Everything you need to know about Branding
Branding is a core strategy of your business that involves the creation of a unique name, product, presence, reputation, and overall image for a business to distinguish it from others. It is one of the most important aspects of a business, especially when aiming to secure a pool of loyal customers. The branding of a business can be likened to its integrity in the mind of customers, which can also influence prospects.
It is unarguably what a business needs to have a distinctive identity in its industry. Branding builds confidence about your product or services in the mind of your customers, and it goes a long way to determine the performance of your business.
Why Branding is important for your business?
Building recognition of the business among customers is the ultimate goal for any company. That is what branding is in the nutshell. Experiences with all aspects of your company are the bricks that build a solid brand. Quality of products or services, customer service, company mission, visual identity – the combination of these elements create a unique brand and define reputation. Say, your weakness is quality of customer service: most likely, you will be known as the “great product, bad service” type of a company. Businesses must give much consideration to branding to create a great experience for their client. Here are the major reasons why businesses should focus on branding:
Recognition
People tend to deal with businesses they are familiar with. Even when selecting a new business to deal with, people tend to consider businesses with higher reputation and recognition. If your brand is recognized, you’ll get more customers who would take a chance to do business with you.
Stand out among your competitors
The competition today can never be overemphasized. It requires uniqueness and a high reputation for a business to lead its industry. To stay on top, you need something to stand you out among your competitors.
Provide Business Value
Creating a strong brand for your business will provide an outstanding value to it. Once your company reaches a certain height of value, it can be your driving force for years to come.
Communicate Your Story, Vision, and Values
The power of Branding is in communicating your unique message to your audience. Establish a conversation with the target group, build trust, and develop an emotional connection.
What is Branding Audit
As the name suggests, a brand audit is a comprehensive check to evaluate the current performance of your brand in the marketplace. It enables you to have a wider view of your business’ strengths and weaknesses. A brand audit will also reveal the issues to be tackled to improve your business branding.
Understand how your customers feel about your brand
Learn how to do Branding Audit
Create a Framework
A brand audit starts with highlighting the areas to be covered by the analysis. The aspects of the business that you would like to audit should be noted.
Examine Web Analytics
A website is the digital front door of any business or brand. To make an audit of the performance of your brand, examine your web analytics to observe the trend of your data.
Do Customer Research
The customer experience of a business tells a lot about the reputation of the brand in the outside world. Speak with your customers to get feedback about your products or services to determine what people say about your brand.
Examine Sales Data
Check the sales performance of your business to determine its level of improvement and otherwise. Analyze your target area to determine what discourages clients from doing business with you.
Examine Social Media Performance
To determine the level of your brand in your marketplace, do competitors research to observe the performance of their websites, marketing materials, customer experience, and several other means of making a comparison.
Examine Performance Relatively to Competitors
To determine the level of your brand in your marketplace, do competitors research to observe the performance of their websites, marketing materials, customer experience, and several other means of making a comparison.
Company Culture
Running surveys, SWOT analysis meetings, anonymous questionnaires, and collecting feedback about the business from employees is equally important as customer research. Knowing what employees think and how they feel about the company, optimizing workflow and improving culture can make a difference in the company reputation. An active presence on employment websites like LinkedIn, Monster and Indeed helps employees share their experience with your brand – what your employees say about the company culture plays a huge part in building a reputable name.
What is Brand Identity?
Brand Identity is a set of visual elements unified by a style guide. Brand identity allows a business to communicate its ideas, purpose, mission, and individuality to target customers. It includes your logo, name, and the supplementary design components such as business cards, letterhead, website, images, social media platforms, and the company’s “voice”. As a business, you want to be heard, recognized, and above all, personified. In other words, brand Identity is what gives your company a character and charisma.
What is the difference between Brand and Logo?
The brand is your company’s reputation, the logo is its representation. The goal of any business is to provide excellent services to gain respect and earn the clients’ trust. Whereas visual identity is your identification. It is a tool that can help customers find you again in the future.
Corporate Identity is a combination of visual elements of your business that make you recognizable and welcome people in and ensures the best communication between your business and your target group.