Building a strong business brand is not easy, but the art of controlling the way consumers and the general public perceive and act towards your business is undoubtedly a critical part of any company’s success.
In fact, the amalgamation of science and psychology is what led to Geeley Motors of China acquiring Sweden’s beloved Volvo and Mahindra of India buying Ssangyong – Korea’s third-largest car company. It was also what led to Kraft acquiring Cadbury for a whopping US$19.5 billion.
Good branding also serves to act as a source of inspiration to a company’s employees which in itself, brings a plethora of benefits. Now with the barriers to entry for building a business being lower than ever before, building a brand and distinguishing yourself is of the utmost importance.
So, what’s involved in building a strong business brand? Let’s have a look.
Research your specific target audience
The last thing you should aspire to be, especially when you’re just starting out, is a jack of all trades.
The reason is simply because your company cannot be everything to everyone, at least not straight away.
So it’s vital to first identify a niche group that you want to cater for and create a loyal following by focusing all your resources, time, and efforts on providing useful solutions for that specific crowd. From there you will have a strong platform to help guide your company’s direction.
Extra: Jason DeMers, founder of EmailAnalytics has provided us with an easy and consumable slideshow outlining 10 ways you can learn about your target audience.
Have a brand standard
A brand standard is simply the way a brand is expressed through marketing materials.
This includes the font sizes, colors, logos, and positioning statements.
Creating this at the beginning may seem unimportant and time-consuming but in the long run, it acts as a solid foundation for your business and saves you from a lot of potential headaches down the road.
Extra: Templafy.com provides businesses with the support needed to manage, update and share brand assets. The platform also documents all the company standards that are created by your team making it easier to keep track of as the company grows.
Develop a brand promise
A brand promise is a company’s promise to its customers on what they can expect to receive every single time they interact with your brand. So it goes without saying that the message must be compelling, authentic, and credible.
Once businesses really understand their identity and the value it provides, some choose to even make the message more explicit by incorporating it into their slogan and/or logo.
However, to create an effective and reliable brand promise, it is vital to clearly understand what you want your brand to achieve in the market, how you’re different from the competition and what problem you’re trying to solve for the customers using your product or service.
Once this is done, highlight and hone in on the message.
Extra: Power Reviews here lays out 12 great examples of what a good brand promise can look like.
Keep the interaction customers have with your business positive
This tip seems obvious and is undoubtedly easier said than done. But in order to gain that loyal following, have a credible brand standard and build an effective brand promise, your business and its products need to consistently deliver at and above standard.
Now in the inevitable and unfortunate situation where a customer has a negative experience with your company, it is important to have a plan in place.
Follow up, ask and listen to them to understand why they are dissatisfied and once you understand, it’s then time to offer a solution.
If the solution proves effective try systemize the process so when a similar situation is to occur in the future, you’re well equipped to handle it.
Extra: Net Promoter Score (NPA) is a management tool that can be used to gauge the loyalty of a firm’s customer relationships. If you ask the right NPS questions you will gain an accurate understanding of how your company, product or service is perceived.
Here is a list of 12 NPS survey question and response templates.
Increase the odds of creating a cultural movement strategy
Again, this would be the best scenario since every business would love to lead a cultural movements of some sort. Forces that have the ability to propel your brand to the top even in the face of economic crises.
In the age of social media, there are certain things you can do to try and ignite that talk and hype around your brand, such as influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing was rated as the fastest-growing online customer-acquisition channel, beating organic search, paid search and email marketing. In fact, according to a poll on the Tomoson blog, 59% of marketers are planning to increase their influencer marketing budgets over the next 12 months.
Research influencers who represent your brand and its message and build rapport! After establishing some sort of relationship, encourage them to try out your products and services.
Extra: Here are some tips and templates when reaching out to influencers that you can follow!
Now after reading the tips above, if you decide that all of this seems just a little too much to handle, you can also hire a PR agency, such as Elite Lawyer Management to help run this side of things for you and your team can focus on scaling your business.
This article may contain products and services from advertising partners of The Millennial Source.