Branding is very important in business. In fact, a true business man wants his brand to be known more than his name. When your brand is recognized and cherished in the market, your product/service experiences high demand.
Many consumers prefer to buy new products from brands familiar to them. This is why LG for instance occupies a favourable space in electronic gadgets and household equipment in Nigeria, especially. People prefer to buy products based on brands. People go to the market and request Philips, Samsung, Apple products. So, as a small business, you may be competing against big brands with devoted customers. That’s why you have to distract from those and attract them to your product with a strong and sustained brand they can trust.
There is more to branding than just a cool logo or well-placed advertisement. A lot is needed to do. Customers have to recognize a consistent experience and communication across various aspects of your company including office or storefronts, your packaging, website design, social media page, customer service, signage, tagline, etc.
Your brand makes it easy for customers to describe your company to their family and friends. They could be in love with that logo of a partly cut apple (as for Apple products) or that beautiful font your brand name constantly comes with. Your product should not just meet the need; it should also appeal to and retain your customers such that they don’t just go to buy what they want but are also proud to buy what you make. Wouldn’t you like your brand to become interchangeable with the normal name of the product? In Nigeria for instance, many people regard some brands as the names of the products. For example, biro and bic are names used for all pen; gala is used for all sausage roll; maggi is used for all seasoning; pampers is used for all diapers; indomie is used for all noodles. This interchangeability doesn’t happen overnight or even in a few months. Brand building is definitely a process, especially for a new company. Below are a few things that you need to know about building a brand that customers will be loyal to.
Decide Your Target Market
Every product usually has a focus market: that is, the group of people it hopes will make up the majority of its consumers. Only a few products exist for all. Even within those products that are for everyone, some brand can position the quality of their brand for the rich and another for the poor. Nestle is one of those brand names that has the same product but with different quality and consequently price.
When branding therefore, be exact about the audience you intend to reach out to. Fashion your message and promotion strategy to meet their taste. If you target the students for instance, you will have to sound appealing with hip-hop vibes in your tone. It is only when you get specific about meeting their needs that your message can possibly be attuned to their behaviours and lifestyle.
Create a brand that your target market can easily identify with. Whether your product is for girls or men or children or gardeners or bankers, let your brand speak directly to them.
Create Definite Brand Mission And Value
In order to have a brand that enjoys customers’ trust, your brand should have a definite value clearly spelt out not only in the product/services but in your mission statement. In Denis Lee Yohn’s book, What Great Brands Do (you may take a sip of that fountain of business branding ideas), she sees an inextricable relationship between mission and value. Google’s mission statement for instance defines them: ‘to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.’ That is exactly the value they provide. Airbnb, an online marketplace for lodging, hospitality and rentals has part of its mission statement as: ‘…we’re about home. …a house is just a space, but a home is where you belong. …you can belong anywhere.’ What is clear here is that they do not just provide you with a space, a house, they make you feel at home. That is hospitality!
You see that the mission statement define why you exist as a company and brand. This mission should then influence every other aspect of your brand including colour, message, logo, personality, etc. I fact, your tagline, particularly, should be a reduced version of your mission statement. Needless to say that you should be truthful to your mission and value.
Be Aware Of Other Brands With Common Value
You are not the only one offering that value in the market. You should not strive to be the only one. That is against economic and natural laws. In fact, any system that allows only one company or entity to be offering a certain value in the market does not know what it is doing! There is need to know your competitors so as to decide how best to go about your business. Do not do exactly what they do. Do not imitate the big brands. Carve out your own niche within the niche and be unique. Improve on where they do well and find alternatives to where they fail. Read their customer reviews and shape your brand to respond to the lapses customers complain about. There is always room for innovation.
Give Your Brand Personality
Some persons can be trendy, mature, fun, or sporty and so on, and so can your brand when given a personality. Take a leap to regard your brand as a personality that can be reckoned with. A personality occupies a niche; it is resorted to as the best option at certain moments. You don’t go for it every time. But it stands out as the answer to a particular question/ need. This is the common thing about brands with high regard. They have peculiar strong voice and their message is distinct. The customers’ relationship of trust with your brand offers this personality. Always ask yourself: ‘Why would customers break their link with other brands and come for mine? What can make them remain tied to me even when there exist many other brands with similar offers? Try to offer your services in a way that no one else does.
Develop An Impressive Brand Logo & Tagline
Your brand is basically communicated by your company logo and tagline. The logo is a small graphic that is expected to appear on everything that relates to your business ranging from your letterhead to vehicles. The logo is an emblem that identifies your company even when the company name may not be there. Anytime we see the iconic four interlaced rings, we know that’s Audu. Do not be too miserly to design an exceptional company logo. What you came out with first may follow you forever. Gap Inc. tried to change their logo in 2010 but the outrage it raised among customers forced them to return to the usual blue box logo. Maybe the customers are okay with what they had or that they can’t cope with such change. This also implies that you should have an eye for customer’s taste.
Your logo must not necessarily be something out of the ordinary. It could be a unique way of writing your brand name. Barbie has continued to use her name as its logo with a consistent pink colour in certain font style. Other brands like, hp, LG, Mobil and Fisher-Price also use their names. On the other hand, your logo could either be symbolic or representative of what your company stands for. Michelin which deals on tire (tyre) and tube has its logo as the ‘tire man’ – a human figure made with tires. The four rings in Audi logo is symbolic of the four companies it is made up of. Get a designer to make real whatever you have conceived in your mind as your logo.
The tagline is also important as it speaks with few words what you offer while appealing to the lifestyle of its target market. Wonderbra has a naughty and funny tagline. They specialize in bra and ladies’ undies. Their tagline, ‘hello boys,’ touches on the need of ladies to look sexy and appealing before men in the bedroom. That phrase alone reminds a girl that she has more reasons to go for a sexier and lovelier bra. Verizon, a telecommunication company makes the value they offer resound in their tagline: ‘can you hear me now?’ This is apt because communication is about the other person hearing you first. Your tagline can also make a direct reference to your target market just as Clariol’s ‘does she or doesn’t she’ immediately says that their hair care is for women. Be creative in choosing both your logo and tagline; they are little things that matter in business, particularly in the branding process.
Fashion Your Brand’s Business Voice And Message
You would need to form a business voice that will carry the message of your company mission, audience, and industry. It’s how you communicate with your customers, and how they respond to you. Communication is key in business and how you do it is also important. Depending on your business, chose whether to have a voice that sounds professional or matter-of-factly or friendly or service-oriented or promotional or conversational or detached or persuasive or informative, etc.
Your customers can easily identify your brand voice even without your name and logo if you are consistent with it. Remember to make it generally passionate, quirky (if need be) and authentic. Don’t sound exaggerated or imitative. Your choice of word is important too. Inject humour where necessary: sound human and not mechanical. Always in your message remind your customers why they should remain with you.
Let Your Brand Dominate
Your brand is more important than your name unless your name is the brand. In fact, it is better to have a brand name different from your name. It offers the customers opportunity to see the brand as personality of its own and not as you. In every aspect of your business, make the brand visible. Whenever someone enters your office, let your brand speak to the person before you do. The environment and equipment should bear your brand. If your staff is uniformed, it should reflect the brand. All the gadgets including pen and calendar books should be customized with your brand. Brand building is a continuous process. So do not stop at any moment to improve. Do not however make substantial changes unless there is a change in value that means the best for the company. When you design your website, incorporate your voice, message, and personality into content. The company’s page on social media and other communication channels should carry the company’s logo. Let the chosen colour for the brand be reflected in the company building and other tangible things that comes in or can take colour.
Be Faithful To Your Brand
Do not confuse your customers with varieties in terms of brand identity. Remain true to your brand. Be consistent with your logo, colour, tagline, message and everything that identifies the brand. Inconsistency denies you trustworthiness. Unless you decide to change your brand into something that is more effective based on measured consumer response, do not drift from here to there. Remember you are building trust. You therefore need to be what you said you are in terms of quality and outlook. If you offer individuals high quality products every time, they are going to trust you. If you let your customers down, they won’t forget, and they will tell their friends. Do not allow this to happen. Go ahead to advocate your brand, in a convincing way through consistency.
Make Customers Feel Unique
Customers are kings, they say, in business. That holds still. Customers like to feel special. Help them to have that feeling. Make them a part of the team so that they do not see themselves as those whom you make money out of but those for whom you exist. Share with them the new products coming up for them from your brand and make them pre-order. This will give them a sense of belonging and hype your product in the eyes of potential customers. Provide loyal customers little personalized extras and offer a customized service experience. When you do this, they will see your company as one that has their interest at heart. Their trust will not only be built but be sustained.
Sponsor Events And Throw Exclusive Parties
Make plans to reward your customers in ways that still promote your brand. Because you know your target market, find events that interest them and sponsor. Organize children’s parties on children’s day celebration if you deal on goods for children. Sponsor or facilitate seminars on girl child maturity and well-being for high school girls if you specialize in sanitary pads/napkins and toiletries. Give out prizes in the form of your products at events. Throw parties for your loyal customers and build stronger ties with them. You would through this lure more potential customers to your products. You can also organize and sponsor contests like photo contest, writing contest, spelling bee contest and so on. They announce you and get you endeared to customers the more.
In the words of Philip Kotler, ‘The art of marketing is the art of brand building. If you are not a brand you are a commodity. Then price is everything and the low cost producer is the only winner.’ So, with a good brand, you can be on top in quality, price and sales. Without a great brand, trust is impossible. And without trust, customers cannot opt for your products. Start now to build a trustworthy brand.
Bignedu
