How do you strategically position your brand so that your target customers choose you?

When it comes to developing an effective value proposition, the most important thing you can do is to keep your target markets front and centre — their needs, doubts, goals, ideals, habits, and lifestyles, among others.

Yes, it is also crucial to have a strong internal awareness of how you want your brand to be perceived. But, ultimately, customers will always have the final say.

In this article, we will take you through the 4 steps that will help you effectively communicate what makes your brand great in the eyes of your target customers… and beyond.

Step #1: Find Out What They Value

As you already know, consumers will always compare a product or service’s perceived value to its asking price. What this “perceived value” means is difficult to tell.

What are these elements and how can you use them to proactively create value or deliver more of it for your customers?

All businesses — no matter the size — have the capacity to strengthen customer loyalty, increase consumer willingness to choose their brand, cultivate sustainable, long-term growth, and lessen barriers to entry in new markets.

But these things are only possible if brands cultivate a deep understanding of the following four elements: social impact, life-changing, emotional, and functional.

These elements can either be internally driven (addresses customers’ personal needs) or outwardly driven (addresses customers’ need to navigate or interact with the real world).

As an example, the emotional (internally driven) element wellness is the force that drives our client BWX’s health and skincare products. While the functional (externally driven) element avoids hassles is what makes our other client, espresso Displays, stand out from competitors Dell and HP because their award-winning portable monitors make working outside of the office less of a struggle.

The more elements of value your product or service lives up to, the higher your profits and the stronger your customer loyalty.

So, how do you determine what your customers value?

Incentivised feedback can be a great way to get data directly from your customers. Ask questions about all value elements that align with both your product and brand.

Where do your product and brand stand in each component? Are they living up to them? Or are they falling short?

As an important side note, customer evaluation for both product and brand is key to finding out if both live up to what your target market values.

In some cases, your product and your brand may yield different levels of satisfaction. For example, customers may be very happy with your brand’s customer service but feel a disconnect with your product or service.

Another way you can determine what customers value is by getting to know your target market in a strategic way.

Who are your customers and why do they buy your products? Segregate them into customer categories with specific value elements. Then develop products and services that cater to these elements.

Step #2: Highlight what unique benefits you bring to the table

Now that you have a good idea about what your customers value, fuel them further by matching them with what aligned benefits your product or service can offer.

Our process starts from the bottom up (product to client):

Product > Product features > Product benefits > Real-world benefit > Emotional benefit

To put this into action, let’s use BeingIconic as an example.

Product: As a growth consultancy, we guide, empower, and transition scale-ups successfully throughout their most critical stages.

Product feature: As a dynamic team, we deploy our varied expertise and trademarked tools to help scale-ups increase efficiency and maintain momentum.

Product benefit: Our varied hands-on experiences in both successful start-ups and blue-chip corporates give us unique insider knowledge on how to efficiently cultivate the 3 core areas of a successful business: Commercial scalability, Marketing capacity, and People strategy.

Real-world benefit: We guarantee enduring value that helps scale-ups cross the proverbial chasm and land IPOs or Mergers and Acquisitions.

Emotional benefit: As we deliver on targets, we allow scale-ups to achieve their full potential and reach fulfilment as they continuously create life-changing solutions in the years to come.

Step #3: Strengthen your brand DNA

What guides you? What drives you? What ideals do you aspire to? And how can all these things impact your customers and the world around you?

Your brand’s purpose, mission, and vision can be great tools to really sharpen clarity and focus within your organisation.

When your business has and lives up to a strong purpose-mission-vision (along with robust elements of customer value as well as product and brand benefits), you know exactly why you get out of bed in the morning, what guides your company to do what it does, why you are building your products/services, and when you have won.

In turn, your customers will see what you can offer that your competitors do not and will make sure to let you and their social circles know.

While there is no scientific way to produce a purpose, mission, and vision that all key stakeholders can easily buy into, you can make the process easier by beginning with the end in mind.

What kind of impact can your brand make? Who do you want to impact? How do you create this impact? And what will this impact look like once it becomes a reality?

To learn more about how your business can create impactful purpose, mission, and vision statements, click here.

Step #4: Refine your messaging

How do you communicate your customer value elements, uniqueness, and brand value proposition?

At the end of the day, the previous three steps will be lost if they are not packaged in clear and consistent messaging and storytelling.

As an example, we look again to our award-winning client expresso Displays.

One way we helped them rise above industry giants HP and Dell was by deep-diving into how espresso’s customers feel when they use their portable monitors and if the brand is providing ‘meaning’ beyond delivering a product.

Doing so helps tell a strategic narrative that goes beyond specs and taps directly into people’s emotions, increasing the chances of customers picking their product over the rest.

espresso continues to outshine their competitors by providing a premium product and telling a story that builds loyal customers who are motivated by not just simple utility, but also an elite on-the-go lifestyle.

Ask yourself if you have sorted out your value proposition and messaging to compete at the level you want to compete at. Next, figure out if your current customer base is product-led or brand/audience-led.

While product-led customers are easy to target if products deliver on value and benefit elements, businesses cannot create evangelists out of them. Product-led customers will always shift to products that best serve their current needs.

Brand-led customers, on the other hand, are trickier to get on board but have the greatest potential to become evangelists who consistently recommend your product to their peers, resulting in lower marketing costs and long-term growth.

Ask questions like: “What immediate market can we target?”, “What gaps can we fill?”, and “What is the messaging that resonates with that particular audience’s needs?”

This increases your ability to focus on specific pain points, drivers, triggers, or barriers to entry for that audience.

Once you have locked down your primary target, start asking questions like, “Is there a secondary audience we should focus on?”, or “Is it the right time for us to expand to a wider audience?” If yes, you can then expand your value proposition and supporting messaging to a wider crowd.

To learn more about how your business can leverage exceptional storytelling and messaging to win in saturated markets, click here.

The key to sharpening your business’ edge in the eyes of your target customers lies in making sure that you never forget to put your customers at the forefront.

Over the years, we have helped multiple scale-ups achieve exceptional product–market fit and consistent long-term growth by helping create value propositions that are less about their brand and more about their customers. Partner with us today if you want us to do the same for you.