Is your brand as clear as Epsom salts?

My own coach from the US Therese Skelly recently posted the following article and I thought it had some great points of interest relevant to communicating your personal career brand. Enjoy and thanks Therese!

Is your brand as clear as Epsom salts?

This has got to get the award for the WORST marketing ever. Reading a bag of epsom salts (don’t ask!) I was surprised from a marketing perspective at what it said “Epsom Salt – Magnesium Sulfate U.S.P – Natural Mineral” (and here’s where it gets interesting….)

A soaking aid for minor sprains and bruises

A saline laxative for the short term relief of constipation

A plant nutrient for vigorous lawns, flowers, plants, vegetables and trees.

Now I don’t know about you, but I doubt even brilliant marketers like my friend Michele PW or the famous Dan Kennedy could come up with copy for a product that helps with bruises, constipation, and gardening! All the marketing messages I teach about having to have a unified message just get thrown out the window with this thing.

As I re-read this bag of Epsom salts, I had the fantasy that a bunch of marketers were sitting around brainstorming, and finally they said, “What the heck, let’s just throw it all in.  We can’t figure out what to say, so we’ll just list the uses and let it go from there.”

With epsom salts, you pretty much know what you use it for.  And unlike coaching or whatever business you are in, there’s only one variety.  There’s not mint flavored, low fat, west coast, designer salts.  You get one thing.  Where you put it is your own business!  But it makes it easy because there’s only ONE way it’s delivered.

But in your business you don’t have the ability to have a crappy marketing message because you can’t figure out if you work with business owners, or mom’s, or teens, or people in transition.

That’s what this article is about.  Just because Walgreen’s can get away with having a generic product with bad packaging, as a small business owner, you can’t.  Your only choice is to narrow your focus, get crystal clear about who you serve, and what they get, and then go about creating compelling language around that.

So where do you start?

The things you need to be able to clearly articulate are what you do (as in your unique expertise) who you do it for (target market) and what problems you solve for them.  Most people start out as generalists, but the goal is to refine your market, offering and services even tighter as you get more and more sophisticated.  If you are stuck here, grab a mastermind partner or survey some old clients to get more information about how they benefited from working with you.

Why is this important?  Success is about being seen as the foremost expert in your industry. 

Well I hope you enjoyed Therese’s article - something to ponder because unlike Epsom salts, there’s no one else like you!

All the best

Heidi Alexandra Pollard

The Communicator’s Coach