Brand Persuasion. Exploit your competitor’s weaknesses. 

At Stealing Share, we often talk about brand persuasion and changing behaviors and, more often than not, the behavior and attitude that needs to be changed are yours.

Every company and brand we have spoken with said that they wanted to grow and we’re committed to winning. But there is a subtext to all this. It’s called brand persuasion.

When pushed, most want to win but don’t want to change. Don’t change a thing, they seem to feel. Wave a magic wand like Harry Potter and everything will suddenly change for the better.

The Science of Brand Persuasion

When we do our anthropological branding, our goal is to understand the prospect in a way that goes way beyond demographics and psychographics.

Our goal is to get under the skin of the target audience our clients wish to influence and to understand what makes them act. What keeps them up at night and to what they aspire to. We find out who they are when no one is looking.

The art of brand persuasion is founded in this science. (Read about the three keys to persuasion here) The art of brand to grow market share is based upon it.

It is imperative that the target audience be dissected to completely understand the tendons and connective tissue that binds the being together.

Demographics and psychographics tell you the species. Anthropological branding reveals the actual life story. It is the difference between finger painting and a movie documentary.

If you are planning on stealing market share from the competition, you need to know these things. You need to create a brand message and brand mythology that represents your target audience.

If you define this message clearly and without compromise, the customers of your competition will feel incomplete without your brand. They will covet it. Not because of what your brand does, but because of who the target audiences believe they are when they choose it. That is the key to brand persuasion.

Forget all the stuff you hear from other branding companies. For a brand to be successful it needs to move the target audience emotionally. That IS the secret to brand persuasion. Emotion.

Changing Behaviors:  Yours and Your Customer’s

Therefore, our purpose is to change. We want the purchase behavior of the target audience to change. To accomplish this, your brand needs to change. It needs to reflect what you have uncovered so the target audience notices it and chooses it. You need change also. You need the market to think differently and move market share.

You will need to change what your brand promises and you might even need to change what you do. The greater the change that the new brand requires, the more effectiveness you can expect.

And the greater the change in the market share you should anticipate because you are letting target audiences tell you what they need. It’s not about what you want to offer. It’s about what consumers want from you.

This is the diamond. The bad news is actually the good news. The more change required by your brand the greater the opportunity in front of you.

But there is more good news. Companies and brands don’t like change. They avoid it. They are invested in the status quo. This means you can win if you really want to win, are willing to slay all the sacred cows, and are eager to anthropologically brand your product or service.

While your competitors sit around, you have changed the playing field and the game favors those with the initiative. Grab it. They probably won’t.