Inject purpose and meaning Market share is an essential goal for most businesses. Greater share leads to a stronger and more vibrant business. It fuels growth, stimulates innovation, and increases ROI. But are you and your people having a hard time moving the needle? It’s no wonder. After all, it’s tough out there. Your industry is becoming increasingly commoditized. Pervasive competitors are quickly copying and mimicking your innovations. At the same time, people who have been shook up by the financial crisis, and who increasingly seek values as much as value, are thinking more about what they buy, and whom they buy from. As product differentiation becomes more difficult, many businesses are putting their focus on the ideas of purpose and meaning. They are recognizing that the market no longer works the way it once did. They are adapting to the Zeitgeist that places new demands on marketing ideas. Given the never ending media reports about financial problems, environmental disasters, and workplace issues, it’s not surprising that people have shifted their marketplace attitudes and behavior. They are now far more discerning about how they spend their time and money. When presented with options that lead to evident positive outcomes — based on purposeful and meaningful intentions — they not only embrace these businesses, products, and brands for themselves, but also become their brand advocates. As such, market share grows not only through new customers, but also exponentially through the ripple effect of these newly recruited brand advocates. These are the people that talk about your product and often times advocate for it in ways marketing and advertising can’t touch. Of course, purpose and meaning can’t simply be “cut and pasted” into your marketing activities. It needs to first be the modus operandi of your business and its people. It needs to be rooted in truths about what your business does and how it does it. It then needs to be “baked into” your business’s products, processes, procedures, policies, and practices through new attitudes and behavior. Purpose and meaning aren’t necessarily the stars of your ads and promotions. Rather, use your marketing and advertising powers to draw people into your rich world of “why your product matters”. If you can authentically articulate this purposeful reason for being, people will care more. Once there, customers will start realizing the meaningful difference of your brand through product and service experiences. As that difference resonates within them, they will begin happily telling others about the benefits your brand deliver, and the unique and welcomed sensations it evokes. Move beyond the old, fading world of getting people to “buy” products, and into the fresh, more differentiating world of encouraging people to “buy into” meaningful outcomes based upon a brand and product they want to get behind. to drive market share in your industry, to cut through the Lumascape of your category, to capture the hearts and minds of the people that can grow your business. Invest in a brand strategy For more information about Emotive Brand.
