Diagnosis Phase – Mapping the known universe

Understanding your brand, your competitors and your audience

The brand building process should begin with a thorough diagnosis of the situation at hand. Talk to the organization’s leadership and stakeholders to understand their vision, opportunities and challenges. Gather all key executives, decision makers and anyone with veto power around a table for an input meeting and approval of the brand-building process, deliverables and timeframe. This phase includes collecting and evaluating information about the brand’s market position and competitive environment to uncover practical insights in four dimensions: the brand, the audience, their emotional stages and their consideration set.

Study the history of your brand

It’s important to take a hard look at your brand from an outsider’s perspective. How and when did it originate? What does it offer to the community? How has it been represented in the past? What is its current positioning and market share? What do the people behind your brand think and say? Recognizing where you are on the path to what you want to become helps you chart a course that will correct shortcomings and align your staff to a shared mission.

Get to know your customers (the audience)

Consider both external and internal audiences: end users (patients and potential patients), your staff, all physicians in your market, and even the community at large as potential supporters. Break out all the segments of your community and then drill down to figure out what makes each of them tick. What are their current perceptions of the category, your brand and those you compete with? What keeps them up at night? How can your brand improve their quality of life? Focus on the relationship-building drivers and attributes that resonate emotionally with your audiences. What are they willing to believe about your brand that is somehow different and more desirable than the competition?

Identify the true relationship drivers (their emotional stages)

Service offerings, professional affiliations, proximity, technology, amenities and reputation all influence a person’s choice of healthcare organizations. Identify all of the attributes and determine which of these are the relationship drivers for your brand. Which attributes really influence the patient’s (or doctor’s) decision to come back to your organization? What do you do best of all your competitors? This may focus your competitive position and messaging.

Analyze the competitive idea space (the consideration set)

Take a look at all of your competitors. Reverse-engineer their brands to identify their positioning, what they’re saying, how it’s different, and if it’s true. This should provide a clear picture of the competitive idea space: where there is saturation (similarity and repetition in messaging) and where there is opportunity (untapped ideas that will help your brand stand out from the background noise).

Analyze the four dimensions for insights

Once you have all the facts, you can begin to identify the essential kernels of truth about the brand, the audience, their emotional stages and your competition. What distinguishes your brand from all the rest? What will engage your audiences and inspire them to want a relationship with your brand? Discovering the truth about the brand – that one believable, relevant, memorable and deliverable promise – is the key to finding a position that will be meaningful, different and ownable over the long term.

To learn more, download the white paper “The How-To-Guide for Brand Building.”