A big part of creating a brand for your business is proving to the customers why your products and services are the best to buy. This is where differentiation takes place. This is where you use those subtle differences between you and your competitors to help you stand out. Determine what the benefits are with the products and/or services you offer. Ask yourself, “Why does the customer benefit when they shop or buy from you?” You will have a very hard time establishing a brand if you cannot determine the benefits or your products or services. The features of your products and services are also important and they go hand in hand with the benefits. The features of a specific product should provide a benefit. Determine the features and the ones that stand out from the rest or provide the biggest benefit may be a target for your brand marketing campaigns. Now that you’ve explored your brand benefits and features you are in a better position to making your brand successful. But just knowing the benefits and features and telling the customers about them isn’t enough. It’s a start but that’s not going to do the job alone. You need to prove the benefits to the consumers. You must provide them with demonstrations of your brand’s commitment to excellence and that the features are worthwhile. And that’s not something done overnight; but having them and knowing them is an excellent foundation to build upon over time. This is what your brand will have if you are successful in your branding efforts. You will have time to build. Happy branding!!! Tuxedo Branding Blog Admin When it comes to creating a brand there are several items you must have. Take a listen to this podcast from iPix Brandcasting and grab some tips. Customers must perceive quality in your brand. If they don’t, you won’t exist very long in business. So the best thing you need to do with a branding campaign is to use it to determine the different qualities that are perceived about your products by the customers. Do you have a good reputation with the consumer world for providing total quality in your products or are your products considered to be garbage and not worth the money? The qualities of your business may be many things. When you think about how customers consider the qualities of your business, make sure you consider the products you offer, the customer support you provide, your image, or anything else that would make a customer think of quality coming from your company. For this knowledge you should be using surveys and questionnaires. You can also ask questions to your social media groups and offer up coupons or discounts to those who will take your survey or answer your question. It is imperative to know what your customers feel about you, your product or service. You might think customers absolutely love you when they are really bashing you on the quality of your product. Knowing what the customers think is very important. Creating a brand based on customer input can be successful, especially if you change the design of something for the customers. This gives them a sense of ownership and it shows them you really do care. This goes back to your mission and vision statements. The vision and mission statement are very important for every business no matter how big or small because this is where you have stated what you intended to provide to your customers. You must make every effort to be sure that your brand works well and matches what you say you want to deliver. Until next time Good Luck Branding Tuxedo Branding Administrator Branding is about a customer’s perception. When you want to create a brand you want to create the perception that you are the best; provide quality; or maybe even more in the customer’s mind. This is how you build brand loyalty. It is important to have a good idea of what the customers currently think of you when you are building a branding campaign. Do they know you? Do they know what your company provides? Do they understand your services? Have they heard of your products? Today customers may not know that you exist or they may have a negative feel for your business industry because they may have been exposed to a company not practicing proper methods. In order to combat this you must first have a clear understanding of exactly how and what customers think of you. If you are unsure what the customers think then you will need to send out surveys and questionnaires. These types of things can help you get a good idea where you stand in the customers’ mind’s eye. Allow them to be brutally honest, not just about your company but about your industry as a whole. Ask them about their experiences. And don’t just ask your customers put it out there through your social media that you are looking for help from anyone who’s ever thought of using a service or buying a product from your industry. Ask them to take your survey or answer your questionnaire. You might even offer them a discount coupon just for doing it. You see, not only will you find out items you need to fix but you’ll be establishing yourself in the minds of these customers who may use your coupon to purchase from you. If the feedback is bad, it’s okay. It will give you something to build on with your branding campaign. Good luck with your branding. Tuxedo Branding Blog Administrator When you are building a brand for your company it must show your mission clearly. Your customers must readily identify your company’s vision in conjunction as the solutions provider to their immediate problems. So what is the mission and/or vision of your company? If you are having trouble creating a mission or vision statement, then you will have a problem creating a brand or getting customers. So here are a couple of things to remember about missions and visions.
Many customers do not read into a vision or mission statement too often. However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take it seriously. Your vision and mission are both a part of the branding process because they define what your company is all about. These two statements need to be believed and practiced by employees and all staff of the company. And even though your customers haven’t read your mission and/or vision statement, when asked about your company, its products or services their response should almost mimic your statements word for word because your brand reflects the statements in all that it does. Until next time, successful branding Tuxedo Branding Blog Admin Okay now that you’ve chosen a proper name for your business, product or service, you need to wrap a graphic image around that name to carve out a prime piece of real estate in your target customer's mind. That is exactly what a great logo can do. So give a listen to this iPix Brandcast and learn the 7 Elements of great logo design. Branding is how customers perceive your company, product, organization, business or service. The ultimate goal of branding is to ignite an emotional connection between your product or service line and your customers in order to create a positive feeling resulting in loyalty to a specific product from those customers. Most customers hold true to products they enjoy. It is very common for a customer to be impressed with a brand and continue to buy a product based on that brand. Loyal customers will continue to use a brand or one of the subsequent brands based upon the originating brand – no matter the cost. This is why branding is so important. You want to create these feelings of loyalty to bring the customers back for more. This is the supreme goal or branding. Your brand is the promise that you intend to make to the customers to facilitate their loyalty. What Is Your Promise The promise in branding boils down to a few major components. 1. Mission and Vision of Your Company 2. Benefits and Features of Your Products or Services 3. Qualities Perceived by Your Customers It is these 3 components that work in unison in order to create a successful brand. This is not done overnight and can take years of trial and error for the novice who doesn't understand branding or customer perceptions. It is for this reason many small businesses go out of business within months of startup. Without taking the time to establish yourself as a proper brand and cultivate brand awareness for your products or services you are signing the death warrant for your company or organization. So before you hang out that shingle, sit down and look at your competition and really see how your brand differs from theirs. It is those differences that you will build your brand upon. Look for ways those differences can solve the problems of the customers. Ask questions, host surveys, visit networking groups and forums and really look at which customers are not being served that can use your products or service. Figure out a way to solve their problems and build your brand upon those solutions. After you've taken a cold hard look at what you are offering it is then that you can begin to successfully craft your brand and build your customer loyalty. Until next time, good luck with your branding. Tuxedo Branding Blog Administrator |
AuthorTuxedo Branding's Blog Editor scours the trades looking for tips, tactics and information to help you learn and understand branding, brand marketing and logo design. Archives
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