Crafting Your Brand to Communicate Your Unique Sales Proposition

Simply being the best is no longer the key to improving your bottom line. Not only is it a somewhat nebulous concept that isn’t easily quantifiable, it’s become more the status quo than anything else. Everyone selling something claims to be the best. Have you ever seen someone claim to be “second-best” in their marketing?

Identifying your unique sales proposition is by far the most effective thing you can do to make your company a success. Creating a memorable image that will grab people’s attention and make them feel like they want you to be their best friend goes a lot farther these days than claims at superiority.

But maybe you already know this and maybe you’ve already identified how your company is different from the rest of the companies that sell computers/shoes/lamps, etc. Fabulous! One question: Do your customers know what makes you unique? (Cue head scratching and cricket chorus.)

If your brand doesn’t scream, “I’m a unique snowflake” to everyone that sees it, you can do better. You must do better! You owe it to your company to be as unique as you are. So, how do you go about communicating how your company is one of a kind? It’s all in the brand!

One of the best ways to figure out how to craft your brand to communicate your unique sales proposition is to carefully analyze how other companies are doing it. Let’s take a look at two companies that have really done the work to make sure their brand conveys their unique sales proposition…

– Saddleback Leather – This company makes leather bags and accessories, and…so do hundreds of other companies. However, Saddleback has distinguished itself by selling “excessively high-quality leather designs” that are overbuilt and backed by a 100-year warranty. Their logo: a thick, letter tag embossed with their name, with obvious stitching and three big rivets at the top. Their tagline: “They’ll fight over it when you’re dead.” Their ideal customer is someone who works hard and wants their bags and accessories to work harder and last longer.

– Timbuk2 – Yes, another company that makes bags…but guess what? This one is…wait for it…different! By its’ name alone, we know that they are about travel and adventure. If you don’t want to wander out into the wild, brave the unknown, or at least have all your stuff clean and dry when you get to wherever you’re going, you may not be their target customer. Their current tagline is “Drive the bus” which, let’s be honest, doesn’t necessarily convey a specific unique sales proposition, but the story behind it is compelling and reinforces their mission: “To inspire urban mobility, enable individuality, & promote responsibility.” They do this through their adherence to their values, which include statements like “Be Fearless. Deliver. Be Nimble. Engage. Lighten Up.” Timbuk2 is a fantastic example of infusing your company with personality.

These two companies, while selling many overlapping products, have gone out of their way to distinguish themselves from their competitors. They truly love their products and want their clients to love them too. What’s interesting about both of these companies is that they were started by people who couldn’t find what they were looking for in the bags of the world, so they set out to make them. In doing this, they were able to:

– Put themselves in their customers’ shoes
– Understand what motivates their customers’ behavior and buying decisions
– Uncover the real reasons customers will buy their product instead of a competitor’s

These are three critical factors in identifying your unique sales position. Basically, they were the customers, so it wasn’t a big leap to get into their heads and create the experience that would drive consumers to love and buy their products.

It’s easy to get a little lazy and fall into the trap of “it’s good enough for now” and throw something out there, never to be improved upon again. If you love your company, you’ll take the time now to make sure your brand conveys exactly what you want it to convey to your ideal client.

When it Comes to Your Marketing Goals, Don’t Forget About Consumer Education

Whenever you begin to execute a marketing campaign, you’re usually trying to service a few key goals at the same time. One of your top priorities is most likely brand awareness – you don’t just want to get the word out about a product or service, but you’re also trying to position your company as an authority on a particular topic. You may also want to help inform your target audience about the product in question. One of the most important marketing goals that far too many people overlook until it’s too late, however, is consumer education. When it comes to your objectives, consumer education must ALWAYS be a top priority for a number of key reasons.

The Benefits of the Consumer Education Push

For marketers themselves, an increased emphasis on consumer education brings with it a host of different benefits that can’t be ignored. For starters, it allows you to take a deeper level of control over the narrative that you’re trying to tell than ever before. You’re essentially reframing the information that consumers are actively looking for in a much more positive way. Instead of making a declarative statement with your campaign like, “Here are all of the amazing and incredible features that my product or service has,” you get to instead take a decidedly less sales-oriented approach and offer advice like, “Here are the problems you have, here is why you have them, and here is how my product or service is the answer you’ve been looking for.”

Perhaps the biggest benefit of all to taking a consumer education approach to marketing, however, is that you’re no longer trying to convince your customers that your product or service is necessary. Instead, you get to essentially PROVE that it’s necessary and let your customer base come to the same conclusion on their own. This helps to deepen the sense of confidence that consumers get from your company, which almost always leads to loyalty sooner rather than later.

Transforming the Landscape

Another key thing to keep in mind about making consumer education one of your core marketing objectives has to do with the subtle ways in which you change the relationship between company and customer. With consumer education, marketing is no longer a passive approach. Instead, it’s decidedly active – consumers are no longer HEARING about your product or READING about it, they’re LEARNING about it. They’re engaged with your materials in a whole new way. It officially transforms the marketing experience into a two-way street by way of empowerment. Consumers will WANT to keep learning about what you have to say and what you have to offer, helping to increase penetration rates at the same time. The more satisfied with the marketing experience a consumer is, the more confident they ultimately are with the ways in which they spend your money. If you can turn the tide of the conversation in your direction through consumer education, you’re looking at a powerful opportunity that you can no longer afford to ignore.

These are just a few of the reasons why consumer education NEEDS to be one of your marketing goals at all times. Not only does it bring with it the added benefit of affecting consumer behavior in a positive way, but it also helps establish you and your organization as the authority on a particular topic that people are actively looking for.