When it comes to business marketing, branding is a major component that helps identify the nature of your business and what you stand for. It is the thing that makes you recognizable and differentiates you from others. It’s what makes you unique.
Whether your brand is a single person, a large corporation, or something in between, a certain amount of nurturing and brand marketing is required if you want your brand to reflect your desired image to your customers, clients, employees and the general public. Authenticity means a lot in business, and for that your brand needs to be more than a logo and a generic statement. You need to figure out how to live your brand.
Defining Who You Are
In order to effectively live your brand, you first need to decide what that is. Having a quality product or providing a valuable service is a start, but these things alone don’t make a brand. It should go without saying that you want to provide these things.
Decide What is Important, and Write it Down
Some of the best tools in business are the minds of your employees as well as the owners/management. Brainstorming sessions often produce several actionable ideas that can potentially improve the business and the brand.
Think of who your customer or client is or should be depending on what you are offering, and align your values and mission accordingly. A company that sells golf clubs might want their brand to convey a balance between precision and relaxation. A health food restaurant may want to incorporate wellness into its brand. A toy store will want to convey a sense of fun, while recognizing that play is also educational and can provide both bonding opportunities between children and their peers or caretakers.
Remember Your Own Story
While it may seem like customers and clients care primarily about what they get out of a business, it is also important to them that the people behind the business are real. Ask yourself why you are in the business you’re in. What motivates you to keep your business going? Who has helped you along the way, and how can you honor them?
If you consider the answers to these questions, it will help you stay grounded and develop a certain sense of balance between your personal needs and your company’s needs as your business marketing plan is taking shape.
Defining Your Brand
Some of the building blocks that may help you define your brand include:
- Detailed and culture-specific core values
- A multi-tiered recognition system that includes peers, management and the public
- A strong visual image that conveys the feeling behind your brand
- Policies that encourage that company values are followed
- Continuous goal setting based on your brand and the needs of the business
- Incorporating business marketing research into a fluid business plan that is open to healthy changes and development.
Seeking Another View
Having a connection to your business and developing healthy relationships with customers, clients and employees is invaluable. But it is equally important to “see the forest through the trees.” This is just one of the benefits many businesses have enjoyed when they have worked with Commit Agency on their brand development. Our research strategies can help you develop your own identity as a business and effectively define your consumer base. This translates to positive brand recognition, repeat business and organic word-of-mouth awareness.
