How to build a strong brand
Your brand isn’t just your logo. Your brand should drive, align and guide everything you do in your business. It’s the intersection of your vision, values and culture as perceived by your customers. It encompasses why you exist, your personality, unique identity, culture and the promise that you market to your customers. Your brand separates you from your competitors. It helps your customers to connect emotively with your business, leading to higher sales, stronger brand differentiation, and customer loyalty.
Your brand needs to give your customers and prospective customers a great first impression. A strong brand isn’t created overnight. It takes time to build brand awareness. Having a strong brand and effective marketing reduces the influence price has on your customers’ decision-making process and increases customer conversion rates naturally.
But how do you build a strong brand? Here are our top tips!
IDENTIFY YOUR AUDIENCE
- Your brand must resonate with your target audience; reflecting their values, preferences and lifestyle
- Consider your target audience’s age, gender, location, profession, social preferences, pain points, average income, etc. to establish the type of brand and marketing initiatives that will appeal to them
- Understand which brands your audience buy into, what they read, what they listen to, preferred methods of contact
KEEP YOUR ENEMIES CLOSE
- Identify who your true competitors are – consider whether a customer may end up choosing between you and another business, if the answer is yes, they are your competitor.
- Review and analyse eachcompetitors website, SEO, brand identity and other marketing initiatives they are undertaking to understand who you are competing with to gain their market share.
- Conduct a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis on each competitor. This will help you determine the areas that you can leverage to differentiate your company from your competitors and stand out from the crowd.
DEFINE YOUR STORY
In order to successful articulate who you are, what you do and why you do it you need to know the following:
- Brand Purpose – why does your business exist?
- What is your vision?
- What are your core values?
- What problem is your product/service solving?
- Why does your target market need your product/service?
- What is the best thing about your product/service?
COMMUNICATE YOUR BRAND
- Share it with the team
- Create clear brand guidelines
- Ensure that every message, graphic, campaign and customer touch point aligns with your brand story
CREATE AN EMOTIONAL CONNECTION
- With everything that you do, you should be aiming to build long-term connections with your customers to strengthen their loyalty to your business. If you have a customer-centric approach to strategy, then you will be able to build long-term loyalty through a true and honest connection.
THANK YOUR ADVOCATES
- Brand advocacy is one of the most powerful marketing tools if done correctly. Brand advocates leave positive reviews about your product/service, they will be the ones who write testimonials, refer your brand to a friend, share your online content, and even create content on your behalf. If you build up a brand well enough to gain brand advocacy, ensure you reward them by offering incentives for referring new customers, e.g. discounts, cash, etc.
Once you have built a brand that truly reflects your business, communicates in an impactful way to your target audience, and encapsulates your purpose, you will be on the path to success.
If you need any help with brand strategy or marketing, feel free to get in touch with Ashlee at ashlee.bloom@raffingers.co.uk