, and thus relatively easy to target, such as the football fan example. However, some businesses have found great success targeting very small niches very effectively. A great example is the explosion in ‘prepping’ related businesses, which has gone from a little heard of fringe activity to a billion dollar industry in recent years. Apparently now 3.7 million American’s think of themselves as preppers or survivalists. A great way to start researching and targeting these kind of niches is Reddit, where people create subReddits to share information about a given interest or hobby.

 4. Belief and Values

Refers to Religious, political, nationalistic and cultural beliefs and values.

The Islamic Bank of Britain offers Sharia-compliant banking which meets specific religious requirements.

A strange but interesting example of religious demographics influencing marketing that you might not have guessed is that Mormons are really into ‘multi-level marketing’. They’re far more likely to be engaged in the practice than any other US group. Going the extra mile with demographic research can lead to discovering new marketing opportunities and thinking outside the box. For example, did you know 55-64-year-olds are the most likely age group to buy a new car? But you don’t tend to see them in the car ads. An opportunity waiting to be seized!

5. Life Stages

Life Stages is the Chronological benchmarking of people’s lives at different stages.

An example is Saga holidays which are only available for people aged 50+. They claim a large enough segment to focus on this life stage.

6. Geography

Drill down by Country, region, area, metropolitan or rural location, population density or even climate.

An example is Neiman Marcus, the upmarket department store chain in the USA now delivers to the UK.

7. Behaviour

Refers to the nature of the purchase, brand loyalty, usage level, benefits sought, distribution channels used, reaction to marketing factors.

In a B2B environment, the benefits sought are often about ‘how soon can it be delivered?’ which includes the ‘last minute’ segment –  the planning in advance segment.

An example is Parcelmonkey.co.uk who offer same day, next day and international parcel deliveries.

 8. Benefit

Benefit is the use and satisfaction gained by the consumer.

Smythson Stationary offer similar products to other stationery companies, but their clients want the benefit of their signature packaging: tissue-lined Nile Blue boxes and tied with navy ribbon!

Market targeting

The list below refers to what’s needed to evaluate the potential and commercial attractiveness of each segment.

Criteria Size: The market must be large enough to justify segmenting. If the market is small, it may make it smaller.

Difference: Measurable differences must exist between segments.

Money: Anticipated profits must exceed the costs of additional marketing plans and other changes.

Accessible: Each segment must be accessible to your team and the segment must be able to receive your marketing messages

Focus on different benefits: Different segments must need different benefits.

Product positioning

Positioning maps are the last element of the STP process. For this to work, you need two variables to illustrate the market overview.

In the example here, I’ve taken some cars available in the UK. This isn’t a detailed product position map, more of an illustration. If there were no cars in one segment it could indicate a market opportunity.

Expanding on the extremely basic example above, you can unpack the market by mapping your competitors onto a matrix based on key factors that determine purchase.

This chart is not meant to be any kind of accurate representation of the car market, but rather just illustrate how you could use a product positioning map to analyze your own businesses current position in the market, and identify opportunities. For example, as you can see in the gap below, we’ve identified in a possible opportunity in the market for low-priced family cars.

We’re not saying this gap actually exists, I’m sure you could think of cars that fit this category, as the car market is an extremely developed and competitive market. However, it does show how you can use the tool to identify gaps in your own market.

An example of a company using STP?

Any time you suspect there are significant, measurable differences in your market, you should consider STP. Especially if you have to create a range of different messages for different groups.

A good example of segmentation is BT Plc, the UK’s largest telecoms company. BT has adopted STP for its varied customer groups; ranging from individual consumers to B2B services for its competitors:

What to watch for

Make sure the market is large enough to matter and customers can be easily contacted.

Original reference sources

Lancaster G. and Massingham, L. (1988) Essentials of Marketing. Maidenhead, Berkshire, England.  McGraw-Hill.

Smith, W. R. (1956). Product differentiation and market segmentation as alternative marketing strategies. Journal of Marketing. (Vol. 21, Issue 1, July). p3-8.

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PESTLE and SWOT Analysis

 A PESTEL analysis is a framework or tool used by marketers to analyse and monitor the macro-environmental (external marketing environment) factors that have an impact on an organisation. The result of which is used to identify threats and weaknesses which is used in a SWOT analysis.

PESTEL stands for:

P – Political

E – Economic

S – Social

T – Technological

E – Environmental

L – Legal

All the external environmental factors (PESTEL factors)

Political Factors

These are all about how and to what degree a government intervenes in the economy. This can include – government policy, political stability or instability in overseas markets, foreign trade policy, tax policy, labour law, environmental law, trade restrictions and so on.

It is clear from the list above that political factors often have an impact on organisations and how they do business. Organisations need to be able to respond to the current and anticipated future legislation, and adjust their marketing policy accordingly.

Economic Factors

Economic factors have a significant impact on how an organisation does business and also how profitable they are. Factors include – economic growth, interest rates, exchange rates, inflation, disposable income of consumers and businesses and so on.

These factors can further be broken down into macro-economical and micro-economical factors. Macro-economical factors deal with the management of demand in any given economy. Governments use interest rate control, taxation policy and government expenditure as their main mechanisms they use for this.

Micro-economic factors are all about the way people spend their incomes. This has a large impact on B2C organisations in particular.

Social Factors

Also known as socio-cultural factors, are the areas that involve the shared belief and attitudes of the population. These factors include – population growth, age distribution, health consciousness, career attitudes and so on. These factors are of particular interest as they have a direct effect on how marketers understand customers and what drives them.

Technological Factors

We all know how fast the technological landscape changes and how this impacts the way we market our products. Technological factors affect marketing and the management thereof in three distinct ways: New ways of producing goods and services New ways of distributing goods and services New ways of communicating with target markets

Environmental Factors

These factors have only really come to the forefront in the last fifteen years or so. They have become important due to the increasing scarcity of raw materials, polution targets, doing business as an ethical and sustainable company, carbon footprint targets set by governments (this is a good example were one factor could be classes as political and environmental at the same time). These are just some of the issues marketers are facing within this factor. More and more consumers are demanding that the products they buy are sourced ethically, and if possible from a sustainable source.

Legal Factors

Legal factors include – health and safety, equal opportunities, advertising standards, consumer rights and laws, product labelling and product safety. It is clear that companies need to know what is and what is not legal in order to trade successfully. If an organisation trades globally this becomes a very tricky area to get right as each country has its own set of rules and regulations.

After you have completed a PESTEL analysis you should be able to use this to help you identify the strengths and weaknesses for a SWOT analysis.

Now you have the PESTLE context you can use this output to map out a SWOT analysis.

SWOT stands for:

Strengths

Weaknesses

Opportunities

Threats

A traditional SWOT analysis would take the context of the PESTLE and analyse how these factors may emerge/impact.

This may be an interesting exercise but often doesn’t lead to anything apart from four lists that are filed away and forgotten.

A SWOT analysis should be a useful tool for planning and marketing strategy. Identify your strengths and weaknesses first because they may suggest some of the opportunities and threats later. There is a tendency for people to play the ‘opposites game’ whereby an opportunity might be identified and then a converse threat that ‘it might not be taken up’. This is not a threat, threats have to exist now in the present – this is a RISK associated with taking that opportunity and this should be recorded in the risk register.

A better way to map this output more directly into a project plan and/or strategy is to use a 3×3 grid, arranging your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the labelled boxes. Then come up with some ‘mini strategies’ in the four boxes in the bottom right corner of the matrix, addressing the questions outlined.

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Organisational Plans And Strategy

Organisational Strategy

Mintzberg’s 5 Ps for Strategy

The word “strategy” has been used implicitly in different ways even if it has traditionally been defined in only one. Explicit recognition of multiple definitions can help people to manoeuvre through this difficult field. Mintzberg provides five definitions of strategy:

Plan

Ploy

Pattern

Position

Perspective.

Plan

Strategy is a plan – some sort of consciously intended course of action, a guideline (or set of guidelines) to deal with a situation. By this definition strategies have two essential characteristics: they are made in advance of the actions to which they apply, and they are developed consciously and purposefully.

Ploy

As plan, a strategy can be a ploy too, really just a specific manoeuvre intended to outwit an opponent or competitor.

Pattern

If strategies can be intended (whether as general plans or specific ploys), they can also be realised. In other words, defining strategy as plan is not sufficient; we also need a definition that encompasses the resulting behaviour: Strategy is a pattern – specifically, a pattern in a stream of actions. Strategy is consistency in behaviour, whether or not intended. The definitions of strategy as plan and pattern can be quite independent of one another: plans may go unrealised, while patterns may appear without preconception.

Plans are intended strategy, whereas patterns are realised strategy; from this we can distinguish deliberate strategies, where intentions that existed previously were realised, and emergent strategies where patterns developed in the absence of intentions, or despite them.

Position

Strategy is a position – specifically a means of locating an organisation in an “environment”. By this definition strategy becomes the mediating force, or “match”, between organisation and environment, that is, between the internal and the external context.

Perspective

Strategy is a perspective – its content consisting not just of a chosen position, but of an ingrained way of perceiving the world. Strategy in this respect is to the organisation what personality is to the individual. What is of key importance is that strategy is a perspective shared by members of an organisation, through their intentions and / or by their actions. In effect, when we talk of strategy in this context, we are entering the realm of the collective mind – individuals united by common thinking and / or behaviour.

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Porter's Five Forces Analysis

Porter’s 5 Forces

Porter’s Five Forces of Competitive Position Analysis were developed in 1979 by Michael E Porter of Harvard Business School as a simple framework for assessing and evaluating the competitive strength and position of a business organisation.

This theory is based on the concept that there are five forces that determine the competitive intensity and attractiveness of a market. Porter’s five forces help to identify where power lies in a business situation. This is useful both in understanding the strength of an organisation’s current competitive position, and the strength of a position that an organisation may look to move into.

The five forces are:

1. Supplier power. An assessment of how easy it is for suppliers to drive up prices. This is driven by the: number of suppliers of each essential input; uniqueness of their product or service; relative size and strength of the supplier; and cost of switching from one supplier to another.

2. Buyer power. An assessment of how easy it is for buyers to drive prices down. This is driven by the: number of buyers in the market; importance of each individual buyer to the organisation; and cost to the buyer of switching from one supplier to another. If a business has just a few powerful buyers, they are often able to dictate terms.

3. Competitive rivalry. The main driver is the number and capability of competitors in the market. Many competitors, offering undifferentiated products and services, will reduce market attractiveness.

4. Threat of substitution. Where close substitute products exist in a market, it increases the likelihood of customers switching to alternatives in response to price increases. This reduces both the power of suppliers and the attractiveness of the market.

5. Threat of new entry. Profitable markets attract new entrants, which erodes profitability. Unless incumbents have strong and durable barriers to entry, for example, patents, economies of scale, capital requirements or government policies, then profitability will decline to a competitive rate.

Key Points

Porter’s Five Forces Analysis is an important tool for assessing the potential for profitability in an industry. With a little adaptation, it is also useful as a way of assessing the balance of power in more general situations.

It works by looking at the strength of five important forces that affect competition:

Supplier Power: The power of suppliers to drive up the prices of your inputs.

Buyer Power: The power of your customers to drive down your prices.

Competitive Rivalry: The strength of competition in the industry.

The Threat of Substitution: The extent to which different products and services can be used in place of your own.

The Threat of New Entry: The ease with which new competitors can enter the market if they see that you are making good profits (and then drive your prices down).

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Leadership And Management Styles

Management Styles

Leadership – a new definition

  The ability of a superior to influence the  behavior of subordinates and persuade them

to follow a particular course of action.

Power –French and Raven (1960)

•Legitimate power –comes solely from the position the superior holds in an organization

•Reward power – comes by means of promotion, salary increases and it interesting assignments

•Expert power – comes from the leader possessing superior superior knowledge knowledge of the matter

under discussion

•Referent power – comes from the fact that subordinates identify with the leader and respect him/her

•Coercive power – comes from forced actions and potential for punishment

  Participative Leadership

•Involvement in decision ‐ making improves the  understanding of the issues involved by those who must  carry out the decisions. •People are more committed to actions where they have  involved in the relevant decision‐making •People are less competitive competitive and more collaborative collaborative when  they are working on joint goals. •When people make decisions together, the social  commitment commitment to one another another is greater greater and thus increases increases  their commitment to the decision. •Several people deciding together make better decisions  than one person alone.

Democratic

•In the democratic style, the leader involves the people in the decision‐making, although the process for the final decision may vary from the l deader h i avng the fi l na say to them facilitating consensus in the group. •Democratic Democratic decision decision‐making is usually usually appreciated appreciated by the people, especially if they have been used to autocratic decisions with which they disagreed. •Democratic style can be problematic when there are a wide range of opinions and there is no clear way of reaching an equitable equitable final decision.

Situational Leadership

•Assumptions – The best action of the leader depends on a range of situational situational factors factors.When a decision is needed, an effective leader does not just fall into a single preferred style.

Hersey’s and Blanchard’s classic Situational Leadership® model of management and leadership styles illustrates the ideal development of a team from immaturity (stage 1) through to maturity (stage 4) during which management an leadership style progressively develops from relatively detached task-directing (1), through the more managerially-involved stages of explanation (2) and participation (3), to the final stage of relatively detached delegation (4), at which time ideally the team is largely self-managing, and hopefully contains at least one potential management/leadership successor.

Transformational Leadership

•One of the methods methods the Transformational Transformational Leader uses to sustain motivation is in the use of ceremonies, rituals and other cultural symbolism. Small changes get big hurrahs, pumping up their significance as indicators of real progress.(Culture Creators)•Overall, they balance their attention between action that creates progress and the mental state of their followers

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Introduction into business management and organisations

Management Theories

Schools of Management

The emphasis was on trying to find the best way to get the most work done by examining how the work process was actually accomplished and by scrutinizing the skills of the workforce.

The classical scientific school owes its roots to several major contributors, including Frederick Taylor, Henry Gantt, and Frank and Lillian Gilbreth. Frederick Taylor often called the “father of scientific management.” Taylor believed that organizations should study tasks and develop precise procedures. As an example, in 1898, Taylor calculated how much iron from rail cars Bethlehem Steel plant workers could be unloading if they were using the correct movements, tools, and steps. The result was an amazing 47.5 tons per day instead of the mere 12.5 tons each worker had been averaging. In addition, by redesigning the shovels the workers used, Taylor was able to increase the length of work time and therefore decrease the number of people shoveling from 500 to 140. Lastly, he developed an incentive system that paid workers more money for meeting the new standard. Productivity at Bethlehem Steel shot up overnight. As a result, many theorists followed Taylor’s philosophy when developing their own principles of management. Taylor devised four principles for scientific management theory, which were: 1. The development of a true science of management, 2. The scientific selection and training of workers, 3. Proper remuneration for fast and high-quality work 4. Equal division of work and responsibility between worker and manager

School of Human Relations

Elton Mayo founded the Human Relations Movement. Experiments undertaken by Mayo took place at the Hawthorne plant in the USA during the 1930s. His work illustrated that if the company or managers took an interest in employees and cared for them, it had a positive effect on their motivation. When managers took a greater interest in employees they felt more valued and empowered. His work also showed that employees often work best in teams. He also showed that they were more motivated if they were managed and consulted more. Managers have responsibility for motivating individuals and their teams. Important elements of this include:

Communicating and explaining the ARM vision, values and strategy to all team members so everyone is working to the same level.

Providing appropriate training and induction for new employees as well as coaching for all in order to develop skills, confidence and self-reliance.

Carrying out one-to-one meetings and employee reviews to assess performance and set personal and team objectives.

Putting in place succession planning for the team and manager roles to ensure long term performance.

Personal development is a key HR strategy at ARM. Regular reviews encourage individuals to reflect upon the contributions that they make whilst providing feedback and support that enables them to develop their professional capability.

System Approach

The major features of the approach to the study of management may be summed up as under:

1. A system consists of inter-related and interdependent parts.

(2) The approach emphasises the study of the various parts in their inter-relationships rather than

in isolation from each other.

(3) The approach brings out the complexity of a real life management problem much more sharply

than any of other approaches.

(4) The approach may be utilised by any of the other approaches.

(5) The approach has been utilised in studying the function of complex organisations and has been

utilised as the base for new kinds of organisation.

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What is Brand Equity?

Brand Equity Defined

Brand equity is a marketing term used to refer to the marketing impact of a given product in association with a brand name. It tries to examine how a given product will perform in the market if it did not have the privilege of that brand name. Therefore, the basis for brand equity and its impact on a business is based on the knowledge of the customer about that product. And yet, brand plays a vital role in helping build that knowledge and awareness, as well as the choices they make based on that knowledge.

Brand equity, then, reinforces the significance of a brand’s value and produce that positive type of recall in the mind of consumers. Marketing research has revealed that brand equity is one of the most important asset to the company.

Three Perspectives of Brand Equity

As an intangible asset, brand equity only gets its meaning out of the perceived quality and associations made by a consumer on a given product. Brand equity can be viewed in three different perspectives:

• Financial: One way to understand the value of brand equity is to calculate the premium that is placed on a product. To further understand, take for example two types of products: one that is of a recognized brand, and the other is unrecognized brand. Consumers are willing to pay a bigger amount for the branded product over those which they are unfamiliar with.

• Brand Extensions: When certain products attain a certain level of commercial success, most companies consider extending their line by introducing newer products under their brand. Because of the existing brand awareness, these companies will no longer invest on large advertising expenditures just to make that newly introduced product known.

• Consumer-based: The trust and attitude exhibited by a customer towards a given product is impacted by the associations they make with that brand. Oftentimes, these associations are a product of their own experience with using the brand. Therefore, actual experience plays a crucial role in the marketing strategy, especially in a developing brand.

Benefits of a Strong Brand Equity

Not all brand equity is positive, therefore most companies invest on building a strong brand equity. After all, it offers several benefits to the company. Below are just some of the helpful benefits that a company can derive of a good brand equity:

• Establishes a more reliable stream of income.

• By increasing brand equity, companies are also able to increase their profits through increased market share and premium pricing for less promotional costs.

• If you have established a good brand, then you can sell that brand name at a given price.

Managing Brand Equity

There are three stages involved in creating, building, and managing your company’s brand equity. They are outlined below:

1.) Your first step involves the introduction of a product of a given brand into the market. You must establish a certain standard for that brand to be able to launch products in the future that will sell in the market. Your aim here is to produce a positive response from the consumer to build trust among consumers.

2.) Try to produce a brand that is unique and yet memorable. The attitude of your brand must be accessible to consumers and must also provide benefits to satisfy its users.

3.) Consistency is the key. Your message must be synchronized with your company’s overall image and reinforce the value espoused by your organization. This is one of the most effective ways to build a strong brand equity.

– – – Positioned.me : Planning, Strategy, Results

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The Significance of Logo in Branding Strategy

Creating Company Logo

In addition to creating a unique name, designing your own distinct logo is another effective branding strategy that every business owner can employ. Aside from the name, having a logo to attach to that image reinforces the potential power that your brand has in the market. As a factor that compels customers to pick your brand out of other competing businesses, this is something that every businessman need not take lightly.

Visual recognition is the main purpose of a business or brand logo. Therefore, you need to produce a logo design that would easily stand out and be recognized. There are two steps involved in the process of creating a logo: first is conceptualization and then execution.

The conceptualization part is where you extract ideas from the message that you want your brand to convey to the consumers. Then, the execution part is where you produce creative ideas that will make tangible that concept you have for your brand. The execution part is the most vital part in this process because a good concept could still fail if not executed properly. Here is also where you should decide on the color or styles used in the logo.

Significance of a Logo

Logos are an integral part of a company’s branding strategy mainly because it is a visual representation of the company. For instance, companies create simple yet elegant designs to produce the idea of stability and trust. Meanwhile, other companies create an interactive and complex design to showcase the different features of the company.

Going back to the creation process of a logo, the information that you want to reveal about the company and its product will serve as basis for the creation of the concept for your logo. The same goes with how you utilize the design to showcase those information. There are different methods done to achieve this but you can perform some brainstorming to get the ideas out.

Logo as a Branding Strategy

The company logo is the most important part in the creation of company image. It can be used as a trademark for the company to represent its existence and identity in the market. As compared to most advertising campaigns, a successful logo is one that is able to stay in the memory of the customers at a longer time and be able to appeal to their attention. This is crucial whenever you have several other similar businesses trying to achieve the same.

If you have decided on a final design for your company logo, then you can utilize that on various mediums such as websites, billiards, ad spaces, business cards, promotional items, and many more. If you did a successful job on the creation alone, the presence of the logo itself will serve as a reminder to people about your company and what type of business you do.

Protecting Your Logo

Since the logo is now a representation or visual image of your company, you must do your best to safeguard it and protect your company’s reputation in the market. If possible, you must patent your logo once you have decided on using it. Since you have invest much on it, you have to ensure that it is solely the property of your company. This applies not just for large-scale companies, but even for small ones as well.

Also, when you are working with somebody else in designing the logo, such as a logo design firm, opt only for those legitimate ones. This would help possible cases of infringement or to protect the reputation of your own company. After all, the main essence behind creating a logo as a branding strategy is to create your business identity.

– – – Positioned.me : Planning, Strategy, Results

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The Art of Internet Branding

What is Internet Branding?

Internet branding is one strategy that business owners can employ to establishing their position in the marketplace. Even well-established companies are investing on creating an online brand reputation since internet branding strategies have also produced massive impact on a brand’s effort to expand. This is most important these days wherein the internet has taken on a significant role in the everyday lives of the consumers. Hence, you need to utilize it as one of the means that you can communicate your message to them.

With internet branding, you are basically utilizing the tools provided by the internet as a leverage to all your marketing efforts. The objective with using the internet as a medium for promoting your brand works the same way as any other branding methods, which is to increase the demand for the products in your brand.

Importance of Internet Branding

Every business owner is aware of the benefits that a good brand can make for your company. Since the brand is basically what distinguishes you from any other companies that offer the same product or service, you must execute your branding strategies properly to produce the results you want. Take a look at some successful brands in the industry, who have become so distinct to the point wherein their names have been associated with a certain product. This is what business owners must try to aim for.

In business terms, this is referred to as brand positioning. It establishes the main locus of your product to the target market. Therefore, you will be utilizing the specific features that makes your product distinct from the other and use that as a focus of your message in the internet branding effort. Indeed, product differentiation and product positioning are closely linked to one another. These are two basic ploys that you can utilize in your internet branding strategies to “own” a segment of the market and produce a loyal customer base from that.

Is It Worth Investing In?

Several companies and brands have worked so hard on establishing their brand and yet they fail to look into the possibilities of producing an online brand. Hence, they lose that advantage to other brands who worked on appealing to the consumers and making their offer known.

However, if you opt to embark on an internet branding strategy, you must not also neglect the positive value or message that you are trying to impart with regards to your company. To sum it up, a good internet branding strategy is worth your investment. So, don’t just go right into an online campaign for your brand. It must be something that is a product of your thorough evaluation and planning.

What About Small Businesses?

Despite the large impact of the online industry in people’s lives these days, it is only projected to grow in the years to come. Hence, this makes the internet an even more reliable avenue to expand their marketing efforts. The best thing about the internet is that it provides an even playing field for big- and small-time businesses to promote their brand. Even new businesses can utilize the internet as a means to position their brand and make their existence known in the market. So, it’s no longer new these days to have new products or brands introduced online as it is one of the fastest growing industries today.

And yet, the benefits of offering your products and brand to a larger market is beneficial for small time businesses since potential buyers can focus only on the quality of service and performance. By maintaining the value and continually differentiating your product, then internet branding will offer several potential benefits for your business.

– – – Positioned.me : Planning, Strategy, Results

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Managing and Reviewing Your Business Brand

Effective establishment and management of your business brand is as equally difficult as creating one. Indeed, one’s you have created a standard and built your own company’s reputation, then you would have to constantly live up to that standard and avoid under-delivering. In the business industry, a failure for your company can produce manifold consequences and if you want to protect the brand you worked so hard on building, then you need to continually check on every aspect of it.

Managing Your Business Brand

If possible, assign a person who will continually look into the management of your company’s brand strategy. After all, it is a vital aspect of your business that you need to protect if you want to maintain whatever market success your business is currently enjoying. If not, then you can educate your employees or staffs on exactly what are the missions and objectives of your company brand. This knowledge will help them become aware of their role in producing and meeting customer’s standards for your business.

If you are aiming for a certain standard, having all members of your crew working towards the same goal and at the same pace will enrich all your efforts for an effective branding strategy. For a more effective management scheme, ask for suggestions on their end as well. You can get valuable input directly from the people who are involved in the process of creating or delivering products and services. Having their inputs will enable you to assess what other aspects of your business need improving and you can maintain the level of your business’ performance.

Value of Feedback

If you want a substantial feedback, then you can get it directly from the people who avail of your products and services – the customers. As them for feedbacks on your brand to determine whether you are delivering the quality of standards you have set and they expect from you. If there are any dissatisfied customers, ask them for feedback on how you can improve the quality of your product or service. Your customer is probably your best source of honest criticism and should also provide you with a concrete idea on where you must improve.

Reviewing Your Brand

Successful brands are those that remain consistent with the needs of its consumers. Therefore, it is your duty to constantly review your brand and its performance to know whether you are meeting these standards. As times evolve, the needs of your customer changes as well. In fact, your customer base might change because of that. So, you need to adjust your branding strategy in accordance with changes in market demands and needs.

Even the most established brands change their marketing approach and branding strategy to stay attuned to the changing business trends in the market. Reviewing your brand must be something that you need to perform periodically; hence, you are always aware of any ongoing trends.

Importance of Reviewing Business Brand

The reviewing process involved in your business’ branding strategy offer several beneficial opportunities for your business and its expansion. Here are just some of them:

• It is a good indicator of areas in the business that you can improve on or potentially expand.

• Be careful when trying to stretch or expand your products because it might end up similar to some other existing products. Better yet, reconsider the possibility of creating a new product instead.

• It will provide an avenue for more inputs and suggestions from inside or outside of your institution.

• It enables you to validate your company’s core values and how your products or services remain consistent with that.

• Periodical assessment of your business brand enables you to keep up with changing business trends and market demands.

– – – Positioned.me : Planning, Strategy, Results

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Increasing Brand Recognition For Improved Sales

About Brand Recognition

In any form of marketing strategy, brand recognition is usually the initial focus. Business owners employ varying tactics to increase familiarity on their brand wherein the ultimate aim is to create awareness about the existence of a given product or service. This process will then produce a domino effect and impacts people trust of the product and their decision on whether to purchase it or not.

Brand recognition can be achieved through various means though. Which is a good thing for business owners because this means they do not have to allot large amounts of money in order to get their brand recognized in the market. Awareness is of the essential in all efforts for brand recognition. All other steps needed to be taken after that must be looked at a different aspect, but this one serve its own purpose.

Importance of Brand Recognition

The reason might seem obvious but brand recognition offers multiple benefits for your business. It is capable of impacting other aspects of your business, hence this is a crucial determiner for success. Some experts have claimed that brand recognition is the most important factor that could spell a business’ success potential.

However, the main importance of brand recognition is to establish a mental connection between your business and its potential customers. Therefore, when your prospects hear about your company or its name, they will be able to produce a general idea of what products and services your business is offering.

With several similar business available, creating a distinction for your name in a given field of business will encourage more people to do business with you. You also need to consider the psychological aspect of it. Studies have revealed that people tend to go for a name that they know or recognize. So, this is a helpful stat that you need to take advantage of.

How To Increase Visibility?

If you’ve been working on a business startup, then chances are you already know the importance of brand recognition and its role in the success of your business. But the bigger question remains: how do you do it? Traditional marketing efforts for most company involves major expenditures being set aside for increasing media presence such as advertisement, to increase awareness of the product and create a connection between consumers.

Today, there are a lot more avenue for that, in fact more interactive ones. Aside from the traditional media outlets, the internet has opened up several possibilities to enable a business to establish its name and potentially grow. Therefore, companies have also worked on increasing their web presence to expand their market reach.

Studies have shown that most web surfers begin with a search. Therefore, it is best to optimize your web site in such a way that it ranks well in the search engines. In short, you have to make efforts to make your website easily found by potential web researchers. That is why several companies invest in search engine optimization to improve their performance and marketing strategies on the web.

Producing Strong Brands

The impact of brand recognition extends beyond purely marketing but also appeals to the emotion of the consumers. In order to produce a strong brand that has established itself on the industry, you must be able to purge favorable emotions from your customers. It is one thing that largely impacts a consumer’s buying decision, so it pays to invest in an effective brand recognition strategy.

The good thing about brand recognition is that it is not limited to giant companies. It also offers substantial benefits for even small-scale businesses. As the the cliché goes, familiarity breeds comfort. And when people have increased familiarity or brand recognition, then they are most likely to feel confident about using your products.

– – – Positioned.me : Planning, Strategy, Results

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Increased Brand Credibility Means Increased Sales

What is Brand Credibility?

Brand credibility is often pointed out by marketing experts as one psychological factor that could trigger the buying impulse of consumers. However, just like with any type of triggers, it can produce a positive or negative effect. In this case, it refers to your brand’s reputation and its ability (or inability) to convert that into sales.

As a business owner, you must try to change your perspective into that of the consumers. Try to understand how you would perceive various companies and how it affects your buying decisions. Most often, consumers would opt for those companies that are deemed to be experts in their respective industries.

Other factors that affect your buying patterns would include longevity, which covers the years that a company has been in existence. This reflects their mass appeal and quality of their service or product given that it has been patronized by a certain demographic and for that given period. This is what credibility in branding is about: the perception that people have of your business or company.

Establishing Credibility

Now that you understand what brand credibility is, you must face the harder question: how do you establish it? This is even more difficult for business newcomers or business startups because there is a lot of work to be done. Aside from that, you need to continually nourish it so as to be able to maintain that credibility that you have built up for your business.

Credibility is the heart of every business. Even though you offer quality products or services, if your customers perceive your company as incapable of delivering such level of quality, then it would be of no use. It would not be able to confirm your business as a reliable choice among several possible competing choices in the market.

To produce brand credibility, you need to meet the following categories:

• Non-verbal such as your logo or image,

• Verbal efforts through marketing or advertising,

• Mission and Vision of the business to exemplify your organization’s values,

• and, Internal operations that is crucial in delivering your promises to the customer.

Following are tips on how you can build credibility towards success.

Customer Perceptions

You establish this initially by doing business that satisfies your customer. When you make advertisement claims about your product or service, you need to meet or exceed their expectation standards to be able to build that positive perception about your company. First impressions always last, so you need to make a good first impression if you want to increase market share.

Highlight Business Competence

Regardless of what product or service you are offering, you must demonstrate your expertise in that given field. Show data and statistics that serve as proof to what your company is capable of delivering. That is why most companies or websites advertise with testimonials to prove the results of using their product. When consumers see actual results, it extends from your products to your overall company image.

Consistency

As already mentioned above, establishing credibility is not a one-time process. Instead, you must also work on maintaining and enhancing it. After all, one mistake could easily trump the reputation you have built. Consistency then becomes of utmost importance in your business. It must be aligned with all processes involved in your business operations, from advertising, to the marketing, and production.

If you want to attain a certain level of standard, it must be true for all levels of business operation since this will serve to back up your integrity. Learn to follow the essentials of building and establishing brand credibility for it is one important aspect in achieving longevity.

– – – Positioned.me : Planning, Strategy, Results

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Importance of Branding Your Business

What is a Brand?

Branding your business is an essential step that any business owner need to take, whether yours is a small- or big-time business. In fact, it is something that must be looked into during the phase of business planning.

A brand is basically a name or a logo that will be used in advertising campaigns to represent your company or business. This will be used when printing out your business cards or when referring to your company. Hence, deciding on a brand must be undertaken with much consideration and thought. To sum it up, a brand details who you are, what you do, and how you do it.

Importance of Branding

There are several aspects that involve branding businesses. Each has its own importance and impact on attaining your business goals. This is a step that every beginning businessman needs to educate him or herself about because it will determine the company’s performance in the future.

Here are reasons as to why business branding must be given careful thought:

Creating Business Identity

When you use a business idea to start your own business venture, chances are there are already some other existing businesses with the same nature as yours. Therefore, you need to create a brand for your business that will differentiate you from your competitors.

So when deciding on a brand name or logo for your company, you need to think of creative ways that will help make your business be easily remembered by potential customers. Distinction is a vital part of every business venture and when people find that you have something unique to offer that lets you stand out from competing businesses, then you are one step closer to your business goals.

Once you have created your company brand, then that is when you need to look into delivering quality product or service that your brand will be perceived as. That takes you now to the next essential aspect involved with branding, which is marketing.

Marketing and Advertising Campaign

Branding also impacts the sales force of your product. If you are able to create a brand name that people will easily remember and recognize for your outstanding products, then it helps create an efficient branding system for your company.

The first step for a successful business is taking the time to let people know who you are, what you do, and the means at which you do it. Properly communicating your company’s vision through your brand is an essential stage of any business branding effort. Having established an effective company brand will also create awareness of the product you are promoting.

So, when people hear your brand, then they would easily think of your products or services and your company’s reputation.

– – – Positioned.me : Planning, Strategy, Results

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Impact of Internal Branding In Your Marketing Efforts

About Internal Branding

Most companies focus entirely on promoting their brand to create a positive perception on the consumer’s brand that internal branding loses its share of the formula. An important share, at that. Marketing efforts are executed to establish a high-quality brand that delivers to the needs and demands of the consumers. But how do you ensure that you are delivering up to the standards of your company? This is where internal branding comes into play.

To attain good quality products and services for your brand, you need to take care of your business’ internal processes first. Internal branding is about the focus you give on ensuring that practices and methods utilized in the creation of products or services meet your company’s set of values. Branding must be done inside and out. You need to be able to reproduce these values in the mind of everyone who is a part of the organization so you can naturally promote your brand.

How Do You Achieve It?

You cannot produce a good marketing message to the public unless you start from within. That is something every business owner need to realize. Therefore, you need to learn strategies as to how you can effectively execute a sound internal branding system to ensure a cohesive take on developing a brand that will satisfy your potential customers.

Here’s how you can do it:

• Gather together all of your development team work together in the development and creation of the brand to ensure that all methods are synchronized with your values and set of objectives laid out by the company.

• When hiring employees to work with you, choose those that are aligned with the corporate values of your company. Having the right set of skills will enable you to achieve the most effective brand representation you desire.

• Keep internal communication lines open at all times. This will enable you to reinforce and enhance whatever existing values that are being executed to meet the promise of your brand. If you keep nurturing this in the mind of the employees, then they will be able to develop that soon enough.

Benefits of Internal Branding

Aside from unity in your company’s vision towards what you want to achieve with your brand, internal branding offers more benefits. If you are not aware of the potential benefits that internal branding offers, these are just a few ways that it can help boost your brand’s campaign:

• Internal branding produces a healthy working environment and cohesive working culture. Once all employees understand the vision behind the brand, all components of the company are now geared towards the same goals.

• Internal branding produces a more consistent branding message. Once your brand have established a given brand reputation, your employees will be proud to represent your company while at the same time be challenged to meet its set of standards.

• Internal branding serves as an avenue to push for change.

• Internal branding develops your brand identity.

Basic Principles

If you want to create an effective internal branding system, every company must give attention to the following set of principles:

1.) Give freedom not control. An effective internal branding management is one that emphasizes a set of rules that are agreed on by the employees, so they could genuinely contribute to the advancement of your brand.

2.) Decentralize. Learn how to trust your employees to deliver the quality your brand deserves.

3.) Communicate your company’s message to the personnel first before the customers. How do you expect your employees to deliver the type of standard you want to achieve if they do not have proper understanding of the company’s objectives?

4.) Synchronized operation. You need to be able to pull together different departments of the company so that everyone works at the same pace and perspective.

5.) Think long-term goals. No brand is created overnight. Therefore, you need to create that mindset in your personnel that enables them to think of the long-term impacts and effects of an effective internal branding system.

– – – Positioned.me : Planning, Strategy, Results

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How Can You Measure A Brand?

Measuring a Brand

Every business involves its own share of tangible and intangible assets, but brand is one of the most basic areas that business owners focus on. In a recent marketing research, it was revealed that brand equity played a vital role in determining its market value. Therefore, measuring a brand is one of the first steps undertaken by the head of the company if they wish to incur higher revenues.

How To Measure?

There are several elements involved in trying to measure a brand and its market value. All these factors intersect with one another such that they impact one another in evaluating the importance of a given brand and its value in the market. There are several variables involved such as whether you are weighing more importance on pricing or is more interested in enlarging your share of the market. That is something that you need to figure out amongst your organization first. Then, you can take into account the following brand value measures to reach your desired goals.

Price Premium

You need to evaluate your own brand and put yourself in the mindset of the consumers. How much are you willing to pay for that brand? Most recognized brands typically place higher premiums on their product as compared to other similar products from unknown brands. There are several marketing aspects to consider here but you can establish your brand by trying to lower your price to get a bigger share of the market. You have to conduct a thorough market research though before you come up with any decisions, so you have a basis for your evaluation.

Customer Satisfaction

To come up with a tangible data about this, you might have to conduct a survey. This will enable you to track down goods or services that appeal most to consumers. You can also take note whether there are any repeat purchases. This will enable you to effectively measure your brand’s value in the market.

Perceived Quality

Based on the level of satisfaction and benefits derived from the use of the product, consumers will have their varying perceptions when it comes to the quality of a given product. But even this one entails several variables such as consistency of delivering quality products or its performance in comparison to competition.

Perceived Value

There are two ways to look into this one: in terms of money and benefits. However, these two are interlaced. Meaning, consumers determine the value of a product for its money based on whether it delivers the kind of benefits that the product promised and the consumers expect from it.

Organization’s Reputation

Even though it is not directly concerned with the product that a customer is in the process of buying, the reputation of the company behind the product impacts their buying choices. Is it a credible organization? Is it something that I can trust? Building that reputation comes in part of a business’ effort to build a strong brand.

Awareness

To achieve this, most businesses often work on establishing brand recognition. Brand recall oftentimes lead to purchases since most buyers opt to buy something that is familiar to them, as opposed to an unknown product or brand. You need to work on protecting your brand though as a few mistake can destroy the brand that you have built.

Establishing a value for your brand proves to be difficult and a lot of hard work. And yet, money is only a meager factor in the entire formula. Only when a brand has established itself well enough such that consumers are willing to pay for it, regardless of the price, does it achieve its true value as a brand.

– – – Positioned.me : Planning, Strategy, Results

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Expanding Your Business Branding Online

Promoting business branding online is similar and yet different from typical marketing strategies. Therefore, you have to make unique approach to this method of promoting your business brand. And yet, the benefits of using web tools in making your brand distinct includes the ability to maximize your business efforts and expanding your business’ reach. After all, it only makes sense to extend your branding efforts to the internet given the fact that most people nowadays use the internet as their source of daily information.

There are five major areas that you need to address when developing a strong business brand online.

URL Address

This is a crucial determiner for web browsers. Therefore, you must be able to produce a sense of identity for your website and provide a glimpse into your company even before they get the opportunity to see what your website is really about.

Keywords

The keywords are essential to help search engines connect you to the proper audience. Use keywords that are related to the nature of your website, so that it can be easily detected when people run a search on the internet. Try to be creative in coming up with keywords to use, especially those queries not directly related but associated to your business.

Website

This is where you get to showcase your company’s vision and your offer of quality products or services. Therefore, you must create a website that speaks for your brand. There are several ways to do that, which includes the content, style, design, and color. You must also incorporate your company logo in the design of the website, to enhance the level of trust and confidence on the consumers to your website. Therefore, you must refrain from compromising the substance of your website for style. A website is just another form of marketing strategy and its objective is to communicate your company’s message.

Weblog

Your blog is basically where you focus on producing quality content. This will help establish your company’s brand as something that is of authority to sell a given service or product. There are several spammers that infiltrate the online community, so you have to separate yourself from them. You can do this by remaining consistent with your vision and highlighting your focus on producing a quality brand.

Social Profiles

There are several social networking sites online such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, among others. When you join any one of these social sites, always include your company signature or brand representative such as a logo. This will help visitors to easily remember your company and be on top of their list.

Business Branding Online Do’s and Dont’s

• Utilizing social network sites that you are interested in as an avenue to promote your brand online is beneficial for your business. Here, you can make connections and expand the reach of your brand. Getting more people into your page will produce major brand building traffic into your site.

• Just write useful and quality content on your site. When people begin to realize the importance of your site’s content, it will eventually impact your performance on search engines.

• Try to offer advice or solution to the needs of the people. But refrain from spamming since it would basically ruin your business’ reputation.

Business branding online has expanded the reach of your branding efforts to produce a more promising growth for your company.

– – – Positioned.me : Planning, Strategy, Results

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Essential Tips for Effective Business Branding

When a businessman embark on a new business venture, they readily go processing ideas on complicated marketing strategies and other ways of promoting their business but none of their efforts are dedicated to business branding. Indeed, with so much factors coming into play, it is easy to miss out on the most essential and basic aspect. But that is just one half of it, since the other half is dedicated into ensuring that you can build an effective brand that will produce results for your marketing efforts.

But the key to an effective branding strategy is to be able to deliver. You must be able to back up your claims and produce exactly as you say. Majority of your business sales and profits come from repeat customers, after all. An effective business branding system involves the following:

Customer Satisfaction

Brand is just a mere representation of your company. Therefore, it must reflect exactly what your business can deliver for the customers and build its reputation from there. If you cannot produce quality product or services, then regardless of how potent your branding system or strategies are, you’d never be able to turn your marketing campaigns into a sales force.

Therefore, you need to be as sensitive to your customers’ needs as possible. But only to a certain extent that you still hold control over the image and reputation that you want your brand to exhibit.

Indeed, brand equity is a vital aspect in every business, especially consumer-based equity. It reflects the level of trust and attitude that a customer has towards a product associated with a given brand. This is impacted by the actual experience that a consumer has had with the product such that brand loyalty is affected by factors such as perceived quality and the delivery of the product.

Consistency

One of the most effective ways to build trust amongst your customers is to be consistent with the message you are trying to convey. Consistency is most important when exhibiting the values that are key and vital in your company. Then, focus on every aspect of your business to ensure that it remains consistent with the values professed by your company and that they make a good representation of the company’s vision.

Expanding Your Brand

Creating a brand for your company is not only limited to the creation of a logo. While it is essential, your work does not stop there. After all, a logo is just a representation of your professional image but there are several factors in between that would help translate them into sales. You do not even have to spend lots of money to fulfill them. In every form of communication that you use in your business transactions, include your company logo in it, whether you’d be using business cards, yellow page ads, newsletters, letterhead, invoices, envelopes, and many more. Your logo is of no use unless you are able to capitalize on it and make it do its work for you.

Managing Your Brand

As market trends continue to change and evolve, so must your approach at branding strategies. While you set your own company’s branding standards, you also need to look into exceeding those promises you’ve set and this is one of the most effective ways to generate more customers. On the other end, one failure could eventually ruin your business’ reputation on a long haul.

If you see any opportunity where changes can be done or improvements can be executed, then don’t be afraid to execute them. This is one way for your business to stay on top of things and keep up with changing trends in the market for an effective business branding effort.

– – – Positioned.me : Planning, Strategy, Results

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