The greatest addition to your brand is probably a subtraction
Take a good hard look at your brand. Can you concisely state what your brand stands for?
Now, look at all the products you offer. What does each of those brands stand for? Now, here is the key question. Does what your product brands stand for support what your master brand stands for?
Why is all this important for your brand?
According to one report, we take in five times as much information today than we did a mere 25 years ago. Needless to say, that's a lot to process. It's safe to say that sometimes it can feel like a monumental chore to stay on top of everything that's bombarding us.
So imagine that, in the tsunami of information, your prospect encounters your brand or brands. Now imagine that it's not completely clear what the brand(s) stand for. Or how the product brand is related to the master brand.
I encounter way too many organizations that seem to believe that we'll put in the effort to understand what they're about, how what they do interrelates, and why we should care. In other words, they seem to believe that we'll put in the effort that they failed to in order to make it all make sense.
In praise of simplicity
We all have a limited capacity to what we can process. And it's being taxed at what seems like an ever-increasing rate. So naturally, we appreciate it when something comes along that makes it easy to understand why it's meaningful to our lives. In fact, we make room in our too-full brains for those brands.
The quickest way to brand simplicity
The first instinct is to realign how we present what we offer. To try and build common sense links. Unfortunately, this usually manifests itself in more explanation that our prospects will most likely never wade through.
The quickest way to add the power of simplicity is to subtract.
Try this. Without worrying about the implications for now, what could you take away from your offering that would make it dead simple for your prospects to understand why they should remember you, interact with you, and even advocate for you? Start taking things away to simplify and strengthen your story.
It may seem impossible to eliminate some things at first. But give yourself permission, even it means slaying some of your brand's sacred cows.
If you get stuck, picture those prospects that are getting hit with five times the amount of information. Imagine how you would connect with them knowing the minute amount of attention that they may afford you. Can you offer them the harmonious simplicity that they desperately need? It's a harmonious simplicity that your and your brand needs.
The biggest gain for your brand comes when you know what to eliminate.