Branding Tips: #1 – Identify your customer

Congratulations, you’ve had a genius business idea! This is the first in a series of branding tips from the experts here at Grain that you need to consider whilst developing your brand.

Whether your new venture is service related, a new product or range of products, you must identify who, why and where your customers are. Everything that you do from this moment on will need to be masterfully tailored to their desires and needs to ensure your brand has the very best chance of success.

Who your customer is and how you want them to perceive you is the first brick in your brand’s foundation. If your first brick is a little out of position, then everything that you are building on top of it could grow in the wrong direction, or worse, wobble or collapse.

Having a clear understanding of your target audience enables you to:

• Tailor your brand strategy to secure your foundations

• Find the right brand name that strikes a chord with your customer

• Create a visual identity that appeals to the right people

• Develop an effective tone of voice that communicates directly with your customers

• Target marketing campaigns and maximise your business success

• Create a relationship and secure brand loyalty

Who?

Firstly, analyse your competitor market. Establish who your competitors are already targeting, as that will give a good indication of who is likely to be interested in your service or product. Next, ask yourself the question: what makes you different from your competitors? Not only will this help to identify your customers, it will also help to define your brand strategy and identity later on. Think about who might be interested in what you have to offer in order to start narrowing down your demographic.

Once you have an idea of who your demographic is, it’s a good idea to gather a group of people from inside and outside of that demographic and run a workshop to get to know who they are even more precisely, and to gather feedback. Find out what they think of your product or service, would they buy into it and what more could you add to it to make it irresistible to them. Also find out about their personalities, likes and dislikes – this will help you to target your marketing more effectively. You can now create your consumer profile, for example, answer the following: male/female, age, address, marital status, where they shop, their hobbies, what magazines do they read, what music they like, which TV programmes or cinema. This “customer avatar” can be pages long: the more precise, the better. You have to be able to picture one specific person in great detail who is going to be your customer. There may be a few different profiles, and each one should be very detailed.

Why?

You have established your target audience; now you need to get inside their heads. What are their fears and doubts about themselves and about the type of product or service you are offering? How can you build trust? Why do they want to go to you? Why do they need you? Why would they choose you over a competitor? What do they like about your competitors? What do they not like about your competitors? This is key knowledge that will arm you to drive your business in the right direction and maximise your consumer engagement and therefore sales. People make choices based on emotion, and rationalise them using logic. For example, Nike’s “Just Do It” makes you want to grab your running kit, shoes and start sprinting (well it’s supposed to, anyway!). Before making the purchase of those new Nike shoes which your heart wants to make, you may read positive reviews and assure your brain with the good value of the price and quality, perhaps justifying a higher price to yourself because it is a known big brand name.

Where?

What are your routes to market? Find out where your customers shop, how do they find the services that they use and what their habits are. Which websites or apps are they using? Are they active on social media? Do they buy through mail-order catalogues? Do they only use service providers that have been personally recommended? These are all aspects that you should be taking into consideration while setting out your routes to market. It will help you evaluate whether you need your own premises, your own website, which stores will be best to engage buyers and how you can best let your customer know that you are here.

As with every stage of creating your brand, figuring out exactly who your customer is is vital to the ongoing success of your business. We hope you have enjoyed this first Branding Tip from Grain – by no means is it an extensive guide. In the same way that every business is unique, every approach should be. If you have any questions, or need any help to get you running in the right direction, just give us a ring.

Watch this space for the next in the series: #2 Establishing your market position.