By definition, to be stagnant is to be motionless, stale, or not growing or developing. Unfortunately, by this definition, there are many brands that could describe themselves as stagnant.
Sure, many businesses may be going through the motions of their regular day-to-day and making sales, but that doesn’t mean they’re making growth. If brands don’t keep growth at the top of their strategy, they may even find themselves regressing.
Brands can fall stagnant due to out-of-date marketing strategies, saturated product markets, and shifting customer preferences. Because of the constantly evolving marketplace, brands must constantly evolve, too.
Innovation is crucial for staying relevant, keeping consumers engaged, and sustaining long-term growth. To maintain this growth and avoid stagnation, brands should have a clear understanding of their market position and target audience while building a strategy to keep their product offerings and marketing efforts fresh.
Escaping stagnation doesn’t happen without a targeted, thoughtful strategy. If you are looking to reposition your stagnant brand, start by taking the following steps.
A brand audit is a check-in that evaluates your brand’s current position and perception in the marketplace. This audit will identify your brand’s strengths and weaknesses and pinpoint ways to boost your brand’s market position and customer perception.
Conducting a brand audit will give you better insight into whether your brand’s identity, vision, and outreach efforts are resonating with consumers. This audit should be comprehensive and focus on gathering information around several areas, including brand identity, customer perception, online presence, marketing efforts, and more.
To conduct a successful brand audit, you should do the following:
Once you gather the appropriate information, you can begin to compile your findings to fully understand your current strengths and weaknesses. A brand audit will give you valuable context for any improvements you can make to stay competitive in the current marketplace.
Then, you can use the information gathered from your brand audit as a jumping-off point for future initiatives. You should use your findings to build an action plan outlining specific steps, roles, and timelines necessary to revitalize your brand and bolster your market position.
Understanding your target audience is integral to any new brand initiative and, ultimately, any outreach a brand does. If you end up targeting the wrong audience, you will not see the growth you hope for and can quickly become stagnant.
Without an accurate understanding of your target audience, you may even be wasting your marketing spend targeting consumers who are not the right fit for your product or service. Brands should ensure they understand the attitudes, behaviors, and demographics of the ideal user of their products.
You can achieve a better understanding of your target audience by taking the following steps:
This understanding will help you determine how to communicate with them, what they value, and what product offerings they want to see. This information will help you develop an ideal customer profile you can use to tailor your marketing communications and build more personalized outreach efforts.
A new visual identity is a great way to pull your brand out of stagnation and propel it forward—a visual refresh can signal to consumers that your brand is taking a new direction and can draw more engagement from your audience.
In the process, you can alter customer perception of your brand and pique their interest in your new identity, attracting new site visits, sign-ups, and sales. A new identity can even refresh and reenergize your own team, sparking the charge for a new direction and a revival of your brand.
Potential ways to refresh your visual identity include:
When refreshing, it’s crucial to maintain consistency across all digital touchpoints, including your website, social media channels, newsletters, and more. This consistency will make your brand more recognizable as new and existing consumers become familiar with this identity.
Once you grab the attention of your target audience, be sure that you have a way to really reel them in. For example, new product or service offerings can drive your refresh home by turning interest into engagement.
No matter how great your product or service is, innovation is crucial. Even the most popular brands have to unlatch new ideas and directions so that consumers don’t lose interest in the “same old, same old”. If you find that your sales and engagements have fallen flat, it could be time for a shakeup.
Besides, other brands are changing their product offerings and services regularly to keep consumers engaged, so you’ll have to stay on your toes to keep up in a constantly evolving market.
You may choose to either introduce entirely new products and services or refresh and innovate or expand based on those you currently have. For example, McDonald's has always sold hamburgers, but they didn’t always use fresh beef—this simple switch responded to market trends, boosted the brand’s position, and recharged customer engagement.
Whether you offer a new product or take a new angle on your current offerings, you have the chance to inject new life into your brand and customer perception. Some steps for innovating your products and services include:
An intentional digital marketing strategy is one of the most effective ways to reach and build relationships with new consumers. With so many interactions happening online through websites and social media, it’s crucial that brands invest in their online presence to remain part of the public conversation.
Digital marketing strategies include:
Keep in mind that each of these strategies involves its own unique approach. However, they all have their value, and combined can help increase a brand’s digital footprint. That said, some marketing areas will be more beneficial than others depending on the brand and its goals.
For example, if your goal is reaching a new audience, you may focus on gaining organic traffic through SEO or social media. On the other hand, if you are looking to increase engagement with your current audience, personalized email marketing would be a better choice.
Working with an agency can help you devise a strategy for cross-channel marketing that best fits your business needs so that you can take the most appropriate direction for the most success.
Brands must be intentional about their product offerings and marketing efforts to avoid the downfall of stagnation. The following brands offer excellent examples of taking strategic steps to revitalize and reposition a brand.
The iconic LEGO brick has been around since 1958. Inevitably, the brand has experienced ups and downs since then and has had to make adjustments to maintain interest in its simple yet unique concept.
LEGO has revitalized its brand in multiple ways, starting with partnerships with popular franchises like Star Wars and Harry Potter. One walk through the LEGO aisle at the store, and you’ll also find tons more examples of franchise partnerships with build-your-own LEGO models tied to popular concepts like Minecraft, Disney, Batman, and more.
The brand is also constantly refreshing its product offerings despite its simple platform. You’ll consistently find new, unique, and innovative LEGO products and models on store shelves, from build-your-own flower bouquets to popular worldwide landmarks.
Meanwhile, the brand is spotlighted in video games, movies, and even its own amusement park. It’s all these different innovative offerings that keep people engaged in the product and prevent the popular brand from falling flat.
Ford revitalized its brand offerings by embracing new electric vehicle technology. With a shift in the automotive industry toward more sustainable offerings, Ford took the right approach by staying relevant with its own electric models. At a time when people were talking about brands like Tesla and Rivian, Ford inserted its name right into the middle of the mix.
In 2020, Ford released the Mustang Mach-E, its most innovative offering yet. It took the iconic, beloved Mustang platform and created a sporty, unique electric vehicle. Then, in 2022, Ford launched the F-150 Lightning pickup truck, refreshing a platform that has been one of the top-selling trucks for decades, proving that even the best brands need to pivot to avoid stagnation.
With the introduction of these vehicles, Ford found itself at the center of public conversation and avoided stagnation by giving consumers exciting new options.
Even the biggest brands are bound to experience stagnation. However, the most successful brands remain ready to pivot and reposition so they can continue to pique the interest of their target audience. Brands can do this by refreshing their identity, product/service offerings, and marketing efforts.
At PETERMAYER, we support brands in all of the above. Whether you need to build a new marketing campaign to revitalize interest in your brand or refresh your visual identity, we’ll use data and analytics to determine how to best reach and influence your target audience. Most of all, we’ll use an understanding of your brand to spark the inherent joy within it, building stronger connections with your audience for lasting relationships.
Schedule a discovery call with PETERMAYER to learn more about how we can help you reposition your brand for enhanced engagement.
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