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What does ‘branding’ do for your business?
You know exactly what your favorite brands mean to you. You have probably pondered -- or may have been asked -- questions like these:
Which brand of soft drink do you like best? Which brand of beer? Which mouthwash?
What’s the most reliable brand in dishwashers? Lawnmowers? Automobiles? Ovens?
Where do you shop for the best food brands or the most popular clothing brands?
Branding helps a business build a reputation that buyers rely on. You know you can count on Coke (or Pepsi) to deliver the punch you need. You realize there are cheaper brands than Crest or Colgate, but you’ll probably pay more to bring home the toothpaste you believe is best for your family.
Successful companies work continuously to keep their brand in your subconscious mind. When you need a tissue, they want you to think of Kleenex. If you plan to buy a new easy chair, Lazy Boy bubbles up in your brain. Johnson & Johnson is likely to be your preferred kind of baby powder or first aid product. That’s no accident. Heavy hitters like these companies have been branding their businesses for a long time to bury their name brands in the memory lobe of your brain.
Your brand is simply who you are as a company and who people perceive you to be. It tells consumers what they can expect from your products and services and distinguishes your business from a cadre of competitors.
Memorable brands portray professionalism and carry consistent messages.
Through branding strategies, companies create a positive, professional image of themselves to inhabit consumers’ heads. A vivid picture, often a corporate logo and company name, pops up whenever potential customers are ready to buy. Most of us make an immediate connection with the brand that’s etched into our brains. The more we know about a certain brand, the more solid the company grows in our grey matter. As we absorb its messages, see the firm’s name tied to an alluring logo, listen to its clever jingles, and enjoy its endearing ads, we begin to associate the organization with top-notch products and services.
A small business can build a BIG NAME.
What you communicate visually and verbally becomes your brand. You must choose words and images wisely to reflect your firm’s best features and customer benefits.
Branding is not limited to large, well-known companies, but building their brand helped make them the giants they’ve become.
Any size company can use branding to help sell products and services. The most effective branding builds loyalty, connecting the company to high quality, cost-effectiveness, reliability, experience, or excellence. With a great logo, good reputation, tantalizing taglines, mobilizing mottos, and creative ads clarifying a company’s advantages, any business can build a brand that brings in customers.
The brightest marketing professionals not only aim for brand recognition but also strive to help firms maintain good reputations through the quality standards that branding sets. Strong branding can give a business an enormous edge in increasingly competitive markets.
BRANDING: Creating a name, symbol, design, and message that identifies and differentiates your company’s merchandise from other products and services.
“Coordinating website domains, online and in-print promotions, social media posts, blogs, brochures, and other forms of communication is vital to your brand,” says Carlos Valladares, CIS Agency. “Without attention to branding, businesses struggle to maintain their share of the market,” he adds. “Branding can be a company’s greatest asset.”
If a business has problems with its reputation, branding can help change that. It can reposition and enhance the public’s perception of an organization. Setting expectations through positive internal and external branding encourages employees to maintain higher standards. The staff will live up to the expectations that are set.
“Branding can be a company’s greatest asset.” – Carlos Valladares, CIS Agency.
The ultimate goal is to increase sales by bringing in new customers and satisfying current ones. Branding, along with high staff performance goals, is essential to building product loyalty. When a company’s brand becomes synonymous with its excellent products and services, business grows exponentially—sales boom with word-of-mouth referrals and return visits. Word spreads even further through easily accessible reviews on social media and other consumer critique sites.
“Branding is the whole package,” notes Valladares. It’s everything customers see, feel, touch, and interact with while doing business with you. “CIS Agency and its expert team of consultants give you the tools you need to improve your business brand and maintain a positive corporate identity. For our branding packages and prices, contact us or visit us at www.wearecis.com.
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For branding services or permission to reprint blogs: service@wearecis.com Blog Writer | Business Consultant Susan K. Maciak