Understanding who your brand is designed to appeal to, is integral in shaping your brands value proposition, it’s styling, it’s values and it’s purpose. Without this knowledge, your brand lacks focused clarity,and only by some random act of luck is it going to resonate with prospective customers.
Knowing who you don’t want as customers helps clarify who you do.
Who don’t you want sell to?
Who are your enemy customers?
For example you might generate a list like the one below..
- projects I find objectionable,
- clients not open to change,
- don’t value my views,
- key measure is hours rather than effectiveness,
- built around cheapest options
On a large piece of paper write right in the center of the page – “Our brand does not want to appeal to people who…..”
Try to describe attitudes and outlooks when classify enemy customers rather than just easy labels, in doing so try to clarify who your customers should be but don’t get too specific or exclusive, otherwise you are limiting yourself.
From this list, identify the characteristics of your ideal customers, by flipping them as shown below …
- projects I find objectionable – projects that are a good suit for me personally
- clients not open to change – clients open to change
- don’t value my views – value my views
- key measure is hours rather than effectiveness – interested only in effectiveness
- built around cheapest options – built around value
Branding 101
- Branding 101: start here
- Assessing your brand
- Finding brands authentic purpose
- Brand strategy
- Brand purpose, vision and mission
- Branding: talent
- Brand values
- Differentiating your brand
- Focusing on your ideal customers
- Developing brand – six legged spider
- Brand positioning
- Brand story
- Brand name
- Crafting the Internal brand positioning statement
- Shaping the external brand positioning line