Why Your Brand & Messaging Matter
“I want more business”
Tēnā koutou. Welcome to Kumeū Media!
This article outlines some common problems businesses report. We’ll pose some questions for getting the most from your brand and messaging, and explore some possible solutions for getting more business.
The problem
When working with business owners, we often hear something like, ‘I want more business’. The phrasing varies:
‘Things are quiet and I want to be busier.’
‘I want more people to know about my business.’
‘This other local business is popular and seems to be getting all the customers. I offer the exact same thing, but I do it better. Why is my business not as successful?’.
‘I want more people to come through the door.’
‘Things are going pretty well, but I’d like to improve what we’re doing.’
‘I’m spending too much time working in my business. I want time to work on it.’
How the problem is described varies person-to-person, but the needs and values are likely to share some commonalities:
I need to make money to survive.
I want to do something meaningful with my time.
I believe in what I do.
I want to connect with my community and my customers.
I want to focus on my actual business (strategy, growth, marketing), not the distractions.
The questions
Listening is an important part of our work at Kumeū Media. Our first step is to understand what you’re trying to achieve. Only then can we create a strategy that is specific to your situation and that is likely to get the best results.
Even if you’re not working with us, here are a few things to think about to get you started. In this article we’ll focus mainly on two factors – your brand and your brand messaging:
Before we start, we need to be on the same page about what branding and brand messaging even are!
Let’s keep things simple and loosely define brand as the visual identity of your business or organisation and less tangibly, how people interpret that.
Let’s loosely define brand messaging as how you communicate who your company is, what it does, and what it offers. Think of it as the truths your business or organisation live by and want to share.
Here are some questions to test the strength of your brand and brand messaging.
Brand:
What is my brand?
How strong is my brand?
Do you have a clear, consistent, and professional logo, colours, fonts, and messaging?
How easy is it for customers to recognise my logo or brand?
How easy is it for customers to find me? Think about physical signage, store location, website, social media, video content, etc.
How often would people see my logo or branding?
If people see your logo or encounter your brand would they recognise it?
Brand Messaging:
Do I have a consistent message?
What is my core message or service?
What are our values?
Why do we exist?
How do I share this with my customers?
Would people be familiar with my messaging?
How do people hear about me? Is this working?
Is everyone who works on my business (you and your employees) clear about the messaging?
How does the messaging motivate or guide those in your business?
What is the most effective way to get this message in front of your customers?
The solution
Answering the questions we’ve posed is a starting point. A business with a cohesive brand and messaging is going to be much easier for customers to connect with.
Think about the most common brands you encounter. In New Zealand, some that come to mind are Mitre 10, Air New Zealand, Fisher & Paykel, Sanitarium, V Energy Drinks, and Trade Me. All have cohesive and recognisable branding and messaging.
V Energy Drinks use a vivid green and conveys the idea of guarana-fuelled energy.
Click for image source
Mitre 10 is bright orange and leans into the ‘do it yourself’ ideology.
Click for image source
All these successful businesses have a good product. But that’s not enough. They’ve nailed their branding and messaging, which lends itself well to successful marketing. They’ve clearly got a strategy to address the ‘I want more business’ problem we first posed.
We can see then, that branding and messaging are an important component of marketing. You need both.
It’s difficult to achieve the goal of ‘I want more business’ without having something clear and cohesive to market in the first place.
Consistency is the other part. It’s not enough to run a single campaign. You’re not likely to get far with that. To use the example of V again, they have been actively advertising since 1997 when they started. They didn’t market their product once in 1997 and then hope it would stay successful! They have very intentionally invested money into their marketing and to get people buying energy drinks.
Next steps
If you’ve read this article and realised your brand and messaging could be improved, there are a few possible next steps.
As a starting point, we suggest answering the questions we’ve posed in the article. Have a think about each question and how it applies to your business or organisation. You may have the resources to address this yourself – in which case, you’ve got half the equation sorted! You just need some targeted marketing now.
Alternatively, reach out to us if you prefer someone else to take the lead. We’re available to help!
Our hope is that this article gives some insight into improving the way you communicate to your audience, and ultimately helps your business or organisation grow.
