Focusing on Differentiated Value

Although there are several attributes to a brand’s value, nothing is as important as the core uniqueness, a.k.a. what makes your agency stand out in the marketplace.

It can be hard work finding the core of what makes you unique; sometimes you don’t even know it’s there until outsiders point it out to you. Unearthing your agency’s core value requires you discover the four attributes that make a customer value proposition persuasive. It must be unique, defendable, sustainable and engaging. The end goal is to define, support and differentiate value in such a way that customers will desire your agency over the competition.

There are many choices for how you can create value either through technology, services, open interfaces, meeting a specific need, employing a new business method, reducing costs (and price) or following a strong belief system. Your differentiated value can lock customers in, invite them to participate and create unparalleled loyalty.

Whether unique value is intrinsic to the product design, added-on services or customization for a specific market segment, you will know it connects when it surprises and delights customers or fills a clear need. A persuasive customer value proposition should be:

• Unique: A value that is unique clearly differentiates an agency from the competition.
• Defendable: A unique value is defendable when competitors cannot easily duplicate it. Your sheer focus on that value or a technological advantage can create a defendable value.
• Sustainable: Companies need to continually expand on the differentiating factors by enhancing them, adding to them, opening them up to outside innovation and driving the value into every part of the organization. If the entire company creates business processes around the differentiating value, then all facets of the business add to the unique value and help sustain it.
• Engaging: Products that engage are interactive, delightful and “sticky.” They keep customers coming back for more.

Once you define a persuasive value proposition that clearly differentiates your agency from competitors and attracts customers because it meets a real need, you can increase your brand value by inviting customers to participate in your brand. There are several options to make this happen:

• Use your Web site to get customers interacting with each other. You can implement a blog, initiate a “wiki” or set up a social networking environment where customers can share their experiences and issues.
• Learn more about your customers and where they go on the Web to learn more about your industry and competitors. Monitor these sites and make sure your brand is consistently portrayed. Don’t overreact to negative comments. Check that competitive comparisons are accurate and work to influence the conversation, not dominate it.
• Make the audience relationship more personal by making your company transparent, open and forthright. Allow employees to blog and post profiles of themselves online so that customers can get to know them better.
• Continually post free (non-self-serving) information to frame your company as an industry authority and the place to go to first when customers have a question or concern—or when they are doing research to purchase additional products or services.

Companies that continually invent new ways to establish their brand positioning and differentiation consistently add value. The snowball effect offers exponential returns to the work invested.

Denise Shiffman (dshiffman@ventureessentials.com) is principal of Venture Essentials and author of “The Age of Engage: How the Live Web has Reinvented Marketing and What You Should Do About It.”

Carrier Branding Connection:
Unitrin, Inc.

Unitrin, Inc., is in a unique branding position: The company, formed in 1990, is fairly new, but several of its operating companies are well-known, older brands. As such, the company is building awareness of the Unitrin name as it continues to leverage the benefits of the more-established brands, such as Kemper.

“We approach branding from a pragmatic standpoint,” says Don Southwell, Unitrin’s president and COO. “Our agents told us that Kemper was a very important brand to them, and we by and large like to listen to our agents. We are placing an increasing emphasis on the Kemper brand, even while we’re trying to build our own Unitrin brand.”

Unitrin recently employed a branding firm to conduct some customer and agent research, and “the value of the Kemper brand really popped out at us,” Southwell says. As a result, the company is upping its focus on Kemper—and simplifying it. The Kemper brand, formerly known as “Unitrin Kemper Auto & Home” is now known by the streamlined moniker “Kemper, a Unitrin business.”

“We’re trying to simplify it to maximize the emotional impact of the name…keep it short and simple,” Southwell says. “Frankly, that’s what our agents told us they wanted, that they could generate more business for us if we emphasized the Kemper brand rather than the longer ‘Unitrin Kemper Auto & Home.’”

When it comes to its branding message, Unitrin and its companies want to evoke an image of national strength and local presence. And it focuses most of its branding and advertising activities on the agent community. “Certainly the ultimate customer is important, too, but we want to direct business to agents,” Southwell explains.

As part of its relationship with agents, Unitrin is a staunch supporter of Trusted Choice®. In fact, it was one of the earlier carriers to become involved with the brand initiative. “We try to be partners with our agencies in everything we do, including branding,” Southwell says. “We try to build on the partnership that the Trusted Choice® opportunity gave us to help build the agent brand alongside our brand.”

—Jennifer Sikorski