If you plan on taking your business global, you need to establish a strong brand to make your life easier and give your company a better chance of success. But you may have enjoyed plenty of success already without thinking about how your brand affects your value and customer interest. While this has gotten you this far, it isn’t a sustainable approach, which is why defining your business brand is vital.
But how does a brand define its brand, and why is it so important? If you want to take your business to the next level, nationally or overseas, consider this guide to defining your business brand.
Why is a strong brand so important?
A strong brand can define your company’s success. It makes you more recognizable, trustworthy, and authoritative within your industry while allowing you to expand in various ways to serve more people.
Customer recognition
The stronger your brand, the easier it is for customers to recognize. This benefit can help your company even if they aren’t immediate customers. Simply knowing about your brand is often enough to transform them into customers in the future. These potential customers may not need what you’re selling right now, but they could in the future, which is why maintaining a strong brand and continued recognition is so important since you can tap into their resources later.
Boosted reputation
Similarly, a strong brand will boost your reputation. Even if people don’t know anything about your company, they will still respect you because they know who you are. As long as you haven’t had any bad press or scandals, your strong brand and increased reputation will be enough to attract future customers. They want to see what all the fuss is about and will check out your store or website. However, this still doesn’t guarantee a sale, so make sure you impress them.
Increased loyalty
As for existing customers, the stronger the brand, the stronger the loyalty. If you have a history of providing exceptional service and your brand is strong enough to get recognized anywhere, you may not have to work as hard to retain customers. Your current customers are more willing to give a strong brand the benefit of the doubt, especially if you’re a standout in your industry. You must reward this loyalty with exceptional service every time so your customers stick around.
Word of mouth
A strong brand helps your company grow through word of mouth as people are eager to tell their friends and family about your company. Positive word of mouth increases customer trust, because why else would so many people rave about the business? Use this to your advantage as you encounter a significant uptick in website traffic and product demand to give them a reason to return. If you can impress even more customers, you can rely on more word of mouth to boost your brand and reputation.
Attractive employment opportunities
While a strong brand can help attract customers, it’s also a fantastic way to attract the best talent. Ambitious professionals want to work for the best companies, so your strong brand can inspire people the same way the likes of Google or YouTube once did. You want people to know how great it is to work for your company, and a quality brand, message, and reputation can all contribute to this to attract the most innovative and eager candidates.
How to define your brand?
You have multiple options when defining your brand, including updating your style and design or focusing on key customers and demographics. Whatever your needs, you can find the best ways to define your brand.
Understand your audience
It is easier to define your brand if you understand your audience. You don’t want to promote a brand that feels inaccessible to your target audience as this will make them unsure whether your products are for them. By understanding your audience, you can cater your promotion, content, and products to them, as your brand will attract their interest naturally. The more you know what your customer wants and expect from your company, the easier it will be to develop a brand that suits them.
Define your message
It’s also important to define your message so that customers know what you offer and how you provide this product or service. Your business should solve a problem, whether for customers or other businesses, so focusing on this message will make a significant difference in defining your brand. Once you have determined your message, you can build a brand around this and explore other avenues to communicate this message to customers, including promotions, charitable work, and more.
Settle on a tone
Your brand voice is one of the most important elements of successfully defining your business brand. It should align with your ideal customer profile to tap into their wants and needs. The tone should reflect in all your communication, from ads to content and even your store if you have one. A laid-back, cool tone is ideal for a sporting business, whereas something more formal is better suited to financial companies. While this is not a concrete rule, it’s a good place to start.
Upgrade your logo
Depending on how long your business has been around, it could be worth updating your logo to fit in with the times and make your brand more recognizable. The best brands have instantly recognizable logos, such as the apple or windows. There are many reasons why your logo needs an upgrade, so consider how your current logo could impact brand awareness and interest. You want something that communicates what your business does without being too overwhelming or complicated.
Pick a mascot
Many companies use a spokesperson, but this doesn’t need to be a real person. You can find plenty of success by using a mascot representing your brand on marketing materials or social media. Creating a popular mascot can enhance interest and brand awareness and can even tap into further resources by creating or using mascot plushies that customers can buy, or can be included as part of their membership.
Outline your values
Every company can improve brand awareness by standing by its values. However, there are so many values that it can be tricky to determine which ones you want to highlight. The obvious ones include exceptional customer service, while sustainable practices are also essential, even on top of existing industry compliance. By outlining your values, you can showcase what your brand stands for, which could attract brands with similar interests to collaborate. This possibility can further spread interest in your brand and bring in more customers.
Market research
Your market research process is a vital element in defining your brand since it tells you what consumers are looking for and where their interests lie. You can use various methods to conduct this research, including customer surveys or analyzing shopping and purchase trends. From here, it’s easier to focus on defining your brand based on what the customer needs to make your business more appealing. You should complete market research whenever refreshing your brand or launching a new product to keep your finger on the pulse.
Improve your website
Since so much business is done online, from company research to product purchases, a great website is vital. However you may have noticed that your website does not generate as much traffic as you hoped, or there are too many abandoned carts. Understanding why your website is not getting enough traffic is one way to change this and it could do with an outdated and unresponsive design. The website could be too slow or too confusing. Undertaking a website audit will highlight potential issues and enable you to make effective changes that improve your website and define your brand.
Create recognisable ads
Everyone remembers the most iconic advertising campaigns, whether they saw them last week or when they were younger flicking through the channels. While it can be more challenging to create an iconic ad in the modern world, it isn’t impossible. You need to take an innovative approach and use professionals to get the most out of it. With lower attention spans, it’s also worth getting in as much information as possible in the shortest time without sounding rushed or glossing over key details. With a great ad or commercial, you can define your brand and improve recognition.
Show consistency
Consistency is vital in any industry. You should maintain your style in everything you do, from content to products and beyond. By showing consistency, your customers know what they are seeing immediately. They know you are launching a new product or offering a deal. And they don’t even need to wait around to know it’s your company. This aspect of brand recognition is crucial and goes a long way toward boosting your business.
Identified
Defining your business brand brings multiple benefits to your business. It can help you take the brand to the next step, increase awareness, and boost customer loyalty. These tips will help any business improve its brand’s strength to ensure it stands out from the crowd and attracts more attention for all the right reasons.
Images: Unsplash
