After offering marketing and branding services to small businesses and entrepreneurs for over 13 years, I’ve noticed one common challenge they all face – they don’t have a clear purpose-driven story.
What exists instead is a patched together, forever changing, trying to please everyone, not honoring the original existence, story. Their story is often inconsistent across their brand and is only focused on them. This results in their ideal customers finding it hard to connect with them or quickly establish how the business addresses their needs.
While initially being excited about the product or service they want to offer the world and having a clear purpose, somewhere along the path to making a profit their reason for existence and clarity on who they are serving was lost in their story, or was never communicated to start with. Most businesses and entrepreneurs are stuck in their WHAT or HOW story. What their product does, what services they are offering, or how their product or service compares to others in the marketplace. Although this information is important to communicate it should come secondary.
Marketing is essentially about communicating to your target audience why your product or service is the best solution for their needs, and getting them to take action. Whether you use marketing psychology, branding, or the latest online viral techniques, achieving this is the main purpose behind your actions.
Whether I’ve been engaged as head of marketing, to build a website, develop a brand, or to complete copywriting, I always start with a business visioning exercise to build the business foundation and develop a purpose-based story. Without this all my efforts will wasted and needed to continually be duplicated as the story changes. Advertising dollars and good marketing teams can’t make up for an unclear story and brand. If you aren’t clear on your purpose and whom you are serving, then how will your customers be clear you are the best solution to their needs? As companies evolve and pivot their services and products, the original purpose of the company shouldn’t change. Having a purpose-driven story in place allows you to survive even when market conditions or the company focus changes.
In an age where customers have more choice, the demand for personalization and relevancy in their communications from businesses needs to become the norm. Companies still stuck in ‘it’s all about us’ stories will automatically lose to companies incorporating their purpose into their ‘it’s all about you’ story to their customers.
In a nutshell, customers care about themselves and how a product or service is going to improve their lives. They connect through emotions, which can be communicated through a vision/movement and pointing out and addressing their pain points.
To create a purpose-driven story that aligns to your customers needs the following questions need to be clearly addressed:
- The ultimate purpose of your business
- The why, how, and what of your business
- Your brand personality
- What problem you are solving in the marketplace
- Who your customers are and what their needs are
- The challenges your customers face and what solutions you offer
- Your company language and main keywords
Purposeful Warrior’s Business Visioning workshops provide you the foundation to build a solid and consistent brand story that is aligned to both your purpose and your customer’s needs. To learn more about how these workshops can help your business achieve sustainable growth click here.
