How Brand Strategy Makes a Small Startup Think Big

The number one challenge for any startup is to overcome the skepticism customers have of a new company entering the market. 

“Purchasing an expensive piece of capital equipment is a high-profile responsibility for an employee or a big risk for a small fab shop owner.  There are many considerations required to make a good decision.”

How Brand Strategy Makes a Small Startup Think Big

What Does Success Look Like for Cleveland Plasma Systems?

We win when our customers experience increased productivity, efficiency, and expanded capabilities because they invested in a custom plasma cutting solution. It’s a choice they never regret.

The Business Case

Creating Credibility for a Startup Company

Buying a custom plasma cutting solution is a huge investment. Owners, managers, and operators have two primary goals: to improve their capabilities and/or equipment reliability. 

They can’t afford to make a mistake.

  • They want to avoid buying a machine or system that does not perform the way they need.
  • They’re trying to avoid buying a machine that does not provide the return on investment they need it to.  
  • They’re trying to avoid buying a machine that becomes a maintenance nightmare or does not meet its life expectancy.
Brand Strategy:

Building a Brand with Empathy and Authority

Cleveland Plasma Systems is familiar with the challenges and benefits of choosing a custom plasma cutting solution vs. an off-the-shelf product.

Cleveland Plasma understands that customers are trying to expand their capabilities or improve their efficiency. 

  • For example, a fabrication shop will expand its capabilities with a plasma cutting machine by drastically reducing the number of processes involved in producing steel components.  
  • A more established company will benefit from another machine by increasing production or improving uptime (minimizing maintenance).
Outcomes:

Be the Only Choice in a Crowded Category

The Business Discovery and Brand Clarity process revealed Cleveland Plasma System’s strengths and competitive advantage: decades of operational, engineering, and production experience and expertise in designing custom plasma cutting solutions.

Here’s how we positioned the company for customers:

“Finding the perfect solution for their metal cutting application is tough for many metal fabricators. Cleveland Plasma Systems helps fabricators sort through the options and alternatives to design the perfect plasma cutting solution.

Cleveland Plasma Systems is the only integrator dedicated to Kjellberg plasma solutions for companies in North America that need advanced metal-cutting capabilities.

Lead-Generating Web Site

Clear Customer-Focused Messaging

One-of-a-kind Lead Generator

Three Steps for Successful Startup Brand Strategy

Brand Strategy Made Simple

Brand strategy is how successful companies connect how they operate with how customers see them. Understanding customers’ needs and motivations are integral to understanding why they will choose your brand over others in the category. 

Gaining a competitive advantage isn’t about how you are different from your competitors. It’s in creating the kind of products, messaging, and behavior that customers favor in their minds when they choose to buy.

The Brand Clarity Process

Branding should be simple, and it should be relevant. Cleveland Plasma Systems achieved success quickly through three phases of brand strategy:

  1. Develop a Business Growth Plan that aligns the purpose, the right customers, category, compelling difference, and behaviors to drive growth. 
  2. Create a brand narrative with the StoryBrand framework that clearly captures what Cleveland Plasma Systems does, how they solve the customer’s challenges, and their compelling difference.
  3.  Develop and launch a system to attract, capture, and nurture leads.

The customer is the hero. We know we’re the guide.

Fabricators are not plasma system/machine experts, we are. They need to have the right answer to many questions that they don’t know to ask.  We’ll guide them through the considerations and provide them with the knowledge to make the best decision.”

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