I've found that, in life, most things that have had lasting success were built off a system. Think about the steps you’ve taken to accomplish your goals. Your education, your driver’s license, or training for jobs you've had. These are examples of systems you have likely encountered that, hopefully, led to successful outcomes.
Why do systems matter to Leighton Media? Because they offer guidance and stability – and help our team work in congruence to the best of all individual ability. The system I’m going to talk about today is BrandsFormation.
BrandsFormation is not just a book by industry legend Chuck Mefford. It’s a proven system developed to turn good businesses into great brands – and it’s conducted through storytelling. The businesses our team helps establish branding and developing marketing strategies for, represent a wide range of industries and niche service models. The same can be said for our team of Media Consultants – each with his or her own style of leadership and expertise. Leighton Media has chosen to give our organization consistency and continuity across the board by implementing the BrandsFormation system.
When clients begin a marketing partnership with Leighton Media, they’re able to see the roadmap and process of how they’ll meet their goals based on the fundamentals of the BrandsFormation system. Good companies know the importance of hitting goals. "Hope" is not a strategy. We know our system works.
We provide our small business owners or marketing managers with a set of actions and attainable goals. The system includes four steps:
The foundation for your radio marketing plan. What is your story? What position do you own in the marketplace? This step is about defining what makes your business stand out from the rest, and what your long-term plan of action will be. The primary goal of any business is to become a household name – that coveted top-of-mind awareness is where the advantage lies.
Radio is a powerful medium with millions of engaged, loyal listeners. How your business will speak to those listeners is fleshed out in the messaging step of BrandsFormation. If the goal is top-of-mind awareness, what type of message needs to be crafted to communicate that? The strategy-based message is how we bring your unique position or point-of-difference to life. It needs to be concise, memorable, and true.
You can’t be everything to everyone. Consistency in radio advertising will help protect you from over-eagerness to be everything all at once. If you think about your target audience, what needs to happen on their path to purchase? Dependability. When you’re consistent with your brand’s image across all channels, you’ll establish your brand as dependable when the buyer needs what you sell or your service. You can’t promote consistency if you’re continually changing your message.
Once you’ve developed your strategy, message, and are consistent in how you deliver it, the final fundamental of BrandsFormation’s system is dominant frequency. After all the work establishing previous steps of the system, it would be a shame to not execute the final step. Your Leighton Media Consultant will offer some key insight here. Determining where your primary audience listens should then determine where your message gets the most frequency. Simply put, frequency is the number of times your commercial plays from a single source over a given amount of time. And, dominant means just that - to completely dominate your brand's message in order to become a household name.
We're big believers in BrandsFormation at Leighton Media because not only does it work, but it gives us a necessary foundation and system of approaching marketing with intent and purpose. It's a tried and true method to the success we've celebrated alongside our clients time and time again.