Does Your Brand Drive Raving Fans to Your Store?

Build a unique brand that guides and influences with laser-like focus.

October 19, 2016

ATLANTA – Regardless of the size of your organization, or the size of your budget, there are seven clear steps to building your brand. Ernie Harker energetically walked attendees step-by-step through the process of creating a memorable and focused organizational brand in Wednesday’s education session “Fans and Focus Through Branding.”

As Executive Director of CREATE, Maverik’s marketing division, Harker has built the c-store’s unique brand focused on an adventure life-style.

Step 1: What makes your business unique?
What do you want to be known for? Harker recommends finding the one thing that sets you apart from the competition and focus on telling customers who you are.

Step 2: Define your target customer
It’s not enough to say you want people who drive cars, or people who eat food. Be specific. Harker said to ask, “Who really wants what you deliver the way you deliver it?” In Maverik’s case, the company identified 18- to 45-year-old men who work on a truck, buy a lot of food, aren’t worried about counting calories, and buy fuel for work and play.

Step 3: Identify your core belief
What core belief drives your company? According to Harker, “A brand isn’t something you put on, it’s something you are.” His examples include Apple’s belief that “people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are those that do,” and Coca-Cola’s “joys in life are centered around family and fun.” Harker believes that without identifying this core belief you have to remind yourself every day who you are. At Maverik, the belief is “adventure elevates life.”

Step 4: Outline your vision
Harker asks, “What do you envision your company could become if all your dreams came true?” The idea is to ask yourself what your company could accomplish without barriers.

“This vision should be nearly unattainable, but will guide the tactical decisions you make.” According to Amazon, “Our vision is to be earth’s most customer-centric company, to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.” Equally focused is Maverik’s vision to bring adventure to everyday life.

Step 5: Describe your brand
Use adjectives to describe your brand. Are you intuitive, elegantly designed and innovative like Apple? Bold, exciting, happy and connected like Coke? Or is your company exciting, extreme or outdoorsy like Maverik? Determine and define how you are portrayed.

Step 6: Establish design elements
Harker stressed the importance of determining and sticking to design elements from the colors, textures, fonts and vocabulary to the images and visuals that define your brand.

Step 7: Actualize your brand
This is where you put it all in action. Create a logo and signage to capture the essence of your brand. Develop a tagline that sums up your who you are in a few words. Carry those earlier design elements and decisions into packaging your private label merchandise, as well as interior and exterior store design and employee uniforms. And finally, develop advertising campaigns that highlight your unique selling proposition.

Done well Harker promises, “Effective branding can make your candy bars and your Coca-Cola taste better.

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