How to Establish a Brand Purpose

According to Razorfish, 82% of consumers purchase with purpose in mind. Also, Statista said, about 44% of consumers globally are purpose-driven, implying they only opt for brands that align with their values.
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These figures reveal two salient points
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•  Brands must have a clear purpose to communicate to their audience

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•  A Brand's purpose is the driver of sales

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In this article, we will discuss how to establish a brand purpose, outline the steps to define it, and most importantly how you can align your brand's purpose with your company's value. But before we dive in, let's first understand what brand purpose means.

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What Is a Brand Purpose

Brand purpose is the reason your company exists beyond profit making. It differs from your brand values, vision, and mission statement. It usually has to do with the brand's impact on customers, communities, and the world. Simon Sinek was one of the early promoters of brand purpose, and here are reasons they are important for every business;

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•  For strategic alignment

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•  Builds emotional connection

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•  It is a critical differentiator

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•  It shapes brand identity and perception

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Why Brand Purpose Matters in Today's Market

We've touched on a few reasons why brand purpose is important. Now let’s delve deeper to explore its significance in today's market.

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Change in Consumer Expectations

Consumers expect more than just products and services; they prefer and are ready to support brands that align with their personal values. We've seen multiple occasions where consumers stopped at the point of purchase or regretted buying from a brand because of misalignment of purpose.

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In fact, a survey conducted by Zeno Group showed that consumers are more likely to purchase from brands with a strong purpose. Also, they are six out of ten times ready to defend that brand when they face challenges. It may sound hilarious, but it's the truth, especially on Twitter, you see Millenials and Gen Z consumers defend brands whether right or wrong, as if they were paid to do it. 

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When consumers resonate with your brand purpose, they become passionate advocates, promoting your brand with positive word of mouth and driving organic growth for your business.

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Brand Loyalty

There is much evidence to show that businesses with a clear and well-defined brand purpose have a higher customer retention and loyalty rate compared to those who don't. A clearly defined brand purpose creates a deep emotional connection with consumers, consequently fostering trust and loyalty.

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Consumers will be ready to stick with the brand even when products may not be available or in price fluctuation. Beyond just brand loyalty, purpose-driven brands build advocates that promote your business offering consequently reinforcing your trust over time.

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Competitive Advantage

Consumers are inundated with choices, especially in the tech space. Today, with the advent of sophisticated technology especially, artificial intelligence, product differentiation is increasingly difficult, if not impossible because if you release a new feature today. Tomorrow your competitors catch up with you because the technology to do it is readily available, hence product differentiation becomes harder. Price differentiation may move the needle but it won't be a significant differentiation factor because consumers aren't moved by prices alone. So brand purpose,  is the valid way to differentiate yourself in today’s market.

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Drives growth

In a marketing dive, Kantar Consulting reported that Purpose-driven brands had a brand valuation increase of 175 % over the past 12 years, compared to the median growth rate of 86%. This is one of many pieces of evidence that reveals that product-driven brands are more successful than those without a purpose.

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For purpose-driven brands, decisions are easily reached, they innovate faster and cope better in economic downturns because they have a sense of direction that guides every member of the organization.

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By aligning with consumer values, brands can build lasting relationships and ensure long-term success.

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Steps to Defining Your Brand's Purpose

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Step 1: Identify Your Brand's Core Values

Your Core values guide and shape your company's decisions and activities. To know your core values, reflect on why you started, and your brand vision, and ponder on the challenges you wanted to solve, and whether there are any distinctive solutions you intended to provide.

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Insights from your past can give you a clue to your see brand purpose. You can also draft and distribute questionnaires to get feedback or conduct workshops with employees, both C-suite and even interns if possible. This method is inclusive to ensure you can get honest and varied feedback.

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Step 2: Understand Your Audience

Because 81% of consumers need to trust your brand before they make any purchase, you can't afford to misunderstand your consumers. Your brand purpose must align with your consumers' values. To get this right, you must conduct extensive market research, create questionnaires and surveys, or directly inquire about the values and preferences of your customers. You can interview your customers and monitor media trends and conversations to gain insights into what's important to them. It's a crucial step, you must dig deep till you find the gold before defining your brand voice.

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Step 3: Find the Intersection

The next thing is to identify where your core strengths, values, and market needs intersect. Finding this intersection will help create a compelling brand purpose.

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Begin by analyzing your brand's unique capabilities and possibly the impact they can make. The impact could be economic, social, or environmental. However, you must ensure it is clear, measurable, and a genuine market need.

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Also, look out for the pressing issues in the market that align with your strengths ( competence) and values. If you do this correctly, it will help discover a purpose that's authentic to your brand and resonate with your target audience, ensuring it's not only aspirational but also actionable.

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Step 4: Brand Purpose Statements

Finally, craft a purpose statement. Ensure it is inspirational, powerful, and concise. It should be the sum of your brand's mission and impact.

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Your brand statement should be straightforward which means easy to understand, memorable, and emotionally compelling. Avoid using generic and unclear terms and it's important the brand statement is truthful and authentic. Because it will serve as a guide to your internal team and external audience, ensuring the core essence of your brand's mission and values are communicated in a way that inspires action and loyalty.

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You can craft a meaningful brand purpose yourself by following this process. However, it takes work and patience. But if you can afford to hire an expert to assist, for a more assuring result, go for it.

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How to Align Brand Purpose with Your Company Values

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Consistency is Key

Consistency is crucial to aligning your brand purpose with your company's value. It must be consistent both in your internal operations and external communications. If there is a mismatch it could lead to a loss of trust for the consumers. So ensure it is genuinely embedded in every part of your business. For example, if your brand purpose is centered on sustainability, sustainability shouldn't just reflect on your taglines or promotional materials, it should be evident in your product design, sourcing, supply chain practices, and business decisions.

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Internal Communication 

You can't have a strong brand purpose if there's no internal synergy within the organization. Leaders and employees must understand the brand's purpose and be an embodiment of it. This is extra important because your employees are the personnel to give the brand purpose life through their daily routines and decisions. In other words, if your teams can't be an embodiment of your brand's purpose it's synonymous with having a dead brand's purpose, no matter how much you reflect it.

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To avoid this from happening, you can organize regular training and workshops, communicate, and be the standard you expect from them. When employees are passionate about the company's brand purpose, it fosters a cohesive atmosphere where they deliver authentic experiences seamlessly.

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External Messaging 

This has to do with your brand's external interaction, some aspects include marketing, customer service to product development. This ensures that your brand purpose doesn't stay within the organization, but a lived experience for your customers.

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For example, if your brand purpose is to promote social responsibility, your marketing campaign and customer service should reflect these values by providing ethical, transparent, and customer-centered solutions. Also, it's good if you can Incorporate your purpose into corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs. They help reflect your genuine commitment to making a positive impact on the community and that your goal is beyond making profits, thus reinforcing trust and your brand's authenticity.

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Measurement and Adaptation

Aligning your brand purpose to your company's values is an on- going process that requires constant monitoring and flexibility. To ensure your brand purpose remains relevant, we recommend that our clients track how the brand purpose resonates both with the internal and external audience. For internal tracking, assess if employees communicate the brand's purpose effectively, this will tell you how connected they are to the brand's purpose. You can do this with surveys, interviews, one-on-one and check-in, performance reviews, and employee engagement platforms.

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For external monitoring, you can track customer feedback, retention rates, social listening, and brand loyalty. From the feedback collected, you adapt. This doesn't mean abandoning your brand purpose to create a new one, it means adjusting to meet the current needs of your employees and consumers, which is a good catalyst for growth.

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Successful Examples of Brands with a Strong Purpose

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There are many brands we can use for our strong brand purpose examples:

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•  Camus Energy

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•  Clir Renewables

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•  Switchee

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•  Auto desk

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They made the list because they have a well-defined brand purpose aimed at solving real-world problems and environmental challenges and not just dishing out products. Also, they advocate for sustainability, the growing trend, and their brand purpose is integrated into business strategy, creating long-term value for both society and their bottom line.

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Camus Energy 

Camus Energy's strong brand purpose is evident in its deep commitment to sustainability. Its goal is to get to a zero-carbon world by giving utilities the software to manage distributed energy resources (DERs) like solar, batteries, and electric vehicle chargers. They intend to make the utilities available at the community level.

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Through Camus's Energy's software, many utilities have been able to reduce waste, seamlessly integrate renewable sources, and respond more flexibly to changes in supply and demand. This has positively contributed significantly to the global push for a low-carbon.

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Clir Renewables

Clir Renewables is an authority in renewable energy, its purpose is focused on promoting clean energy through optimized asset management. It leverages Artificial Intelligence to optimize the performance of solar panels and turbines.

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Clir's technology has made a positive impact on the energy sector, it has increased the efficiency assets by 5%. Its partnership with global energy firms like Northleaf Capital Partners, has helped reduce downtime and improve maintenance schedules.

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Switchee

Switchee, a smart home technology, is revolutionizing social housing by reducing energy costs and consumption. Their focus is to improve living conditions and alleviate fuel poverty.

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Switchee has made a tangible difference in the lives of many social housing residents. Their technology has helped improve living conditions for low-income families while also contributing to the reduction of carbon emissions. Switchee's impact is clear in the data: tenants have reported significant savings on their energy bills, and housing providers have reduced their environmental footprint through more efficient energy management.

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Auto desk 

Auto desk provides software for various industries. They include designers, architects, builders, 3D artists. Autodesk's impact can be seen in countless sustainable projects worldwide, from energy-efficient skyscrapers to eco-friendly urban planning.

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Their software has been used in notable green building projects, contributing to LEED-certified and zero-carbon initiatives. Autodesk's recognition in the brand purpose space is further emphasized by numerous awards and accolades for their work in enabling sustainable design across industries.

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Conclusion

Brand purpose is no longer a nice to have, it's necessary as it is the foundation of every successful brand. We’ve mentioned in the article that it drives trust, loyalty, and business growth.

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So, if you're ready to take the next step in creating your brand purpose, but unsure where to begin from. This is where we come in. At Bolder, we can help your brand discover its true purpose that aligns with your core values, which ensures your messages resonate with your audience and create a lasting impact.

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