We live in a world where image is everything! That’s why branding is essential if your business is to thrive on a daily basis. But what does branding really mean?
Branding, also known as brand image, refers to all your marketing actions aiming to create attachment between your customer and your company. This includes the visual elements that help make your brand memorable, such as your logo, but that’s is only a small part of the reality. Your company’s brand image is present at all times. It is conveyed by all your corporate communication as well as by word of mouth, recommendations from your customers, etc. A strong brand image will have a direct impact on your visibility and consequently on your company’s sales. That’s why we’re highlighting 5 mistakes not to make in order to enjoy optimised branding.
🚀 Tip #1: Don’t neglect your branding!
A brand image is built over the long term. Many communicators still make the mistake of thinking that a well-thought-out graphic charter and a logo are enough to create strong branding. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple…
But if you’re here, it’s because you’re aware of this! As developing your branding is a long-term job. It takes time, but the end result is well worth it because, in the end, branding will enable you to:
👉 Assert your brand’s expertise in its universe
👉 Make your brand more human
👉 Communicate emotions
👉 Increase your visibility
👉 Deliver added value to individuals
👉 Maintain an emotional bond with your customers
To make all this possible, you need to work on your brand content, which means all your editorial content. Your goal is to create value for your brand. So you can produce customer experience videos, webinars, and even tutorials. Brand content can also take many other forms (articles, games, exhibitions, books, email signatures, etc.). There are plenty of methods to improve your brand’s visibility, but they must be adapted to suit your capacities. All this takes time, so you must choose your tools wisely in order to enjoy maximum ROI.
🚀 Tip #2: Focus on the customer experience
More than ever before, consumers are sensitive to the customer experience that a company provides.
The Gladly study emphasises that 59% of customers consider personalisation to be very important and would be more likely to invest in a brand that provides them with personalised experiences.
You must therefore take your interlocutor into account. Your customers are looking for ease and speed. So if your company doesn’t take this into consideration, you can kiss a positive brand image goodbye. Consumers have very high requirements nowadays.
You have to work on your website accordingly, but not only in this regard… Your whole customer experience must be adapted! From your blog post to your social media posts, to your emails. The strategy must be comprehensive!
As an example, we might mention Spotify with its 2021 campaign that worked particularly well, when it released a new feature called “Only you”. An in-app experience with personalised playlists to celebrate its users’ uniqueness.
So, you mustn’t forget to personalise your actions in accordance with your contact. A simple email signature thought out with your interlocutor in mind, with the right banner and the right call-to-action button, can make your company a modern, differentiated entity.
🚀 Tip #3: Harmonise your brand communication
When we talk about branding, we often think about the logo, the graphic charter and the company’s values, but it goes further than that. All your communication, whether formal or informal, must be thought out in line with your branding. It’s crucial to have consistency in your communication. For certain media, such as your website, this seems logical enough. That’s something! But efforts must be intensified if you want to assert your expertise to the full. For example, companies don’t necessarily think about harmonising their email signatures, yet it’s essential to do so in order to demonstrate the robustness of your organisation. With an email signature, you can communicate on your news while increasing the your company’s visibility. So think about it when developing your branding.
🚀 Tip #4: Ask for help from your employees
Personal branding is a very effective way of promoting your business as it’s a form of personal marketing, marketing yourself. It’s nothing short of embodying your company and communicating around it, as who are the people best placed to talk about your brand? Your employees! As they know the company inside-out, they can interact easily with your prospects to promote your product’s/service’s advantages. Associating your name, image and brand is the perfect combo. It enables you to humanise your exchanges and create a relationship of trust with your interlocutor. Your employees believe in your brand and are generally willing to act as spokespeople to help your branding perform! This internal resource must be used wisely.
🚀 Tip #5: Use tools to get the best branding
A good many tools exist to help you work on your branding.
✔️ Website:
The major element you need to communicate on in order to improve your branding is, of course, your website. Don’t be afraid to be transparent and use storytelling to market yourself. Your website is your company’s showcase. You can communicate on your values, your goals, the customers you assist… There’s no shortage of topics, but you must remain consistent and follow your brand’s vision if you’re to get a firm foothold in your customers’ minds.
✔️Social networks:
It’s essential to interact with your community on a daily basis, in particular on social networks. Networks have become crucial in your communication strategy. Their rise has been meteoric, with a 13% increase in the number of social network users between January 2020 and January 2021. So now more than ever before, it’s time to communicate your company’s added value on these various platforms. You must select the most interesting networks very carefully, depending on your target.
✔️ Promotional materials:
Providing promotional materials such as brochures and flyers can make all the difference in an exchange. This might seem relatively obvious, but some companies don’t necessarily think about updating and adapting their materials. However, your prospects are looking for information on your company, so sending them a well-constructed summary with all the information they need in order to make a decision will enable you to control the elements they refer to.
✔️Your employees’ email signatures:
A professional email signature conveys your brand’s spirit and acts as a business card for the customer. Hence, harmonising all your collaborators’ email signatures enables you to emphasise team cohesion and regularity in communication. It’s an essential differentiating step in creating a quality brand image and promoting your news. To make your life easier, you can use tools such as Boost My Mail to generate a personalised email signature for all your employees in just a few clicks. Among other things, you can communicate your promotional material via this channel. It’s an Outlook- and Gsuite-compatible solution that has no end of possibilities.
For a free 14-day trial, go to this link. Now you have everything you need to work on your branding effectively!