Brand communicates the values and motivations of a company. It represents the emotional and practical drivers of purchase decisions for customers. With such a significant opportunity for influence, it’s critical to analyze the messaging and positioning associated with your products relative to the messaging and positioning associated with your brand. If these two are not in alignment, there can be serious negative repercussions.
Potential Problems
When the messaging & positioning of your brand and your product are out of sync, you risk:
- Audience confusion (what is the identity of the company selling this product?)
- Audience alienation (who is this product for anyway?)
- Product launch failure (why does the product not match the promises the company is making?)
- Misrepresentation of product or brand (Maybe this company isn’t who I thought they were)
There is good news, however; conducting brand marketing research in the context of brand messaging and positioning can seriously limit these potential concerns.
Messaging
Brand research can help you determine the optimal messaging for your product or brand by testing which narratives best communicate the message you are trying to send to your audience.
This is done by testing your existing hypotheses. You choose the images, descriptions, taglines, creative you think best convey your message and test them.
The results come from questions that ask audience members direct questions about their reactions to the different messages. Through either qualitative or quantitative research, several messages can be tested in one study, gathering a well-rounded picture of your current and future messaging environment.
Positioning
Tied closely to messaging, brand research can also help you determine optimal positioning for your product or brand. This can be extremely beneficial in cases of finding appropriate placement for a new product or brand within your market, or within the mind of your customer.
Your position, for instance, may be made up of the price and quality of your product. A brand may be known to be reliable and cost-efficient, or to represent a higher cost, luxury model. And position will, in turn, determine the appropriate messages to reach the associated target audience, properly aligning your marketing efforts.
Whatever your product or brand, optimal positioning and messaging is essential. You may have the best product on the market, but if your marketing isn’t directed at your target audience, all your efforts are wasted.
Solution
Taking the steps to engage a high-quality, experienced marketing researcher and to develop marketing plans based on generated study results information can significantly limit the potential risks that come with launching a new product.
Actionable Research
Our goal at Actionable Research is to provide you with actionable research. We want you to be able to act on the information we provide – preparing for success with the confidence of scientific data behind you. Your brand is such a significate component of your company and success – we understand that great value, and the benefits of measuring it.
Let us help you prepare for success. Contact us today.
