Essential Pieces of the Branding Puzzle Part 1
I recently spoke to a group of realtors about branding for small businesses. Most don’t have the budget and time to invest in a full-blown corporate branding exercise. However it is still an important piece in their marketing efforts. Our discussion started with the basics and ended with ways to integrate branding into their marketing mix.
The basics of creating a brand.
What is branding?
Many people think branding is their logo and maybe a tag line. But that’s only the beginning. Add the essence of your company, your core values. How you and your employees interact with your customers. Your messaging. The customer experience. All these are geared towards your target customer and their needs, not yours. It’s how the customer ultimately perceives you.
Why is branding important?
The goal of branding is to differentiate you from the competition so the customer sees you as the only one that provides a solution to their problem. It’s the reason the consumer buys from you instead of someone else. Branding will help you:
- Be remembered – through the use of logos, tag lines, colors, and clear messages
- Get found – using keywords and phrases that represent your brand
- Attract qualified leads – connect with your target market
- Convert leads to sales – motivate buyers and live up to the brand expectations to build brand loyalty
What makes branding work?
A strong brand is remembered and delivers on the brand promise. The following three pieces all need to fit together to build a strong brand:
- Consistency – Keep your images, company name, colors, and messages the same. You might even go so far as to select a unique typeface for headlines or a way of setting up your website templates or ads so that you are recognized by those things.
- Simplicity – Simplify your logo so it is easily recognized. Have it designed by a professional so that it works on signs, on your website, in printed ads in color and black and white, and embroidered on shirts. So often logos look like illustrations rather than symbols. Symbols are more effective and recognizable. Keep your typeface choice to a minimum and legible. Clear, concise messages will work better for you than clever ones. They need to be immediately recognizable, not convoluted or have a private meaning to you.
- Credibility – Simply put—deliver what you promise. All the branding in the world won’t succeed if the product or service doesn’t match the customer’s expectation. Your brand has to reflect the company you truly are. Meeting your customers’ expectations is what builds brand loyalty.
Take a look at your business and assess where you stand in terms of having a strong brand. Use our brand assessment worksheet to see how you rate. Take stock of what needs improvement and what needs to change.
Remember to keep things:
• Consistent
• Simple
• Credible
Let us know what is the biggest challenge you have with your brand identity?
