Leveraging Market Research to Build Your Brand Presentation to Entrepreneur s Edge Susan Puflea, SVP Managing Director Brand Strategy o: 216.472.6682 or 216.696.0229 e: spuflea@fallscommunications.com During this session, Evelyn Greene provided an overview of market research and the specific types and tools available. This presentation explores how to leverage market research to build your brand whether it be an organization, product or service
There are three essential reasons why you would use market research to support your brand strategy. Not only are they connected, each lays the foundation to build the next ultimately, helping to ensure you can maximize the value of your brand. 2 P a g e
Before we delve into applying market research to brand strategy, let s cover a few fundamentals to ensure we are on the same page. First, if we think about the essence of what a brand is, it s really an idea. Each of your brands represents an idea hopefully, the one you intend. A brand is the promise of a unique experience. A brand sells something a product, a service, an individual, an organization, an idea, a point of view. A brand and an effective brand position makes all forms of communications, marketing, and ultimately sales, more effective and efficient. It ensures your message is heard and acted upon. While, it starts with a brand an organization, product, service, individual... It s really about the space the brand occupies in the mind of your audience: What do people think about it? What do they feel about it? How do they respond to it? How do they engage/interact with it? The most successful brands occupy a unique space in people s minds. Achieving this means they understand what makes a brand different and better than the alternatives. That it resonates. That it s meaningful. 3 P a g e
Jack Welch who knew a thing or two about competing successfully said if you don t have a unique proposition, don t even bother competing. Mr. Welch certainly is correct about the importance of competitive advantage. But, when it comes to being relevant to the people important to your organization, that s not enough anymore. Bringing this back to brand position the ideal brand position lives in the intersection between what you want people to understand about your brand, and what they actually think about your brand. It s all about perceptions. As they say, perception IS reality. Market research can help you find this sweet spot. 4 P a g e
Why should you care? Because you need to understand what drives the decisions of the people who matter to your organization. People don t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. And, how they perceive your brand drives the decisions they make about it. Click to view Simon Sinek s TED talk Click to investigate his book, Start with Why. Megan Trainor might say it s all about the bass, but really, it s all about the WHY. Most organizations go to market pushing what they do great features and benefits that undoubtedly perform well. This is all well and good, but not what people really care about or not the only things they care about. People don t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. Apple vs. Gateway example. So, what does this have to do with brand strategy? 5 P a g e
When you communicate WHY not just what or even how you appeal to people in a more culturally relevant way. It enables you to demonstrate what your brand is all about, rather than simply tell your story. It s meaningful. It s compelling. Remember, people don t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. This is true for B2C and B2B organizations even those that sell commodity products. Click to view the Michael Jr. clip, Know your Why with Amazing Grace example. Click to view the Western Sydney University clip. Consider two examples. Michael Jr. When you know your why, your what has more impact. Western Sydney University Unlimited; the university helps students achieve their unlimited potential. Do you see the power in WHY? Do you know your brand s WHY? With this foundation, let s connect brand strategy and market research. Virtually every scenario in which you would use brand market research falls into one of three categories: 1. Introduce 2. Build or Grow 3. Protect Market research provides the answers to help ensure you uncover, understand and clearly define a compelling brand a compelling WHY that resonates with your audiences 6 P a g e
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When your brand faces a threat or is in a real crisis, the situation is complicated today by the wild west of the internet. Primary news sources aren t news outlets Soundbites reign (human attention spans are ~ 8 seconds; slightly less than a goldfish) Everyone s an expert Everyone s a journalist Fake news abounds As challenging as social media is to manage, it s also a savior for realtime monitoring and assessment of emerging and full-blown threats. Recommended tool to use: Nuvi Once you know when to use brand market research, you need to determine your audiences and candidly assess what you know and don t know about them. Consider the people who impact your brand: Current and prospective customers Consumers Community leaders, influencers Social leaders and influencers Cultural leaders and influencers Employees Company leadership, Board Financial analysts, investors Media representatives You could conduct research among all these groups if you have unlimited funding, and you d be the first; so, it s important to prioritize. Consider who will have the greatest impact on the success of your brand. Better to understand a few groups very well to make reasoned, thoughtful decisions rather than have limited information that can be misinterpreted about many. 8 P a g e
Your brand is being managed every day, even if you aren t actively doing so or aren t armed with the insight to do so. Consider how to use market research to enable you to be a good steward of this valuable asset. Remember, not all research has to be original. Consider sources of existing research, or company data you can tap: Publicly available sources, such as those Evelyn covered Subscription services, such as Forrester Industry trade organizations Your CRM system Don t confuse information with insight. Data is just information sometimes good, sometimes not. Be sure you delve deeper than the numbers and consider what the information means and how you can apply it. Don t settle for proving your theories challenge them. The purpose of research is to learn. Most importantly, uncover your WHY and how to demonstrate it: Why you do what you do Why you believe what you believe Armed with these insights, develop or fine-tune the brand architecture to ensure it presents your brand in a way that matters to the people who matter to you. Then apply to marketing and communications initiatives don t overlook IR/ financial communications, corporate responsibility efforts and employee communications. Every touchpoint with your stakeholders should strive to consistently and compellingly demonstrate your story. 9 P a g e
If you are like most companies, all marketing and communications are judged by ROI. It can be challenging to demonstrate. Market research can help determine the impact of marketing and communications that support a compelling brand strategy with hard tangibles and soft measures. Determine which matter to your brand and use them to monitor progress, shifts in perceptions, emerging trends or issues. NOTE: Satisfaction is in quotation marks because striving for satisfaction isn t sufficient, despite being the common nomenclature. 10 P a g e
See also: Brand Marketing Exercise worksheet to help guide your thinking when connecting market research to building your brand. 11 P a g e