When making a buying decision, most people ask themselves one of two questions:

1 What’s most advantageous on a cost-benefit basis? What’ll give me the most bang for my buck?

Or

2 What kind of person am I and what is most in keeping with my identity and values?

Now, it’s not a one-or-the-other kind of thing; both criteria could be considered for any given purchase.

Plus, when it comes to “cost” different buyers will have different coin that are most important to them — time, money, security, adventure, convenience, prestige, etc.

An example of these two factors working together might be a buyer who chooses to buy an SUV over a minivan based on self-image, but who chooses a particular brand and model of SUV over others based largely on bang-for-buck considerations.

But where this really starts to get into the nitty gritty for most local businesses and advertisers is in moving on the spectrum from reason-why advertising to identity and value-based branding (aka bonding).

In other words, understanding identity-based purchasing helps local biz owners break free from the fallacy that they need a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) to justify profitable pricing.

After all there are plenty of reasons why a buyer might shell out top dollar for a Mercedes-Benz S class over a similarly luxurious and equipped Hyundai Equus. And none of them involve USPs or cost-benefit calculations. Unsurprisingly, most of those reasons involve identity and signaling.

Similarly, you could get a latté at McDonalds — or you could go to Starbucks.

Most of the people going to Starbucks aren’t making a cost-benefit decision. They’re making an identity-based decision.

And I’d submit to you that this same dynamic applies as much to local and service-based businesses as to large luxury brands — especially if you have an Ugly Duckling Business.

In other words, if your goal is to create higher profit margins and customer loyalty, it’s usually best for your advertising to emphasize and focus on identity-based decision making.

If you stick with reason-why, you stick with a cost-benefit mindset. If you move to identity-based, you remove price as a primary consideration.

So how do you start this process? How can YOU tap into identity-based advertising for your business?

There are usually two pieces to this puzzle:

  1. Creating and broadcasting ads that associate your brand with values your customers already identify with. Ads that make customers think “these are my people. They believe what I believe — and they put those beliefs into action.”
  2. Creating and broadcasting ads that portray your company as the obvious and first choice for your preferred kind of customer, typically a customer who values competency, professionalism, and convenience over price.

Now, you’ll notice that this information is undoubtedly true and makes sense, but is kind of useless.

“Yeah, but HOW do you make those kinds of ads.”

And that’s the reason-why most marketing folks blather on about reason-why advertising and USPs rather than bonding — because bonding takes artistry beyond a paint-by-numbers approach.

You have to have a talented advertising team to pull it off.

And the ads that will achieve this for you won’t be the same ads that would achieve these goals for another company in the same industry as you. Because their values won’t necessarily be your values.

Heck! How you express your values in the way you do business will differ, even if you have the same values as someone else.

But, if you’re really interested in the how of creating this type of ad, a powerful Genesis Story is a good place to start.

Or, you can reach out to me and we could discuss teaming up to create a bonding campaign for your local business.

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