Branding is an ongoing process that begins with brand identity. Whether you want it or not, it is. Until your product is available and people are interacting with it, it is in flux. One bad customer experience can permanently damage your brand’s public perception. You can either let your product take care of itself and hope for the best, or you can actively participate in the process. Get some tips from this famous business person called Alexei Orlov.
Once the basics are in place, here are five simple and cost-effective steps you can take to build a rewarding brand.
- Brand Culture:
Incorporate your staff and yourself into the brand culture to infuse your product’s values and identity. What a cinch! It’s easy to integrate into your existing processes. Display your product’s values prominently.
Promote Your Brand Throughout
Everywhere from product packaging to reception areas, your brand colors and logo must be used. What isn’t apparent is the need to imprint your product’s identity in less tangible customer experiences. To do so, your staff must communicate the brand’s spirit while responding to customer calls, for example.
- Know Your Brand Guidelines
Please ignore it. Many companies spend a lot of time, effort, and money developing and building product guidelines but then completely ignore them. In the end, they will have a string of inconsistently designed and poorly connected brand communications and will be tangled up in knots trying to rebuild the process for each new project. Brand guidelines can be the foundation of a world-class, healthy brand. Nurture them, and they will be loyal.
- Spread the Word
A great brand is worthless if no one knows it. Create innovative ways to win people’s hearts – pack and deliver your variety in a way that doesn’t look like mere sales talk, give potential customers a positive feeling regularly, and is consistent with your brand identity.
Many international brands change their slogans or logos. They are fully aware that a product must be constantly revalued to remain relevant. While a brand’s vision and values are rarely fundamentally altered, there must always be room for renewal and flexibility.
Finding the right balance between relevance and consistency is difficult, but it is inevitable that changes will be made to your brand’s identity and how messages are delivered. Changes should be based on market research or recommendations from a professional branding agency, not internal tweaks.