Welcome to an era where anyone can start a business! With a few clicks here and there, anyone can register a brand/business, set up the website and you’re up and running.
Branding Makes A Difference
Welcome to an era where anyone can start a business! With a few clicks here and there, anyone can register a brand/business, set up the website and you’re up and running. With the internet going nowhere anytime soon, more business owners will join the existing pool of brands competing for the same clients.
Whether you’re a business owner or you’re considering starting your own company, standing out from the crowd is a sure-fire way to become a go-to brand name in your industry. Being able to rise to the top of the list of businesses is the way to get your fair share of the customers in your niche.
“ Do you have a thriving business? Do you know that you could be leaving money on the table with your poor business branding? Are you contemplating starting a new organization that is capable of competing with existing brands? Do you know that effective branding is a determining factor that can make or break your business dreams?”
While there are many ways to go about that, effective branding is one of the tested and trusted channels that cannot be ignored. You can have a solid product and a bad-ass marketing team. But if your branding is inconsistent, it’s a sign that your company is not ready for business. And who wants to do business with an organization that doesn’t take its own branding serious?
Your answer is as good as ours!
But branding, if not put into context, can be very vague. With so many people posing as branding experts these days, it’s hard to cut through the noise and understand what it really is, and most importantly, what it can do for your business.
In this article, we will shed more light on what branding really is. And as promised, we will show you three reasons why you should pay maximum attention to it.
Let’s dive right in!
Whether yours is a small business or a big one, the right kind of branding can give you a major edge, regardless of how competitive the market is. How so? This is because branding, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is the promotion of a particular product or company by means of advertising and distinctive design. Digging in further, business branding is the process of researching, developing, and applying a distinctive feature or set of features to your organization so that consumers can begin to associate your brand with your products or services.
Branding is you making a promise to your customer, – existing and potential – telling them what they can expect to get in terms of products and services. Your business branding is largely influenced by three factors:
- Who You Are
- Who You Want to Be
- Who You Want People to Perceive You to Be
While we will touch on those factors in subsequent blog posts, let’s discuss why you should take your business branding seriously.
If you’re reading this, chances are that you already have a business or you’re thinking of starting one. Why then should you bother your head about branding? Why is it as important as any other aspect of strategically building a business?
1. It is the Foundation of Your Company’s Image
Are you starting a business to sell products? Is yours a brand that offers services?
Regardless of whichever one it is, the end-game is to offer incredible service that keeps the customer coming back for more. And this is where business branding plays a pivotal role.
From your logo, to the colors you choose to use to represent your brand, and the customer service on offer, branding serves as the core of your company’s image. It’s what determines how your customers perceive your organization. It also influences the kind of presence you have in your community and dictates the vibe that your brand sends out to the world.
Not sure how to convert more potential clients? Have you tried your hands at other tactics?
It’s time to address the fundamentals by implementing an effective branding strategy. Like a building with a weak foundation, the collapse of a company with poor branding is only a matter of time.
Take a second look at your fliers, business cards and website. Is there coherence with the message you’re trying to pass across? Would you patronize your own company if you were a customer? Is your company’s logo passing an eye-catching message or is it as vague as they come?
These are some of the fundamentals that get tackled when you start thinking of effective business branding. Once you become intentional about implementing proper branding, you’re well on your way to building that business empire you’ve always dreamed of.
If you ignore it, your organization gets lost in the midst of all the noise. Remember what we said about the existing pool of businesses that you’re competing with? Poor business branding leaves you chasing the wind, frustration sets in and you end up with an unprofitable business.
One more question to consider: Does your brand have an image that encourages the customer to want to do business with you?
2. Establish Your Brand/Company’s Identity
When it comes to ranking the biggest brands/companies in the world, a number of factors come to play. Market valuation and revenue generated are just some of them. One that’s not spoken enough about is how these brands use the identity they project to influence the buying habits of customers.
Let’s get personal a bit here.
How did you choose some of the gadgets you now use? Asides the promise made by the manufacturer, your choice was, to an extent, influenced by how you wanted to identify with the brand. You paid because there was a brand identity you connected with, that you associated with value.
Looking at business branding from the example above, how would you rate your business’ need for an effective branding strategy?While we’ll let you answer that question, the fact remains the same: It’s super difficult to pass any message about what your company stands for without implementing proper branding. Establishing your organization’s identity and what it stands for is impossible if your branding is inconsistent.
Leaving an indelible image in your client’s head is one of the benefits of proper business branding. With the right mix of a distinct logo, appropriate colors and other visual elements, you can make your brand more memorable. And this means that your brand can stick out to someone in a positive way, even if they’ve only seen it for a short moment. If they don’t forget it, you can be sure that they’ll be patronizing you soonest.
But how can you achieve such if you’ve not given your customers an identity that they can refer to? How can you retain existing clients and convert new ones if your brand is not established in their minds?
Effective branding is not only an effective way to communicate with your customers/clients, even without using words. It is also a way to stake your claim in your select niche.
If you’re just starting out or you’re a veteran business owner, you cannot break into the top percentile of your industry without an effective business branding strategy that speaks for you, whether you’re there or not. It’s the way to create a name that
3. It Saves You Money Over Time
If you don’t invest in proper branding, you will pay for it!
When we say pay for it, we’re not referring to hiring a professional alone (although, as you may have suspected, we highly recommend that you outsource your business branding to professionals who have proven experience working with results to show for it).
‘Pay for it,’ in this context, means, you’ll have to bear the grunt of an ineffective representation of your brand. And by now you already know how much that can cost you, especially when it comes to revenue generated.
Investing in proper branding ensures that there’s a consistency across the various content materials through which you’re trying to reach out to customers. If you don’t get it right at first or it is poorly done, you’ll have to fork out extra cash to correct the error that was initially made.
In the long run, you’re constantly pumping more money into ensuring that there’s a coherence of brand identity and message. Instead of it being a one-time thing, you find yourself worrying about your business’ branding each time you want to appeal to a client.
That takes more money out of your pocket over time, doing the total opposite of what should be: a brand whose eye-catching designs catches the attention of people, establishes its brand identity and makes money.
Do you have a thriving business? Do you know that you could be leaving money on the table with your poor business branding? Are you contemplating starting a new organization that is capable of competing with existing brands? Do you know that effective branding is a determining factor that can make or break your business dreams?
As a business owner, the place of branding your business cannot be overemphasized. As you have seen, it can be a game-changer if you strategically put it to use.
Now that you know what business branding can do for you, let’s help you achieve your business goals. Reach out to us today and let’s discuss the most effective way to give your organization the brand identity that it so deserves.