Brand Complacency:
The silent killer and how to avoid it.
Part Three: Markets - Positioning and Alignment
Do a google search on 'Market Positioning and Brand Strategy’ and you will see that it’s a topic that generates a great deal of debate and thought. But is this reflected in the boardrooms of SME’s across the country?
For many businesses, time set aside for discussions on market positioning can be in short supply so it should come as no surprise that issues related to long-term brand strategy and market positioning whilst important are rarely treated as being critical at management meetings.
Unfortunately when they do become critical it is usually based on figures from finance that show a worrying decline in revenue. And that is the worst time to be thinking about your market positioning.
Most business leaders would agree that market positioning is critical to long-term success but there’s also a significant amount of directors who would admit that they are always too busy to discuss this in any meaningful way.
A classic Catch 22 situation.
Recognise the dangers of complacency and act on them
Interestingly this can sometimes be most relevant to companies who have enjoyed long-term growth and success in the past.
Such companies can fall into the trap of complacency by having too much self-belief in the strength of their market and brand positioning. This over-confidence can be based on being in business for many years, the many high profile projects the company has worked on and the size that the company has grown to.
The most obvious example is Nokia, which lost 65% of its brand value in 2013 and has long disappeared from the Interbrand’s Best Global Brands Ranking. Indeed, the brand failed to respond to the rise of smartphones. The list also includes once superstar brands like with Blackberry, Kodak and MySpace.
Avoiding complacency is an effective quick fix. By adopting “easy to implement marketing strategies” you will immediately reverse any pattern of market positioning complacency setting in. There are a few things you must keep in mind:
1- A brand at its core is about trust. It takes a long time to build and even longer to rebuild. Don’t let your brand slip away from the reality of the market and its customers. Be vigilant. No self-congratulation allowed.
2- Build brand equity based on this trust. Think about Apple and even Starbucks, these brands have competitors with equally superior products but their brand equity is high as they connect with their customers in a far superior way.
3- Always deliver on your brand promise. If your company doesn’t give what customers need they will turn away to a company that does. It is as simple as that.
Do not underestimate Millennials…
And as Millennials become more influential with business decisions what they regard as dynamic and trustworthy brands may place some of the more established and traditional companies at a disadvantage. A study by Cone Communications found, for example, that nine out of 10 Millennials would switch brands to support a particular cause and 87% would purchase a product with a social or environmental benefit.
The reason being is that Millennials want to be highly engaged by what they do and smart leaders will harness their sense of mission or risk losing these employees to more purpose-driven companies.
Make sure that you remain relevant by:
1- Offering a strong sense of purpose and a values-driven culture that will likely attract these employees. This will help set yourself apart from your competitors.
2- Working towards bridging the gap to ensure a new generation of business leaders is created as Millennials believe businesses are not doing enough to help them develop fully their leadership skills. Supporting Millennials' leadership ambitions will build loyalty and retain talent according to a study from Deloitte.
3- Encouraging mentorship. Indeed, still according to Deloitte, Millennials who have a mentor are receiving good advice and feel somebody is interested in their professional development.
… and Social Marketing
As digital marketing through social platforms becomes the norm, B2B companies who ignore this vital area of communications do so at their peril. In the space of around a decade social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, Google Plus and LinkedIn have arrived and are shaping the social media world today.
Who knows what’s next tomorrow? The digital world evolves fast: be prepared.
It is essential that your marketing team avoids complacency when it comes to creating success for your brand on social media, because nothing can be taken for granted, except that things will change. When companies take success for granted and don’t keep up, then failure is a very real possibility.
Be agile; adapt your strategies to the latest social media marketing trends
- Video content
- Influencers marketing
- Augmented reality
- Creating evergreen and valuable digital content
- Ephemeral content
Embrace automation to release your employees’ creativity
The last area I would like to touch on is the power of automation within the workplace.
With the rise of SAAS (software as a service) the disciplines of HR, IT, Sales and Marketing are evolving rapidly. A new survey from CareerBuilder shows that more than 1 in 10 HR managers are already seeing evidence of AI becoming a regular part of HR, and 55% say it will be in the next five years. Indeed, robots can be deployed to undertake traditionally time-consuming administrative tasks around compliance.
The companies who embrace change and adopt the use of digital platforms to automate how communications are managed within various departments are successfully freeing up time for their managers.
The time that can be better spent developing a more strategic approach to their department's role in improving the overall performance of the company they work for by:
- Spending time connecting with employees and the business
- Planning for the future instead of reacting to the present
- Looking at new trends to keep up and stay ahead of the game
And with more time focused on strategic thinking your business will be more agile and will be able to out-perform competing companies who hold the view that if it’s not broken, no need to fix it.
This concludes our three articles that have touched on apathy being a silent killer for any business and I hope that these have been useful to you.
If you would like to discuss any area of communications for your own company then we will be delighted to meet for an informal chat at any time.
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