It's not easy to establish a deep connection with your audience, is it?
You've worked hard to build your product or service. You have likely spent late nights and early mornings trying to develop the perfect offering.
Then, you have poured your soul into your marketing efforts. You attend networking events where you shake lots of hands and meet tons of people.
As a matter of fact, you may have already earned a decent amount of business. But it's not enough. You might be finding that it's harder to take your business to the next level.
As an entrepreneur, you need to be able to stand out from your competition. You have to know how to move people to action. It's something all of the major brands have had to figure out.
It's all about your brand purpose.
If you want to build a thriving enterprise, you have to identify, embrace, embody, and articulate a brand purpose that inspires your audience to connect with you. It has to transcend the products you sell. In this article, you will see some prime examples of successful purposeful brands.
As you read through this post, you will get a better picture of what a strong brand purpose looks like. When you commit yourself to identifying your purpose, you are going to notice that your audience is far more engaged with your brand than they were previously.
Let's get started!
Purpose Makes Your Brand More Attractive
Have you ever read the book Start With Why by Simon Sinek? If you haven't, you need to check it out. It's a must-read for any entrepreneur. Sinek sums up a lot of what his book says in his famous TED Talk.
One of my favorite quotes from the book is:
People don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it.
What he means is that people don't connect to a company's products or services. They buy into the reasons why these companies exist. They buy into the idea that a company exists for something larger than themselves.
A strong brand purpose means having a distinct brand perspective that influences what your company does and doesn't do. It's what drives your company forward.
Dove
Dove is one of the greatest examples of a purposeful brand. Why? Because their mission is about something far more profound than just selling soap and hygiene products.
Dove is using its brand to help improve the self esteem of girls worldwide. They have recognized that low self esteem is a huge problem for females. When you visit their website, you learn how serious the problem is.
Through their #speakbeautiful movement, Dove seeks to help girls gain more confidence in their beauty. On social media, women tend to express negative thoughts about their looks. The #speakbeautiful movement encourages these women to use social media to say positive things about themselves and others.
Does this earn Dove a profit? Not directly. But it makes their brand easier to relate to. It's a purpose that anyone can agree with. It's a great way for Dove to impact the world while making money.
Starbucks
Howard Schultz, the CEO of the Starbucks coffee chain is well-known for his commitment to corporate responsibility. Not only has he led the way when it comes to corporations becoming more responsible, he has used the Starbucks brand to improve people's lives worldwide.
Through their corporate responsibility initiative, Starbucks has shown its commitment to fighting hunger, encourage service, and helping the environment. This dedication is the result of Schultz's own "rags-to-riches" story. Witnessing the struggles his father went through while growing up poor in New York showed Schultz how he could use his business to do something more impactful than just making a profit.
The impact that Starbucks has made on the world makes it an awesome example of a purposeful brand. It's something that any budding entrepreneur should emulate.
GeekWrapped
GeekWrapped is a company that sells fun and unique science and geek products. Their website features tons of interesting and educational gift ideas. They also offer a number of well-researched, free expert buying guides for science and tech products, including an easy telescope buying guide for beginners and a list of the best science toys for kids.
But that's not all. Simon Saval, the founder of GeekWrapped is passionate about getting more people excited about science and about supporting STEM education. That's why GeekWrapped donates a portion of their sales to national science charities. The company also offers a variety of online resources to help children discover science through entertaining activities.
GeekWrapped's commitment to popularizing science is a great example of a brand with a long-term vision that focuses on more than just profits. The company's popularity speaks volumes about the fact that you can do very well by doing good. It's a modern brand with purpose.
The Body Shop
Anita Roddick originally founded the Body Shop as a way to help her family survive. However, it soon transformed into something much more. As her company grew, she began to see her business as something meant to make a positive difference in the world.
The Body Shop is a cosmetics company that specializes in selling all-natural products. They make their cosmetic without using the harmful chemicals that many other cosmetics use.
The Body Shop's motto is "Enrich, Not Exploit." It is committed to enriching its people, products, and planet.
The company has several lofty objectives:
● Help 40,000 economically vulnerable people access work around the world.
● Ensure 100 percent of our natural ingredients are traceable and sustainably sourced, protecting 10,000 hectares of forest and other habitat.
● Build bio-bridges, protecting and regenerating 75 million square meters of habitat helping communities to live more sustainably.
These are only a few of the things that The Body Shop wants to accomplish. The Body Shop has an immensely profound brand purpose that drives its business efforts.
Walgreens
Walgreens is one of the nation's largest pharmacies. They have had great success in their field. Walgreen's has also been very much focused on impacting the communities they serve.
The great thing about Walgreen's is like Starbucks, they support their communities through several different ways. Their corporate responsibility program has several different components.
These include:
● Supplier diversity.
● Environmental responsibility.
● Community services and outreach.
Walgreen's has a very effective corporate responsibility program that serves to enhance is brand purpose.
Summing It All Up
So what does all this mean? I've give you some powerful examples of brands that have a distinct purpose that transcends the products and services they offer.
However, this article isn't really about them.
It's about you and your business. Here's the bottom line: you won't be able to grow your brand if you don't give your audience something to connect to.
The last thing you want to do is to build a business into a corporate machine that has no soul. That's not the type of company consumers want to interact with.
Identify your brand purpose. Find out what you truly stand for as an entrepreneur. Then, figure out how to embody this purpose and communicate it to everyone your brand interacts with. Not only will this help you earn more profit, it will help you make your mark on the world.