If a prospect overlooks your company, you will spend the first few valuable minutes defining who you are. Wouldn’t it be more effective if your prospect had already discovered you? That way, instead of explaining your company, you could spend time describing your offering.

Here are the 3 key reasons you need to invest in branding:

1. Builds Credibility
Think Apple, BMW and Guzman Y Gomez. In today’s market, brand credibility is your competitive advantage. Credibility in branding is about the perception that people have on your business or company. People purchase products or services they fancy from companies they know and trust.

Whether you are a start-up, a growth-phase business or a well-established company, marketing heads must position the brand as a market leader, and leverage their founders’ profile to create positive brand perception and customer engagement.

2. Brand marketing engages customers.
Building your brand is key to engaging customers, driving sales and accelerating growth. You need customers to trust your name, excited to learn more and be satisfied that they can rely on your brand. Consider brand building as a long-term commitment and investment, not an expense.

Therefore, design strategies should educate and engage customers, not “sell” to them. Your content should be interesting and search-optimised for digital discovery.

Delivering a personalised experience and making content and tools readily accessible when and where customers need them, is a great potential to improve customer experience.

3. Premium Prices
‘People don’t buy products, they buy brands’; People are happy to pay a premium price for a premium and unique brand. Strong branding gives you the authority to position yourself as an expert and a leader in a competitive market. By putting your core values in your brand, you can resonate with customers emotionally, giving you an advantage over customers.

Your brand has to be authentic – the general public is extremely well-honed when it comes to analysing a transparent PR strategy under the guise of genuine concern, meaningful corporate responsibility can justify their value and command higher prices for their offerings. With the right strategies, you will be able to increase prices resulting in higher revenue.

A brand is a connection. When there is no emotional bond, there’s no incentive for customers to be loyal to the brand, and it becomes a commodity. So, how do you create this emotional connection with your audience?

1. Define your why
Having a strong point of view about an issue is crucial in connecting people and your brand, especially if they have similar beliefs. This is how you create connections between your brand and the people. Your brand is a solution to a problem and that makes it’ desirable.

Taking a stand behind a belief can be disruptive because it helps people notice your brand and it gives people a reason to differentiate you from the competition. To identify what you stand for, start by looking at why you began your company in the first place. What do you believe in? Is there something you wanted to change in the industry?

2. Determine your brand’s target audience.
You can’t be everything to everyone, right?

Right.

When building a brand keep in mind who exactly you are trying to reach. The key is to get specific.

In order to market your products and services well, your brand strategy should be strictly aimed towards your target audience only. This way, you will save time, money, and energy by not wasting your resources in the attempt to reach consumers who don’t find your value relevant to their lives.

3. Outline the key qualities & benefits your brand offers
There will always be brands with bigger budgets and more resources in the market. But, your products, services, and benefits belong solely to you. Focus on the qualities and benefits that make your company branding unique.

For examples:

• Increasing productivity with lower cost
• 24/7 customer service
• Creating a better experience in online shopping
• Fast turnaround with minimal risk

4. Build a brand story and messaging
Your messaging should be intricately associated with your brand and conveyed consistently. This part of the brand development process goes beyond your logo and tagline to define the key aspects of:

• Who you are
• What you offer
• Why people should care

A brand story is an opportunity to build connection, communication and trust on a human level. The language you use should be understood immediately while striking an emotional chord. When creating a brand story, address not what your product can do, but why it is important to your customer.

Make it simple and clear.

Let us explain if you’re still hearing that whisper in your head. We understand it could be overwhelming when starting your whole branding journey.

Your logo is simply the tip of a brand iceberg. It is the foundational part of that iceberg that sits below the waterline. You want to build strong foundations on customer service and experience, great marketing, and personality. In addition, your brand needs to have a strong why, purpose and objectives.

However, having a logo is part of developing a strong and effective branding. A well-established logo that has a strong purpose grabs attention, separates you from your competition, makes your brand unique and creates a strong first impression.

While you’re giving away your business card, your audience will notice your logo, resulting in brand recognition. Plus, it’s a long term investment to utilise your logo on your website, brand collateral, content marketing and many more possibilities.

Ready to take your business to the next level? Contact us.