Branding is the art of aligning what you want people to think about your company with what people actually do think about your company. This is how Jay Baer, a famous marketing consultant, described branding and why it is essential to have a strong brand identity. David Ogilvy saw a brand as “the intangible sum of a product’s attributes: its name, packaging, and price, its history, its reputation, and the way it’s advertised.” All these elements have their own role in brand presentation and they’re equally crucial for brand building and the way customers perceive your business.
In brand we trust
Building trust is essential for establishing a strong relationship with your customers. Numerous research studies have concluded that trust and customer loyalty result in repeat purchase behavior, successful upselling and cross-selling attempts, and more referrals. Consumers can feel when a brand is authentic and genuine, and that’s what they highly value. We’re all bombarded with countless ads and commercials, and people are tired of the usual sales pitch. No wonder that brands which manage to connect with consumers on a more personal level and show that they care are trusted. Even a survey has shown that 68% of customers usually churn not because they’re not satisfied with a product, but because they think that the company is indifferent towards them.
Deliver on your promises
Brands that make unrealistic promises that they don’t keep, eventually ruin their reputation. This is a pretty simple concept and yet many companies fail to follow it and consistently deliver the quality they promise. Even if such a mistake happens just once, the news will quickly spread via social media and the brand in question will receive tons of negative publicity. If we bear in mind that consumers on average tell about 9 other people about their good experiences, while they complain to 16 people about their bad experiences with a brand clearly illustrates how important it is to consistently keep your promises.
Nurture your customers
While acquiring new customers is essential for growing your business, nurturing relationships with your existing ones is maybe even more important. It’s somewhere between 5 and 25 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to retain an existing one, and this stunning fact is only additionally corroborated by the fact that a loyal customer is worth up to 10 times as much as their initial purchase. When it comes to nurturing your customers, you have to be very careful to find a sweet spot and avoid being too pushy. Sending personalized, follow-up emails is a common method of strengthening relationships with your customers, but if you want this to work, you need to make a good strategy. Spamming your customers with frequent emails or calling them just to “touch base” will only alienate them. When it comes to email content, make sure to stay away from some of the most common don’ts of email marketing.
The importance of visual appeal
Everybody knows that first impressions are the most lasting, and that’s why your brand’s visual identity has to be compelling. This doesn’t refer only to your product and package design, but also to your logo, overall visual identity, as well as your website. According to a study, it takes people about 50 milliseconds to form their opinion about a web page, so you’d better hire top-notch designers. A brand logo makes a company recognizable, which is why some of the world’s biggest companies spend millions on their logos. The golden arches, an apple with a bite, or a swoosh instantly remind us of the brands that stand behind them and that’s their greatest value.
Keep your messaging consistent
Your marketing message should have a consistent tone and it should reflect the core values of your brand. Maintaining consistent messaging across all channels is of vital importance for your reputation, which takes 20 years to build and only 5 minutes to ruin, as Warren Buffet once said. In other words, a wrong tweet or Instagram post could do irreparable damage, so make sure to establish a set of brand guidelines that will prevent such incidents. Otherwise, things could easily slip out of hand and all your branding efforts could go down the drain.
Presenting your brand in the best light requires a meticulous planning and every element should be carefully considered. Remember that branding is what helps your company stand out among the competition and that it’s essential that you give your customers reasons to choose you over them.
You must be logged in to post a comment.