Branding for a Target Market

By: williamjones
December 1, 2009

By: Olivia Fox

Most companies already have a brand—they just may not be aware of it. Branding is what others say when they want to describe your agency to someone else. Your brand becomes whatever words and descriptions they use.

There’s no such thing as a good or bad brand per se, only an effective or ineffective one. Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts have completely different target markets, and each is an effective brand with regards to its goal and target market.

Your brand should be optimized for your personal target market. As many branding experts will tell you, one of the most common pitfalls is trying to be all things to all people. You just can’t please everyone, and trying to do so is a recipe for failure. Few brands are successful in trying to reach everybody; on the other hand, there are brands that, in trying to broaden their appeal, lose their initial customer base. The most successful brands concentrate on pleasing their target market first–and they don’t worry whether people who are not in this category are left indifferent or even annoyed.

You too have a target market—the group of customers that will have the biggest impact on your agency. You need to figure out what this market is and how to reach it. Then, create your brand to show how you are the answer to these customers’ prayers. Your ideal brand shows your target market how your abilities and your passion will help them fulfill their insurance needs. As business guru Alan Weiss explains, you need market need, competence and passion to be successful. Here’s what can happen if one of them is lacking:

1. Market need, personal skill, but no passion. Let’s say you’re really good at spreadsheets. There’s certainly a demand for spreadsheet-skilled people. But you hate spreadsheets. So branding yourself as an expert in that field may lead you to business you loathe.

2. Personal skill, passion, but no market need. You may love knitting and be a whiz with yarn, but the demand for hand-crafted sweaters has shrunk in the past few decades. Branding yourself as a knitting expert might diminish your career opportunities.

3. Market need, passion, but no skill. What if you love driving trucks? There’s certainly a need for truck drivers, but you’d need a certain amount of skill (and a license). This is the easiest of the three imbalances to correct. In many cases, the necessary competence can be acquired.

It is thus your job to define your target market; find out what customers in this market want, and match your skills and interests to their desires. You want your target market to think about your brand in a positive way—so make your value proposition simple and as short as possible while still delivering your message.

Olivia Fox (olivia@askolivia.com) is a keynote speaker for the leadership summits of Citigroup, Deloitte and White & Case, and an executive coach for the leadership of Fortune 500companies and the United Nations.

Carrier Branding Connection: Oregon Mutual Insurance

For Oregon Mutual Insurance, branding is about the agent. When budgeting for its marketing initiatives, the company decided to forego improvements to its own Web site and branding tools in favor of creating state of-the-art resources for its agents.

“From an industry perspective, there are so many avenues to choose from in order to reach prospective policyholders,” says Brian Steffel, vice president of marketing and underwriting at Oregon Mutual. “It is expensive to employ all of those avenues, but our task is made easier because of our focus on the agent as our customer. The number of communication avenues used to reach agents is much more limited than with the general public.”

Oregon Mutual offers a robust agent Web portal and helps offset the cost of top agents’ self-designed strategic marketing plans. It also stands behind the Trusted Choice® brand, displaying the logo on materials and at agent events. The vast majority of the company’s marketing budget goes to helping top agents develop their own brands, with the expectation that Oregon Mutual will benefit indirectly from their efforts. The process of gaining agents’ trust isn’t easy—Steffel says it takes time and responsible claims handling to convince them that the company stands behind the products and services it advertises. However, once trust is established, agents deliver on their value.

“Independent agents have tools and expertise that the national, direct-writers cannot match,” says Steffel. “(They can)focus the brand messages so they resonate with customers more likely to want expert assistance with coverage and limit options, the availability of multiple carrier shopping with one visit or phone call and agent advocacy in the event of a claim. “

—Veronica DeVore