A business is known to be defined as an organisation or a sort of economic system where there is an exchange of goods or services for money, therefore the purpose of business is for profit. And branding is just differentiating your business from that of similar businesses, either through a logo, an added value or something that is not shared with competitors in the same market. Although there is definitely an exchange of goods or services for money in business, Peter Drucker defined “creating customers” as the purpose of business, and profit and success as the outcome of creating customers. Therefore one could say that a successful organisation/ business is one which revolves itself around its customers. The first step to doing this is identifying the customers.
Customers’ Identity [Who are they?]
This is simply defining an audience you would be targeting. For instance, single males in their late 20s in North England making up to £20,000 a year. This helps to create a profile of your target customer and consumers. With this, they are not just people to you, you have a mental picture of who they are, where they could easily be reached, places they would probably source for information and so much more.
Customers’ Needs [What are their wants/ needs?]
Identifying your target customers’ needs not only involves asking yourself why they would want to use your product or services, but much more on why they would need your product or services. In businesses and marketing there are various theories on consumer needs, but the most used is the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It states that every product satisfies a certain need in people, be it a physiological need such as the need for food and shelter, or an emotional need such as that of a social status. Therefore, after identifying your customer, the next step should be to identify their needs.
Be the Solution.
After identifying your target customers and their needs, your strategy should be based on how to use your products to tap into those needs, and satisfy the ones it can. This would move your goods or services from being just a functional good to a valuable good.
Although this is not as simple as it reads, this process serves as a guide on how your business or brand can be valuable to your consumers. For instance, let’s use this process with a School. They identify their target audience as Class ABC parents of 12 -17 year olds boys and girls, living within a particular region with no more than three kids. (Class ABC being people within the Upper and middle social classes). If this group of people simply want an education for their kids, any school would do. But the School can tap into their prospects need for social recognition by hiring high quality teachers, and probably adding history and culture to the usual lessons their school offer, making them a high class School. They can even go further to tap into the need for self-esteem and make the School unique and hard to get into, making it some sort of achievement for their prospects to get their kids into the school.
Dos
- Do start small, most big organisations started small, but had goals and a clear strategy to achieve those goals.
- Do assume all businesses are following this process and create a competitive advantage
Don’ts
- Don’t just identify the needs, fulfill the needs
