Upon reading How to Improve Your Branding with Your Content by Rick Sloboda, I sent this quote from the post to Jim Flowers, director of VT KnowledgeWorks:
Branding experts hit the nail on the head when they say that a winning brand conveys why you are your prospects’ only solution. If you can’t achieve that, you should at least convey why you are your prospects’ best solution. Of course, the same logic applies to your clients. So make a compelling claim about your business, product or service, and back it up.
I asked him for a "moxie" take on this. Jim writes the blog for entrepreneurs, So you want to launch a business..., and asserts that entrepreneurial enterprises begin with moxie.
Jim Flowers replied:
Anne,
Thanks for pointing out this solid post on branding. It’s right on target.
Branding activities [should] flow quite naturally and appropriately from what I like to call the “strategic essence” of the business. As blogger Rick Sloboda points out, powerful, effective branding reflects core corporate strengths. The corporate Message (one of the startwithmoxie M-words, by the way) must speak to four simple, strength-related issues:
- What do we do? Our core competency.
- For whom do we do it? Our targeted market.
- Why does it concern them? A compelling end-user need.
- Why should they select us to address their concern? Our differentiators.
This isn’t rocket science. Be clear about nature and size of your selected Market and its compelling needs. Create some Magic that addresses those needs in a unique, powerful, and direct manner. Then craft (and deliver) a Message that evokes in the intended buyer the feeling that your Magic is the only Magic, or at least the best Magic.
For any enterprise, large or small, this notion ought to be like motherhood and apple pie. Maybe Motherhood should be added to the list of M-words.
Jim Flowers
VT KnowledgeWorks
jim.flowers@vtknowledgeworks.com
540-443-9100 x1
VTKW Website: www.vtknowledgeworks.com
VTKW Blog: www.insidevtknowledgeworks.com
My Blog: www.startwithmoxie.com
My Book: MOXIE and other fundamental entrepreneurial concepts
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