There a lot of things that a business owner can do to grow their company, but very seldom do new businesses consider the top branding techniques that can grow your business.
There are some traditional things that grow a business such as sales, specials, community involvement, coupons, etc. However there are some important elements with branding that need to be considered with branding to help with your Inbound Marketing efforts.
Let’s take a closer look at those and learn more you can do to give your business a strong stage ready presence for success.
In no particular order – the following are all helpful techniques to use in your branding.
One – Define Your Look and Feel
Many businesses develop a logo to an extent and leave it at that. In some circumstances works; in most it is just not quite enough.
A good solid logo that represents your business is key to promoting your website. A logo is what initially identifies you. Think of some of the most well-known companies in the world, a simple shape without any name verbiage or tagline and you know exactly who they are.
Namify offers a handy business name generator that creates a logo for your new name on the fly. And it is free!
There’s a great collection of logo mockups and templates to get you inspired.
Define what your look and feel by creating a style guide. A style guide is a visual road map for future marketing of your company that illustrates and defines you logo and rules for use, font types and colors used in different circumstances, spacing and margins, consistency of usage of all your visual elements.
This serves as a guide that sets the standards of your company for future success and will aid you in your Inbound Marketing.
Two – Define Your Messaging and Call to Actions
When you clearly define your message and call to actions, you are defining who you are. Customers are drawn to messages that they align themselves with.
A Hot Dog vendor may consider himself the “most loved hot dog in the state”. If he defines himself as that, he should stick to it, verify that with testimonials, consistent use of that in advertisements, packaging, coupons, etc. All efforts to promote his business should reiterate that idea over and over.
Text Optimizer is a cool tool that will help you identify the right messaging that will appeal to your target audience. The tool runs semantic research that identifies common concepts and entities that are associated with your core keyword:
Develop public communication guidelines for your whole team to use. If you have other people promoting your brand – through referral or affiliate marketing – make sure they are aware of and follow your communication policies as well.
Three – Understand Your Consumer and Present It to Them
If you truly want to be successful, you need to know exactly who your ideal customer is. You need to know who they are, their buying habits, how often the buy from you and why, what drives them to use your services or products, etc.
The more you know about your customer, the more effectively you can develop your brand to cater to their personalities. If you can successfully do that, in many cases you have a customer for life.
Talking to your customer service and collecting analytics from your customer-facing solutions is essential. If you are using virtual phone systems or chatbots, they are likely to come with detailed analytics that give you insight into your customers’ buying habits.
Four – Develop Your Brand Through Strong Representation
Branding is highly effective when represented by a recognizable face or organization. If you are T-Shirt printing company and you do all the printing for a local college, you can work with the school and define yourself with the public as “The Official T-shirt Printer of XYZ College”.
Micro celebrities, local influencers, organizations, etc. are all great ways of having your brand develop.
Another thing you can do if you do not have access to any of those things is to get involved with community events that draw large crowds. Becoming a longtime supporter of large events held on a local or national level will help develop a strong representation of your brand.
Five – Prioritize Privacy and Security
Past years saw enough privacy scandals to make any person weary of entrusting any brand with their private details, like email address or even full name.
Make sure your privacy policy is up to date and your site is executing all recent privacy protection mechanisms like encryption and cybersecurity tools. Make sure your team is aware of basics of identity theft. You need to prioritize privacy protection and reflect that in your brand-driven messaging.
Consistency is critical. If you are constantly changing your message, look and feel, or don’t even have a look or feel, you will find it hard to identify to the customer.
They will find it hard to identify to you. At the end of the day, you will have a constant struggle with long term success.
The whole approach behind branding is to create long term customers. This is the key to growing a long lasting business. It is not a far-fetched thought that most of you reading this are dedicated lifelong customers of a certain brand.
Personally, I am dedicated consumer to a particular shoe company. Not only do I like their shoe and it fits well, their company image is one that I feel aligns itself with me.
Their images, advertisements, and overall vibe is very in line with my lifestyle. That really is the secret with branding. You must define who your ideal customer and create an image for your company that fits that mold perfectly.
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