Not often do you get to see a brand quickly become a global phenomenon as the beats by Dr. Dre brand.

Since it launched in 2008, the Beats by Dr. Dre brand has risen to a 53% share of the global headphones market.

Also, the current news about Apple’s proposed 3.2 billion dollar acquisition further confirms the magnitude of the brand.

In my typical entrepreneurial style, I decided to dig deeper amidst the ongoing buzz to uncover the behind-the-scene secrets of this powerful brand in order to help you apply them to your business and hopefully achieve similar results.

Enjoy!

How To Create A Global Brand Like Beats by Dr. Dre

Below are 5 powerful marketing strategies deployed by Dr. Dre and his founding partner, Jimmy Iovine that helped them create a global brand.

1.  Know Your Customer

The very obvious marketing lesson you can learn as an entrepreneur from the Beats by Dr. Dre brand is to thoroughly understand your target market.

Unlike other already existing headphones in the market, beats by Dr. Dre headphone was created for not just music lovers, but for a particular kind of music lovers, in this case, hip-hop music lovers.

From the outset, the sound engineering that was used to create the headphones was fine tuned using 50 Cents “In Da Club” track. This clearly defined the target market the product was being created for –the hip-hop music community.

“We wanted to recreate that excitement of being in the studio. That’s why people listen.”

-Jimmy Iovine, Co-founder

This deep knowledge of their customers has been the critical winning difference for the brand right from the very beginning. From the choice of product name “beats” to the choice of co-founders “Dr. Dre”, and Jimmy Iovine, everything about the product screams hip-hop.

Dr. Dre is an icon in the hip-hop community producing great beats for artistes such as; SnoopDogg, 50 Cent, The Game, Kendrick Lamar, Eminem and Mary J. Blige. When it comes to music production, he is regarded as a perfectionist.

Jimmy Iovine on the other hand founded a record label exclusively for hip-hop called Interscope. The label’s current artists include Eminem, The Black Eyed Peas, Fergie, Phillip Phillips, Lana del Rey, Kendrick Lamar, Lady Gaga, Dr. Dre, Timbaland, Robin Thicke, Madonna, Schoolboy Q, OneRepublic, Will.i.am, Imagine Dragons and many more.

All these put together obviously reinforces their deep rooted knowledge and presence in the hip-hop music community which eventually helped them to create an innovative headphone. The whole brand was built on pop culture!

To learn more about how to know your customers, I strongly recommend you take this free online Entrepreneurship 101 course by MIT.

2.  Differentiate Your Offering

The beats by Dr. Dre headphones weren’t designed only for sound; they add something extra that clearly made them stand out from all the existing alternatives.

They didn’t just sound better, they looked “cooler”. Compared to all the already existing ones, they were designed to be a fashion statement more than just another consumer gadget. Having a Beats by Dr. Dre headphone wasn’t for listening to music alone, it was a fashion accessory.

This clear differentiation is also rooted in their deep knowledge of their target customers, the hip-hop community. They know that this market segment cared about their looks as much as they cared about great sounds. Combining these two powerful value propositions, gave the brand an irresistible appeal.

They wanted to make headphones cool, here’s how one of the Co-founders, Jimmy Iovine puts it;

“Apple,” he says, “was selling $400 iPods with $1 earbuds. They’re making a beautiful white object with all the music in the world in it. I’m going to make a beautiful black object that will play it back.”

3.  Don’t Sell Features, Sell Benefits

The world’s most successful brands do one thing that clearly drives their success and that one thing is this; they don’t sell you their products/services, they sell you something else entirely. They sell you value.

I refer to this unusual strategy as Value Proposition Marketing. And I am working on an unusual article and follow-up seminar that will spell out how to apply this strategy in your business.

What’s Value Proposition Marketing?

The idea is very simple; people don’t buy what’s in your product/service, they buy what it can do for them. So rather than boring your prospective customers with all the wonderful things about your product/service, just focus on highlighting all that it can do for them logically [reason] and psychologically [feeling].

That’s what the beats by Dr. Dre headphone makers did. They didn’t bother themselves about highlighting the special technology used in engineering the product nor did they bother themselves about the design of the product.

In fact, they went against the advice of the initial manufacturers, Monster Cable who told them to market the product by emphasizing the features side of the product. Instead, Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre launched the brand using music videos and celebrity endorsements.

To communicate the logical benefit [reason] of the product, all they needed to do was to include the suffix “by Dr. Dre” on the brand name. Leveraging on his track record as a legendary music producer, with his rich deep bass trademark, you need not be told the headphone was powered by and for sound.

Here’s what the Doctor himself has to say:

“When I’m making a track I’m trying to capture the sound that makes me go ‘now THAT’s the shit! And I want that reaction from everybody who hears it. I spend a lot of time in the studio listening to my music through headphones…with Beats, people are finally going to hear it the way they should: the way I do.”

And to communicate the psychological benefit [feeling] of the product, the headphones appeared in major music videos and were worn by major hip-hop stars as fashion accessories that really made them look “cool”.

Here’s how Jimmy Iovine puts it;

“Dre and I decided to market this product just like it was Tupac or U2 or Guns N’ Roses.”

4.  Forget About Price, Compete On Value

In the wake of the recession in 2008, the beats by Dr. Dre headphones launched into the consumer electronics market selling for $400 clearly defying the laws of economics!

The existing market alternatives sold for $20.

So what was the secret?

Positioning.

The brains behind the brand didn’t position the brand as another consumer electronics product; this would have reduced it to a mere commodity. Rather, they positioned it as something more because of the value proposition marketing they had strategically developed.

When people bought beats by Dr. Dre, they didn’t see themselves paying for a headphone, which is what they usually perceived the competing brands as, rather, they see themselves as paying for “class”.

Using what celebrities use not only makes you cool, it makes you proud. You suddenly perceive yourself as being among the exclusive group of people who use the brand. In other words, you are buying a membership into a VIP club.

This is the same strategy at work in Apple. All Apple products/services are engineered not for everyone, but for the unusual ones. They don’t hide this fact; they clearly state it in their popular slogan “Think Different”.

Now you probably understand why they are interested in buying over the Beats by Dr. Dre brand. It’s simple, great minds think alike and like attracts like!

5.  Diversification

They didn’t stop their mission to make music sound as it should with just headphones, they went further.

They took their Beats by Dr. Dre sound technology into HP computers; into Chrysler 300s, Dodge Chargers, and Fiat 500s (all owned by Chrysler), and sold a majority stake in the company in exchange for a $300 million investment by smartphone manufacturer HTC (although Dr. Dre later bought back $150 million worth of the shares).

In July, Beats Electronics acquired the MOG subscription digital music service, adding content to its burgeoning business. This they cleverly called Beats Music – the first streaming music service delivering contextually and culturally relevant playlists, personalized for each user, by real music experts.

Conclusion

These 5 marketing strategies helped two music icons create a powerful global brand, they can help you too if you master them and apply them in your business.

Their success story is a testament to the fact that great products alone don’t sell themselves without accompanied by great marketing.

What sayeth thou?

Speak your mind in the comments section!

What’s the singular driving force behind the success of unusual entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Donald Trump, and many others in their league?

Is it their ground breaking innovations or exceptional business skills or determination?

The answer is neither.

While it’s obvious that all of these attributes definitely contributed to their success, as a matter of fact, these are the very attributes that have been often popularized. The truth is that there’s something more subtle that’s been frequently overlooked but is highly responsible for the success stories of most unusual entrepreneurs.

What’s this often overlooked secret weapon?

Their personal brands!

What’s Personal Branding?

Personal branding describes the process by which entrepreneurs differentiate themselves and stand out from the crowd by identifying and articulating their unique value proposition, whether professional or personal, and then leveraging it across platforms with a consistent message and image to achieve a specific goal.

A well-executed personal branding campaign creates a strong, consistent, and specific association between the individual and the perceived value they offer.

Personal Branding in Action

Let’s take some clues from the unusual entrepreneurs mentioned in the introduction.

• Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs is known as a perfectionist. He had a passion for design. He understood what a personal brand is about. It is your unique essence and impact in the world. Steve reminded us to pursue our uniqueness. His personal brand defined all his actions. It was about the relentless pursuit of excellence.  It was about innovating, not being afraid to break the rules to be different.

He didn’t care about making money. He cared about something bigger. Your personal brand is always about something bigger.  Here is Steve Jobs’ famous question to John Sculley, former Apple CEO “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?”

• Richard Branson

Richard Branson, is clear about being a risk taker. He is not your typical CEO in a blue suit and white shirt. He is a dare devil who was dressed a wedding gown when he launched Virgin Bridal, and was not dressed at all when he launched his book, Virginity. Among his first big risky ventures was signing the Sex Pistols onto his record label when no one else would even consider them.

Since then, he has taken on both British Airways with Virgin Airlines and Coke, the strongest brand in the world, with Virgin Cola.  Even outside of the professional arena, Richard Branson is clear about being a risk-taker. While many CEOs travel the world comfortably in their plush corporate jets, Richard Branson decided he was going to circumnavigate the world in a hot air balloon.

• Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey is the human brand of show biz. Oprah’s personal brand is associated with celebrity, charity, education and successful launches of products. She cares for people and is willing to share of herself to help people advance. This clarity about what makes her unique is consistent among all of her endeavors. And it is constantly visible to her target audience through her numerous ways of interacting with the public.

Oprah’s business success is built solidly on a powerful personal brand marketing strategy. Oprah has turned her talents, skills and values into a multi-billion-dollar media empire that’s still growing. Other media personalities have tried to emulate her personal brand strategy. So far, no one else has been able to match her ability to make women laugh, cry and dream about how to “live your best life.”

The Brand Called YOU

“All of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called YOU.”

 – Tom Peters in Fast Company

Most entrepreneurs in their quest to build a business often forget to build themselves in the process. They focus on developing the image and reputation of their business and products/services and completely lose touch with their own image and reputation.

They erroneously believe that the only thing the market cares about is the products/services they offer or the businesses they create. In the end, they end up building a company without a human face.

The human factor is the most powerful factor of all factors of production. The most powerful brand on earth, is the brand called YOU!

People buy from people. Companies are built by people. Products are created by people. People connect with people, not products. The more of yourself you put out there, the more acceptable your products/services will become. When they have bought into your person, then they will buy into your company.

Successful entrepreneurs know this and that’s why they inject themselves into the businesses they create. They literally become the face of their companies, putting themselves endlessly out there for the market to know, like and trust them.

7 Facts About Personal Branding

• “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room” – Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon

• You already have a personal brand whether you want one or not.

• Your personal brand is built 24/7 and 365 days per year through what you say, but even more importantly, through what you do.

• Personal branding is all about your Audience. Your personal brand exists in the minds of your Audience.

• Your personal brand exists in the minds of others in the way they perceive, think, and feel about you.

• The only way to have a strong personal brand is to carefully define it.

• The best personal brands are credible, so you must prove that you can deliver what you promise.

 How To Create A Powerful Personal Brand

To help you create a powerful personal brand, below are 12 questions you need to fundamentally answer, they are the personal branding checklist for entrepreneurs. Don’t rush through them, don’t lie to yourself while answering them, if you do, it’s only a question of time, people will know and detest you for it.

1.  Your Identity: what do you want to be known for?

2.  Your Purpose: what’s your ultimate reason for living? What’s your why?

3.  Your Vision: what do you hope to achieve by fulfilling your purpose?

4.  Your Values: what principles/ideas are you willing to live and die for? Click here to learn more about values.

5.  Your Message: what ONE word or phrase best captures the essence of your existence [Life]?

6.  Your Story: what facts or personal experience about your life/past helped to define who you are today and what your purpose here on earth?

7.  Your Heroes: who do you model your life after? Who do you aspire to be like and why?

8.  Your Expertise: what are your most valuable skills/talents/competencies?

9.  Your Profession: in what field/industry do you want to commit your life’s work?

10. Your Results: what are your greatest accomplishments in life?

11. Your Media: how do you intend to spread your message?

12. Your Legacy: When you die, what do you want to be remembered for?

Conclusion

This is not an exhaustive list, they are certainly more questions you will have to ask and answer to help refine your personal brand as you progress on your entrepreneurial journey. But, you should take these 12 seriously because they are the foundational questions that your personal brand will be developed on. Other questions will only strengthen your personal brand if you’ve taken time to answer these ones.

So what are other questions entrepreneurs need to ask themselves in order to create a powerful personal brand? See you in the comments!