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The Brand Called You !!!Home
Every company
has a reputation. Everyone you meet will form an opinion about your
company, even if they have not done business with you yet. The
challenge is to manage your reputation so that the opinion that people
have of you is positive. This is what creates a brand.
Brands have a number of strategic functions, enabling you to:
Differentiate yourself from your competition;
Position your focused message in the hearts and minds of your target
customers;
Persist and be consistent in your marketing efforts;
Customize your services to reflect your personal brand;
Deliver your message clearly and quickly;
Project credibility;
Strike an emotional chord;
Create strong user loyalty.
For small businesses, branding is not about slick advertisements.
Small-business branding is about getting your target market to see you
as the preferred choice. Building a slightly famous brand is not just
about what you do; it's about what you do differently from everyone
else.
Building Your Brand
A brand is a promise of the value your clients will receive. In an
amazingly complex and competing world - where it's increasingly hard
to know what's real and what's not - having your customers not only
acknowledge but support the promise of your brand is the key to
building a thriving business.
To become a brand, you've got to become relentlessly focused on what
you do that adds value. Do you deliver your work on time, every time?
Do you anticipate and solve problems before they become crises? Do
your clients save money and headaches just by having you on the team?
Do you complete projects within the allotted budget?
Branding integrates customer service, sales promotion, public
relations, direct mail, newsletters, discounts, event sponsorship,
word of mouth and other communications tactics to present a unified
message about the company, its products or services.
Your brand will integrate all your marketing around a core idea and
vision. As a result, you will find it easier to sell yourself, because
your message will be uniform and powerful. Every business needs to
evaluate its brand identity against the following criteria:
Relevance to the Market
A brand must stand for something that is meaningful to members of a
target market. Your brand encompasses the total experience of doing
business with you.
Consistency of Behavior
Customers must be able to depend on the brand to deliver the same
experience every time. Because your market experiences your values
through your brand, the only way they will truly become loyal to your
brand is through your dedication and consistency.
Relationship-Building
A brand is not a logo or an advertising strategy. The strength of any
brand is in the relationship it has between a company and its
customers. The stronger the relationship, the more business they will
do, and the more likely it is that customers will refer them to their
friends and business associates.
Loyalty to the Customer is Returned
The test of a brand is, in fact, the strength of loyalty it generates.
If you have a strong relationship with your target audience, then you
have a strong brand and a strong business.
Reputation is Priceless
The only way to be successful in business is by establishing a good
reputation, and a brand can help you do that. Your reputation works as
your strongest marketer by communicating the relationship you have
with people who've done business with you, and your target market in
general.
Good brands stand the test of time. To develop a brand that will last
a lifetime, go beyond what you do right now. Think long term. Look at
Coke, Ford and General Electric. No matter what they sell or how they
change over time, they can rely on their brand equity built on a
foundation of customer trust to take them deep into their customer's
trust quotient and keep them there.
If you establish a place of trust and relevance in prospects' minds,
you're already in the door. The more people believe in your brand, the
more it will spread throughout your niche market without your pushing.
If your brand is clear, distinctive, and easily understood, and
expresses a unique, compelling benefit that people believe in, it will
bring you all the business you can handle.
By Steven Van Yoder
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