Working with Your Brand

For entrepreneurs, creating a logo is one of the first steps to building your brand. Your logo is the foundation of your brand. But your brand is much more than a logo. Your brand is your customer’s overall perception of your business. Brand building is a process, but the ongoing effort will lead to long-term customer relationships, essential for a successful small business. Here are five keys to working with your brand.

Define your brand. You can think of your brand as your promise to your customer. It tells your customers what they can expect from your company and how you are different than the competition. Why does your company exist? What are you passionate about as a small business owner? This message should easily come across any time a customer interacts with your company. For more information on initially defining your brand, check out our last blog article, “Building your Brand”.

Have a consistent social media presence. One of the best ways to reach potential customers is to reach people where they already are. 79% of American adult internet users have a Facebook account. 78% of these users log on daily, and 55% of those daily users log in more than once a day. Using social media is one of the easiest ways to reach your target audience. Different demographics use different social media networks – you should dedicate the majority of your resources to the ones that your target audience uses most regularly. For more information, see “What Social Media Platforms Should My Business Be Using?” Once you’ve established your presence, it’s important to maintain it. Unless you’re regularly posting updates to your page, it can negatively affect your brand’s perception. A social media manager can help by saving hours of valuable time and reviewing analytic data daily to make strategic adjustments as necessary, ensuring that your content is posted at the ideal time with the perfect high-quality image to maximize your impact.

Create a blog. Blogging is incredibly important - it turns strangers into visitors to your website (and hopefully into potential customers). Writing a blog creates the informative content that matches the information that your potential customers are searching for online. Make sure to write content that is relevant to your target audience. According to one study, blogs are the third most trusted source of information after friends and family. Plus, your blog articles can be shared on your social media networks, reaching even more potential customers. Is writing too difficult or time-consuming for you? A digital marketing company can write applicable, search-engine friendly blogs for you and post them to your website.

Make Customer Service a Priority. Great customer service can actually save money on marketing and advertising because your current happy customers will advertise for you by sharing their great experiences with potential customers. This is known is earned media - brand recognition that your business has earned and not paid for. Your goal should be to create a “delightful, shareable experience”, according to one expert.

Be Consistent. Inconsistent branding confuses your customers and makes it more difficult to achieve long-term success. Your brand should be apparent in everything you do. Branding is an essential part of literally every aspect to your business both tangible (your website, business cards, social media pages, letterhead, etc.) and intangible (how you answer the phone, how you greet customers that stop by your store, the body language of your employees, etc.)

Do you need help working with your small business’s brand? Evolve Impact Group offers personalized branding solutions for your business to ensure improved market presence and sustainable, long-term impact in the marketplace. Contact us today to learn more!

Sources: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/77408#, https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/brand-your-business-on-a-budget, http://evolveig.com/News/ArticleID/108/Getting-Started-How-to-Build-Your-Brand, http://evolveig.com/News/CategoryID/24