Why do you tend to buy some products and not others? Take a thoughtful look at what attracts you to a particular brand and turns you off similar merchandise or a service. This can help you to understand what might speak best to your customers when you’re developing your own branding.
A strong brand will help you hire the best talent, increase your revenue, and grow your company. There are several important strategies you can employ to build your brand credibility. Read through the examples below to see what might work best for you.
- Determine brand identity
This is where it starts. Ask yourself a few questions to start sketching the outlines of your brand identity. What does your product or service actually do for people? What features that you provide are you most proud of? How does what you offer give value to purchasers? Who do you see gaining the most from what you have to offer? What makes your product or service unique from competitors?
Conduct a few brainstorming sessions with stakeholders to come up with the answers to these and similar questions. In essence, you’re trying to articulate why customers should buy from your company over another one. This will help you to figure out how to market your products effectively and consistently, so that customers start to form a connection with your company.
- Focus on content marketing
To build your company’s reputation as one that really understands the needs and wants of its customer base, offer content that’s educational, not just promotional. Set aside the salesy language and describe what you’ve just spent time assessing—the relevance of your product or service and how it can be of benefit. Show that you’ve thought about the problems your customers experience and give them useful information to solve it.
It’s critical to keep presenting clients with useful information to not only maintain the loyalty of existing customers, but also to attract new ones and position your company as an expert in its field. Fresh information demonstrates that your brand is committed to continuing to be relevant and, over time, brings your company more readily to mind for the public.
- Harness influential expertise
Finding a spokesperson who can extol the virtues of your product can influence the community to seriously consider your brand. Search out someone who has related expertise or who has good public credibility and a reputation for honesty. Be sure to thoroughly vet them, and to ensure that they are not just honest and credible, but also that they fit with your brand identity.
To be most effective, this high-profile individual should use your merchandise or service themselves so that they can authentically attest to its value. Using more than one influential spokesperson can be a good idea. This will help open up doors to different markets as people identify with one of your experts.
- Partner with like-minded organizations
Collaborating with organizations that have similar values and congruent goals can be invaluable in promoting your brand. Joining a trade association is one route to finding like-minded entrepreneurs and other interested individuals. It’s always a good move to sponsor fundraising events or even to support a neighborhood cause financially. Showing solid corporate citizenship goes a long way to expanding brand recognition and building good will.
The other path is to strike a partnership with another enterprise to launch a mutually beneficial research project. Joining with a different company expands your potential customer base while illustrating your openness to cooperating to improve your service.
- Raise your media profile
The easiest and cheapest way to do this is through social media. A campaign that can reach an incredibly large number and diversity of people quickly with minimal expense is very useful. This is why you must have dedicated and knowledgeable talent to keep your content fresh.
Hiring the best also means they’ll readily come up with innovative approaches to make sure your brand is top of mind for customers. In addition, your company will be positioned to take advantage of new social media platforms and trends as they come about.
That said, don’t discount the power of local media coverage. “Buy local” is a powerful movement and community coverage will reinforce your business as a trusted part of the neighborhood marketplace.
- Share testimonials
Your customers want to know that you see them as individuals. They’re interested in hearing first-hand accounts from average people like them that have used and enjoyed what your business provides. Seek out testimonials from loyal clients.
You may be surprised at how gratified your customers are that you’re asking them to say something on your behalf. This is another way to foster strong connection with them. Be sure to confirm their comfort level with how and where the testimonial will be shared and for how long. You may need to go back to them for permission to use their personal story in a new advertising campaign, for example.
Final thoughts
However you decide to brand your product or service, ensure that you monitor the results. Establishing goals and determining the metrics you’ll use to assess your progress toward them are key. Sometimes a branding project can have an unanticipated and unfortunate consequence. Plus, you want to maximize your efforts and be ready to take advantage of what’s working well.