Build a Brand for Your Business
By: Steve Cranshaw
You’re a business owner or someone in charge of a business’ success. You have great products or you offer an array of services that the world cannot live without. Great! Step One complete. It’s now Step Two through infinity where the rubber meets the road.
In a world where consumers are more informed than ever and perception is reality, you need to position your business to look its best when you are not there to speak for it yourself. How do you do this? You need to build a brand.
What is a Brand?
The definition of a “brand” when defined by Merriam-Webster is “a class of goods identified by name as the product of a single firm or manufacturer”. Many people relate this to a logo or a name of a business or a product, but if you stop here you are missing some of the most important components that define a brand - components that your competitors are using to compete and stand apart from you and your business.
The definition of branding that we will be focusing on here (again from Merriam-Webster) is “a public image, reputation, or identity conceived of as something to be marketed or promoted”.
Let’s focus on that first part - “a public image” as we feel it is the most relatable to business owners today. You want the public to see your business as someone they want to do business with and someone that they would refer friends and family too. A business with a strong brand presentation makes it that much easier for customers to want to align with you. The benefits of a raving fan are endless. But the two most important factors are:
Developing relationships that create life long customers
Creating customers that will refer you to other like minded customers, potentially resulting in a shorter sales cycle due to the show of support from the existing customer.
In summary: Your brand is your public image - how the public sees you in their eyes - and quite possibly even more important than the service you offer or the product you sell.
Why Do You Need a Brand?
Because a brand is how the public (not you) sees your business, you need to be proactive in your brand approach. You need to put your best foot forward from day one. You only get one shot to make a first impression - why not make it great?!
Your business has already been around for years? No worries! Rebranding could be the refreshing jolt your business needs. Learn more now in our blog post: How to Rebrand Your Business.
Being proactive in how you want your business to be perceived allows you to tell the story and to be in the driver’s seat rather than your customer making assumptions about your business. In a world with constant distractions, your public image is everything. It can be what breaks through the noise and catches the attention of your audience.
In summary: Having brand strategies in place allows you to be in constant control of your story and message.
Brand Component #1 – Target Audience
Oftentimes business owners or entrepreneurs biggest mistake is thinking that the entire world needs their product of services. While these thoughts of grandeur are nice, they are usually unrealistic. This is where developing a target audience comes in.
Since everyone on planet earth doesn’t need what your business offers, you need to single out who does and define them. These are called customer personas.
A customer persona is a fictitious person, but is defined by real and researched characteristics your customer base possess. This allows you to more accurately address and target who you want to work with. Some businesses could have a few customer personas with different characteristics and this is OK. The most important part of this process is putting pen to paper to describe who your customers are.
In summary: Describe who you want your customers to be and who you think your services or products will fit the most. Then you will have an audience to target.
Brand Component #2 – Mission Statement
You went into business for several reasons. Whether it be to do what you love or to make money (and probably a combination of the two), chances are your business helps solve someone else’s problem. This is why you need to be able to verbalize and articulate why you and your business exist.
This value proposition lets your customers know that you can solve their problem, but more importantly why you can solve it better than your competition. Take the time to define why you are doing what you do and who you are doing it for - even if you have been in business for years.
In summary: Define why your business flips over the literal or figurative open sign each day and why you are better than your competition.
Brand Component #3 – Brand Identity
Now that you know who you are working with (Target Audience) and how you are solving their problems (Mission Statement), let’s get visual, visual (you know, that Olivia Newton-John song from the 1980’s). We digress…
In an Instagram world where a picture is worth a 1,000 likes you need to have a strong brand identity. This accounts for logos, graphics, colors, fonts and images to name a few. All of these pieces need to work together to build a comprehensive and cohesive package that is recognizable and relatable to all parts of your brand.
Unless you are an artistic and visual person, trying to go it alone could be a recipe for disaster. Enlisting the help of a graphic designer will be money well spent, especially since your overall graphics package (often called Brand Standards) will start to tell your brand story well before anyone reads a written word.
In summary: Since image and perception is everything in today’s society, how you look is crucial to how your customers quite literally see and relate to you.
Brand Component #4 – Customer Experience
So a potential customer has started to interact with you – whether it be you in person, your website or one of your numerous social accounts. Now what? You need to be ready to field your customers questions, address their concerns and close the deal. But how do you do this with only 24 hours in the day?
You need a plan for almost any contingency you can think of and then some. This sounds daunting for sure. But by addressing and more importantly directing the paths customer interaction can take, you can automate some of these processes relieving you of the burden of constant interaction. Automated processes will make you look very attentive, show your prospects that you are listening and that you don’t take for granted the opportunity to work with them.
In summary: How your business interacts with your customer is key. Make it personal and make it fast, before they feel the need to shop around elsewhere.
Bad Ass Branding = Better Business Opportunities
People want to align themselves with great companies (scratch that) great brands. We hope you found this article informative and insightful, though it is just the tip of the iceberg. If you need help building your brand, we would love to hear from you. Don’t hesitate – contact us now!