With everyone gearing up for the new normal, how can your brand stand out from the crowd? Paul Clegg from Coconut Creatives offers you some practical tips.
As you may be aware, people are beginning to feel more hopeful about the future, including their future job prospects. So, many businesses are adapting to hybrid-working – combining working in the office to working from home – in a bid to support staff with the changing attitudes to work.
However, we’ve also seen the negative impact of covid, with the increased number of people who had been furloughed, or made redundant. And women have been the hardest hit.
So, what does this mean for you? It means there is a larger pool of prospective franchisees feeling lost, and looking for guidance about where to direct their careers, next. This is a great opportunity for you and your brand to make a positive difference to people’s lives; but how do you stand out from the crowd, to be seen by the right prospect?
1. Dare to be seen!
Instead of looking at what other brands are doing, and trying to match them, the best way to stand out from the crowd is by daring to be different! Your prospects want to see the life behind the brand, and the people behind the marketing strategy. So, stand up, and be seen.
When it comes to retaining information and learning, according to Vanessa Boris, of Harvard Business Publishing, your target group is roughly made-up of:
- 40% visual learners, who connect through videos, diagrams, or illustrations.
- 40% auditory learners, who connect best through lectures and discussions.
- 20% kinaesthetic learners, who connect by be doing, experiencing, or feeling.
How to achieve this?
Use the above to create content your target will connect with. Including videos! Being seen involves being visible. Make it a collective experience amongst your network and mix professionally-crafted videos with those filmed off-the-cuff on a mobile. You want to show, rather than tell, the joy of running one of your franchises, so include content like: what to expect on a Discovery Day, what a franchisee does with their business, and anything fun within the life of your franchise, to which people will be drawn to your culture and approach.
2. Be your authentic self!
…and stop trying to sell. Your prospects are not in the right frame of mind to be sold to. They have a problem – around their career/work – and you have the solution – an incredible franchise opportunity. Use authentic methods to offer your target audience the solution to their problems.
According to Social Media Today, whilst there is agreement in the importance of authentic marketing, there’s discrepancy between what marketers believe they do, and what consumer see:
- 90% of consumers said authenticity is important to them, when deciding the brands, they engage with.
- 83% of marketers understand how much authenticity matters, with 61% saying it is the most important component of impactful content.
- So, 92% of marketers believe they’re creating content which resonates as authentic with consumers.
- Yet 51% of consumers saying less than half of brands they follow actually come across as using authentic content.
How to achieve this?
Don’t be afraid to talk about the reality of people’s current situations, and show the vulnerability within your network, and how you adapted to bring stability and success. Share case studies, and repurpose the content – for social media, on your blog, as a video, as a written piece, as a series of quotes in easy-to-read graphics. Be open about the struggles you collectively faced, and how you overcame them… and continue to do so. If you come across as ‘having it all together’, your target audience will feel like they don’t belong before they’ve even picked-up the phone. This isn’t what you want; you want them to feel like they can belong, and to see any challenges they may face in the future can be overcome.
3. Present your story!
There is incredible power in a compelling story – it’s why we all have our favourite book, movie, or TV series, because it resonates with us, and we’re personally (to an extend) invested in the story. Marketing is about connecting your prospects with your story, so they feel so invested in the future of it they want to be involved.
A LinkedIn study on storytelling, highlighted:
- If you can find a narrative whereby you show your target audience you empathise with their fears, needs and ambitions, you make a far more meaningful connection with them.
- Facts are approximately 22 times more likely to be remembered, when they’re included within a story (Jerome Bruner, Actual Minds, Possible Worlds)
- Marketing campaigns which feature stories, can use emotion to create long-term memories and associations, which will influence purchase decisions long after the campaign has finished (Binet and Field, 5 Principles of Growth in B2B Marketing)
How to achieve this?
First and foremost, and I’ve purposely left this until the end, you need to understand your target audience. If you’ve not yet identified who you’re aiming to reach, then stop everything and do so now! You need to know who you’re speaking to, in order to understand the kind of stories to use, if you’re hoping to draw them to your franchise. Your story is your USP, which is what empowers you to stand out… not for everyone, but for those you actually want to attract. Use your story to its fullest effect – instead of talking about facts and figures, talk about wins and successes, then invite your prospects to join you on the journey, as you grow and build a rewarding future together.
If we can help you identify ways you can stand out from the crowd, then why not contact us about a marketing review session.
