Pick a position and go all in.
Your blog has a number of posts about Martial Arts. And it looks like you’re trying to sell this product within that community.
A quick Google search introduced me to your competition – “Defense Soap”. They are also running with the “kills all the nasty germs that athletes get” angle. But their branding seems to be more congruent. Their product and packaging isn’t attempting to look natural and handmade. It fits their positioning, it’s more muted and clinical. Their soap takes care of business. You certainly don’t want to eat it.
If it were me, I wouldn’t be trying to take on an established brand in such a small niche using the same message as them. You need to define your own position. You need to stand for something unique in the marketplace.
Starting with your product, the handcrafted, natural angle is a strong foundation to build upon. Your soap looks better than their regular white bar. So build on your strengths, compete on your terms, not theirs.
There is a subtlety to branding. There are some things you advertise on big signs and there are things you train the sales staff to whisper to the customer. You have a product that can be sold as an aspirational purchase, a luxury, a standard. That also happens to work really well as a medicated soap.
When you go to a fine restaurant, sure the food has to be great, but you’re not really going for the food, you’re going for the feeling.
You appear to have a great product. What I’d love to see you do is invest in enhancing the feeling that people experience, before and after they purchase your soap. And that feeling should match the quality of your product.
A name and a logo don’t make a brand. What that brand stands for, how it makes people feel, is what makes a brand. There is a way to make your name and logo stand for something more aspirational than “curing ringworm”. Let your competition stick to solving the ringworm problem, they seem to be well established on that front.
What’s the “soap problem” you are uniquely solving for people?
I don’t know this marketplace as well as you. But there are only a limited number of positions to take. Another way of saying that is, there are only a limited number of “soap problems” people have that you can solve.
They will either buy a soap because:
a) Its association with something, or someone, makes them feel good. It helps them express themselves as an individual or as part of a community.
Or
b) They will buy it because it solves a painful problem in the medical sense.
If they don’t have either of these problems or desires, they’ll buy a regular $1 bar of soap like the other 99%.
I’d actually be testing both sides of that question with pure pitches that clearly come down on one side or the other. You may find that one side is 10x more profitable than the other. Premium medicinal soap may be where the real market is, so it might make sense to actually change the look and styling of your soap to be more appropriate.
Or, you may have a better fighting chance, not competing head to head with Defense Soap and going for the higher end, aspirational position. The only way to know is to put on your scientist hat and set up some experiments. Test what the market really wants. Not what you want. Not what they say they want. What they actually pay for when positioned clearly.
Sell an idea. Not just a product.
But starting with what you already have, and the type of product you’ve already created, I’d start that testing process by positioning yourself as a premium handcrafted alternative, a brand that represents “the highest standard” in soaps for people who care about their sports and care about their skin.
How do you position yourself as a brand that represents “the highest standard”? You tell stories that honour the athletes who embody the highest standards.
There are three simple ways to obtain stories about high athletic standards that I would use:
- Read every biography available on the lives of the greatest athletes from the present day and the past. Extract and retell the anecdotes which demonstrate the high standards they lived and trained by. Post these on your site and, more importantly, actively promote them in the sports communities online and off.
- Contact and interview the best coaches in every relevant field. Be looking for those same stories of athletes with high standards (or coaches with high standards). Coaches will often receive less attention but be delighted to be featured and talk about their methods.
- Contact and interview the best athletes searching for the same short anecdotes. A great many athletes will jump at the opportunity to talk about the high standards they strived for and how hard they trained, as opposed to the common perception that they were / are just lucky and talented.
Through an ongoing and sustained campaign of honouring these people and the idea of “reaching for the highest standards” you can build a brand, that competes in the same market as the white medicinal bars, but plays on your strengths.
You can still sell your ingredients and their medicinal properties, just don’t make them the main feature. Don’t create conflicting images inside your customers heads.
Action: Go all in on one brand position. Start developing that brand by honouring the people who already exemplify the aspirational feeling you want to be associated with. Tell stories about their high standards and over time that emotional feeling will be transferred to your product.
Once you have a clear brand identity remove the unnecessary.
There are other little elements around the site that could add further confusion to the branding. For instance, various references to Rasta. These may be your personal taste, but they don’t add clarity to the brand, or the main message you’re trying to communicate.
There’s nothing wrong with having Rasta influences as part of a brand. They remind me of Levi Roots. In theory, that difference could help you get remembered. However, problems will arise when customers try and remember all these different elements together.
Are you the Rasta guy, the Martial Arts guy, the Ringworm guy, or the All natural guy? Pick one focus, a standard, that lots of people can relate to, before going into personal tastes that a lot of people won’t relate to.
Lionise the Lion.
A minor detail but your lion logo isn’t half as clear as it could be. When you remove the word “lion” and show people the logo on its own, most have no idea it’s actually a lion. Get a designer to fine tune it a little. But remember, a brand isn’t about a name and a logo, it’s about what you make them stand for. A standard.
Summary
It looks like you have a great product with a lot of potential. You’re trying to hit all the right notes and I think you can do well with this product when you pick a single position and go all in. You’re coming from within an existing community that has close ties, so use that network online and off, and honour the best in that field. Build your brand based on a feeling, a standard, and have a constant stream of aspirational and inspirational stories. Use those stories to spread your message throughout the sports communities. Stay the course, see it through, make your mark!