The 4 Keys to Avoiding Bad Branding
Brands are what people associate with your product or service. They can leave a very permanent impression on your target market, good or bad. A very real and important aspect of any branding strategy is the visual communication.
This visual communication or visual branding could include a logo, mark or theme designed in such a way to communicate your intended message. When done well, customers will connect this visual identity to your products and services. A brand is the image your company presents. It communicates the sum total of your customer’s experiences with your company.
Good branding can give your business an edge over the competition. Clients and customers will gravitate to your brand over another if they feel a sense of loyalty to it. Be careful though, because bad branding or branding mistakes can destroy any business. Consider how your company deals with the public in order to avoid having a brand that has a less than a perfect reputation.
Here are four important keys to ensure your branding is done well:
Work The Web
Much of the work done in brand management these days is done online. This includes utilising social networking sites such as Facebook or creating a blog to promote your business. Quite often, positive and negative views are being expressed online about businesses. They could be talking about your brand and it could be causing significant damage. It’s important to be proactive and respond where possible.
Search engine optimisation (SEO) can also give you an edge here. Just image what would happen if a negative comment came up for your brand whenever someone searched for your business. While you may not be able to do much about removing the negative comment, you can work towards pushing it down the search ranking. Out-muscle it with your own web pages using SEO.
Keep It Simple
Do not over complicate the image that you are creating in your customer’s minds with too many messages or ideas at once. Create a simple catchy message and repeat it over and over again until it sticks in the minds of your target market. Don’t worry about them getting sick of it. Trust me, you will get sick of it long before they do, so stick with it.
Do What You Are Good At
What you say ‘No’ to is just as important to what you say ‘Yes’ to. By trying to supply a service that you can’t really do well, you will create negative word of mouth and hurt your brand. Stick with what you are good at and do it really well. Your intention should be to provide a solution worth raving about. Word of mouth is one of the biggest ways to reinforce and increase a company’s brand reputation. Your customers are the most important thing to your brand.
Call In The Experts
For small businesses, it’s really easy to get caught up in the day-to-day process of building, organising, hiring and running a business. Often when we are responsible for developing our brands we can only see the end goal and have no understanding of how to get there. The small intricate details are often to close for us to identify. When you call in an expert, they are able to view your brand with fresh eyes and bring new insights.
