What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when we talk about cola drink, Coke? And when asked about coffee, was it Starbucks? Well.. that’s exactly what brand influence actually mean. The success of a business name can only be judged if it is a brand, which means the peak of success for a business is its influence in the market.
Brand building is the most sought-after and reliable marketing strategy which is easy to pick and hard to play. The major advantage of strong brand image is that it can easily survive bad products, misled propaganda, financial crisis, and many other slips that, on other hand, could derail a not-so-popular/struggling business establishment. So it is very much important to create an effectual brand image if you want to have a meaningful presence of your business on global platform.
You would find broad chapters on management books on how to build brand, but creating a brand from those theories is as impossible as climbing hill top without the essential safety equipment. Here safety equipment was referred to the strategies that one should always create for an effective brand building. Leaving aside those theories, let us take a look at some quick to follow and easy to remember tips for the effective brand building.
Factors Leading To A Failed Brand Building Strategy:
- Most of the businessmen make mistakes of placing their brands above their customers, which is quite unacceptable. A brand could lose its charm if it is no longer needed by its potential customers. Moreover, framing a brand as superior while branding could lead to less popularity and less business. So interact with your target audience and let them know why they need your product and how can you help them. Believe this, if you forget this simple rule then definitely get ready to face aversion from your existing and potential clients.
- Using outdated and irrelevant technology to market your product would show your business into a bad light. Technology has greatly influenced the marketing industry which means if you still follow those conventional methods of paper and pen marketing then you are definitely losing your place in the market ranking. Consumers have become more demanding and tech-savvy these days, which means they want flexible options for shopping. Ecommerce is a perfect example of best brand building method presently. Evidently consumers are more inclined towards business brands that are engaged with some techno-engaged activities for delivering higher user experience.
- There is a common phrase “Boss is always right” in the corporate world to which there is a phrase in marketing world too i.e “Customer is always right”. (Well! Exceptions are acceptable in both the cases). So never go out of your way to manipulate your customer by proving him/her wrong on their right perspectives. As mistakes like this are never forgiven which could lead to customer aversion from your brand. If you ever thought of or planning to mint money by not considering your customers’ needs then you should get ready to say goodbye to those clients. As such indiscreet gesture with your employees could result in a severe damage to your brand’s reputation.
- The next thing that comes into the list is boredom. It doesn’t matter to which industry you belong, make sure you don’t give “dullness” as a reason to your customers for not choosing your brand over the others. Remember creativity is just not reserved for artists, musicians, painters; instead, it is what that you could integrate into your marketing strategies to make it look out of the box. Use facts, humor, illustrations, quotes, etc. in your content to make it more interesting for your audience. Evidently consumers are more interesting in doing business with a company that knows how to put fun factor even in the boring and non-essential sections of their business.
- Do not brag about your brand to your customers and never befool them with fake brand authenticity as it would go against you and your business credibility, if proven. No matter how big your business gets after few years, but try not to change your key objectives and policies with which your brand is associated. Would you care to buy chocolates from a company that was established primarily as a tobacco industry? Obviously no. So that’s what exactly brand authenticity means to your business.
Now that you are aware of the factors that play a significant role in deteriorating your brand image, let us now know some tricks to outplay them.
Tips To Build An Effective Brand Influence:
Launch Referral Schemes: A smart businessman knows how to target audience through the audience. S/he understands the word-of-mouth publicity and thus, keeps on accessing the factors that could improve their credibility in the market. Referral programs are the common examples of an effective campaign followed by a user for the user. Companies lure their customers by giving away some extra data, messages, points for every new referral. Hike, Uber, Dropbox are some big names that have perfectly utilised the essence of referral programs.
Appealing Content: This is another way to strengthen your stand on the brand meter. Try to add impressive content in whichever way you exhibit and ought to get noticed by the customers. Special attention should be paid to guest content to keep your guests welcomed every time they land on your page. Guest posting is the best and still the most powerful tool to do branding for your business.
Socialise Your Business: It is equally important to socialise your business on social media platforms through some contests, reviews, and other activities. A major number of customers do research on social media sites to get reviews about the company and its brand image. And, the target audience includes all active social media users. Organise some activities or contests to get known among the potential users.
Include PPC Advertising: Branding on major search engines is simply like a dream come true. PPC is the smartest solution that can easily let you exhibit your brand on Google. This technique helps you provide the users with keyword targeted search that helps in showing up your brand whenever a relevant keyword to your brand is entered by the user. It doesn’t matter if a user hasn’t clicked your advertisement, as seeing your ad and brand name on the top of search results too makes a good impression on the audience.
Freebies: One of the most tried and proven strategies of the marketing realm. Most of the companies, in the beginning, try to enter in the market by giving away some trial freebies to get reviews about their product along with creating some space for their brand. And who doesn’t like to get that extra free stuff in the form of freebies; they are highly complimented and appreciated by users. So try to include some freebies concept in your brand marketing.
Mutual Marketing: It is not always true that all businesses are competitors in the market. Some may share a good professional bond with their fellow businessmen and they both can effectively work together in future to get a mutual brand image in the market where each of the two is benefited with the influence of the other business. Nothing could be more complimentary than promoting your brand with some other’s influence. For an instance, a leading web development company like CSSChopper shares a good professional bond with PSDtoWordPressExpert wherein they mutually run different programs and exhibit websites containing content that uniformly promotes the services of both the companies.
Branding Through Car Wraps: If you own an automotive business and are looking for some trendy ways to advertise your brand, go for car wraps. Yes, this new advertising method is getting a head-turning response from people around the globe. Get your car wrapped with your logo or brand name and get it patched on the car’s exterior (obviously leaving the car windows and lights). You will definitely be surprised with the overwhelming response that you get from this campaigning.
As we all know that Rome was not built in a day, and neither does the brand credibility. It takes months and years of hard work and some smart work to build a sought-after brand. So try not to repeat the mistakes that have been mentioned in the post above; meanwhile, you can start with the tips mentioned for an effective brand building.
