The Importance of a Brand Strategy for Your Industrial Company

You know what your business is all about right?  You have a set message, a target audience, and you have an edge over the competition that makes your products and services better than “the other guys.”

That’s all well and good, but there’s one problem: without a brand strategy, nobody will know anything about your company.  Creating the right brand strategy for your business is your first step to making sure you catch the eye of prospective customers.

Defining Your Industrial Company’s Message

Before you can deliver your message, you have to polish it.  Think of your message as a narrative, a story that defines your company and spotlights its best attributes. This is not to be confused with your value proposition, which is a customer-centric statement that tells the world what you do and the benefit it brings your customers.

In order to craft your business’s message (or messaging if there are multiple points),  you should probably start where every good story starts – the very beginning:

• What is your company’s history?  When was it founded?
• Who founded your company?
• What is the background of the people who founded the company?
• Is there an interesting anecdote about how /why the company was founded?
• Are there “back stories” that add to the narrative about your company’s history?

Noting these details will help you craft a message that your customers will not only relate to, but be willing to share.

What is Your Industrial Company’s Competitive Advantage?

Your company is different from any of your competitors’, right?  Now’s your chance to prove it.  Your business’s competitive advantage – what it has that other businesses in your same industry don’t – is what keeps your customers loyal and attracts new ones in the process.

There are really only 3 main ways, with varying riffs, to differentiate your company.  Which best describes your company?

1. You are the low cost provider, excelling at operational efficiency
2. You are the market or technology leader – you are always developing new, more advanced products and services
3. You are the most customer-centric – you offer the best overall solutions and service to your customers

An easy way to narrow down your company’s “secret sauce”?  Ask your most loyal customers how they see your business.

Determining Your Industrial Company’s Target Customer Personas

Customer personas are basically “character sketches” of  your  individual audience that define who your industrial company’s services and/or products are for, according to Krissy Campbell of Boxcar Marketing.

Within your target customer base, there are individual personalities you need to promote your brand to.  You can determine your company’s varied customer personas by looking at your customer base as a whole and narrowing down background details for each segment:

• Average age
• Gender
• Industry
• Job position
• Services/products they buy from you
• Reason for buying your services/products

Knowing who you’re targeting puts your brand strategy on the appropriate track to landing more customers that fit these personas.

Presenting Your Industrial Company’s Brand Strategy

Where you present your brand strategy should always line up with who your target personas are and specifically, where they go to gather information.  This can range anywhere from trade publications to Twitter.  Knowing  these details will help you better determine your  marketing budget – your key to exposing your brand to the masses.

Marketing Smart: Cost Effective Inbound Marketing for Industrial Companies

Speaking of marketing budgets, next week we’ll be helping you to develop a cost effective, targeted marketing plan for your industrial company so stay tuned!

What steps have you taken to develop your brand strategy?

 

Works Cited

Campbell, Crissy. “Defining Your Target Audience With Personas.” September 7, 2010. Web. December 11, 2013.