For a long time, products and services themselves were sufficient. But today, the rise of competition has fundamentally altered the marketplace. As innumerable products and services vie for our attention and our custom, novel experiences have emerged as one of the primary ways for brands to differentiate themselves. If your brand can be part of a sensual or emotional experience, you may be able to create a significant point of differentiation in the mind of your customers.
Read moreCreating A New Order: Differentiate A Brand By Creating A Ritual
Is there a brand of cookie you eat a certain way? If you remove one side of a chocolate sandwich cookie and eat the creamy center before you munch on the delicious, crunchy exterior, advertising may have taught you how. Beauty brands also create rituals: from bronzer to beard oil, concealer to cologne, these companies create products that become part of our daily routines. What ritual can you create for your brand? Will doing things in a new way help your customers? Can your products find a way into our daily habits? Will creating a new habit differentiate your brand from your competitors?
Read moreTell Me A Story: Differentiate a Brand with Narrative
Every brand and every product has a story. For some, this story provides a wonderful way to differentiate a brand. When a brand comes from a long tradition or has evolved over many decades, the brand story can take on a life of its own. But newer brands have stories too. The unique way that products are made or designed can separate one product from another in profound ways. People love stories; brands that provide them can capture a unique place in the mind.
Let’s Get Personal… Differentiate a Brand by Adding a Personality
Does your reputation preceded you? Do people turn to look when you enter a room? You may be able to differentiate your brand by becoming its public face. People have a hard time connecting with corporations, but they can, and do, feel connected to the real people that lead those businesses. Even a fictional personality can make a brand more accessible and less abstract in the mind. A personal approach to brand differentiation can make it easier for consumers to relate to what you sell, and can create a clear point of differentiation between your company and all the rest.
Read moreThere's Nothing Like Style: Differentiate a Brand by Creating an Aesthetic
Most brands create at least some amount of aesthetic. The logo and brand identity demonstrate a point of view that can be hip or serious or fun — it provides a glimpse into the psychological position that the brand is attempting to develop. But many companies take this much further. Small businesses can do the same. When an entrepreneur goes out of her way to develop a unique aesthetic, the brand is more easily remembered.
Read moreUnited By A Single Purpose: Differentiate A Brand By Creating A Community
Building a brand community is one of the most effective and influential ways to spread the message of your organization. By creating an identity for your customers you can create a sense of belonging. Groups give us identity and a goal — two powerful motivators. When you harness these psychological dynamics, you can energize your customer base and inspire deep loyalty. Today we'll take a look a the three critical steps entrepreneurs must take in order to build a brand community.
Read moreThe Value of A Customer: define a brand based on the average sale
Your prices are a part of your brand communications. When customers see a high price tag they receive a message, “This is worth more than other products of this type.” But a question immediately follows: “Is it worth what they’re charging?” We expect high prices to reflect the real worth of an offering, and we are often willing to spend more — but only if we know that we will receive more. Every aspect of the customer experience justifies the price tag. Any missteps shatter this perception. The price you charge and the experience you provide must be clearly defined as you develop your brand.
Read moreHarder, Better, Faster, Stronger: Define a Brand by Improving an Existing Offering
New brands can develop when an entrepreneur takes an existing product or service and adds features that are completely new. These characteristics can easily define a brand. As we've already seen with automobiles, a singular focus on a set of features can define a company and its products.
Read moreNothing Replaces Relationship: Define a Brand by Developing Unique Relationships
The kind of relationships you create with your customers can be a way to define your business. If long-term relationships are the key to your profitability, that part of your offering must also be clearly communicated in your brand.
Read moreLeave the Rest Behind: Define a Brand in Relationship to the Competition
How you position your business is partly the result of the kind of business you want to open, but it’s also related to the market you choose to enter. Blank page entrepreneurs must employ the skill of prediction — they must to be able to peer into the future and look carefully at the present in order to choose how to present their offering and their brand. Your brand must find a niche that meets an existing need but neither copies existing businesses nor injects itself where it’s not needed.
Read moreAn Offer You Can’t Refuse: Define a Brand from a Unique Offering
Products work the same way. You can offer footwear for athletes who will wear out a pair on the court or collectors who won't wear them at all. You can create custom tailored jeans for a single individual or manufacture jeans in massive quantities for wide distribution. The products may be very similar, but the psychological needs of each audience are completely different, and the offering reflects that.
Read moreEngage the Mind: Creating Cognitive Value
We are creatures of curiosity. We want to know, to learn and to figure out. Entrepreneurs who satisfy our desire for knowledge can create new and wonderful offerings that create deep relationships with their customers., engaging them in new ways while securing a focused, attentive audience. In addition, those entrepreneurs who provide information can be seen as more trustworthy, more knowledgeable and more proficient. If your business offers useful tips, describes novel uses for your products or creates opportunities for people to engage their minds, you further differentiate yourself from your competition.
Read morePhysical Pleasure: Creating Value From Physical Sensation
Every human physical experience has been elevated through entrepreneurial effort. Everything we eat and drink — from filet mignon to water — has been transformed by intentionally engaging the senses. Our homes have become retreats for rest and rejuvenation. We sleep in more comfortable surroundings than at any time in history. Bathing has become a way to refresh the spirit and cleanse the body. Even the treatments we employ to recuperate from illness have benefited from the addition of appeals to our senses. We understand the world through our senses, so it makes sense that entrepreneurs would utilize these approaches to deeply engage customers with the offering and improve the brand. How can your brand encourage a deeper sensory connection?
Read moreTime, Money, Labor, Stress: Creating Value With Conservation
A small business that creates value through conservation can attract a wide audience and form new consumer habits, developing a dedicated customer base in the process. What can your business do to create value through conservation? What processes can be automated? What products can be delivered or replenished automatically? What needs do your customers have that are not being met? With a little creativity, your business can differentiate itself by using the skill of empathy to free customers from chores, save them money or decrease demands on their time.
Read moreBeauty for Every Beholder: Creating Aesthetic Value
Creating aesthetic value can be difficult – every individual has their own interpretation of what is beautiful and what isn’t. Large corporations frequently have to develop a series of the same product in order to please a wide range of customer tastes. Mass market products simply can’t be tailored to the individual tastes of each customer.
People want to live in a beautiful world, and many are willing to pay top dollar for aesthetic appeal. Small business owners should examine the aesthetic component of their products and services to see if they can find a way to differentiate their beautiful business from the rest of the pack.
Read moreBeyond the Velvet Rope: Creating Value for a Select Group
We want to feel special. We want to belong. Entrepreneurs of all stripes have used this knowledge to create high value options for products and services. From first-class accommodations to red carpet runways, we celebrate those who want to engage with our brands on a deeper level. We create VIP programs and encourage customers to take steps that move them to ever-higher levels of status. One benefit to this approach is the development of habit — when you've asked a customer to work for the privilege of attaining special status, your brand becomes far more deeply ingrained in her mind.
Read moreCreate Emotional Value: Make Customers Feel the Way They Want To Feel
We value emotion. Most of the choices we make are based on how we feel. When an entrepreneur recognizes the need to feel a certain way about a certain thing, she can use that understanding to guide the development of her products and services. How do your customers want to feel? What feelings do they have that they don’t want? This kind of psychological investigation can create a valuable business.
Read moreHow To Create Unique Value: Make An Offer No One Else Can Make
Today, almost everything can be bought anywhere at any time. But if you can find a way to make your products or services unique you will be able to create value in the mind that will appeal to a specific audience. Even the oldest of product and service categories, like produce or news media, can be altered in a way that separates it from the rest of the marketplace. In a world saturated with offerings, it's the one-of-a-kind that will attract consumers' attention.
Read moreIf You Just Believe... A Strong Brand Gives Us Faith
Although there are hundreds of reasons why a product may not work or a service may not meet our expectations, we generally don’t care about the details — we simply transfer our dissatisfaction to the brand itself and find a replacement somewhere else. A strong brand benefits consumers with the reassurance that these kinds of problems will not occur or that, if they do occur, they will be rectified quickly and painlessly.
Read moreYou Don't Have to be Afraid... A Strong Brand Allays Our Fears
Even a small purchase carries some risk. Will I like the flavor? How will it look after its washed? But if I make a purchase from a company that I already trust, I'm far less likely to worry. Building a strong brand alleviates fear and makes it easier to try new things.
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