A solid brand is essential for consistently generating new leads, so it’s crucial to growing your business. But what exactly is a brand, and how do you establish one?
A brand is akin to a personality. We’re more likely to trust a familiar face over a stranger on the street, and that instinctive drive towards the known and recognised comes into play during the buying and selling process. At their core, brands encapsulate a company’s purpose and message, making it easy for consumers to recognise what’s on offer and whether they want to buy into it.
While most people are drawn to long-established brands, new names can take the world by storm (think about the recent obsession with PRIME energy drinks, which largely came down to clever branding).
Ultimately, you want your target audience to feel positive when they see or think about your brand, which is why companies often create adverts intended to associate their products and services with basic human needs and desires, such as social acceptance, friendship, romance, happiness, excitement and fun.
Combined with easy-to-recognise triggers such as particular shapes, colours, and distinctive logos, this age-old strategy helps consumers remember what a business is about at a glance. In addition, that company is more likely to pop into their minds whenever they need a particular product or service, resulting in more leads and, ultimately, more sales.
As your brand extends its reach, you may also need to spend less on marketing as customers come to you first. With this in mind, let’s look at a few ways to begin to build a brand:
- Pick a memorable name that’s catchy and relevant but easy to spell and recall.
- Create a well-designed logo and apply it consistently across your platforms.
- Decide on a brand personality to figurehead your business, and apply it across all your creative so you’re speaking to your audience with one voice. For example, think about tone – do you want to be perceived as friendly, cool, progressive, edgy, fun, chatty, poised, erudite, etc.?
- Consider what your customers want and how they’ll feel using your products and services. Make this clear whenever you communicate with your audience.
- Be predictable enough that your audience feels secure. For example, if you’re constantly changing how you talk to your customers, what you offer, and how/when you reach out to them, you may risk losing their trust.
Sometimes, business owners wonder if they even need a brand. But this often comes down to a misunderstanding about branding itself. It doesn’t have to be big and fancy, especially if you run a micro-business. Simply taking time to identify your core services and finding a way to relay that to your audience with visual branding and consistent, customer-centric messaging will help you generate leads in the long term and guide your content creation efforts.
