A brand only exist because of their customers.
Because a brand is what you say it is, it’s what they say it is.
You can’t control your brand.
But you can shape and influence it, through design and communication.
At the core of it, your customers still control your brand.
That is why you should care about who they are, what their wants and needs are, where they hangout at, basically you want to know them like they’re your best friends.
Why does it matter anyway? Why can’t we just target everybody? More people the better isn’t it?
Not always. Yes, you want to get more customers. But attracting everybody simply means you’re attracting nobody.
Look at any big and famous brands in the world.
No single brand is for everyone, because people are different, they want different things, they value different stuff.
The way to build a brand is to first focus on your minimum viable audience.
Which are the smallest group of people that are the most relevant to you and are the most easiest to reach and connect to.
You build a strong and deep relationship and trust with these small group, they will act as a solid foundation and core for your brand, they will become the “model citizen” for your brand.
These people will attract others that are similar to them.
And those next group of people will then attract others that are similar to them.
That is how a brand grows, you start with a core customer base and you grow outward with their help.
The best form of marketing today is still word-of-mouth marketing.
But to achieve all those, you need to first understand them, get into their minds.
To know and understand your customers, answer these four important questions,
1/ Identity. Who they are.
2/ Desire. What they want.
3/ Attitude. How they behave.
4/ Mores. Where they belong.
These four questions will help you build a persona of your ideal target customers.
You create up to 3 sets of customer persona for your brand.
The point of this is not to narrow down your brand to just those people, but to create a focus for your efforts.
If you’re chasing everyone, you will miss everyone.
When you know exactly who you want to connect with, you will have more clarity, your choice will be more clear, you will have more focus and you get to be more consistent.
Not to mention that your efforts would be more efficient and effective.
When you know and understand who you are appealing to, you’ll be more specific and that will make your customer feel more understood, they feel like you’re really listening to them.
A strong brand needs a strong support from their customers, so always keep them in mind.