Small Business Marketing Guide - DIY (do-it-yourself) BRAND MARKETING STRATEGIES to HELP YOU GROW YOUR BUSINESS

Your product is one among millions.
With so many products, why should a customer choose yours?
Positioning answers this question.

A product’s “position” is the place it occupies in the customer’s mind.
All products have a position—
even if it’s the position of “unfamiliar” or “irrelevant to me” or “not very good”.
Successful products are both relevant and highly ranked.
They stand out. They have a unique position.
The purpose of “positioning” is to create and articulate what makes your product unique.

A key step in positioning is writing a positioning statement.
Let’s start with a template based on the classic positioning structure
used by Procter and Gamble:

Or if you want to be really succinct, use this one by Marty Neumeier:

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Your company is small. Your budget is small. You want good design, but you wonder, “Can I get good design at an affordable price?”

Yes. You can do it yourself.

But first, be aware of the common perils DIY designers fall into. Before you start any design project, keep these do’s and don’ts in mind:

DON’T fix it, if it ain’t broke

You need design for two major reasons:

1. Your goals have changed
2. You aren’t achieving your current goals

If your goals are the same—you’re satisfied and successful—then why redesign what’s already working?

DO define your goals

Unfortunately, goals rarely remain the same over time. Why? Because the environment or context of your business is always changing. For example:

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A good brand is not simply a great logo, or a beautiful brochure, or a cool website. The essence of a good brand is a great customer experience.

My favorite example of a company with a great customer experience—aside from Apple—is Threadless, an online T-shirt store. The T-shirts are fashionable and well-made. But more importantly, the customer experience is memorable, enjoyable, and delightful.

Fostering great customer experiences is much harder to do than creating beautifully-designed marketing materials. Here’s what you can learn from Threadless:

1. Show customers you actually listen
Instead of an after-thought, customer feedback is the backbone of Threadless.

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All companies and products have names.
But not all names are good. And few are great.

Well-chosen names benefit the customer.
They stand out, are easy to remember,
and differentiate from the competitors.

Bad names blend in, are forgettable,
and create ambiguity about the benefit
of your company or product.

How do you find a good name?
Here’s a process to get you started:

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Getting customer feedback is vital to learning how well you’re reaching your customers. Sadly, most companies fail miserably to both collect and effectively respond to customer feedback.

Just think about the last time you made a complaint or suggestion to a big company like AT&T or Comcast. Did you get a lame response like “Thank you, we’ll take your feedback under consideration?”

That scripted response is an important lesson for your small business:

It’s not enough to simply say you’re listening. You actually have to mean it. Then, you have to prove it by taking concrete actions to address the feedback.

Here’s how you can better listen to your customers:

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