How to Build a Differentiated Brand

Defining Your Branding Message

What is Your Unique Value Offering?

As business owners and marketers, we often fall into the trap of using and overusing “marketable” terms to define our organizations. These words are not bad – after all, who wouldn’t want to work with a trusted, client-centric, innovative, one-stop company? However, your unique value offering should differentiate you from your competitors.

One branding resource for financial institutions references “Category Benefits,” the bare-bones requirements for all companies in an industry. For example, all financial advisors should be fiduciary and knowledgeable. These traits are simply expected – but they aren’t differentiators. Refrain from using category benefits in your branding message.

The same branding resource uses the term “Opposing Categories” to represent the element that is unequivocally unique. In other words, what is your specialty?

To test the effectivity of your brand messaging, consider if another member of your industry could create an opposing category to yours. If not, you may be relying on category benefits to define your brand. For example, if your differentiator is “industry experience,” you competitor would never claim “industry inexperience” as their opposing category.

Who is Your Target Market?

Many business are eager to serve all clients, as if selecting a specific target market could ostracize prospective or current customers. In reality, companies should select a specific client focus, a “white space” that are not being served by your competitors.

When selecting your target market, consider demographics, geographics, psychographics, and behavioral traits.

• Demographics: gender, age, net worth, occupation, etc.
• Geographics: location, region, etc.
• Psychographics: interests, habits, attitudes, values, emotions, personality traits, activities, etc.
• Behavioral Traits: engagement with your organization, motivation, etc.
  

Finalize, Synchronize

Once you have defined your opposing category and market white space, an impactful and accurate branding message can be created. The next step? Synchronization. Your marketing plan must be in alignment with your brand messaging at every step of the customer journey.

RivalMind: Revitalize Your Brand

Branding can be complex, but it is absolutely crucial.

At RivalMind, we have a wealth of experience revitalizing – or completely reimagining – brand guidelines for companies in a multitude of industries. From colors and typography to imagery and marketing copy, we coalesce each element to form a holistic and compelling brand.

Are you interested in diving into the minds of our creatives? Get in touch at (331) 228-9396 or complete our online contact form. We look forward to starting a conversation.