What's a Brand Promise? It is what you promise to deliver to your customer. It is more than a marketing tag line or a catchy one-liner. Done right, it will help you attract the right customers, increase your win ratio, and retain happy customers as you deliver on what you promise.
Brand Promise is your inside team delivering on what your outside team promised. It is delivering it in such a way that makes you look and feel different from your competition. It should make you stand out and be very attractive to your important customers. It might alienate you from your less important customers. But who cares? If you are like most companies, 20% of your customers give you more than 80% of your business anyway. It's the famous 80/20 rule. You might be better off focusing on the 20% of your customers and forgetting about the other 80%. For more on this topic, pick up Mastering the Rockefeller Habits by Verne Harnish and read chapter 9 "Mastering the Brand Promise."
The difference between an effective and an ineffective brand promise lies in what you do.
Its great to learn. It's better to DO. It's the DOing that ultimately differentiates you from your competition and wins customers.
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Editor's Note: This post was originally published on Aug. 17, 2011, and has been updated.