If you position your brand in the right spot in the DACH region marketplace and if you deliver on the brand promise, it will be on top of the minds of German consumers when they look for products like yours. Owning a top place on the short list of German, Austrian, and Swiss consumers will help you increase your sales in the DACH region.
A strong brand in Germany builds on favorability, accessibility, and credibility. Don’t try to position your brand in a place it doesn’t belong. Such a strategy will very likely backfire. For once consumers have unfavorably placed you in a less admirable position in the market, it will take a lot of effort to move up again.
Be authentic and build your brand strategically, even when you pursue growth opportunities. Your German, Austrian, and Swiss customers will appreciate it.
GCVB Brand Positioning Services in DACH Countries
As a marketing agency for the German markets, we can provide the following Brand positioning services:
+ positioning workshop
+ concept
+ messaging document
+ press kit
+ website main content & social sites
+ CRM content & staff guidelines
How to create brand favorability with German consumers.
You, your products and services, your approach to business and what you do to be perceived in a certain way, are all specific characteristics of your brand.
These characteristics place you in a certain position in the market, in relation to your competitors, making you highly accessible to your desired target groups, or less.
If your desired positioning is out of sync with your actual perceived positioning, you will not be credible and your customers will find it hard to connect.
By contrast, a good brand positioning in the DACH region will catapult you on German, Austrian, and Swiss consumers’ short lists of preferred solutions in the instant consumers demand them.
Building a brand in Germany and the other countries in the DACH region is not easy. But if you can ensure the credibility of your brand, you will achieve one of the most important tasks in successful communications vis-à-vis DACH region consumers. Because brand credibility is a long-term sales driver. To achieve it, you should work on the following aspects.
Is your brand available to consumers?
Mentally: Your brand needs to be present and visible. Ideally, it should come to mind when consumers think about things you stand for and the products you offer. You can achieve it by establishing online visibility and building trust with consumers.
Physically: Products are recognizable, and available at consumers’ preferred PoS.
What is the brand’s value proposition for DACH region consumers and how can it be strengthened? Ultimately, you want DACH region consumers to acknowledge that your products are a great fit for them and your brand helps them achieve gains, be they functional or emotional. Keep in mind that consumers in Germany and the other DACH region countries also build their very own personal brands. The implications are clear: everything they buy needs to match the requirements they have established.
What you need to be:
Functionally convincing: Your products have the characteristics that consumers in the DACH region want.
Emotionally connectable: There are no emotional obstacles that prevent German, Austrian, or Swiss consumers from connecting to your brand and its products. Empathetic communication is important for connectivity.
Price-relevant: The brand offers products that are relevant to consumers in the DACH region, viewed from their budgetary point of view. These can vary substantially, depending on their financial situation and life style. You will need to develop buyer personas that are very real. Moreover, you need to test your pricing in the market.
When you build your brand in Germany and the other DACH region countries, you should frequently review your customer relations. Are you creating inseparability with your customers?
It’s important for your continued business success. Charmed customers will really love you. They will automatically become your brand ambassadors. And they will voluntarily communicate your brand’s qualities at one of the most important touchpoints of the omnichannel experience that you can’t reach directly: personal recommendation / authentic consumer voice.
Various activities that can help you earn an excellent reputation with customers after they have bought a product. Just to name a few simple examples:
- Ensuring that they receive their product on time and intact.
- Thanking them for their purchase and welcoming their comments.
- Placing an FAQ on your website, should there be any questions on the use and maintenance/care of your products.
- Informing them, directly and through your communications channels, on the progress you’re making and the increasing popularity of your products.
- Encouraging them to visit your (online) store again by giving incentives.
Inviting them to exclusive customer previews of new products.
Five key success factors of brand positioning in Germany:
1
Brand credibility: Position, according to values and aspiration, but based on current capabilities and relative to competition.
2
Your true North: Brand positioning is the North Star for all activities and guides your every action, all the way down to marketing activities and the way they are being implemented.
3
Differentiation matters: Deliver on the brand promise and differentiate your brand from others by creating a unique customer experience.
4
Convincing products and empathetic brand: Being functionally convincing and emotionally connectable will help you establish brand favorability.
5
The AFI formula: Be accessible, favorable and inseparable from your customers. But beware: a brand or it's products are NEVER family members. Ewww, David. That's invasive.