Your brand’s value is directly related to your balance sheet – that’s why customer relationships are such a valuable asset. How a customer feels about your products, people and company makes up your brand image.
Why is a Strong Brand Valuable?
Getting noticed is getting harder. Companies with strong brands get noticed by showing they understand their customers, which creates a better relationship with the customer. Brand leaders enjoy higher profits, increased customer loyalty, shorter sales cycles and lower customer acquisition costs by consistently delivering benefits their customers truly desire. Successful branding is critical to profitability and value creation. Whether your firm has 5 employees or 5,000, a strong brand will help build your business and position it more effectively against competitors.
Building a Strong Brand
Building a strong brand is not easy, but yields great rewards. The following steps can serve as a guide:
Assessment
Understand your brand perceptions and your customers’ current relationships with your brand. Identify gaps in perception. Profile your competitors and their positions. Understand and prioritize important and believable attributes for your brand.
Strategy
Prioritize the communication of attributes that communicate key benefits and drive perceptions. Create an honest, distinctive market position for your company and products.
Build
Build a strategic brand that effectively communicates your message through product and service lines. With a pure and simple message, you can penetrate your customer’s mind.
Application
Always be consistent with your brand in every aspect of your business. Ensure that key brand values are supported across all points of customer contact ranging from advertisements to voicemail and personal communication.
Monitoring
Brands must be consistently maintained and monitored to ensure they retain relevance with your customers. Conduct periodic brand audits and tracking studies to provide feedback on your brand.
You never get a second chance to make a great first impression. Consider how you want your company and products to be perceived by your customers and build your brand. The branding process is a continuous cycle; there is no end point. You should always be monitoring your brand and working to keep it relevant to your customers.