By: ash Tuesday December 22, 2020 comments

Is Your Brand Well-Know and Well-Loved?

Your brand is your business’ identity. Your brand is so much more than just your name, slogan, or logo. Companies that are able to create strong brands know that their brand needs to live everywhere. They know their names extend far beyond the label.

The result? These brands are known, loved, and chosen out of a long lineup of options. You too can take your brand beyond the ordinary with some focus effort to further develop your online voice, image and presence for more impactful marketing. 

Brand identity is the personality of your business and the promise you make to your customers. It’s what you want your customers to walk away with after they interact with your brand. It consists of your values, how you communicate your service, and what you want people to feel when they experience it. But first you’ll need to define how you want your brand to be perceived, organize your business around that vision, and consider how you can best communicate that vision to the public. Once you’ve developed your brand and branding strategy, the most important factor in success is staying cohesive and consistent. 

1. Define how you want to be perceived

When your customers experience your service, how do you want them to describe it to their friends? 

• “Wow, this business has the best prices in town. It’s great!”
• “You really feel as though you’re family. Their customer service is unbeatable”
• “The service is quick and efficient, they came out the same day I called!”

See your brand as your promise to your customers – a promise that’s different from your competitors’. How can you differentiate yourself?

2. Organize your business based on this promise

Keeping the promise that sets you apart from your competitors implies that you’re doing something more than what they’re doing. The business that wants to be recognized for its unbeatable service, for example, will have to find a way to get to customers quickly, maybe hiring more employees. If that’s the focus of your brand, then you need to organize your business around this. In other words, your brand will greatly influence the winning formula that you’ll base your business on.

3. Communicate your promise

All of your marketing materials – from the colors of your logo to your website text, layout and images – must be developed as a function, an extension of your brand, that supports your vision. What you say on social media must be aligned with this message. It’s at this stage that your brand becomes central to your advertising campaigns. What’s more, your ads will be even more effective, since you’ll have a clear message to convey.

4. Be consistent

After defining how you want to be perceived, then as you’re organizing your business based on this perception and communicating this promise, you must also always be consistent. Apple, for example, is recognized for making products that are both elegant and innovative: it can’t afford to launch a new phone that’s unattractive, or a new tablet that’s technologically behind, because that would mean breaking the promise it has made to its customers. Your customers come to your brand for your promise. That promise needs to drive every action of the business. 

The idea here is to develop trust, trust is crucial to your customers perception of your brand. Your customers must no longer see your brand as a promise but as a reality. Consistency shows that you are who you say you are, and you do exactly what you promise you will. Consistency is often the hardest part, but the one with the greatest rewards.

Over time, a well-managed brand stops becoming a company promise and increasingly becomes a customer expectation. There may be 5 businesses similar to your own in town, but only one where customers expect to experience service that makes you feel like family, or the one that wants to save you money, or the one that will come help asap when you need service. That businesses brand is no longer its name or logo – it’s in the expectation of its customers.

Truly strong brands thrive when they focus on the big picture of their brand. Get to the heart and soul of your goals, your vision, target audience and your organization, and a successful, beloved, brand is sure to follow! 

About the Author: ash