You have the business concept down, planned out your operating space, organized your financials, and are excited to get started. But before you do, how much thought have you given to your brand identity?
Branding is the space a company occupies in the consumer’s mind. A brand is powerful because it’s composition can inspire confidence, instill trust, evoke emotion, or induce action. The effort you put into your digital design and branding for your new business could be the difference between sustainable success and unnecessary struggles.
Not Knowing Who You Are
You can’t be everything to everyone. It is essential to understand who you are as a brand and how you fit into your customers’ experience. For example, high-end fashion brands avoid substantial discounts because that would make their products too cheap and therefore lose their appeal. These high-end fashion brands understand that part of their allure is in the exclusivity of their pricing.
Knowing your brand simplifies strategic decision making and makes those decisions more straightforward and easier to execute. If a retailer approaches a high-end fashion brand with an offer to distribute their products through its thousands of stores in low-income areas, the high-end fashion brand will know how to respond.
Not Understanding the Power of Strong Branding
Your brand is an intangible asset that can add to your bottom line. The loyalty and confidence customers feel towards your brand will keep them focused on your product, no matter what your competition does. Your brand also helps your business expand with fewer efforts; customers are more likely to buy new product lines from a brand they trust. If you went to a trade show, for instance, to promote your business, there is no point going there with something that doesn’t stick in the minds of potential customers/clients, you need to grab their attention. From promotional products such as Prince William Pottery mugs, to a firm presence that makes people sit up and take note, all of it comes together to make your brand.
The brand’s value represents the effort that a business puts into satisfying customer needs. How consumers perceive your brand will affect how they are influenced by it. If your brand is associated with selling cheap items, then you cannot convince customers to pay a premium for your product. You would have better results in convincing customers that your product saves them money, thus appealing to budget-conscious consumers.
Not Having a Solid Plan
One person or even a single department cannot champion the company’s brand alone. Creating and reinforcing your brand must involve everyone and be practiced in every activity. Understand that your brand can suffer if a customer is greeted by friendly sales staff but gets mistreated by a grumpy accounts department.
All employees must know what the company stands for and what it strives to achieve. Not only must its brand values be internalized, but they must be present in all operations. If the organization promises a swift service, then that promise must apply when things do not go according to your plan, such as product returns, complaints, or refunds.
Trying to be Too Different
While yes, you want to stand out, there’s a reason other companies are successful when designing branding for their businesses. You don’t have to replicate them entirely, but take tips. Understanding the market, competition, and the consumer can make your branding strategy more effective.
Health brands choose colors that are calming, focus on positive messaging, and emphasize their composition or results. There is a reason for that; it comes from decades of market research to understand consumers. If your brand goes rogue on industry practice, then it risks alienating potential consumers.
Limiting Branding to Just Visual Design
Visual design is essential; it’s one of the key methods to capture attention, but your branding goes beyond that. Branding involves aspects like price, functionality, packaging, after-sales service, environmental impact, and so much more.
Creating a holistic brand strategy requires you to research to understand customer expectations better. A branding strategy based on informed insights will make it easier for customers to accept it and might even motivate customers to ditch your competition.
Not Being Consistent
All your branding should be consistent—the colors, font, persona, pricing, service, and packaging must all follow set guidelines. Regarding your brand, customers should not expect one thing and find another – that confuses them. Your brand is a signal to the consumer that should always be consistent; it reassures your customers of your commitment to the promises you made.
Consistency applies to the entire customer experience. Whether it takes place in the shop, front office, on a telephone, email, social media, or any other channel the customer chooses to interact with the company, the customer should always have the same pleasant experience.
Brandish Your Business
Your brand represents your promises, customers’ expectations, and market differentiator. It is critical to have a grasp of what your brand is and then build upon that. Successful brands have a plan that is consistent and plays towards their strengths. Once a brand is successfully established, it will save the company money and generate revenue for it effortlessly.
