Is your brand truthfully different? - by Chuck Sink

There’s a common marketing dilemma. You need to differentiate your brand from loudmouthed competition, but you should never make claims that you and your company can’t always fulfill for every customer in every interaction. The only way for your brand to boost sales and add equity to your business is for it to be authentic. The product or service must be every bit as sexy to the naked eye as it is in pictures. It should do what you promise it will and more. Your team needs to show up and step it up! Never bloviate, always demonstrate!

Here you can begin to realize that there are no advertising, online and search marketing best practices that can substantially increase sales and grow your business without a foundation of product and service integrity. We in business have all heard it and tend to agree with the principle, “Under promise and over deliver.” This is a tall order and well worth fulfilling! Some say it with their lips while inside trembling about whether they can handle the over-delivering part.

Now you can sound off!

Once you have firmly established excellence in whatever your business does (which is only one thing), you’re in a position to communicate it creatively, boldly and loudly in multimedia – over and over, everywhere your message can be seen and heard. And when new customers try you out, they’re sure to be satisfied or very pleased with their experience because of the excellence in your delivery. “If you can do it, it ain’t bragging,” said a long past Major League Baseball homerun hitter.

The most powerful new business development combination is brand messaging across multimedia congruent with product/service excellence and customer experience. When someone gets a referral from a friend – of the same brand they’ve been hearing about in various media – the sale is made, the deal is closed, there’s no comparison shopping or haggling.

A point should be made here about the word “excellence.” Excellence can be attributed to low price/value. It isn’t necessarily about being the “Rolls Royce” in your category if you strategically differentiate on price (Walmart hasn’t fared so badly).

The Brand Bottom Line

Your website, social media, print, advertising, signs, business cards, office space – all the channels that carry your sales messages – need to say the same thing, in the same style & tone, and most importantly, they must speak the truth!

Chuck Sink is principal at Chuck Sink Link, Contoocook, N.H.