How to define your brand and its messaging

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Defining YOUR Brand
I have to admit this is a really boring headline!
It’s been used so often that probably no one even reads articles with headlines like this. I hope in this
case that is not true, because I’m going to give away some great ways to help your business define your
brand and marketing strategy so you can be more relevant to today’s consumer
I’ve been working with companies for over 30 years, developing marketing plans, advertising messaging
and helping them define their brand. Believe me; it’s not as easy as you think, because a brand is not
what you think it is. It’s what everyone else, especially your Stakeholders believes it is.
Most company owners define what their brand is, or what they, the owners think it should be. Then
they communicate this to their employees and probably never really know if their perception is in fact
reality. In actuality, the owner’s vision is probably wrong more often than not.
Here’s why.
The company hasn’t done the hard and tedious work necessary to really understand what the
“stakeholders” of the company think. What’s a Stakeholder you ask? Well consider these entities as
Stakeholders:
1. Owners
2. Salespeople

2. 3. Customer Service Employees
4. Warehouse Employees
5. Delivery Employees
6. And everyone else in the business not listed above.
I remember a company my agency worked with back in the 90’s. They were in the printing and
packaging business reporting approximately $30MM in sales. The primary founders/owners had passed
away and left the business to their 3 sons. When we went to work for them, all 3 brothers wanted to run
the show and needless to say, there was some chaos. They all told me their different visions of their
“Brand”, yep all different and in their minds, each was correct.
Rather than argue with them, we went undercover in an experiment that led to the process I’m writing
about and what RetailerNOW and Napier Marketing Group will share with you online via download to
help you define the brand and the necessary steps you should take to get real with the Brand’s Reality.
I personally went to work in the shipping and receiving department for several days. I believed that
these people would reveal to me “the truth” as to what they thought about the company and the
company’s Brand.
My hunch was correct, because they were honest….brutally honest. Essentially, they thought the new
management was a bunch of Silver Spoon Morons that had no experience and worse … they talked
down to the employees, showed no respect and so much more. However, we also found out that these
same employees loved their managers & supervisors, respected the sales management and sales people
and worked hard to show it to those individuals
When we went in with our S.W.O.T analysis - (Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats) the first
area we addressed was Threats.
The biggest threat…..the owners!
Our solution: All the Owners should go play golf and get out of the way until they learn the business
and earn the respect of ALL their Stakeholders. They should turn over the day to day operations to their
managers and supervisors and focus on the vision and future mission of the company.
With that said, let’s talk about the process we developed that may help the company truly define what
the brand is, and what needs to be done to achieve that Holy Grail of Brand Equity.
The following are the basic steps necessary to fully understand the who, what and where the brand is
and how to make the necessary changes to complete the vision. Every employee needs to fill out this
questionnaire. It should be done anonymously so that the “stakeholders” can be candid and honest
about what they believe your company and brand stands for…or doesn’t stand for. Yep, this may take
each employee 1-2 hours to complete, and even longer to tabulate the results into an action plan. That’s
the hard part, charting every answer from each stakeholder, because that is the only way you’ll begin to
actually visualize the truth about your brand’s platform

3. The information below will serve as a quick outline that will help you define your brand, the marketing
messaging and your sales proposition. The complete outline can be downloaded on RetailerNOW’s
website in a PDF and as a Word Document so you can customize the questions as you see fit.
Goals
This area asks your employees to, in their own words, describe your business. It also asks them to define
what they think the goals of the company are, or should be. Obviously you want everyone to have the
same goals as you, but you may be very surprised with the outcome.
There are a lot of questions in this section. Measurable goals are critical and without measurable goals
you cannot continually improve.
Step 2
Audience Profile:
Ok, you probably think you know who your audience is, right? My question is, what research have you
done and based off that information, have you tailored your business vision and mission towards that
audience?
Here we ask some fairly basic questions, but the answers require you to do some research. Who is your
target customer? What are their demographics/Ethnicity and Psychographics? How do they shop, what
do they shop for, what are their wants, needs and desires, interests and lifestyles. Where do they live?
How do these consumers want to be communicated with and so much more.
I’ll wager that your customer of 10 years ago is NOT your customer of today, and because of that, your
vision of your Brand may be becoming irrelevant.
Perception/Tone/Guidelines:
This section is especially interesting when all the Stakeholders complete this area. I’ve found more often
than not, that perception again is not reality. If this happens with your company, you really need to
rethink how you communicate to your Stakeholders first, before you communicate with the consumer.
There are several questions in this area that you’ll get a lot of different answers from the responders.
Why? Because you probably have not done the “basics” when it comes to developing your brand, much
less building it.
Competitive Positioning:
This is an area where you can really learn where you have assets or liabilities when it comes to your
“frontline people” that are the Brand Emissaries for your business. If they don’t know the answers to
these simple questions, you have a problem because these people are the first encounters your
consumer has with your store and your Brand.
How you are different from your competition and the please describe the key factors which you believe

4. will make your company/products a success?
1. How is your company different from your competition?
2. What elements of your products/services “specifically” set you apart from your competition?
3. What areas of your current positioning, advertising, people, website, etc., are successful and
why?
S.W.O.T Analysis
Everyone hates this exercise, because it requires sincere “soul searching”. Everyone needs to be brutally
honest in answering these questions, for you cannot have an actionable Brand Strategy if you don’t
address your shortcomings and failures first.
Remember, anyone can make a sexy commercial, great ads and in-store sales materials, but it all fails if
you do not deliver on the “promise”, and that is what a Brand is….Your Promise! (When you download
the document off the RetailerNOW website, we give you many questions to ask and soul search under
each category below).
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
Targeted Message:
State a single-minded word or phrase that will appropriately describe your expectations once the
assignment is completed.
Communication Strategy For Your Brand:
How do you believe you Brand should be positioned to convince your target audience of your relevance?
Here we have 5 distinct questions that will give you insights as to what your employees think and feel
about your Brand. You’ll be surprised at how many great ideas can come from this section.

5. Staffing and Training
Here is an area that is critical for your business and for insuring that you set the standards by which your
competition competes. Yep, knowledge is power and superior knowledge can infect an individual with
passion on a particular subject.
I’m surprised with what little training is done both at the retail level and by the manufacturers. Here we
outline some questions and we ask the employees to rank the good, bad and ugly.
Summary
Personally, I don’t think many retailers in our business care about their brand, for as I wrote in the
August Issue of this magazine; R.I.P - The Death of Brands As We Know It, we’ve replaced Products with
Price, Brand Positioning with Cheap, and Passion with Sameness. Essentially we’ve “Commoditized
Everything” and made the shopping experience all about “The Deal”, at the expense of the experience.
Oh, that company I mentioned at the beginning of the article? We worked with them for over a year
with the processes we developed and outlined here. Today their sales are in excess of $110MM and the
owners are thriving….as are their employees and Stakeholders. Call or email me and I’ll show you what
we did for them and how as a focused team, they helped redefine their business in a commoditized
industry.
Bill is a specialist in creating, guiding and deploying successful
marketing B2B & B2C solutions integrating traditional marketing
strategies with the web and social media. He has worked in the home
furnishings industry for over 12 years, as the chief marketing officer for
some of the industry’s largest manufacturers and creating some of the
largest promotions ever launched within the industry. Comments?
Questions? Contact Bill Napier, Napier Marketing Group,
Inc., billnapier@napiermkt.com, (608)-539-
3005, www.social4retail.com.
Download the complete worksheet at:
http://www.retailernowmag.com/brandvertising
Or
http://www.social4retail.com/defining-your-brand---i-have-to-admit-this-is-a-really-boring-headline.html