The Importance of Building a Brand in Your Marketing Journey

Many businesses find a massive challenge in differentiating themselves from other firms in their industry. Approximately half of new businesses fail within the first five years of inception. There are many factors that contribute to this unfortunate turn of events for business owners and one of these reasons: Competition.

Small and Large Business owners have flipped the switch on their advertising efforts and have begun focusing on Branding as an effective marketing strategy. Branding is the perception a company offers to its potential and current customers. A company’s brand is built on reputation and strengthened with messaging.

So… How does a company build an impactful brand and stand out from its competition?

Brand Identity

Consumers want to get to know the company and the people they do business with. Making it personal and customizing content can help businesses achieve that goal of creating a positive branding message. Tell your business’s origin story – how the business came to be. Allow your potential clients to become emotionally (and later financially) invested in your business, where the idea came from, and where it’s going. Clients may want to be a part of your journey and THAT creates customer loyalty.

Make your company’s name, logo, mission, and vision a household name in your area, or even nationwide with effective branding. Choose a handful of words to use in your marketing messaging that resonate with the soul of your business. Create a customer-focused mission statement that speaks to the goals of your firm and how you can provide a transformation for your clients. Then… deliver with complete and total transparency.

Target Your Audience (AND Your Competitors)

Nailing down your target audience, customer avatar, or ideal client aids businesses in customizing your messaging and branding but… don’t forget about targeting your competitors too! Potential customers must see your business’s branding between 5 and 7 times for them to remember it. - See Reference. For them to jump on board with your company mission – they must be emotionally invested. Target your audience by identifying their pain points and the ways that you can solve those nagging problems.

Targeting your competitors doesn’t mean that you publicly badmouth them – it means that you’re aware of their branding. Analyze what they are doing, what is working, and what has fallen flat in their marketing efforts. Use your company’s messaging to fill the gaps for those customers, and use what your competitors have found successful. Customize it to align with the branding, mission, vision, and marketing that your company is focused on. No need to recreate the wheel – we’re just going to customize it.

Create an Omnipresence

Omnipresence is a strategy gaining momentum in both small and large businesses and one that you should take advantage of. So… what exactly IS Omnipresence when it comes to business? An Omnipresence is similar to being everywhere, all the time – social media, blog articles, Google, effective marketing materials, industry-specific (and brand-specific) visuals, and even sponsoring a youth sport team. It seems like additional work and maintenance however, the power of omnipresence can increase a company’s bottom line tremendously when strategized well. Many businesses keep up with content creation by outsourcing those tasks.

Create Credibility

It’s not enough to just put content online, talk about your mission statement, and create a great logo – you must DELIVER on your message. The brand and omnipresence paired with providing each customer with the actual solution to their problem creates credibility in your business. When a company makes promises via marketing efforts but doesn’t actually deliver on those promises – it can damage a company’s reputation very quickly.

When customers are completely satisfied with the service you’ve provided, they are very willing to offer a great review or testimonial that puts the final pin in a potential customer’s decision on whether to purchase your product.

Lead Generation

Branding can exponentially increase your generation of potential clientele, or leads. Identifying your branding and messaging allows those customers who resonate with your message to find you, see you multiple times through an omnipresence marketing strategy, and transform from “having feelers out” to “becoming a strong/warm lead” that may take the additional step to purchase your product or service.

Uploading all those warm leads to an email campaign that offers more information about your brand story, vision, customer alignment, promotions, and more marketing strategies can place your company front and center in the mind of those potential customers – and push them over that brand loyalty fence they may be sitting on.

It’s all in the Details ...

When it comes to choosing a logo, color palette, and design – most sales-centered gurus will tell you that it’s not important and while it may not be the most important thing to complete initially, it can make or break your branding. Using a consistent color palette in all your branding materials (social media posts, physical marketing materials, articles, etc.) improves a brand’s recognition by 80%.

What are some of the most recognizable brands on the planet? Think about it for a moment.

1. What color are the McDonald’s arches?

2. Any idea what color Starbucks’ logo is?

3. What about Target?

These companies have enhanced their brand recognition with color and consistency.

When you have created an effective and moving brand strategy with messaging that truly resonates with your customer base, there’s a good chance they’ll tell their friends about it and you’ve conquered word-of-mouth advertising. An impressive 62% of customers share online deals and information with their friends and family – when they’re happy! That is potentially the BEST kind of marketing – built-in testimonials and it’s FREE! However, you don’t get the benefits of word-of-mouth advertising without an effective Brand.

Matthew Christian partners with small businesses to build standard messaging and provide a unique strategy to every company he works with – based on industry, message, and feasibility with current capabilities. Contact Matt today and get started scaling your business with Branding.

References:

1. The True Failure Rate of Small Businesses (entrepreneur.com)

2. What Percentage Of Small Businesses Fail -- And How Can You Avoid Being One Of Them? (forbes.com)

3. 50+ Eye-Opening Branding Statistics - 2022 Edition (smallbizgenius.net)

4. 3 Steps to Omnipresence (entrepreneur.com)