What to focus on when.

Read time: 3 minutes

Welcome to my second newsletter! I still feel a mix of nerves and excitement, but it's great to see growth already. It's a pleasure to do this together.

Today, we're going to explore the different life stages of a brand and what to focus on at each stage.

Different Life Stages of a Brand

Building a brand that really works can be quite different depending on the stage of our business. The context, challenges, and what actually works can all be different. It's important to understand and respond to these differences if we want our brand to succeed.

START-UP | SCALE-UP | MATURE BRAND

➡️ START-UP

• No brand awareness

• No product understanding

• Product innovation as a differentiator

Brand Focus on Product Centric: Keep it simple - you only have a short amount of time to make an impression. Clearly communicate what the product is and does, emphasizing the "what" in a concise sentence.

Targeting: Narrow down your target audience - be specific about who is most likely to make a purchase at this moment. Focus your marketing and advertising efforts solely on them, minimizing any unnecessary "wastage." 

➡️ ➡️ SCALE-UP

• Low brand awareness

• Some product understanding

• Value proposition as a differentiator

Brand Focus on Value Proposition: Utilize your brand as a competitive advantage to convert early successes into a compelling value proposition by emphasizing the "how".

Targeting: Convert existing demand into a sustainable rate as it is generated, and gradually and consistently build future demand. Continue conversion activities as new demand becomes available.

➡️ ➡️ ➡️ MATURE BRAND

• High brand awareness

• Ubiquitous product understanding

• Low product differentiation

Brand Focus on Emotional Positioning: Use your brand as a key differentiator and leverage familiarity and trust. Forge a bond with the brand and focus on the why.

Targeting: Broadly target - aiming to reach as many people as possible. Target all categories of buyers. Communicate emotionally - since they are not yet ready to learn about or buy from you, they do not need rational product information, offers, or calls to action. Your only goal is to make them aware of your brand, help them understand what you're selling, and make them feel good about you.

💡Takeaway → Start-ups focus on the WHAT, Scale-Up focuses on the HOW, and Mature Brands focus on the WHY.

For example, at FANtium, this is how we do it:

If you enjoyed it, it would be greatly appreciated if you could share it with friends who might be interested in startup branding and growth. 🙏🏼 💚 

Catch you in a couple of weeks.

Cheers, Chris

Whenever you're ready, there are 2 more ways I can help you:

​Startup Brand Guide I have compiled all of my learnings into this guide to help founders implement a unique brand correctly from the start, saving money and achieving long-term success. Link 

1:1 Consulting Need guidance and expertise to make your brand stand out from the competition? Join me for a 1:1 branding consulting session where we'll dive deep into your brand goals, target audience, and unique value proposition. Email me at [email protected]