What’s your favorite restaurant? Where do you get your coffee? What is your go-to fast-food chain? You most probably had an answer to all of these questions. In fact, 33% of people have a brand in mind when they go shopping. That, for you, is the power of branding. But what exactly is branding and why should it be important to you? ;
Branding, in its most literal sense, is a name, logo, slogan, or particular design. But branding goes way beyond just a name or a logo. Any company can have these elements, but not all successfully builds a brand. A brand is what gets you customer loyalty, it’s what makes you the go-to company. It’s getting people to associate your name and logo with whatever product or service you provide. Having a brand means having people choose you over other companies because you have something unique. You cater to their needs more than any other business would. ;
Companies know just how important branding is, and they will spend billions of dollars just to have good branding. Netflix spent 1.8 billion dollars on branding in 2018 alone, Coke spends around 4 billion dollars a year, and Amazon spent over 10 billion dollars on branding in 2018 as well. If you ever wondered why these big brands are so successful, well now you know why. Lucky for you it doesn’t always take billions of dollars to build a good brand. Or at least you won’t be spending billions of dollars on branding yet. So, how exactly do you build a brand in the first place?
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Evaluate your company’s current image
Before you can go on to create a solid brand for your business, you should first evaluate how customers see your company now. Is it the kind of reputation you thought your business would have? Are you happy with how your customers perceive your business? If not, what changes should you make to build the kind of image you want your business to have? You can’t build a brand if you don’t understand your own company. ;
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Do some research on your competitors
Every business has a competitor. A little healthy competition is always a good thing. Plus having competition is what pushes your business to be better. This is why aside from evaluating your own company’s image, you should also evaluate your competition. How do people see your competition? How do they compare to your business? What do they have that you don’t and vice versa? And even if you don’t have a competitor, you would still want to be better than yourself. Ask yourself the same questions and see what your business could be lacking and what else you could improve.
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Understand who your audience is ;
Define your target audience and be specific with it. You don’t have to aim for every single person to like your business. Target a specific demographic and aim to have them as your loyal customers. Aim to have a specific group of people who love you and will keep coming back to you, instead of having a general audience who buys from you once and never again. Having a specific audience to focus on will also help when it comes to sending out your message.
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Identify your mission as a company ;
Now that you know your competition, your customers, and yourself a little more, it’s time for you to get more in-depth with your brand. Based on what you’ve found out what kind of mission or what message do you want to send out to your customers? Is your mission to bring happiness, inspiration, or motivation? Once you’ve got your mission and vision in place, you should make sure to include your mission in every message that you deliver. ;
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Market your brand to build awareness
Once you’ve figured out your mission and the kind of message you want to send. All you have left to do is to send out your message and market your brand. Proper brand marketing is important to building your brand because that’s the part that gets your message to the people. It’s building awareness. A successful marketing campaign will boost any business’ profit. This includes building your website, SEO and content marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, and plenty of other marketing strategies. If you don’t know how to market your company yourself, you can always hire an agency to do it for you. It takes a lot to have a good marketing campaign.
Lastly, always remember to stay true to your brand’s mission and message. And don’t try to be something that you’re not. Highlight the best parts of your business and let your business shine.