Branding is a powerful way to build a loyal customer base. However, competition in most industries is fierce and standing apart from the pack is challenging.
Here are a few tips to help you set your company and its products apart with unique branding.
1. Lean on Your UVP
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Your unique value proposition is the factor (or factors) that set your brand and its products apart. This could be a distinct feature of a product or a unique perk of a service you offer. It could even be something that supports these primary offerings, such as a home improvement retailer offering targeted DIY customer service as a core UVP.
In most cases, though, your UVP resides in your products (which consumers interact with the most). It also serves as your central marketing message — which is why it should always factor into your branding messages. Identify your brand’s UVP and ensure that it’s always front and center in your marketing message.
The team at the health and wellness brand Numo Nutrition demonstrated this when they created a supplement company focused on promoting overall wellness by bringing together two aspects of health that often don’t coincide: gut health and convenience.
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Numo manufactured a hyper-convenient gummy supplement with live cultures from fermented foods, and this became the brand’s central selling point. Every feature, benefit, product, and blog post traced its roots back to making sure the average person could maintain their gut health.
If you want to stand apart as a brand, make sure you know your UVP. Then reiterate that at every possible opportunity.
2. Communicate Time to Value
Consumer attention spans have dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to just eight seconds in 2019. This time crunch means marketers need to communicate their messages fast. This should go beyond features and benefits, too. It should incorporate time into the messaging itself.
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Time-to-value (TTV) refers to the time it takes for a customer to begin perceiving value in a product or service that they purchase. To be clear, this doesn’t mean they’re benefitting from it. That could take place much quicker (or in some cases, slower). TTV is when the customer recognizes the value. It’s a time period that you should be well aware of if you want your brand to stand out.
Insightly clarifies that TTV can take many forms. It can be immediate (instant gratification). You can also measure the time it takes for a consumer to realize that you’ve exceeded the value that they expected.
The relevant TTV metric depends on your industry and product. For example, a rideshare service has immediate perceived value. In comparison, the TTV of a high-quality pool heater might take years to fully sink into a consumer’s mind as they realize they’ve had minimal repairs.
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Know your brand’s time to value metrics. Then make sure you’re communicating them to your target audience so that they understand the value they should expect to see and can connect that to their current pain points.
3. Generate Social Proof
If your business offers genuine, unique value to consumers, your customers will realize that over time, as well. This leads to a high retention rate and a loyal customer base—which can do more than generate recurring revenue. It can help you set your brand apart.
If you have a company community that is already sold out to your brand, bring your tribe with you to the marketplace. Encourage passionate customers to help you get your brand’s UVP out in front of other consumers.
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This is called social proof, something that Sprout Social also calls information social influence. As a core human behavior, this references the tendency of humans to mimic others to emulate their behaviors. In marketing, this takes place through UGC (user-generated content).
As the name implies, this refers to marketing content created by users, not your brand. Feedback, reviews, recommendations, and other data-driven UGC are powerful forms of social proof that help your brand stand out and at minimal cost to your company, too.
Effective branding must use established communication channels to send innovative messages. From your unique value proposition to time-to-value metrics to user-generated content and other social proofs, make sure you’re utilizing the most powerful tools to set your brand apart throughout your marketing activities.
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