Three strategies for brand marketing

In order to build a good brand, the first task for small and medium-sized enterprises with niche brands is to formulate the right brand strategy

As the saying goes, knowing yourself and your enemy will ensure victory in every battle. First, we need to understand the strategies that niche brands often use:

1. Better strategy

Our mobile phones are benchmarked against Apple, but our performance is even better than Apple's!

2. Replacement strategy

Our mobile phones will replace Apple, Huawei, and Xiaomi!

3. Follow the trend strategy

This time, the Apple 12 is equipped with three cameras, and our phones must also be equipped with them! (The company does what big brands do.)

When a brand is first established or just beginning to take shape, I believe the above phenomenon has been encountered to some extent, but how likely is it to be realized? Ask yourself, which big brand today has not experienced the hardships of entrepreneurship and the twists and turns of branding? Only by finding the right direction and carrying it through can we embark on a smooth road

We can’t always let brands live in their own Garden of Eden. For example, the bold words and deeds in entrepreneurial roadshows often move people and become inspirational stories passed down from mouth to mouth. But the result is that most of them failed to withstand the test of the market and exited the market in failure.

In the end, they all concluded: "It's all because the big brands have monopolized the market!"

How can there be long-term monopoly in the market? Pinduoduo came out after Taobao. You should know that Huang Zheng, who started from scratch in 2015, has now entered the top ten of the Hurun Rich List and is the richest self-made person born in the 1980s with a net worth of 135 billion. Therefore, the reason for brand failure is not the monopoly of big brands, but more often the strategic mistakes. A good strategy often determines the success or failure of a brand. For example, the three strategies described above are obviously not suitable for niche brands.

1. Our mobile phones compete with Apple, but our performance is even better than Apple's!

The performance is better than Apple's and the product is indeed excellent. But why don’t users buy it? Because, the company says that the product is good, but users have not yet realized whether the product is good or not. To use the slogan that Haodi used to say, "Everyone is good, that is the real good!" There is never a shortage of good products on the market. Only when users say they are good, are they really good!

2. Our mobile phones will replace Apple, Huawei, and Xiaomi!

The reason why big brands are recognized as big brands is largely because they have already occupied the minds of users in advance. Therefore, simply trying to use slogans to compare and shake the market will not change their position in the minds of users.

Let’s take the example of Taobao again. If Pinduoduo had followed the same “big category” e-commerce platform path as Taobao, would it have been able to rise so successfully? You know, Pinduoduo's strategy of "mutual competition" among friends in the circle of friends is the key to Pinduoduo's becoming a big brand.

3. This time, the Apple 12 is equipped with three cameras, and our mobile phones must also be equipped with them! (The company does what big brands do.)

This kind of blind following is what small brands like to do most. Regardless of whether it’s appropriate or not, the big brands have done it, so it’s definitely right for you to follow suit. The prerequisites behind brand success are not taken into consideration at all: brand awareness, financial strength, overall marketing strategy and other conditions.

For example, Coca-Cola’s slogan for a while was “Drink for a spiritual turnaround.” Mental reversal? How to transfer? Forgive my own lack of talent and knowledge, maybe I am not too energetic?

However, this is the "willfulness" of Coca-Cola after its success. Can we learn from it? When we are still far from success, what we really need to learn is what Coca-Cola did before it became successful.

Let’s go back to the early 20th century, when the United States was carrying out an anti-smoking campaign. Coca-Cola seized the opportunity to promote: “The Great Nation’s Non-Alcoholic Beverage” - responding to the new social atmosphere and focusing on the gap in non-alcoholic beverages.

For example, Juewei Duck Neck imitated Durex's brand copywriting, which had a negative effect. This was because Juewei Duck Neck did not pay attention to the user's brand awareness and product characteristics.

Facing strong pressure from big brands, what should small brands do?

Here are three effective branding strategies for your reference:

1. Candid Strategy
2. Reverse Strategy
3. Sacrifice strategy

1) Honesty strategy

Just like the previous example, if your brand does not occupy a position in the user's mind, no matter how you shout, it will not change the current position of other brands in the user's mind.

Taking a step back to advance, correctly recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of your own brand, and appropriately acknowledging your own shortcomings may be more effective than deliberately hiding the facts.

For example, in the early days of Mengniu’s establishment, everyone knew that Yili was the number one dairy brand in Inner Mongolia. At that time, many people didn’t even know about the small brand “Mengniu”.

If Mengniu had said at that time that our products are better than Yili’s. I believe not many people will pay attention to it, and it is not a good strategy for Mengniu.

Therefore, Mengniu adopted a "frank strategy" at that time - if it could not be the leader, it would be the second, declaring that it wanted to "create the second brand of Inner Mongolia dairy industry."

Users were not averse to the brand, and at the same time, the Yili brand allowed users to quickly become familiar with the company. This strategy actually enabled Mengniu to develop rapidly.

One thing to note here:

When adopting the "honesty strategy", when facing users questioning the shortcomings of your product or the competitive pressure from big brands, your honesty about the brand's products not being good enough must be a fact that we all recognize and does not involve the core selling point of the product.

For another example, in the mouthwash market, Listerine brand mouthwash products were once criticized for their bad taste - but this shortcoming did not involve its core selling point of "good bactericidal effect".

Faced with this problem, Listerine adopted a frank strategy at the time, admitting that its mouthwash smelled bad and claiming that it was "the mouthwash that makes you hate it twice a day" - users were not disgusted by this explanation later. Instead, they felt that something that smelled like disinfectant must be able to kill bacteria, which further increased product sales.

Therefore, when faced with the shortcomings of your own brand, which do not involve the core points of the product, honestly admitting your shortcomings will gain more recognition from users than hiding the facts.

2) Reverse strategy

We always like to study the advantages of big or successful brands, but rarely think about their disadvantages.

If we can find the disadvantages behind the advantages of big brands, the result of this reverse thinking may be the development strategy that small brands can adopt.

For example, when Google was founded, Yahoo was the largest dominant brand in the search engine market, and almost no other brand could shake it.

But Google discovered that search engines like Yahoo have one major feature: they add all kinds of things to the search pages, such as websites and advertisements.

If Google does the same, there will be no hope. Later, Google did the opposite and created a page with only a search box, and then placed ads during precise searches. This reverse strategy actually generates higher revenue and thus gains its own market opportunities.

It should be noted that whether this reverse thinking strategy will ultimately be a real market opportunity requires subsequent verification. But the biggest help of this reverse strategy is that it allows you to not only blindly follow the strategies of big brands, but also obtain more strategic references.

3) Sacrifice strategy

It is human nature to think that more is better. Because this can bring visible benefits in the short term, this approach is popular with many companies that value KPIs.

In fact, for small brands and companies that have fewer resources than big brands, learning to sacrifice short-term interests is the key to long-term success.

The sacrifice strategy refers to sacrificing some unimportant market layouts in the enterprise and concentrating more resources on the most important areas.

The most famous case in business history is Apple in the 1990s.

At the time, Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy and faced pressure from big brands like Microsoft. It was still just a niche brand.

After Jobs returned to Apple, the main approach to saving Apple was to adopt a sacrificial strategy:

Reduce 15 product models and other businesses to about 1, and concentrate limited funds and other resources on the most important one or two products.

At the time, Jobs also told strategist Rumelt that our product line was too complicated and was costing the company a lot of money.

This is exactly the essence of Tian Ji's horse racing. Give up the inferior horse to win. Top against middle, middle against bottom, two wins out of three.

It can be seen that when resources are not as good as those of big brands, giving up certain unimportant products and businesses that are not conducive to long-term development is more effective than blindly dispersing resources.

The above are the three major strategies for small brands. Don’t blindly follow the comparison, rationally see the actual situation of your own products, and think about the brand strategy that suits you.

1. Honesty strategy:

It does not involve the core points of the product. Sometimes admitting one's own shortcomings can attract more recognition from users.

2. Reverse strategy:

Actively think about the advantages of big brands and what is beneficial to the development of your own brand

3. Sacrifice strategy:

Small brands with many product lines should consider sacrificing some less important product lines or businesses and focus more resources on important products to win more user markets.

above.

Author: Zhao Zichen Vic

Source: Zhao Zichen Vic