There’s been a pattern to some conversations with brand owners we’ve been having lately. They’ve found themselves at a standstill, each moored with no clear line of sight to hoist away.
They’ve collected a ton of marketing material, but slow sales to show for it all. A marketing agency running in circles, talking about brands, and strategies in different ways, offering up quick fix gimmicks to paper the cracks. Their solution commonly seems to be to spend more to get out of the rut.
They have an audience that’s confused, disengaged, indifferent, or almost entirely unresponsive. A flatlining brand with sales drying up, coupled with equally evaporated budgets. Lost focus, disoriented message. It’s near time for panic stations.
The good news is, overwhelmingly, they’ve got great products and equally great stories to tell. The building blocks are certainly there. They just haven’t, perhaps, been communicated in the right way, with the right voice, to the right customers. They’re confident there’d be a steady conversion to sales, building both traction and momentum to match their ambition. But time is short.
So what’s the common denominator? Simple: messaging that lacks focus. Forgotten purpose. Incoherent brand execution.
So what’s the answer? In our view, we tell them to go back to basics, circle back, and lay (or re-lay) solid footings:
• Think benefits, not features. Product facts, not lifestyle fiction. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes answering what pain points you solve for them, or what reason you give them to care about you, not your competitors. Be succinct. Speak to your three most compelling benefits and repeat; repeat; repeat.
• Take it one step at a time and build out your story from the basics up. Your goal is simply to spark interest and give people a reason to care. Other things are currently out of your control. Conversations, engagements, communities and those things are, just now, in the distance. Think plainly about the next step in your sales funnel, and work only with that goal in mind. Stay economical and think market, message, and medium — don’t go where your audience isn’t, no matter how trendy that platform might be.
• Don’t over-cook it. No matter how complex your product is or niche your market entry point, make it sound as elegantly easy as possible. Broadly give the people what they want: simply straightforward solutions.
Successful brands are interesting, they’re clear, simply articulated, and laser-focussed. Centralise on your story, and run like hell with it. Everything else can follow.