This is the best time in years for a challenger brand to outperform a dominating competitor.
This is the best time for challenger brands. Most industries experience a transformation of their business models driven by digital technology. Customer behavior is changing as technology advances at an ever increasing speed resulting in consumers being ahead of many companies, even brand, category and market leaders.
This is the opportunity for disruptive challenger brands to leapfrog and outperform their stronger competition unseating the market leader by winning people’s hearts with better experiences and engagement. This is the time to think and act big with small budgets. This is the time to lead from behind. This is the time to win not by mimicking the pack ahead, but by breaking away from it.
Challenger brands have to use their budgets and resources more effectively and efficiently and work harder and smarter. If we just think of the old AIDA funnel and how this has changed.
Awareness and Interest – Engagement
In the past to achieve top awareness and interest for a brand, service or product, companies had to invest big money in presence and mass media marketing swallowing up big chunks of the marketing budget. It was all about achieving ‘street cred’ by having physical outlets and/or mass media presence.
Today it is possible to achieve global awareness and interest for a brand by using the Internet and social media in a very smart and engaging way, investing a small budget into innovative search strategies and smart paid online media tactics disseminating creative and engaging content. Getting the message out is now so much easier, faster, efficient and effective if done in a way that moves against the mainstream.
Desire and Action – Purchase
To sell a product or service in the past a company had to have own stores, convince retailers to get shelf space in their stores, invest heavily in direct sales media or have a massive sales force that could talk to customers moving them through the AIDA funnel.
Today even a small company or single person can sell product to the whole world. A well organized website that answers all visitor questions in an efficient and engaging manner can move a visitor from awareness to purchase in a few seconds or minutes. But of course not every website is about sales. It can be just converting a visitor to ask for quote or to sign up for a newsletter.
Most companies think they need to put everything out on their websites and social media. But in fact they only need to answer 3 questions:
- Do I need this? Focuses on problem solution and functional/logical benefit and engagement
- Do I want this? Focuses on emotional benefit and engagement
- How much? Focuses on what the customer needs to give up for the product
Focusing on those 3 questions and answering them for the visitor and customer in the fastest and best way will drive business in today’s fast paced digital world.
It pays off to focus on intangibles:
Conclusions
So, how can challenger brands get ahead?
Do those 3 things better and faster:
- Data, analytics and insights that lead to better strategies
- Content and experiences that engage in a superior way
- Integration of marketing and technology that drives smart communication and engagement
Companies need to study customer behavior in their real and digital environments, in their purchase and use occasions and then develop, design and deliver digital experiences that engage customers and are consistent across channels and platforms and therefore build brand equity.
Some great challenger brands:
- AVIS – We try harder
- T-Mobile – The Un-carrier
- Apple – Think Different
- Linux – Software problems should not cost money
Spark Marketing works with companies to develop innovative marketing strategies, messaging and campaigns that help B2C companies increase sales and B2B companies generate and convert leads combining Classic Marketing knowhow and Digital Expertise delivering result that exceeded clients’ expectations.