Caroline Berryman, CMMP — Contributing Author
Every brand has the opportunity to increase its market share by creating a connection with its customers. This is the audience that has the unique ability to build, define and even destroy a company’s brand. It’s a very simple marketing concept.
As marketers, we often don’t see things from our audience’s perspective because we are so focused on marketing the brand and its unique benefits. We tell stories about our brands which are intended to create connections with our customers, but sometimes we fail because we position the brand as the hero, rather than the customer.
This can be a challenge, as well an opportunity when we are developing marketing strategies. The brands that successfully build long-lasting relationships with their customers put their brand as an advisor and allow the brand as a hero to succeed, simply by their product and service offering.
Positioning a brand in a supporting role can be seen as a risk by marketers. Having a new product to showcase to consumers, in flashy ad campaigns, showing the brand’s strengths is marketing 101 for most marketers.
However, it’s time to re-think this strategy and tell a story that draws on the brand’s history. By doing so, your brand can break through the market, dominated by the tech disrupters and continue to connect with consumers of all ages.
These brands maximize opportunities for connection by embracing their heritage and their supporting role in consumers’ daily lives. The stories these brands tell are based on truths about the product rather than a consumer need.
If we want to improve connections with our consumers, we need to remember that we can’t tell a brand’s story if it’s not ours to tell.