Five Essential Principles to Build a Strong Brand By James Tredwell on July 27, 2020 “Determine who you are and what your brand is and what you’re not. The rest of it is just a lot of noise.” – Geoffrey Zakarian What comes to your mind when you think of Starbucks? What do you imagine when you think of Disneyland? What is the difference between a Mac and an Android for you? Other than the fact that they are leaders in their respective business niche, they always win when it comes to marketing themselves as a brand. In simple terms, a brand is something that embeds a company’s services or products in customers’ mind. We signify cold drinks with Coca Cola and Pepsi, and energy drinks with Red Bull. Why is it that we readily remember them, but other brands rarely come to our mind? It is because we have merged the brand and the product. This is what successful marketing does. It changes the narrative. People don’t crave for products or services; they crave for brands. By branding, we mean getting the same service or delivering the same product everywhere in the world. This blog will discuss the essential principles that lead to strong brand value. Do a Complete Audit of Your Market Today, business is dictated by competition. You have to provide something unique, something of value to your customers. If you don’t, they won’t visit your website/store. If you are selling the same products as other stores, then what competitive edge does your brand has? The Choice Test A choice test is a perfect way to figure out if a person will choose your product over another brand. If a customer says that they will choose your product over the competition, it means you have succeeded in helping the customer make an informed decision. Similarly, if the customer says that they will choose another brand, you have to ask what strengths do the other brand has over you? Ask yourself these questions: Are you providing better discounts than others? Are you offering better quality products? Do you have multiple sellers available selling through your platform? Gett’s anti-Uber campaign is a prime example of how they took on their biggest rival and put them out of the competition to become the number one carpooling app. It was made possible because they found a weakness with Uber – its surge pricing. Create Processes Not Word “When people use your brand name as a verb, that is remarkable.” – Meg Whitman Do you know why Mc Donald’s became so successful? It is because they have created a process where the person won’t have to wait for long to get their orders. They have a process that ensures quick delivery, and they replicate the same process everywhere in the world. This process has been the hallmark of their success. At Mc Donald’s, the kitchen is based on modules, and each module has a separate process. When a person orders something, the kitchen process starts all at once. And the person gets the order in less than a few minutes. This same philosophy is applied in software development where one developer works on the front end, another on the backend, another creates the marketing strategy, and one works on the graphics. When all these are combined, the result is delivered to the end-user in 4X less time. Questions You Should Ask Yourself Turning a company into a brand is not easy. It requires dedication, consistency, and completeness. You have to push the same banner to the audience multiple times to make it stick. But what will your banner signify? Here are a few questions that can help you in such a scenario: What problem are you solving? What is the unique trait of your service or product? If your company was a person, what type of person would it be? When customers say ‘no thanks’ to your product or service, what is the general reason? Are they going for a competitor’s product? Focus on Your Brand Positioning Your logo, website theme, banners, social media posts, and anything else that reflects your brand imagery should be consistent on every platform. How you want to portray your brand to your customers would depend on the values you uphold. Remember, clients, take only a single look at a website before they make their decision. So, make sure that your branding does the following: Attracts the attention of the client Depicts your services Is easy to remember Includes your contact information Have a distinct appeal to it. For a distinct identity, your brand must have an impactful logo that is a reflection of your brand values. You can hire a logo design company to create a professional logo for your brand. To design an impactful logo, you would have to brief your logo design company about your brand values and how you envisage your brand’s logo to be. You can brief them about: What brand image you want your logo to reflect? What color scheme would you like to use? Would your logo design be minimalist or not? All these elements combine to make your branding efforts more effective and helps the clients to form a connection with your brand. Get an External Perspective Your company is what you perceive it to be. However, your clients look at it from a different viewpoint. Your competitors look at it from another angle, and strangers look at it from a different angle. So, what exactly is the perception of your company? The best way to find that out is to get external help. It can be anyone you think will be appropriate to guide you in the right direction. It can be one of your old customers, a branding consultant, an agency, or someone you know. When meeting with that person, take your marketing, product, and functional departments onboard because the input of that person will impact every department and not just you. It would give you an honest evaluation of the good and bad of your brand, and with a third-person perspective on board, you would have an idea of how others perceive your brand. In the light of this evaluation, you can improve the negative aspects of your brand to enhance your reputation further. Keep Improving Your Product You can’t win a war without improving having a solid arsenal. Similarly, you can’t thrive in business if you have the same old products. Start an R&D department that provides relevant insights into your products and services. These will help your product teams to upgrade existing products and introduce new ones as well. Customers always love new features and products. It shows that the brand values their suggestions and is incorporating them to introduce better and more reliable products. Bottom-line The key to successful branding lies in establishing some core values and then propagating them with consistency to create a brand image. It is done by crafting an impactful logo, design effective campaigns, and use customers’ perspective to improve your products. Moreover, always introspect on your branding effort to see what’s working and what needed to be revamped. Through constant evaluation, you will move forward and grow as a brand. This article is contributed by Mary Warner, enthusiast blogger of Logo design valley.
