Designing your customer
To make a great brand, you need three things
Passionate customers.
Passionate customers.
And passionate customers.
They hold all the power. All of it.
It might be time to stop designing products and services and start designing customers.
A company’s main asset isn’t its product but its tribe of customers.
When you sell features, you’re saying, “Look how cool this is.”
When you sell benefits, you’re saying, “Look how cool this works.”
When you sell the experience, you’re saying, “Look how cool you’ll feel”
When you sell a tribal identity, you’re saying, “Look who thinks you’re cool.”
The best tribes will feel like a movement. But it’s only a movement if it moves without your company’s involvement.
Old brands required compliance and consumption. New brands thrive through sharing, affiliation, and adapting. When your customers participate with other customers, loyalty SOARS
There are five motives for customer participation:
Information - they want to know
Self-discovery - they want to learn
Social integration - they want to fit in
Social enhancement - they want to improve
Entertainment - they want to enjoy
Successful companies invest in their tribe. And a way to win is by building a small base of believers into a tribe. So let's describe your believers. How many distinguishing characteristics can you list?:
What are their rules?
what are their beliefs?
What are their habits?
What are their likes?
What are their dislikes?
Defining and understanding your most passionate believers will help you tremendously.
Let’s go a little deeper and discuss your positioning and this tribe of customers.
Remember, your brand is the gut feeling people have about you.
The first stop on your way to those feelings is your category.
People care a lot about categories. Categories are what get people excited. Brands become shorthand for the categories, like, Frisbee, Chapstick, Yo-Yo, Vespa, Sharpie, Band-Aid, and so many more.
There are three paths for your brand to become synonymous with a category
In an existing category - you must be different, like Tupperware.
Innovation in a sub-category, like Keurig or Swiffer or Venmo. Coffee, cleaning products, and payments have been around forever - but not like that!
Or, the aspiration of most enthusiastic entrepreneurs, you have to invent an entirely new category - like Uber and ride-sharing.
Regardless of which path is right for you, you HAVE to be different. Let’s look at the spectrum of differentiation:
On one end is differentiation. Offering the same thing only different. Coke and Pepsi, for example
On the other end is disruption. Offering a WHOLE NEW THING.
Telsa, AirBnB, and Uber, for example
There is also a first-mover advantage. The FIRST company - not even necessarily the BEST one - to define or redefine a category can OWN it for years.
Once that mental box is filled with those gut feelings, it’s very difficult for a competitor to displace them. This is when insurmountable leads are gained through learning effects. Like understanding how to order an Uber.
But moving first doesn’t always guarantee success. You must also be a market FIT.
Sometimes you have to prognosticate what a customer may want. Only 11% of first movers will dominate their categories. This fact is why many companies prefer to be fast followers instead.
The problem with fast followers is that they only have about 25% of the market capitalization – where the category owner has 75%.
So… what is the appetite in your organization for risk vs. status quo. What is the will to win? Are you going to blaze a new trail or be content with a me-too brand?
What can you do when you’re designing these gut feelings you wish customers had about you? Offer different -like truly crazily different, Customers will ALWAYS see different before better. Don’t offer just “more”
Make your brand the ONLY one in the category
World-class brands require one mental calorie burn to “get it”. It must be short one-sentence simple. It’s impossible to sell muddle
The shortest, fastest path to satisfaction and tension release wins.
A company can do anything, but it can’t do everything.
Say NO, a lot - we’ve overvalued addition and undervalued subtraction in this consumer world. If you can’t crisply say what makes you the ONLY one that matters, you will struggle.
Here are just a few ways to be different. You’ll find the complete list in your workbook: (show on screen as they are read)
By design (like Dyson vacuums)
By tribal customs (like Harley Davidson)
By convenience (like Uber)
By scope (like Amazon)
By ideology (like Tom’s shoes)
And here are a few rules of thumb about your differentiation
Work within the MAYA principle (Most Advanced Yet Acceptable).
Remember, most customers go for good because they can’t imagine the difference. So be the right kind of different.. Which is GOOD and different.
And…. Focus. Focus. Focus. Either have a heavy hammer or sharp nail.
Ok, last thought, be careful with line extensions!
When there is serious competition, line extensions rarely work.
When you start to broaden or water down, the gut feeling about your brand and its category naturally becomes weaker and weaker.
I hope that helps you understand your customer and how to maximize your appeal to them.