Here are Important Ways to Make Your Brand Stronger
Many small businesses fail to take simple steps to build a better brand and often pay little attention to the state of their brands after their initial launch.
That’s a mistake. You don’t have to be among the Fortune 500 to invest a little time and energy into the brand-building process. We have put together 10 ways to make your brand stronger. With careful planning, some are easy to implement, even on a small budget.
1. Brand Strengthener: Be Loyal to Your Customers’ Needs
Be sure you know why your customers choose to do business with you and tell them you appreciate their patronage. Always seek out new ways to improve their experience with your brand. Ask them for their opinions and listen to what they have to say very carefully. Stay connected to online reviews of your brand and reply to both positive and not-so-positive reviews appropriately and intentionally. Making necessary improvements as appropriate will allow your brand to continually grow stronger.
2. Strengthen Your Brand with a Brand Guide
How can your employees discuss your brand if you don’t train them about it? A brand guideline is a perfect place to start. The guide will present your core values, mission statement, boilerplate text and communications as well as important business interactions employees will likely encounter. Creating brand ambassadors starts with your employees, so make sure they get intimate with your brand and know how to talk about it!
Creating brand ambassadors starts with your employees so make sure they get intimate with your brand!
3. Strengthen Your Brand with Your Email Signature to Boost Your Website Traffic
Think about how many emails you send every day. Multiply that by the number of employees you have, multiplied by the number of recipients who are cc’d or forwarded in those emails and you’ll begin to calculate how many eyes your brand is exposed to through email. This is why an automatically placed email signature that includes full employee contact information as well as a link to your website or social media outlets is so important. Signatures that include links to your website can increase website traffic and dramatically boost your brand’s exposure and engagement with prospects and customers.
Signatures that include links to your website can dramatically increase your brand’s exposure and engagement…
4. Strengthen Your Brand with a Consistent Color Palette Across All Media
It is critical to stay focused on your brand colors to ensure accurate reproduction across web, print, signage and wearables. Inconsistent color usage will confuse customers and prospects about the validity of your brand even if only subliminally. Your brand guidelines should include color breakdowns for the web and print.
5. Email Marketing Will Strengthen Your Brand
Email marketing is a great way to communicate with your customers (sign up here to be a part of ours). It’s an inexpensive way to reach countless people who have interacted with your brand. A cohesive design, proper formatting of content and list segmentation will increase the effectiveness of your message. Frequency will be determined by your business sector and what you are capable of managing. Create a content schedule and stick to it whether once a quarter, monthly, weekly or something in between. Regular contact will help you serve your customers, foster a relationship between them and your brand, and give you a built-in opportunity to communicate any news about your organization.
You can make your email strategies even more effective with automation. Using an email automation tool (HubSpot, Mailchimp, and many others) and your existing mailing list, set up automatic messages with helpful information, birthday greetings, or special offers. You can also automate a chain of responses that start when a prospect or customer interacts with your website. The automation tools also provide analytics which will help you refine your email outreach. Serving relevant content to your prospects will go a long way to strengthening your brand.
6. Develop and Execute a Social Media Plan to Strengthen Your Brand
So many businesses have social media accounts that get little use and rarely interact with followers. Brands can neglect their accounts or fail to properly identify the best channel to interact with their customers. Develop a clear social media plan that defines your goals, then commit to the plan and stick with it. Know what to say and when to say it to encourage engagement with your brand. Being active on social media will allow you to continually express your brand’s message, increasing awareness. Use a social media management tool like Hootsuite to help view and schedule postings to multiple social media outlets.
7. Answer the Phone in a Consistent Manner
Think about the last time you called a business and they abbreviated their business name or used an acronym. That was a missed opportunity to start a relationship on the right foot. Make sure employees answering the phone enunciate the full name of the company. Saying “hello” “good afternoon” or “thank you for calling” are cordial greetings that should also be consistently used. Think of it as the chance to make a great first impression.
Another tweak that can strengthen your brand: write a uniform voicemail greeting script that all of your employees can record for the times that they are away from their phones.
8. Find Ways to Reinforce Your Brand Values
Your brand values represent the unique beliefs of the company. They differentiate your business from your competitors and connect you to your customers in the most meaningful ways. Examples of brand values are “possibility” for Ikea, “creativity” for Apple, “happiness” for Zappos, “ultimate convenience” for Amazon and “affordable design” for Target. Always maintain the utmost respect for your values and make sure they are aligned with your customer’s values. Your brand values should be represented throughout all of your communications. Put them in print and post them where you and your employees can see them every day.
9. Engage in Community Involvement and Outreach
Being visibly supportive and active in your community will allow people to develop an emotional connection to your brand. Employees positively expressing your brand will help establish “brand advocates” who can become your key influencers. Plus, doing positive things always makes people feel good which can lead to better, happier employees.
10. Utilize Public Relations for Increased Media Exposure
Knowing what, how and when to say things to the media can help significantly in building a stronger brand. Positive exposure in relevant media outlets can catapult your brand to success! Combining media outreach with your social media plan, email marketing and email signature can bring significant improvements to a brand’s strength. Free media exposure can be more valuable than the most expensive advertising space. Consider working with a public relations company to help identify media opportunities and to help develop a plan of action on turning those opportunities into brand exposure.
Make Your Brand Stronger
Just as you engage in physical exercise to maintain strength, these exercises need to be done regularly to keep your brand healthy. Strengthening your brand is an ongoing process, and hopefully, we have helped spark a few new ideas to help you build a stronger brand for your business. We’d be happy to help you implement any of them! Reach out using our contact form or call us at 908.219.4703.
