Brands help turn small startups into big businesses. They give companies an opportunity to create an identity in the minds of consumers that can help get them through the door or onto your website. It creates a huge marketing opportunity too.
But how do you build a brand? How do you use this identity in your marketing strategy? The answers to these questions can help your successful business become a market leader.
Establish Your Brand
Getting a business up and running comes with a lot of challenges, and you should be doing all that you can to deal with problems as early as possible. With your business established, it is time to establish your brand. Your company needs an identity to stick in the minds of consumers.
Much of your branding will have already begun. The name of your business and any logo or motto you have can all be incorporated into your brand image. This is also an opportunity for reinvention or revamping your existing image. Updating your signs or website, or both, with a new look can help get the branding ball rolling.
Uniforms and promotional clothing like custom T-shirts can all be used to establish your brand and promote it to existing customers and potential ones. Bolt Printing has a fast t-shirt printing process that can get your brand on uniforms and promotional clothing with a next-day turnaround. Your order gets shipped out as soon as possible after you make it.
Branded clothing for staff and for customers, either as a free gift or for sale, is a great way to market your brand outside of your customer base. Your staff and existing customers will become walking advertisements for your brand and your business.
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Create A Brand Strategy
Every major product has a brand strategy. This is how companies create an image in the mind of consumers. They use their marketing and brand design to generate an image for people to latch on to and appreciate.
A classic example of why branding matters comes in the form of the Coca-Cola or Pepsi debate. You may not choose to drink either, but hundreds of millions of consumers around the world make this decision every day, often many times a day.
Most soda drinkers will choose either a Coke or a Pepsi when they are buying a beverage. This may have to do with taste for some, but a huge amount of consumer loyalty is achieved by both companies through their brand strategy and identity.
Coca-Cola is the real thing. Always. The red and white can and the classic soda bottle shape are imprinted on your mind whether you drink it or not. They are cultural icons. Coca-Cola has a traditional image that tastes like nostalgia, as well as sugar.
Pepsi is young, different. It is the choice of the new generation. The future is Pepsi. It is fun and for friends. Pepsi is perpetually teenaged, like Peter Pan. It is challenging the system and breaking the rules. Pepsi is an agent of change, it’s a drink for the active and for the activists.
These two unique identities are used to promote what is, in many ways, the same product. Their brand strategies help them tap into different sections of the consumer base and hold on to them. They’ve carved separate niches in the market by targeting different types of people and helping customers relate to their products. This has created loyal consumer bases for them to build upon.
Even small businesses can create a brand and a marketing strategy that builds a bigger customer base and increases awareness among potential customers. The right brand strategy can make a small business a big one.
The More You Know
If you know your business well and your customers, then you are off to a great start. Information is the key to creating a successful brand and a successful strategy to promote it. Do not stop there, though, there is much more research to be done if you are going to get the most from your marketing.
Businesses that operate online have an advantage here. Their websites will generate vast amounts of consumer data that they can use to help inform the brand identity and brand strategy. It gives them information like the average age of their customers, their spending habits, and which products they look at even if they do not buy them.
It is not just your existing customers you need to research to gain valuable insights. You need to look at your market and find out more about your competitors. What do they have that you don’t? What are they missing? How are their customers different from yours? The answers to these questions can help you to find gaps in the market for you to exploit and ways to tempt your competitor’s customer base over to you.
Look at consumer trends too, both in your sector and as a whole. If you can anticipate consumer demand or catch the wave of a trend early, you can bring in new customers and introduce them to your brand. This helps create loyalty and repeat customs.
Use Social Media To Create Brand Engagement
Whether your store is on the main street or the information superhighway, social media apps and sites can be an incredibly powerful branding and marketing tool, especially with consumers under 40.
Before visiting a store or a website many people will look on social media for a presence there. They want to see reviews from existing customers, pictures of products, and engagement from the business. They want to make a new friend and get a sense of what they can expect when they make a purchase.
It is also a chance to give your brand identity a personality. You can communicate as your brand, and the more humorous and engaging you are, the more people will become your customers. Charm and wit go a long way online and can give you a cutting edge over the competition.
Set Goals And Monitor Progress
A big mistake many businesses make is persevering with a strategy that is not working. Never be afraid to change your tactic, and even reinvent your image if that is what it takes. When you are creating a brand and using it in your marketing strategies, you need to set targets so you can monitor your progress.
Building a brand and designing marketing strategies takes a lot of time and effort, and a lot of belief to push it forward. It can be hard to walk away and head back to the drawing board. You need to be prepared to take this step if things do not go your way, despite all your hard work and best intentions.
If you are not seeing an increase in sales or your customer base, and consumers are not noticing or engaging with your brand, then something is going wrong. Branding and marketing are constant concerns, they never stop; if they do your business stops, too.
Monitor how effective your branding is and try to identify where it works and where it doesn’t. You may only need a little tweak in strategy to turn things around.
Take your business to the next level and start building your brand and crafting your marketing strategies today. The sooner you start, the sooner you will be standing on the shoulders of a corporate giant.
