When a company consistently falls short of its sales goals, the natural response is to look to the sales team for answers. As a result, sales strategies are likely reassessed with new expectations (and pressures) placed on the sales team.
The next conversation is typically with marketing. What is marketing up to? Do we need to cut our marketing spend because sales are in a slump? Or, do we need to increase our marketing spend? Are we doing the right types of marketing? Should we try something different? Do we have the right marketing team?
All good questions to ponder. But is anyone thinking about the brand?
Although not often the first thing to be considered, lukewarm sales can frequently be attributed to a weak or blurry brand — meaning one that isn’t properly or adequately differentiated and marketed.
Companies that overlook their brand as a potential culprit for slow sales often have an over-inflated sense of their brand value and positive market perception, or they simply don’t understand what a brand is.
This is a problem because 100% of buying decisions are based on brand beliefs and perceptions.
A brand is the unique set of distinctions a company owns that make a positive and noteworthy difference in the lives of customers, partners and employees. So, what is the unique set of distinctions your company owns that makes a positive and noteworthy difference in the lives of customers, partners and employees? How relevant and important are those distinctions to customers, partners, and employees? If you were a customer, would you buy from your company given the many choices you have?
If your sales aren’t where they need to be, or even if they are, but you’re interested in continued growth and market leadership, take some time to evaluate the strength and influence of your brand.
Evaluating your brand will involve looking deep into the soul of your company to identify who you are, what you stand for, why you’re in business, what problems you solve, and the value you bring.
You’ll need to involve all of your employees in this initiative because you’ll need the diverse perspectives of different people in different roles. You will gain insights you would likely never think of.
A bonus would be to do an external brand assessment with your partners and customers. They will be more than happy to share their feelings and insights with you about your brand strengths, weaknesses, brand performance, and their loyalty.
A competitive assessment will also be required to understand exactly who you are competing with to attract and retain customers.
Once you’ve defined and articulated a compelling brand for your company, it’s time to go full throttle on your marketing.
With your new brand-driven marketing strategy, all of your brand metrics and KPIs will grow, in their natural order.
Brand awareness: This metric will naturally improve because people pay attention to interesting and compelling brands.
Brand differentiation: As you have properly differentiated your brand from your competitors’, more people will understand your sales tiebreaker. In other words, when everything appears equal between you and the competition, your unique brand attribute(s) will make them less relevant and your brand will be awarded priority.
Brand consideration: With strong brand differentiation comes much stronger brand consideration.
Brand conversion: This is where a sale is made, a contract is signed, or an employee agrees to join your team. And although brand conversion is a huge victory for you, it’s where your brand needs to perform to the expectations you have set in your marketing messaging.
Brand loyalty: This takes time and must be earned by delivering on your brand promises. Customers, partners, and employees will analyze everything about their new relationship with your company and will be quick to notice what is and isn’t going well.
Brand advocacy: This is the natural progression from brand loyalty and rewards high-performing brands with the best marketing there is: referrals, recommendations, and word of mouth.
Brand reputation: Much like brand loyalty, this will take time to earn and establish, and it will be your everything.
Schedule some time to do a full assessment of your brand, no matter how weak or strong your sales happen to be. Make it a part of your annual planning and meetings to keep it at the forefront of your mind, and the minds of everyone within your company.
