There is a widespread contradiction about the relevance of branding, especially among startups and small businesses. Often small businesses are left blinded by the mistaken assumption that brands are merely the bigger fish in the pond, with unlimited access to huge budgets and national recognition. They resign themselves to their fate and do little more in branding than attractive business cards or an attractive logo. Ironic, given that it is precisely the small businesses that need to benefit more from branding than their established counterparts.

What do we mean by branding?

Research shows that nearly 50% of consumers consider being more loyal to a brand on their very first purchase. After all, branding gives your audience a clear sense/image of a well-defined roadmap, a credible voice that people want to listen to.

Decades ago, branding was defined as a name, slogan, symbol or design or a combination of these elements that distinguish one company, product or service from another. Today, branding is more complex and even more important. For starters, branding is much more than a logo. It includes everything you do and claim to be as a business, even if your business is just about you.

Branding is about increasing the brand awareness of your company and the positioning you want to take within the market (and in the mind of your target group). The goal here is that everyone within your target group knows what you do with your company, what makes it distinctive and why you do what you do. You are busy creating brand preferences with your target group through branding. You do this by being helpful, informative or entertaining within your area of expertise. So not by continuously selling your product or service! The interpretation of your branding approach differs per situation. For example, a company that focuses on companies (B2B) will need a different approach than one that focuses on consumers (B2C). And a company that sells products has a different approach than a company that sells services.

“Your brand is the total of your customers’ perceptions, notions and experience. It is the face, personality and the values ​​espoused by your business – and everything in between.”

More importantly, every facet of your business — whether it’s your social media profile, the tone of your voicemails, or the way you present, deliver and deliver a service — captures the essence of your branding and creates an implicit message about how much you respect your cause.

In addition, your brand represents who you are, what you believe in and how you want to be seen by your target group, which is why branding is so important for an organization.

What should a brand do?

Branding isn’t just about getting your target audience to choose you over the competition. It’s also about letting your prospects see that you’re a solution to their problem or need. In essence, branding is a problem solver. A good brand will:

  • Send a clear message
  • Confirm the brand’s credibility in the market
  • Connect the target audience emotionally with a product or service
  • Motivate to make a purchase
  • Create customer loyalty

A brand symbolizes your promises

Branding reflects a bold statement your company makes. It tells your audience that you are serious and willing to keep all the promises made on behalf of your company. Literally, everything your brand stands for should be recognizable to the outside world through branding. What else happens? Then your customers will quickly see the gap between what you have promised them and what you deliver to them. I don’t think we need to emphasize that this can have serious consequences for your brand awareness and the overall well-being of your business. This basically means that you should not associate intentions with your brand if you are not sure that you can take the right actions on it.

Branding goes beyond global transactions

The great thing about branding is that it isn’t limited to everything that happens before a purchase. It’s the experience it delivers to your audience at various points in the customer journey, especially the moment after the business transaction.

Was the quality of the product as good as you promised?

Has the product done what it should?

How was the customer service experience?

When you answer these questions honestly, you give yourself a good chance of building a loyal customer base that looks forward to trusting you. Plus, this ensures that you can seamlessly align your marketing strategies with your broader business objectives. More and more companies realize the importance of branding in marketing.

Branding helps you stay ahead of the competition

How do you differentiate yourself from the thousands of similar companies that claim to be just as good, if not better, than you are in a highly competitive market? What you need is the realization that you are no longer competing at the local level. With the developments in online and offline technologies, literally, the whole world is your marketplace.

Branding is an important part of their marketing strategy for many companies. It is not for nothing that many large, successful companies continuously invest in branding campaigns to increase their brand awareness and create brand preference. They do this because direct marketing is limited and usually expensive, certainly on a large scale. That’s why they focus on branding. That has another important reason. Namely, the stronger your brand, the lower your customer acquisition costs will be, the higher your margins can be. People come for you and not because you happen to be the cheapest or easiest option.

The proposition is that your organization can serve a global audience and that your imagination only limits your unlimited growth. The downside is that you have to get rid of a lot more competition if you want to compete on a global level.

When building a brand and its dignity, you need to give your customers a reason to consider you before looking at someone else. Research shows that people would rather associate with organizations with a respected brand and a good reputation than with organizations that don’t.

Branding is trust

Over time, your audience will not only get to know your business better, but they will also start to trust you more. However, to develop that bond of trust, you need to shout out loud why they should try your brand. This is where building your brand starts, the experience of the first few customers with the quality of your services.

Combining the topics, competence with your unparalleled customer service and social media policy ensures that you lay the necessary foundation. The underlying message of everything you do should be to improve your customers’ experience and encourage them to come back to your organization.

Branding leads to new revenue channels

Let’s face it. Most people don’t have the time or interest to figure out why they should care about your brand, even after you’ve launched a website. You therefore must ensure that your brand answers all possible questions towards your organization.

For example, how can you tell your friends about those football boots that are so comfortable when you can’t even remember the brand? Every organization needs credibility because your brand becomes the face that your potential audience will see. You want to show this face during the customer journey, and this is how you ultimately win their trust. Creating your own brand identity is, without discussion, one of the best ways to spread the good news about your company. Your marketing, logo designs, social media expressions and reputation are in line with each other. This is the only way to make the right impression on your audience.

When that happens, you’re more likely to convince your audience to become your success partner, opening avenues for new, responsible ways to generate revenue.

Branding also includes the power of emotions

You must make sure that you give the customer a good reason to feel a connection with your company, and you do that by making clear what you can do for them. When you get that done, there’s a good chance you’ll change them from passive to active participants. In other words, you ensure that they are one step closer to a purchase decision. As mountains of research tell us, the very important point is that our emotional brain drives us to purchase and not our rational brain.

Humans love ideas, stories, concepts, and even products that know how to trigger that emotional aspect as emotionally engaged beings. Emotion even ranks higher than logic when it comes to developing brand loyalty.

This phenomenon became very clear with the advertisements shown during the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. The most popular advertisements combine emotions and experiences to form a memorable emotional connection with the audience.

Simply put, it is important that with branding, you respond to the feeling of your customers every time they come across your company. Storytelling is one of the best ways to do this because it subconsciously builds a bridge between the story and your brand.

The human aspect of branding is a topic that always remains relevant, especially in times where we only have a few milliseconds to connect emotionally with our audience.


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