Sure-fire Technique Helps You Hit Sales Goals And Achieve Great Success

The sure-fire technique covered in this blog has been implemented by some of the biggest and most well-known corporations in the world, and done so with astounding success. Interestingly, it's a highly-effective strategy and a proven sales and marketing technique that many organizations aren't aware of, or simply don't use. Not taking advantage of it is an enormous missed opportunity to drive business growth for your company.

What is this technique, you ask? Well, it's a battle-tested product branding technique. Specifically, it's the notion of giving a key product attribute (especially an attribute that delivers true differentiation) a brand name of its very own -- one that augments the product brand name and brings to the forefront something special and different about the product. Often referred to as a sub-branding technique, it's commonly described as a brand within a brand. It's one of the most powerful and sure-fire methods to establish a clear distinction between your product and similar products offered by your competitors.

In basic terms, a product attribute is a specific characteristic, element or feature that distinguishes and defines a product. These attributes play an important and pivotal role for the prospective buyer to help him/her compare differences between one product and another. These differences are what is known as differentiation.

Do You Have a Product with True Differentiation?

If your company has a product that delivers unique and valued-added attributes, i.e., true differentiation, you can leverage this differentiation in your content/messaging across select communication vehicles such as your website, blog, collateral materials, social media, trade shows, webinars, sales presentations, videos and more. But to successfully promote and leverage this differentiation, you've got to brand it.

Let's look at a few examples for a better understanding of a product that provides true differentiation and how you can use a sub-branding technique to leverage the unique attributes that will help you promote and sell your product more effectively.

Back when color television was still a relatively new technology (I know, it's hard to imagine now), one single manufacturer, Sony, dominated the color TV market by introducing a newly-designed television with sharper, more vivid color quality than any of its competitors. It was a TV with unique attributes unlike any other TV in the industry. And what did Sony do with these attributes? You guessed it, they branded them! The new television product line was marketed as Sony Trinitron.

The Sony Trinitron name was heavily promoted by their marketing team, which included having the Trinitron logo affixed to the front of every Sony television set. Some of you might remember the Trinitron logo; it consisted of three side-by-side ovals of red, green and blue, followed by the Trinitron name.

Sony could have just told buyers somewhere in Sony's product literature that the new line of televisions had "sharper, more vivid color quality," but that's not very memorable or compelling, is it?

By branding  the technology that delivered "sharper, more vivid color quality" with a visual and verbal cue (the logo with the colored ovals and sub-brand name of Trinitron), Sony elevated their product offering in the prospective buyer's mind into something with unique attributes that were special, different and better than any of their competitors' TV products. Sony put themselves top-of-mind with the buyer. For more than 20 years following the launch of the Trinitron TV, Sony achieved phenomenal sales success in the color TV category, which included crushing the competition along the way, all thanks to a top-of-mind branding marvel.

Goodyear Tires is another company that knew it had a truly unique product -- a product offering that was engineered and developed specifically for minivans and SUVs. They highlighted this differentiation through clever and impactful product branding with the use of the sub-branding technique.

Goodyear's claim to fame became that their tires provided a softer, quieter and more comfortable ride for passengers in minivans and SUVs because the tires had 24% more cushioning than competitive products. Goodyear patented the tread design and subsequently promoted the product with a sub-brand name by marketing the tires as "Goodyear with ComforTred Technology," which for years, delivered extraordinary sales results for the company.

Another example is Audi, the German auto manufacturer. Their marketing team created a sub-brand that was derived from the product attributes of their precision-engineered and proprietary all-wheel drive system. The team gave these attributes the name Quattro, and today, the brand name of Audi Quattro is synonymous with high-performance handling and exceptional traction in Audi vehicles.

In fact, the Quattro name was instrumental in putting Audi on the map decades ago as a luxury car brand that featured the unique driving benefit of all-wheel drive, which at the time, wasn't available from any of their competitors. Since the Quattro introduction, Audi has achieved remarkable and consistent sales success with over 12 million vehicles sold worldwide with Quattro (including my own Audi TT), which has transformed Audi into a world-leading auto manufacturer in the category of permanent all-wheel drive systems.

Sony, Goodyear and Audi are success stories of companies that have created a memorable, powerful and successful sub-brand from product attributes that provide true differentiation. By giving these attributes a sub-brand name, the buyer is made aware of something very special and different about the product. This is an incredibly effective technique because when the prospective buyer is ready to make their purchase decision, you've set your product apart with a clear and distinct competitive advantage and a top-of-mind brand position.

My Own Example of a Sub-Branding Technique

As you consider various products in your own portfolio that will likely be part of your content/messaging across key communication vehicles, select a product you intend to include that has unique attributes. This might be a single product or it could be a product family. Take those differentiated attributes and give them a brand name, i.e., a sub-brand, to help set your product apart from the competition.

I was with Ambrell Corporation for nearly 10 years as their Vice President of Global Marketing. Early in my tenure at Ambrell, which is recognized as a worldwide leader in the induction heating industry, the engineering team updated and enhanced the product attributes for the majority of the models within the EKOHEAT family (a key part of Ambrell's overall product portfolio). The update gave EKOHEAT models additional product attributes that were differentiated from the competition.

So, what did the Ambrell marketing team do with this opportunity? We branded these attributes as Versatile Performance Architecture (VPA), and the newly-enhanced products now carried the name of EKOHEAT with VPA Technology. As noted earlier, this is a method known to many marketing professionals as sub-branding. In this example, EKOHEAT is the product brand name and VPA Technology is considered a sub-brand.

When we launched the updated name of EKOHEAT with VPA Technology in 2015, we also introduced a new EKOHEAT product logo, which included the VPA designation, and we had the logo affixed on the front of every model in the EKOHEAT VPA family. The new logo was also incorporated into all the various forms of communication for the EKOHEAT VPA product line from the website to collateral materials and more.

In addition to the enhanced product brand name and accompanying new logo, a major part out of creating a sub-brand out of unique product attributes is to develop relevant and technical content. We did just that with the introduction of an all-new product brochure of EKOHEAT with VPA Technology, which included, for example, a product overview, a comprehensive listing of features and benefits and updated product photography. We also created technical specification and data sheets for the individual models within the EKOHEAT VPA family.

From the brochure and specification sheets, we now had the content needed to implement our messaging across our select communication vehicles, related to EKOHEAT with VPA Technology, which we leveraged as a verbal cue. Combined with the new EKOHEAT product logo, which was designed to be an important visual cue, our marketing team had developed a highly-effective sub-brand as a powerful memory anchor for prospective buyers.

With this new product branding in place -- EKOHEAT with VPA Technology -- we had a dynamic memory anchor we promoted and leveraged as part of Ambrell's Inbound Marketing strategy in the buyer's journey. Today, the product family and logo are still in use, as EKOHEAT with VPA Technology remains a prominent offering in the Ambrell product portfolio.

Implementing this product branding approach with the EKOHEAT VPA family, which, as I mentioned, was launched in 2015, was so successful that the same sub-branding technique was used with Ambrell's next generation of EKOHEAT. It's called EKOHEAT 2 with Advanced Internal Monitoring. This next generation of products was recently introduced worldwide to the induction heating industry and augments the existing EKOHEAT VPA family. More information about the new EKOHEAT 2 product line is available on the Ambrell website.

More About Product Branding Techniques

To learn more about product branding and other awareness techniques for your core brand, service brand or special offerings, please visit the Hardball Marketing website here.

If you'd like to schedule a complimentary consultation with me, please see the link below.

(N.B. This blog posting has not been approved, sponsored or licensed by Ambrell Corporation. References made in this blog posting regarding Ambrell Corporation are public information and are not confidential and can be accessed via their website, social media, blog postings, collateral materials, trade shows, special events, webinars, videos, industry publications, technical documents and other information and communication platforms.)