Your brand is important because it defines the way your customers perceive you. Successful branding encompasses the image you portray via your logo, website, social media channels, printed materials, and the way your staff look and interact with customers. As such, your brand should be well designed, strategic, and consistent across all platforms, at all times. It is critical that you create a brand experience that aligns with your business values and goals and remain aware of your brand experience, from the customer perspective, as you may need to adapt and rebrand over time to meet the changing needs of the consumer or as your business evolves.
Business recognition
Your branding helps people to recognise your business. When you have consistent branding which is easily recognisable, people will remember your company and be more likely to do business with you as familiarity promotes feelings of ease and trust amongst consumers. Your brand should be solid and consistent, so your customers always know what to expect when dealing with your company.
Stand out from the crowd
In a competitive global market, good branding can help you stand out from the competition. Unless your business is extremely niche, it’s likely that there are many companies offering similar products and services, even within a small radius. Effective branding can give you the edge over competitors because it helps you to stand out and make a positive impression. It helps you to convey why you are the business to choose, whether you are operating locally, nationally, or globally.
Allows your personality to shine
Your brand should be created to represent the personality of your business. It should convey to people what your business is about, including your company values and attitude towards customers. People want to buy from companies they feel match their personality, lifestyle, and personal values so it’s important to understand your target market and keep them in mind when developing your brand. Think about what your brand says about your company and what you will deliver as your branding will embed this in the minds of customers over time.
Aids marketing efforts
We touched on this in brand recognition; recognisable branding helps to keep you in the minds of your customers. Your logo and wider branding should be instantly recognisable when people see it as it will remind them of the products and services you offer and prompt people to make purchases. In addition to this, your branding can help you get referrals. We live in a brand culture; people wear brands, listen to brands, eat brands, and flaunt brands as part of their personal identity. Because of this, people love to share and recommend the brands they love to other people. Making your brand likeable and recognisable is key to maximising customer referrals.
Connect with people on an emotional level
Good brands connect with people emotionally, inciting positive feelings when buying the company’s products or using their services. Because purchasing can be an emotional experience, people are more likely to remain loyal to, and engage with, businesses that have a strong brand which promotes positive emotions. The emotions you foster with your brand will depend on your business ethos and the products and services you offer. Some businesses look to generate feelings of increased happiness, attractiveness, or luxury whilst others target personal ethics such as kindness or eco-centricity.
Motivates and directs your staff
Clear branding, alongside a well thought out brand strategy, provides guidance to your staff, telling them how they need to behave and what they need to do to be successful in your company. Successful branding can also promote staff loyalty, allowing them to feel like they are part of a family and representing a company with a clear, well-defined mission and ethos.
Helps you remain focused
A clear brand strategy will help you remain focused on your goals and company mission over time. With nothing to guide you, it’s easy to become distracted and flit between ideas over time. Before long, you have forgotten what the original intentions for your business were. If you have a clear brand strategy from the get-go, you have solid parameters to work within and guidelines to direct you. This will help you reach your goals faster and achieve success in your field.
If you are looking to create an amazing brand, you need to begin with a strong idea and clearly defined values and goals which you, and everyone else in your company, can understand, connect to, commit to, and deliver on. Your brand should permeate your entire organisation and be represented consistently at every point of customer contact, whether in person, online, or in print. This will help you to build brand loyalty and ultimately ensure the success of your business.
Recent Comments