Getting your brand positioning right as a manufacturer

In a previous article, I discussed how to understand customers deeper in order to provide targeted products and services. In this post, the focus is on the importance of brand and brand development in manufacturing.

In 2018, brand is crucial for businesses looking to be successful. (Successful if we measure success in terms of sales, growth, market penetration, delivering a return to shareholders.)

Brand means a lot of different things to different people. Don't be fooled. It's not just the pretty logo (often process blue), colour palettes, typefaces and fonts. It is more about the values that a company strives to live by, the mission it sets itself, and its unwaivering vision that drives a business forward

It is recognised in most manufacturing sectors that Tier 1 companies have very established brand value systems. So established that they become part of the process that many suppliers normally fall into adopting.

But if you're a tier 2 supplier to very large companies, how can you adopt brand strategy and a brand value system that ensures would be customers recognise you, your business and your products and services when they are looking for a reliable supplier?

Questions about your brand positioning

Do you, for instance, have a clear mapped out approach and consistent vocabulary you use to ensure people know what business stands?

What do your people KNOW and what do they BELIEVE about what you do, and more importantly WHY you do it?

How do your people explain what it is you do?

How do you measure any of this?

Surveying those who matter

If you ask your staff what are the three most important values that they think are (or should be prevalent) in your business and how it conducts itself, would the responses be uniform or not?

If you were to take this wider and ask your customers and other stakeholders what they thought of you and your business, would you see clarity or confusion?

The point I'm trying to get out is that most small to medium-sized enterprises don't give their brand and positioning enough consideration and it's, therefore, no surprise when companies looking for particular product or service providers don't necessarily find you.

In the over quoted words of Jeff Bezos from Amazon, brand isn't what you necessarily say about yourself, "it's what people say about you when you're not in the room". But that doesn't stop Amazon ploughing millions into marketing and promotion to try and influence how they are talked about.

No, if you have a plan, and if you're consistent in the execution of that plan and the words you use, there's a good chance that your brand positioning will positively rub off on the people that matter most.

Check out the big boys

Take a look at the biggest brands in your sector. If you're in food manufacturing, go right to Nestle, Walkers, Pepsico. If it's oil and gas, look at the big boys like BP or Shell. If it's engineering you'll get a gigantic steer on brand positioning from the likes of 3M or GE. You’ll see just how consistent they are across vertical markets, geographical markets and product portfolios. 

And that consistency leads to memorability which is a critical part of successful sales and marketing, especially in a competitive manufacturing environment.

A brand positioning system for manufacturers

When I talk, train and work on branding and brand development projects, I look to strip a business down to its constitute parts and build up a narrative that 'people' can rally behind.

I'm always looking to understand what is it about the business that causes people to value it and create a set of comprehensive BRAND VALUES. These need to be attributes that define behaviour, directing people to action. Working from there, a BRAND PROPOSITION that explains in simple but powerful terms what the company is in the business of is constructed. This normally aligns 'the what' with 'the who' with 'the how' and crucially 'a why'.

From there, we set a BRAND PERSONALITY, a tone and vocabulary that brings the brand to life. Finally, we create a BRAND ESSENCE as the one definable, immovable element that captures the spirit and energy of the business that stakeholder can really understand.

If you really want your brand positioning to resonate with staff, customers and suppliers and other stakeholders, my advice is to build it around 'as human as possible' characteristics. Because, guess what? It's people doing business with people that bring all this stuff to life.

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Want more?

Brand is the second module on my manufacturing marketing mastermind that is starting in late January 2019. It's a 12-week facilitated programme designed specifically to help small and medium manufacturers dramatically improve their marketing. And we'll spend a whole week on this.

I'd love you to check out the mastermind here. I'm also running a webinar which will go over the process I'm laying out in these articles. Do register for the webinar on the mastermind page. Spaces are limited.

Read more, right here on LinkedIn:

How to really understand your customers - marketing advice for manufacturers

The five critical elements of a manufacturing marketing plan

Five ways to win the marketing game at engineering expos