A leading bank was looking to carve out a position in an already saturated small business market. They needed a unique positioning that not only created a strong connection with small business owners (SBOs), but also drive SBOs to work with the company. As part of this undertaking, the insights team was looking to drive a human-centered process within the organization for developing the new positioning.
The Solution
We leveraged a two-phased approach to holistically assess the opportunity among small business owners, test different expressions of their small business value proposition, and identify what reasons to believe (RTBs) best supported their positioning efforts.
Our qualitative work started with uncovering what matters to SBOs both as consumers and as their roles as small business owners. We then pushed further to not only identify the expressions that resonated strongest, but also to uncover what language, tone, and features clearly worked vs. not – shaping the inputs for quantitative.
Using our S+R BrandImpact™, we then quantitatively tested three expressions. The disciplined approach brought normative data and KPI results for each concept to validate the best direction for the business.
The Outcome
The multi-phased approach provided our client with a clear roadmap for winning with small business owners. They had the optimal positioning, including the features that would drive the most impact among small business owners, as well as clear guard rails to watch-out for. The quantitative brought clear validation, while the qualitative brough a key human-first perspective to the SBO audience for the organization – setting the stage for new creative, marketing, and business priorities.