Three of the top 5 growth strategies for SMEs for 2017 are new products and services, entering new markets and acquisitions, according to thinkBig 2016. We spoke to First 5000 about how brand enables these areas:
http://www.first5000.com.au/blog/brand-ready-enable-business-growth-2017/
Full Blog Here: Is your brand ready to enable business growth in 2017?
Three of the top 5 growth strategies for 2017 are new products and services, entering new markets and acquisitions. 1 Brand enables these three strategies to drive growth.
New products and services
In offering new products and services to your existing customers, you’ll be developing a value proposition that solves a customer problem that isn’t currently being solved or in a way that is different, better, special to what you and your competitors currently offer. How that is ‘packaged’ to your customer – identity, communications and experiences – is driven by your brand and architecture.
Your brand is also a key driver to inspiring innovation, in answer to the question ‘how can your business deliver consistently/effectively/better against your brand promise across every experience?’
Entering new markets
Entering new markets may mean extending to new customer groups, new regions or new countries that are significantly different socially and culturally. Often the assessment is on the market opportunity for selling an existing product or service, with less focus on the brand.
Brand-driven business considerations for entering new markets include:
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In which new markets would your brand be relevant to the local customer?
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What does your brand offer the local customer? Is it the same product or service, or different?
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How is your brand expressed to make it more relevant to the local customer, whilst still maintaining global coherence for your brand, existing and new markets?
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How will you consistently deliver against the brand promise in this market?
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Are there brand architecture options that may facilitate the above four answers: master brand; sub-brand; endorsed brand
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Do you need to review and potentially open up your core brand to ensure it stretches to new markets?
Acquisitions
Increasingly companies are using brand in assessment of organisation fit, and in the strategies to smoothly transition employees and customers, product/service offer and delivery, systems and processes to the new business.
Involving both current and new employees in realigning your brand and experience to the new business will aid community and engagement of employees, delivery of the experience and communications to customers.
For more on One Brand thinking, you can download the whitepaper here: bit.ly/THBC_TPO1 or contact Rachel on email rachel@thehealthybrandcompany.com
Reference
1 thinkBig 2016, RSM
