• Align the personality, education, and experience of an organization’s management team with the promise of the brand.
• Properly position the business strategy to attract capital
• Present a realistic and thorough business plan

CEO Branding
A critical attribute of the brand that interests those investing money into a firm is the CEO and executive management team. A CEO is always linked to the organization they represent. What a CEO and management team says or does has a huge impact on the brand. However, for the brand to be successful, it must be bigger than the CEO. The CEO is the leader and steward of the brand. Be careful the brand is not only the CEO.

Positioning
Compelling brands attract and sustain both consumers and investors. A sound positioning strategy is crucial to managing the brand underlying all consumer and investor communications. An organization’s positioning is what makes them stand out from all others in the marketplace. By clarifying the brand, strong positioning helps raise awareness and strengthen the presentation of the organization’s pitch.

Business plan
The business plan represents the strategic vision of an enterprise. A sound business plan is well-researched, practical, and precise. Investors must read hundreds of business plans to choose the best new venture. Create a plan that is not only strategically sound but also readable, engaging, memorable, and accurately communicates the brand and resultant positioning.

The brand that supports communication with customers and potential customers—the one that makes consumers want to buy from you—is the same brand presented to the investment community when seeking funds. Shareholder communications and brand management are critical to expand and enhance a relationship with the investment community and raise brand awareness amongst consumers.

Consider consumers and investors when developing and implementing branding strategy–logically positioning the enterprise and senior management; strategically positioning the brand; and effectively communicating business strategies. Successful execution of these elements is critical to developing a compelling branding strategy for both consumers and investors—leading to a more visible, credible, and profitable brand.

Positioning research begins with asking;

Who is the audience? Define the audience and talk to them. Interview current and potential clients, survey the marketplace, and segment them to learn more about their needs and wants.

What market gap will the brand fill? Identifying market gaps is an extremely important aspect of positioning research. Brands that fill important market gaps enjoy more success than those who replicate the services of others.

How will the product be delivered? Sometimes the way the product is delivered is more important than the product itself. Research the way the competition interacts with their customers and potential customers. Perhaps a different style of service will set the brand above the competition.

Why buy this brand? What does this brand have to offer that no other brand has? Define the most significant aspect of the brand that sets it apart from the competition. Why a consumer choses to purchase this brand should be the most important of its position.

Positioning research is an extremely important part of the branding process. Properly positioned brands, products, and services enjoy the visibility, credibility, and profitability their competition envies.

For those businesses that have weathered the storm, there is a huge opportunity to capitalize on the evolved marketplace. There are vacancies created by brands going out of business or cutting their offerings. There is always a reason to strive for the top and right now, the timing could not be better.

How does a brand emerge from this recession as a leader?

A strong position. A shifting marketplace makes it a great time to revisit your position. Review the competition, collect information from past, current, and potential customers, and revisit your business strategy. You may find it is necessary to evolve your position to meet the changing needs of your constituents and the marketplace.

A strong branding strategy. Strong branding strategy leads to a strong brand. Review your branding strategy to see if it still fits within the market position you fill. Close communication gaps  and review the visual brand; now is a great time to get noticed.

A strong plan. A strong communications plan provides a guide for the upcoming months. Creating a realistic communications plan and budget will help build brand awareness.

Strong branding strategy and market position lends itself to a more credible, visible, and profitable brand. Emerge from this recession as a leader, become a player in your marketplace, and enjoy the value of an effective brand.

However, the portion of a Web site seen by web users is only half the site. Although the site’s look and feel and content are an extremely important extension of the organization’s branding strategy, properly addressing the invisible portion—or programming of the site’s meta data—is just as critical. The site’s meta data holds all the information that search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and now Bing need to crawl and rank the site. The branding strategy should be just as prevalent here as it is in site’s visible information.

Determine keywords based on branding strategy. It is critical to use words that are searched by users and    accurately represent the brand. Keywords that are programmed into the site’s meta data; including page titles, URLs, and page descriptions, as well as in the site’s content will all aid search engines in locating and displaying the site. Programming the site’s meta data to be harmonious with its design and content will not only make the site more search engine friendly, it will ensure the branding strategy is powerfully articulated on each and every page.

Today, an organization’s first impression on a potential customer is most often through its Web site. It is not uncommon for consumers to research products and services before picking up the phone or traveling to a store. Sound branding strategy will increase visibility, credibility, and profitability. If a company’s Web site does not accurately reflect its branding strategy both in the visible portion as well as the meta data, chances are the site will not be found. Potential customers will never see the value you offer.

Consider the audience and how the product or service will serve its marketplace. In addition, the following tactics can also help define a product or service’s position, ensuring it will adhere to the branding strategy and have an impact on its target audience.

Product Attributes: Sometimes specific product attribute can define a product or service in the marketplace. For instance, the iPhone was introduced as the first smartphone that did not have a number pad.

Benefits: How will the product or service enhance the life of the end user?Keeping with the iPhone example—does it have a longer battery life, is it sleeker or smaller than other phones?

Usage: Every product or service is created to enhance the life of the user. Specifically; how, when, and why is the product to be used. The iPhone combines an mp3 player with a smart phone which can be used for business and recreation.

Users: Identifying the targeted users not only contributes to a product or service’s position, it also helps distinguish the audiences to which the product will be marketed. The iPhone could be marketed to business people, college kids, or anyone who has a mobile lifestyle.

Against a Competitor: Positioning directly against a competitor makes users compare your product to another similar product or market leader. Because of its exclusivity deal with iPhone, AT&T was able to position itself against other wireless carriers.

Away from a Competitor: Though a product or service might be similar to the competition, positioning it away from a competitor distinguishes its features.

Product Classes: Labeling a product or service within a category of other similar ones helps the target audience understand the product by association. The iPhone conveniently fit into many product classes—smart phone, mp3 player, and innovative being a few.

A thorough understanding of the brand, the target audience, and the marketplace combined with strategic use of one or more of the tactics above will lead to more effective results.

The Obama administration has insisted GM remake itself into a company of fuel efficiency, a friend of the environment, and a producer of quality products. Now in bankruptcy, they’ll eventually emerge with new financing and equity structures, new union contracts and government guarantees, less workers, less dealers, and less models. That could be the easy work.

Now, GM will have to convince the American consumer that they really are a new and different company. Not the company of trucks, SUVs, and large cars.

America has evolved and will continue to evolve.

The made in America label only goes so far. With new generations it carries less and less weight. Americans enjoy the right to buy what they want. Loyalty to a mismanaged colossus producing products misaligned with consumer demand will take a long time to develop.

Though they are in the midst of a predicament, GM’s senior management needs to get to work on the new brand. What will they promise to their marketplace? Will they be able to deliver it? This time there won’t be a second chance. Call it cultural or attitude, the new brand needs to be established and the employees have to buy into it with fervor. Then the consumer needs to come around and buy GM vehicles. Only then will GM have a chance of making it.

Repositioning. A solar energy firm announced it was repositioning itself. Does that mean they have decided their claim of distinction within their market place is no longer effective and they have found a new and better place to drive their stake? The language on their home page had not changed. It turns out, they were bringing forth a new tag line and ad campaign. Perhaps they were changing how they communicate their position.

We see the terms “branding” and “positioning” used with little regard for their true definition. Unless used correctly to announce a paradigm shift, rebranding/repositioning announcements often send confusing messages to constituents because these organizations are not making the transformative changes of a true rebranding. They are simply exploring new tactics to communicate their brand to the evolving marketplace and gain renewed interest.

To truly reposition your company would be akin to Volvo abandoning their claim of safety and staking a claim to manufacture sleek, fast cars. Or IKEA selling high-end, overpriced home furnishings. Repositioning is much bigger than a campaign—it’s a brand shift. Perhaps its the inherent trait of marketers to make things appear bigger than they are, but it is certainly not something to be taken lightly.

The two most important principals of benefit-driven marketing are to give your product a customer-friendly name and speak about your product in your customer’s language.

Who wants to buy a XE750?
First of all, what is an XE750? Is it a car; an all-in-one printer, faxer, scanner; a pacemaker; an MP3 player? Giving your product an ambiguous name makes it hard for your customers to identify its purpose, never mind see the benefit in owning it. Giving the product an obvious name will not only help clients understand it, it will make it easier to buy, more inviting to own, and easier to talk about. If the XE750 is a new, high-definition MP3 player, give it a name that touts it benefit—Harmony, the first high-def MP3 player.

The first, the best, the only…
Carefully scripted messages to your customers and potential customers are the other piece of the puzzle when in comes to benefit-driven marketing. Talk to your audience about how you will make their lives easier and better instead of telling them what you have to offer. Is it a 96 gigabite, high-definition, portable audio MP3 player or is it the “World first high-definition MP3 player that can accommodates your entire music collection of over 15,000 songs”? Direct your message to your customer so they can easily discern the value of your product.

Frequently, companies get lost in the mix because they suffer from internally-focused marketing. Take the time to reevaluate your messages to see if you can offer your customers and potential customers a new and refreshing perspective that has their needs in mind.

To own a concept is to be the brand that comes to mind when you think of a product, service, or idea. Think:
Soft drink—Coca Cola
Job finding—Monster.com
Reliability—Toyota

These “concept” brands do not compete. They are not followers. Their unique selling proposition is so strong that they set the terms the competition must achieve. Being the first, the only, or the best—no other brand comes close to the hold they have on their respective marketplaces. They are innovative, unique, and desirable—model brands that others aspire to become.

These brands’ success is a result of their ability to develop unique selling propositions by identifying unfulfilled, but desired gaps within their marketplace and meeting those needs.

A great example of a unique selling proposition that filled a huge gap in the marketplace was Monster.com—one of the first Internet job seeking services. Monster was able to bring the convenience of the Internet and email to a market that was traditionally based in print—clumsy newspapers, fancy resume paper, and snail mail. Monster also broke geographical barriers—allowing job seekers to search jobs within 10 miles of their house or across the country and made the possibility of finding a job in another city much simpler than it had been in the past.

Monster addressed the needs of both the job seekers and the employers so successfully, there no longer seemed to be any other logical way of doing things.

If having a strong unique selling proposition is so easy, why hasn’t everyone done it? The answer is because its not easy. First you need to identify what that gap is and exploit it with a single minded focus. Not easy for a firm rooted in a set way of doing business. We often refer to it as the Tarzan principal, afraid to completely let go of one vine before you’re sure the next vine will work. Second, few enterprises have the fortitude to stick with an immutable unique selling proposition.

In our current economic environment, it may be a great opportunity to explore developing a concept brand. Business is off and your competitors are spending more time staying afloat than finding the strategy to make them stronger. At the same time, your audience may be ready to hear a new message as their needs evolve.

Recessions bring opportunities. Uncover and market your unique selling proposition to emerge ahead of your competition.