These days – a brand without purpose is dead. If you want to grow your business faster, you must focus on building a brand with purpose. Authentically, of course (no green-washing or pretending to care, as your customers will see through that immediately!)
Did you know that sustainable, purpose-driven brands are growing 64% faster than the alternatives?
Today, it’s more clear than ever before that customers want to buy from brands that share their values.
Here’s how building a brand with purpose can help you scale your brand.
Tell me, why did you start your business? What’s the purpose of your brand? I’d love you to comment below to tell me.
Is it to inspire people in some way? Will using or consuming your product help people to become healthier, or save money, feel better about themselves, change habits, take positive action or ….?
As a product-based business owner, have you ever felt that maybe these questions don’t really apply because you sell a product not a service? In the past I’d definitely felt like that.
I used to scratch my head whenever I heard “business experts” pose these kinds of questions, because my response was always the same:
“JEEZ! I dunno. Honestly? I just want to run my business, create and sell products that I love, and be around for my kids. The end. I’m not leading a movement, here.
Then one day, like a bolt of lightning (“oh snaaap!”), I realized my mistake. I DID have a movement. I DID have a purpose-driven brand.
It was so obvious.
The purpose of my brand was to inspire parents to give their baby the best start in life possible. To become closer to their baby. To make it easy for parents to take care of their baby’s health and the environment too.
Now if you, like I did, own a product-based business, you might also have side-stepped the whole idea of ‘leading a movement’.
Well let me ask you – is your goal for this year to grow your business? Increase revenue? Sell more products?
Here’s a truth smack for you: people don’t get excited or obsessed about products.
So, if people don’t get excited about products, and you want to sell a lot of products, then what can you do about it?
Well, read on, because in this article I’m actually going to show you three ways that starting a movement and building a brand with purpose can help you launch and sell more products!
1. Put the focus on the people, not the product.
In the past, traditional marketing advice was to describe a product’s features and benefits. In this way, we would tell customers what our product is, what it does and why they should buy it.
There’s one big problem with this. Customers don’t want to buy something because of what it is and what it does.
In fact, this tactic has zero value with your customers, they don’t care if you sell your widget, they care about their own problem or need that they want to solve.
Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘possession is nine 10th’s of the law’? Well, in my world of marketing and selling online, PERCEPTION is nine 10th’s of reality.
Perception is nine 10ths of reality
To that end, I talk a lot about story-telling, and I do that for a really important reason. It’s through telling stories that our audience (our customers) can relate to your brand or product. While headlines capture people’s attention, stories capture people’s imagination and help customers to see themselves in the story.
The more accurately you can describe the problem, need or desire of the person you’re selling to, and if you can speak to them about this in a way that reflects their current emotional state – be able to describe exactly what they’re experiencing right now – the more automatically they will believe you have the solution to their need (in the form of your product).
Use story-telling to shape your customer’s perception
Try to impart this through telling real stories, either from past customers or from your own experience.
This tactic was hugely important to me in my last business. Because the product was very niche and had a fairly high psychological barrier to entry (the stereotype reaction was “it’s too much hard work”), it was crucial to our success that we presented ‘regular’ parents, ‘real people’ using the products, in order to normalise the product as much as possible.
Our whole tagline, in fact, was ‘Life happens in…’, and we represented this through images of babies and toddlers in highly relatable situations. This made the brand and the product much more accessible to new parents and helped give them the confidence and removed much of the risk around trying a product like this.
Story-telling is the way you connect with your customers in a meaningful way as you build a brand with purpose.
2. Get opinion leaders on-board early
I’m going to say something here that might be a little bit shocking in the world of online marketing, and that is this:
Content is not king anymore.
Pretty sure it was Bill Gates who coined the phrase ‘content is king’ nearly two decades ago now, but we now live in a very noisy world of total information overload. Quality content alone is not enough anymore.
Now, in order to “cut through the noise”, to connect and engage with your audience, you need a thing I like to call ‘resonance’.
Like I said in point 1 above, people don’t buy products based on features and benefits, they buy a solution to their need, want or desire. And they’ll buy your solution over your competitors’ IF it resonates with their personal values.
They buy because of their own ‘why’.
And by the same token, they are attracted to industry experts and opinion leaders who share that same “why”. These might be media sites, individual bloggers, Instagrammers, even specialist retailers in your industry (if you’re a wholesaler).
So if you can identify which experts and opinion leaders your audience follow, then you might be in a position to leverage the attention those experts enjoy and the influence they wield over your audience.
By approaching these experts in advance with great content and products to sample, possibly products to give away or a great offer they can sell to their audience, you can expand your media coverage and generate more publicity around your product launch. You can also expand your influence over your target audience, thus positioning yourself as an expert.
These people might not have heard of you or listen to you, but they’re sure gonna pay attention to their favourite blogger or Instagrammer!
So, when you’re building a brand with purpose, you must collaborate with other complimentary brands, personalities, experts and media who share the same brand values as yours.
3. Be Revolutionary
As mentioned above, people don’t get obsessed with gizmos, products, widgets or services. Give people a reason to care, though, and then they not only take notice but are also motivated to join in.
A brand with purpose paints a picture of a future world, a better society, or a lifestyle that inspires passion. That’s how you create true obsession and generate the desire, enthusiasm and momentum amongst your audience.
This really only works if it’s authentic to you, if it’s something you truly believe in. Your passion for your vision is what resonates most with people.
Again, this became hugely important with my own product based business. Our advertising headlines included lines like, “The future is in your hands”, our calls to action included lines like, “will you join the revolution?”, and our imagery was always designed to inspire action and movement.
It really worked – we were able to enjoy a high level of audience engagement, with many customers becoming passionate advocates for the brand.
And there’s no better way to grow sales than through harnessing positive word-of-mouth, right?
Need help building your brand with purpose? Book a Free Coaching Session With Us
Now, we’ve touched upon the ‘what’ you need to do in this blog post.
If you need some help with the ‘how’ part, then I’d love to invite you to book a free coaching session with us.
The right mix of activities to generate traffic to each individual website is never the same for each business, but we have a solid process for working out what the right mix is for you.
Updated 27th May 2024
