Adjusting Marketing and Brand Messaging While Adjusting Business Model

August 4, 2020 | Ken Hinman, Advisor, Compass Executives

As the veracity of our latest world reality sets in, we find ourselves with more questions than answers. What created success yesterday no longer seems relevant. Our choices short-term appear limited, but the answers lie with creative marketing to cut through the chaos. Knowing your brand’s equity will allow you to create innovative opportunities in the new world business order. There is a clear method to use to navigate discovering your strategy.

When I was at Hartmann Luggage and 9/11 occurred, though pivoting was the buzz word it quickly became the necessity to survival. The world changed, restrictions created overnight panic, and the luggage we travelled with no longer worked with the new regulations. We created marketing messaging opportunities that elevated our brand while innovating to meet new regulations in that time of crisis. Innovations in product and strategic marketing helped us not only survive the short term but thrive in the months and years to follow. Do the challenges sound familiar?

Fast forward to our Covid world. You have your brand and services, you have an established product line, so what is your next step? Critical to success will be understanding your brand relevance looking through the varying lenses of today. You must redefine relevancy of the features and benefits of your brand services. What is it that is at the core of your companies’ values? How will you reengage and excite new customers? A Brand discovery process is key, and your marketing message is critical.

• What is it you or your product offers as it relates to consumer needs?
• Does your cost structure today allow you to create a new plan that meets your needs?
• How will you exist with new and ever-changing guidelines and disruptions and still build your business back?
• What is your new messaging that creates excitement and opportunity?

If you can answer these questions you are on your way to creating a new path with structure and measurable deliverables, offering new and endless opportunities. Creating a ”message of innovation” that reflects your shift to the new world will make you relevant and appealing. With strategic thinking, clear direction, and superlative execution, you then have a new offering in your established business. People want to know what you can do for them, that what you offer can make life easier, and bring stability in their lives. Knowing their needs, matching your offerings to these identified needs, and marketing these coupled in new ways through social media, client web conferences, and ecommerce sites will elevate your business as times continue to change.

It’s the new world and you will seize the opportunities head on!