It is common when it comes to our businesses to lean towards pleasing people, the people who could potentially buy our product or our service. You certainly have heard – even from me – to find your ideal client, track it like a prey, discover what they like, where they are, how they spend, inspire them, flatter them, etc. In other words, watch them like an hawk and offer them exactly what they want when they want it. What it means, is that you then make all your branding and marketing decisions focused on pleasing and attracting your ideal client.

What if I told you there was a sweet spot in branding where the roles are reversed? A place where YOU tell your audience what they should want and what they should need. You define what they want and when they want it. It’s about finding that fine line between you making choices around your ideal client’s taste and habits, and you suggesting and prompting decisions and new habits.

How do you manage to do that and still make sure you don’t lose your audience or fail to captivate it? The strategy would absolutely have to be customized to each business, and it would depend on your product/service and on your audience as well. However, there are a few general guidelines to keep in mind and to help you no matter what it is you are selling or who you are selling to.

First of all, you need to know your industry and your audience extremely well before trying this strategy. Indeed, to bring them to make decisions and create new habits, you need to know them as they are now. The change you suggest shouldn’t be anything out of character, rather something that evokes the concept of risk and of adventure, or of growth and betterment. You want to lead them to consider going for passion over logic. Think of it as the red pill over the blue pill kind of decision for branding. The goal would be to create a new habit for them. Imagine that! Creating a new habit for a whole group of people around your brand. That would be positioning your brand as a trend setter and an innovator.

It is a risky strategy without a doubt, but as any taken risk it is extremely rewarding. It gives you a chance to be a leading brand in your industry. It also opens the door to adding on to who your ideal client is and expanding your audience, or tribe as we often hear. It is undeniably a great way to exponentially grow your business.

This branding strategy could be done as you first enter the market, introducing your brand as the new different kid on the block. Or it could be done as a rebranding strategy, presenting yourself in a new and improved light, differentiating your brand from the rest of the pack based on experience.

As a conclusion, I would say standing out can be risky but positioning your brand as an innovator in your industry will allow your business to have more room to stretch out its creative legs without worrying about pleasing people, it provides more freedom and gives you the opportunity to grow your sales by expanding your audience.

REVERIE MINGLES: HAVE YOU BEEN FEELING LIMITED AND STUCK IN A CLIENT PLEASING PATTERN WITH YOUR BRAND?