Everyone makes promises in business. Managers promise employees they can get far if they work hard, employees and sales agents promise customers a great service, great quality and value for money all at the same time. As a startup business, you might want to do all that you can to go with the flow, but you need to get your branding strategy sorted as soon as possible so that you can show the world that your business really does mean business.
One thing that many businesses neglect to do is establish their brand early. For example, personalised number plates on company cars and trucks? That’s a great way to brand your business on the road so that you’ll be visible no matter what. A great brand identity is going to have an obvious value on offer to customers, it’s going to show them how you create that value and it’s going to showcase both the products and services that represent that value – all at the same time.
Learning how to establish the identity of your company is important and once you do it, you can really showcase what you can do. But the biggest question is how you can do that and why it’s important. Let’s take a look:
You get to set yourself apart.
When you have the right branding in place, you can distinguish your products and company name from the competition. You can establish your identity so that everyone knows who you are. Your branding can help to promote your unique selling point, and that makes you stand out from the competition more than anything else. You want visibility, and branding is what gives you that. It also helps to increase those odds of a repeat purchase, which is what you need if you want your business to thrive. You want people to know the difference between your brand and other brands in your niche, and they should know that your brand can offer more.
It’s so much easier to promote.
With a good branding strategy in place, you’re going to find it much easier to promote your products. Whether you have a physical product or a service, you need to get the name of it out there and tell people what it is you can do for them.
If you are problem solving, people need to see that that’s a possibility with your product, and they can do that when you have the best band in place. The packaging is your silent salesman. Everybody remembers the shape, the colour and even the type of lettering you will use for your business, and you can see that in evidence in companies like Disney. Everybody knows which font is Disney as much as most people know what purple Cadbury chooses to use for their chocolate. When people have a good experience with merchandise and services that have been packaged and branded correctly, they’re always going to come back and recommend you.
You gain some staying power.
When customers are acquainted with what you do as a brand, it’s going to keep you consistent. They now know who you are and what you are doing, which means you need to stay on track. Enduring the right brand. Make sure that you have a label to live up to and that reputation will follow you around. In the business world, you want that reputation and that experience to be a positive one. So the more of a brand experience that you can offer your customers, the better.
You will build customer loyalty.
People like to follow the companies they know and like. The allegiance of your customer base is a priceless one, and the odds of selling to return customers are much greater than selling to new ones. It’s easier to keep existing customers happy than it is to try and attract new business all the time. When you constantly put across excellence, you will end up with more people coming back to you over and over again, and it’s why you should invest in your brand wisely.
It helps with name recall.
When you brand your products you can work them into the buyers subconscious. Inside the supermarket, people are faced with hundreds of products in the same category all at once.If your branding is going to make your product stand out from the crowd. People will want to know what you’re selling and they want to buy a part of it. Your packaging, design, and brand name are what’s going to keep your merchandise standing out from the crowd.
You can diversify easily.
When people know that they can rely on the product or the service that you offer to deliver what they need, they’re going to want to purchase from you again. If you are selling jam, for example, and you start out with a strawberry jam, then knowing you can diversify into other flavours and keep a strong, solid customer base is going to work in your favour. It would be the branding on those jam jars that really stands out to people.
You have the opportunity to improve your commercial value.
People will always purchase from somebody with a trusted name, which means that brands can increase your company’s financial value. You can help your business to grow its assets, and you can allow them to sell at a price that only a few will ever think about questioning. Think about when Apple releases a new iPhone stock prices can go up or down based on the reputation of a brand, and if customers are not happy with the new iPhone, those prices will go down. So it’s in a company’s best interest to keep the customers happy to keep their stock prices up and their shareholders happy.
You can hire the best of the best.
With the right branding comes the right reputation which brings the best employees. You want people who want to work for your business and that is so much easier to achieve when you have a brand that is respected. A respected brand creates an impression of financial stability and people want to work with businesses that offer that.
You gain social influence.
Lastly, branding ensures that you and your company become important to society. People will always look up to you and think of you as a valuable contributor in their way of life. Customers may not pay you any attention in the long run, but that will spell doom for any business with those big names that back you up. You can become a bigger force in any field.It’s not an accident that the public respects the likes of Bill Gates.
Branding is vital for a business and building a brand takes effort and time. The thing is, branding is something that is going to keep your start up moving forward more than most things. Without the correct branding in place, your business is not going to thrive as much as you think it does, so you should really make sure that you have your strategy in place as early as possible.
With the right elements, the right target market and the right unique selling point, you can ensure that your brand is going to stand out from the crowd. Take a look at the tips above and then you can determine whether or not your branding strategy is on point or whether or not it needs some work. Either way, start thinking of everything you could be doing to add to your brand today.
