The inspiration for this article came from this box of Nirula’s ice cream.

It's a very old brand and quite popular in the north of India. But over the years the brand has blown hot and cold struggling to maintain its equity.

This flavour Delhi Delight is amazing. And as I dug into it, I wondered why I found this flavour out of serendipity and not out of any message from their marketing team. This flavour is so awesome, I would buy Nirula’s only for this.

As a platform serving small and medium enterprises, one advice we share is “You always start with one focused target group and message”. This is because a small brand, a young brand has limited resources. And focus always brings better return on investment.

If I was Nirula’s and I had this flavour ‘Delhi Delight’, which a group of my customers enjoy and no other flavour get such a positive response; then I would focus marketing on this flavour and try and find more consumers who appreciate this flavour.

I would do that by creating a profile of my existing customers of the flavour and try and replicate this profile really is the central task of marketing.

Few young brands get this right. Often there is a hurry to increase sales and hence find more target audiences and create a wide product portfolio. Over time you will realise that this approach is not efficient.

And bit by bit you will give up market share to more focused competition.

Building brands is a patient long term process. Temptation to grow revenues quickly often comes in the way of building a brand. A BRAND is a core promise to a core defined target audience.

Stay Small till you have found a target audience that can be expanded. Then go behind that.

Growth comes not because a brand means different things to different people. That is expensive growth. Growth come when the brands core promise identifies with a larger and larger customer base.

Find people that resonate with your promise. Do not invent promises to find more audiences.