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Many people have learned to start a fire from the bottom, with kindling and firestarters underneath, then small twigs, and larger wood on top.

Expert firestarters will tell you to reverse that method – for more certain results, start with the top.

Brands built around a powerful emotional match – a single emotional strike zone ignited by a powerful emotional idea that sits above and informs every brand touchpoint – tend to grow faster and burn hotter.

Many marketers try to build a cohesive brand and a self-perpetuating business through offers, promotions, personalization and other performance marketing techniques. Starting from the bottom creates an unruly fire that needs constant tending and that often fails to achieve the integrity and heat of a self-perpetuating blaze.

Starting from the bottom leads to a common marketing malady –the balkanization of target.

Today personalization and micro-segmentation are all the rage. Performance marketers have built a multi-billion dollar industry, but much of the value they capture in the short-term is at the cost of the long-term brand and enterprise value of their clients.

Make no mistake, igniting action is essential to the creation of value, but action at the cost of brand is unsustainable and irresponsible.

Often the process of building a sustainable and growing blaze starts with putting the brand back together again.

Starting with key segments and personas, the successful marketer looks for a singular “emotional strike zone” – a common emotional target that is shared.

The “emotional match” is the key idea or purpose that strikes that target and ignites passion.

The process looks like this:

 Segments and personas -> Emotional Strike Zone -> Emotional Match

 Once the team understands the emotional strike zone and the emotional match, attention is turned to accelerating the actions that create value and growth for the brand and business.

When you start from the top, you build a marketing blaze that becomes self-perpetuating. You set it and feed it and the heat does more and more of your work for you. Does it really work? Check out some of our clients’ recent public results.