No matter the size of your business, what service you may provide or product you sell, you need a brand. Personal branding is even important.
Why is Branding so Important?
Your brand is derived from who you are, who you want to be and who people can expect you to be. Branding can differentiate you from your competitors’. A brand represents the sum of people’s perception of a company’s customer service, reputation, advertising, logo and with social media, you can even portray a style of flare. To achieve a healthy brand all of these parts having to be working together.
Building Your Branding
Although it takes time to build a brand, it doesn’t have to be a taxing process. Chances are you already have a lot to work with. Social Media platforms are easy to get started, and logos can almost always be refreshed or updated.
The benefits that follow a good brand are limitless. Some can be measured, i.e, sales, but reputation and loyalty are hard to put price tags on. Branding inspires employees. Many employees need more than just work — they need something to work toward. Creative and personal goals keep you going when the work starts to get mundane. When employees understand the mission of a business and its reason for being, they are more likely to feel that same pride and work in the same direction to achieve a common goal.
Benefits that can be more easily tracked-Branding generates new customers. Branding can also help a business get word-of-mouth referrals. In spite of technology and online reviews, when we want an honest opinion we seek guidance from people close to us. We pay attention to buzz and after all, you can’t trust everything you read on the internet. What do successful companies, small and large, have in common- They have established themselves as a leader in their particular industry by building a strong brand, and they can be recognized by their logo.
Refreshing Your Branding with Symboliq Media
We know that a brand represents the sum of people’s perception of a company’s customer service, reputation, advertising, logo, and with social media. And a good one is using all of these components and making sure they work well together. Often times once you get a brand established and running like a well-oiled machine it stays like that. Doing the necessary task and although it is doing everything right, something is wrong, but what?
Many companies–Pepsi, Starbucks, Wendy’s, Michael Kors among others–have recently updated their brands. Should you follow their lead? Here are questions you should ask yourself when considering updating your brand:
- What problem are we attempting to solve?
- Has there been a change in the competitive landscape that is impacting our growth potential?
- Has our customer profile changed?
- Are we pigeonholed as something that we (and our customers) have outgrown?
- Does our brand tell the wrong (or outdated) story?
- What do we want to convey? To whom?
- Why should anyone care about our brand?
- Have we isolated exactly who should care about our brand?
- Have their needs, or the way they define them, changed?
- Are we asking our customer to care more about our brand
- Is our brand associated with something that is no longer meaningful?
- Is our brand out of step with the current needs and desires of our customers?
- Are we leading with our brand direction?
- Are we following with our brand direction?
- Will this solution work in 5, 10 and 15 years from now based on what we can anticipate?
If this is out of your wheelhouse, do not be afraid to seek out help or ask for opinions. Sure, you know how to take a picture and post it on to Instagram. But do you know the right hashtags to post or what a website should include to improve SEO quality? You can asses if your company needs rebranding, once that is decided, it is usually best to find someone to do the rest for you.
If you liked this Symboliq Media blog, check out these other related articles:
–What to expect during the Symboliq Media branding process
–Why Rebranding Can be Revolutionary for Your Company
