To win more business, make your brand more customer-centric.
Your prospective customers don’t care about you.
They probably don’t care about your competitors, either.
In their communications, most companies make the same mistake: They talk about themselves, about how they’re the best in the business, how their team has an astounding number of years of combined experience, how easy they are to work with, and how any customer would be wise to choose them over any and everyone else in the category.
The problem with this kind of communication: No one cares.
(I shouldn’t say no one. You care. And your mother probably cares.)
All it takes to solve this problem is a serious change of perspective. Your perspective.
(Truth is, this brand messaging stuff isn’t that hard, once you start thinking more about them and less about you.)
The key – it’s a big one – is determining what challenges your customers face, and telling them how you’re uniquely qualified to help them face those challenges.
Heck, you may not even be the best in your category. Doesn’t matter. If you display an understanding of your customer and what keeps him or her up at night; and you tell them how you, more than your competitors, can support their efforts; you’ll win.
This is, after all, marketing, not brain surgery.
Sidebar: You can’t tell me that Nike shoes are any better than Adidas shoes. Yet, every day, thousands of feet choose Nike over all other shoes because of the strength and cache of the Nike brand.
All it takes is consistency. Consistency. And more consistency.
Being consistently altruistic in your brand messaging is key. Say different things but always in a way that’s all about your prospective customers, not about you.
Soon, it’ll break through, like that catchy song did with you years ago.
There’s no other way to do it. As a race, we humans are bombarded with messages – three to four thousand a day, some studies suggest.
People are tuning out a lot of the messages they don’t like. What we do like, as a human race, are messages that are clever. Witty. Interesting. Authentic.
So you’ve gotta make each of your messages count.
Start the process by determining who your ideal customer is. Find out all you can about them.
Figure out what you’ve got that they need: products, services, insight.
Remember, your prospective clients aren’t worrying about finding a marketing partner. They’re worrying about why they’re not reaching their sales goals, or why they keep losing out on business to some other OEM.
The earlier and quicker you can help solve their problem – or at least show them that you know how to solve their problem – the better.
Ready, go.
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