Your brand is more than just your business name and logo. It defines your identity on the market, which makes it one of the most crucial aspects of your business, big or small.
Branding requires specific strategies and techniques to be effective. A company can’t simply put out products and services without a unique trait that sets it apart from its competitors. An effective branding strategy is what makes us believe that a certain product works better than its direct competitors, even if their product makeup is exactly the same.
The top qualities a brand has to possess are a clear message, service quality, image, tagline, design, authenticity, and consistency. You can deliver all of these in a single item, such as a functional promotional product or high-quality business card from a trusted letterpress printing company. Of course, your products and/or services, most of all, should be true to your branding.
Here’s how a small enterprise can build an effective branding strategy:
What is Branding Strategy?
Branding or branding strategy refers to ways on how you’d present your brand’s message. Your advertising methods, distribution channels, and communication techniques are all part of your brand strategy.
With an effective, solid, and consistent brand strategy, the value of your products and services can increase significantly. This explains why branded products are priced higher than their unbranded counterparts, and why they’d always have higher sales regardless.
Simply put, your brand is your promise to your market. Bigger companies even leverage public figures to resonate with their customers. For example, a sports brand will have a popular athlete as their face in order to forge a deeper connection with their customers, resulting in increased sales and brand awareness.
Creating a Brand
When creating your brand, take note that your company’s mission, your products’ and/or services’ benefits, your customers’ perception of your company, and the qualities you want to associate with your company should be reflected in it. Extensive market research will help you achieve the ideal branding strategy for your company.
Once your brand is defined, you need to design its logo, compose your company’s key messages, implement a distinct service style, create a brand image, a tagline, and default design templates for all of your promotional materials.
Your company has to exhibit authenticity, meaning you’d stay true to your brand’s promise. And most importantly, be consistent. Maintain your brand colors, service style, promotional materials, and product quality.
Brand Promotion Strategies
After establishing your brand, the next step is to spread awareness and improve engagement with your customers. Brand consistency is easily the best strategy to achieve those two. Your distinct logo, font, and employee uniforms all make an impact on your customers.
Empathy is also another effective strategy. When you show your customers that you care for them and that you understand their needs, they’re more likely to trust your company and keep buying your products.
Connecting to your customers by allowing them to share their stories with your brand will also help in spreading awareness and raising sales. It shows the market how your customers have benefited from their loyalty, and it also resonates more authenticity compared to hard-sell content.
Promoting social welfare can also take your brand to new heights. In fact, the 2017 Edelman Earned Brand Study revealed that 51% of people believe that brands can do better in addressing social issues than the government. By partnering with a non-profit organization relevant to your brand’s message, for example, you can tug your customers’ heartstrings and encourage them to support your brand and advocacy.
In addition, you also encourage them to make contributions to the improvement of the welfare of the particular community your company is helping.
Your small enterprise will be taken to new milestones and heights from these simple and emotive branding strategies. Remember that your customers’ trust is one of your most important assets, so maintain it by practicing authenticity and consistency at all times.
