The Magic and the Power of Brand Positioning

If you are like most owners of retail agencies, you get tired of hearing about this new marketing tactic called “branding” that will someday revolutionize the way you are supposed to market. Too many marketing professionals have jumped on the branding bandwagon creating far too much confusion not only about what branding is, but also about how to use it to position your business in the marketplace.

First it is important to define the term. Plain and simple, “brand” answers the question “Who am I?” from the standpoint of your customer-whether they be insureds or others with whom you transact business. It is your tone of voice and the self image your business projects.

A secret unknown to most, is that your customer actually owns your brand. This is a difficult notion for many agency owners to grasp, but if you think about it, your customer chooses to work with your agency for any number of reasons known only to your customer. One customer may like working with you because you offer small-agency service. Another may like your large-agency appeal. In order for you to truly capitalize on your brand, you first need to determine what your customers’ reasons are for working with your agency and begin to reinforce those reasons in attracting other customers.

You should look for all sorts of opportunities to reinforce the unique identity that you believe defines your agency. If you specialize in offering nonprofit coverages, perhaps your staff could volunteer for client fundraising events. Or if you specialize in golf course coverage, perhaps you could host a golf tournament at a customer’s course during an agent’s conference. There is a wide variety of activities you might consider depending upon your brand’s focus and how you want to be perceived in the marketplace.

Brand is the personality you project and the promise you pledge to keep. Your goal should be to define your agency’s brand so clearly that your target audience says, “Wow, that’s me! I’m just like that.”

As a word of caution, I have always found it helpful when defining brand to speak in short phrases that are formatted with “I am” statements such as “I am smart” or “I am helpful” and so on. These should be seen from your customers’ perspective and should begin to define what the desired brand image of your agency is in human terms. Don’t let your brand promise more than your agency can deliver. It is important that your brand be completely believable and supportable. Nothing ensures failure more certainly than a boastful brand that cannot live up to the hype.

Today’s consumer is cynical-and rightfully so. Few experiences ever live up to a consumer’s expectations. Disappoint them once and they will not forget.

Positioning Your Brand
As consumers, we are all in the process of “becoming.” Our desire to define ourselves by our actions-or purchases-is a desire to be who we would like to be as a result of that purchase rather than who we are currently. As a result, it is often helpful to speak in a tone of aspiration. For instance, you buy a certain brand of soup for your sick daughter because it costs 6 cents more per can-so it must be better! But your daughter never saw or touched the can. So who did you really buy the particular brand for? Simply put, you feel better for having gotten your child the best brand available and for seeing yourself as providing what’s best for your child.

While brand answers the question “Who am I?” from the standpoint of the consumer, positioning answers the question “Why am I?” It is your agency’s reason for being. Think about positioning as the rung of a ladder that your agency occupies. It is the perspective from which your target audience perceives your brand. Ask yourself what your agency is known for. You can begin the answer by saying, “We are the leading…” The better you define why you exist, the better you will be able to influence your target audience.

It is impossible to develop a brand position in a vacuum. You are in business along with untold numbers of other businesses, some of them competitors. In defining and positioning your brand, you need to look at the insurance product or service you are providing and identify the benefits to the user in the context of all others who offer the same array of products and services. Look closely at the psychological as well as the tangible benefits you provide. Then stand in your customers’ shoes and ask of your business, “Who am I?” Often the answer provides clear insight to answering the further question “Why am I?”

For example, if you answer “Who am I?” with “I am a products liability agent in this city.” Then the answer to “Why am I?” may well be “I am the leading provider of products liability coverage and service in this city.” This should begin to differentiate your business from the crowd.

Successful positioning requires a precise knowledge of your target audience. You will need to know and understand what purchasing characteristics best define your customers. For a market position to be effective, it must be both relevant to the target audience and differentiate you from your competition.

This means you must fully understand the “Who am I?” answer as it pertains to your competition as well as your own agency. You must get inside the mind of your customers to see what they might find appealing about the brands your competitors offer. What needs do your customers have that your competitors’ brand promises to meet better than your brand does?

Finally put in place a system for keeping tabs on how your customers are perceiving your business, and its products and services. This could be as simple as a note-keeping procedure done via one or two quick questions asked during a customer engagement or as complex as a formal surveying instrument administered by a third party provider. In any event some sort of monitoring is necessary for knowing where you stand in the marketplace.

But Sales Come First, Right?
While putting your brand to work in the marketplace is vital for success, nevertheless, we work in an industry that is sales-and commission-focused. While that is not a bad thing, it can force marketing efforts to fall into a trap of short-term thinking. Too much focus on sales may provide a product with the fuel to stay alive for a day, but brand equity, the result of careful and persistent market positioning-built up over time, is the engine that will keep your brand and your business alive-and profitable-for a lifetime and beyond.

As a compromise, incorporate a sales promotion as part of your marketing strategy. Offer an extra point commission during a certain time period. This gets your producers and support staff excited, makes increasing sales easier given the atmosphere of enthusiasm, and, ultimately, it will build your business.

No discussion of brand positioning would be complete without a word on the issue of co-branding with a carrier. Many agents think of co-branding as cooperative marketing. Nothing could be further from the truth. Co-branding involves two or more brands with similar attributes that use those similarities to reinforce the primary benefit of each.

In contrast, agencies have been dependent on co-op dollars to help extend their
messages. Not a bad thing, but inevitably, the carrier’s logo or brand overshadows that of the agency. In short, cooperative marketing could well be the death knell of insurance agency branding.

Look is vice president of brand marketing for Commonwealth Risk which is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pa. His department provides marketing leadership for 12 different general agencies nationally.

Topics Agencies