 To establish a brand requires a great deal of time and effort, along with some strategic thinking. You certainly don’t want to put in all the work for it not to have good success. Since this is an area of business that’s easily misunderstood, here are the biggest mistakes people make with branding so you can avoid them. Forgetting to Think Strategically Branding is part of your overall business plan, so you need to think strategically about it. It needs to connect to your “why” and your broader business goals. Go back and review the reasons why you’re running this business. Take some time to clarify what you hope to achieve and how your branding will help you do this. Your Brand Is Not Your Logo Many businesses make the huge mistake of thinking a brand is a logo or a set of design features. While consistent design is an important part of branding, what it’s really about is your messaging and the image you’re creating in the minds of your target market. This message tells people how your offerings uniquely benefit them. Being Generic The whole point of your brand is to differentiate your business from others in the market. If you can do this successfully, you can operate as efficiently as other companies that have more resources to spend on marketing and advertising. Focus not only on what you do but what you do differently than others. Assumptions Instead of Facts Don’t make the mistake of building your brand based on assumptions. You think you know how people see your company, but this isn’t good enough. You need to conduct thorough marketing research and base your decisions on facts and feedback from your audience. Inconsistency and Disconnect If your branding is giving people mixed messages, it won’t work to engender trust. The message needs to be consistent wherever you have communication with your audience. The design features, the tone, and the unique benefits of using your products all need to be consistent. Clever But Not Clear While it’s nice to have a message that’s unique and clever, the most important thing is for it to be clear. Branding is a form of communication. People should understand your message easily at a glance. Don’t get so creative that it becomes hard to understand. It’s All About You While you’re talking about your products and services, the real message of your branding should be what using your products does for your customers. Focus on their needs and how their lives will be improved by using your product. Forgetting to Update The needs of your market and the business landscape change over time. Your business might also change, offering a new product line or reaching out to a new segment in the market. When this happens, your branding needs to reflect these changes. Sometimes, you need to assess and update. Do you want to learn more about getting your branding right? Meet Trey Simon, Brand Performance Coach Hey, I’m Trey Simon. Within the past 15 years, I’ve helped hundreds of entrepreneurs turn vague ideas into clear-cut visions which generate leads & sales month after month. It’s finally time for you to get into the driver seat of your business, with our help of leveraging social media platforms, SEO tactics, email marketing automation strategies as well as untouchable creative design. To work with me, schedule a 1-on-1 demo to learn more about developing your brand identity and using the right online marketing tools: HERE About the Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality. 
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 Storytelling is highly effective in any kind of business. Stories capture the attention of your audience and make your business relatable. This is why they’re so useful in rebranding. An essential part of any rebranding strategy is to develop and tell a good brand story. Why We Love Storytelling Why is storytelling so important in branding? Your brand needs to be memorable and relatable. It needs to impart your company’s personality and emphasize how you’re unique. These are all things that can be done through a good story. In fact, some people are loyal to brands solely because of their story. You might love a local coffee shop that stands up against the big nation-wide chains, or a healthy organic restaurant with a mission to offer ethical and environmentally-friendly food. These brands are strong because of stories that emphasize the values they share with their customers. Stories work especially well in the digital age where people are flooded with advertising and marketing messages all day long. Your story helps your brand cut through the noise. What’s Your Story? Your brand story is the genesis story of your company. It tells why you founded it and how you grew it to its current state. It might include things like: How you grew from humble beginnings and overcame overwhelming odds How you stuck with your principles when selling out would’ve been easier How you solved a problem and then decided to offer this solution to the world at large How you want to change the world and why you’re trying to do it Like any good story, yours starts with a “why.” It has ups and downs, plot twists and drama, and a vision for the future, all centered around your company and its brand. How to Discover Your Story You’re not starting from scratch with your brand story. It’s already there, you just need to figure out how to tell it. Start by identifying your “why.” Why does your company exist? What is your mission? What motivates you to do what you do? How do you contribute? Brainstorm several story ideas. Write a few different versions of the basic story that emphasize different aspects of your business. If you’ve already clarified what your unique value is, write a story that explains this along the way. You may also write a few different versions to appeal to different segments of your market. Once you’ve chosen the right one, simplify it so it gets straight to the point. Give it the “so what?” test. When people are reading your story, they’re thinking, “so what?” In other words, “What’s in it for me?” It should be about your company, but it should also tell the reader what you do for them. A good brand story is straightforward and easy to understand. Once you have it finished, decide when and where you’ll use it, and create shorter and longer versions. Integrate it into your branding and it will drive home the unique value you offer. Do you want to learn more about branding your business the right way? Meet Trey Simon, Brand Performance Coach Hey, I’m Trey Simon. Within the past 15 years, I’ve helped hundreds of entrepreneurs turn vague ideas into clear-cut visions which generate leads & sales month after month. It’s finally time for you to get into the driver seat of your business, with our help of leveraging social media platforms, SEO tactics, email marketing automation strategies as well as untouchable creative design. To work with me, schedule a 1-on-1 demo to learn more about developing your brand identity and using the right online marketing tools: HERE About the Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality.   Your brand is a major source of value for your company. With a strong brand identity, you can do more with fewer resources to reach your audience by creating an image in their minds of how you uniquely meet their needs. But branding is about much more than just logos. Here are the 5 key elements of a strong brand identity. A Purpose Your branding tells people your reason for doing what you do. It explains how you want to change the world for the better. At a glance, people can understand the values that are at the core of your philosophy and products. To start creating your brand identity, spend some time thinking about your “why.” Why does your business exist? What is it you hope to change in the world to make it a better place? What solution does your business bring? Market Position Your brand identity tells people what position you occupy in the market. It says not only what you do, but how you do it uniquely from anyone else: “We’re the ones who ____.” In a market full of other businesses show how you are different and how. Part of successful branding is to understand your industry and the unique place you fill in the market. It involves getting in touch with your natural strengths so you can play to them. Your Company’s Personality Your company should have a likeable and relatable personality that resonates with your audience. Your brand communicates this personality to your audience, speaking to them in their voice and tone. The personality also makes it memorable. What is your brand’s personality? You can figure this out through research and natural strengths, but also by asking your customers why they prefer buying from you and not someone else. Consistent Design Elements Although branding is more than just logos and colors, design elements are important. They work on a subtle level. Wherever your audience member encounters your brand, they see the same design features, which tells them it’s you and shows that you’re consistent. Design elements includes name, logo, colors, banners, fonts, and so on. Your Audience Your content is targeted to a specific audience, talking about their problems and addressing their needs. For a strong brand identity, you need to know your audience well and focus on them, not you or your products and services. Your branding discusses your offerings in terms of the unique benefits to users. How to Create a Strong Brand Identity Branding isn’t second nature to most companies. It requires some planning and strategic thinking to develop a strong brand identity. Creating a strong brand starts with clarifying your business goals and your strategy for achieving them. Your brand needs to be in line with your core values and unique value proposition. The next step is to research your audience and your industry, so you can understand what position you occupy in the market. A detailed customer profile helps you understand your target market so you can address their needs and speak their language. Once you’ve clarified the fundamentals of your business and gained a thorough understanding of the marketplace, you’re ready to create a branding message and unique value proposition. With this in hand, you’re ready to go about implementing your brand and monitoring your results. Do you want to learn more about creating a strong brand identity? Meet Trey Simon, Brand Performance Coach Hey, I’m Trey Simon. Within the past 15 years, I’ve helped hundreds of entrepreneurs turn vague ideas into clear-cut visions which generate leads & sales month after month. It’s finally time for you to get into the driver seat of your business, with our help of leveraging social media platforms, SEO tactics, email marketing automation strategies as well as untouchable creative design. To work with me, schedule a 1-on-1 demo to learn more about developing your brand identity and using the right online marketing tools: HERE About the Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality.   Branding has an enormous impact on every aspect of your business. Whether you’re just getting started creating a brand identity or you’re in the process of rebranding because of changes in the market, you need to spend some time clarifying the messaging you want to create and deciding how to implement it. Here are the 6 steps for creating a strong brand. Create a Branding Strategy Your branding strategy clarifies which direction your branding should go. It means creating your messaging with an eye toward the future of your business. This step in the process starts with identifying your business goals and how your brand fits into them. How does it help you to achieve them? Research Your Market Before you start making any major decisions, you need to understand where your business fits into the market and the position it plays in the minds of your audience. Research needs to be conducted in a few key areas. Your Target Market. You need to create a detailed customer profile and identify the needs that your offerings fulfill for your audience. You also need to understand how your audience sees you, since “brand” is essentially an image that exists in their mind. Your Products and Services. Branding revolves around a promise you make to your audience. What is your promise? What need does your offering speak to and how does it uniquely solve the problems of your target market? Your Industry. Research the market and see what is happening in your industry in order to clarify your unique position in relation to others. People will love your brand because of its uniqueness. Create Your Messaging and Unique Value Proposition Now that you know the market and your position in it, create a message that explains to your audience how you uniquely fulfill their needs. This message in some form will be conveyed through everything you do and at every touchpoint with your audience. This message should focus on the customer and the benefits your offering provides them. How does using your products make the customer’s life better? It should emphasize what sets you apart from other, similar businesses. Create a Branding Plan Now, choose the personality, tone, and design elements that will help to convey this message to your audience. Your planning should include where you will communicate with your market and what content you will offer them. For branding to work, everything should be consistent and in harmony with the message you outlined in the previous step. Implement Your Brand Identity The process of branding is never truly finished. Once you implement it, you’ll need to monitor and keep gathering feedback from your market to make sure the message is hitting home. From time to time, you’ll also need to consider rebranding. Companies re-brand when there are significant changes in the market, changes in their company, or a new segment of the market they need to target. In order to keep up to date with these changes, they have to tweak or overhaul their branding so that it will achieve their new goals. Do you want to learn more about developing the right brand identity? Meet Trey Simon, Brand Performance Coach Hey, I’m Trey Simon. Within the past 15 years, I’ve helped hundreds of entrepreneurs turn vague ideas into clear-cut visions which generate leads & sales month after month. It’s finally time for you to get into the driver seat of your business, with our help of leveraging social media platforms, SEO tactics, email marketing automation strategies as well as untouchable creative design. To work with me, schedule a 1-on-1 demo to learn more about developing your brand identity and using the right online marketing tools: HERE   Is the actual experience you deliver your customers in-line with the experience you're trying to deliver? There's only one sure way to know and that's to conduct research. You need real, objective data from your customers on which to base decisions. Your own assumptions aren't enough. Here are 8 ways to gather the research you need. Scour Social Media Search your name as a keyword on popular social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Look for positive and negative comments about your brand. These comments will tell you whether or not you're living up to customer expectations or not. Read Reviews and Ratings Find your listing on review and rating sites. Read reviews and see what feedback customers wrote about their experience with your company. For negative reviews, reply and ask for clarity or ways you can further help them. Ask Directly Come right out and ask. Offer a comment card or surveys. Offer an incentive such as a discount or freebie as enticement. The best time to ask for feedback is after the customer has bought and used the product. Make seeking feedback part of your follow-up process. Carry out Focus Groups While it requires a bit more investment of time and resources, focus groups are a great way to learn about the experience directly from customers. Invite select customers and lead a discussion about their experience dealing with your company. Website Analytics Website analytics offer an indirect way of evaluating the customer experience. If a large number of visitors come to your site but disappear without signing up, buying, or otherwise engaging, this could mean that there's a disconnect in the experience there. Communications Monitoring Monitor communications between employees and customers to see where there might be problems. This can also help you identify areas where employee training is lacking or where ongoing training is necessary. Employee Focus Groups It may also be useful to hold employee focus groups. In these groups, you can talk about your experiences with customers. Employees can talk about what they feel were successes or failures in the customer experience based on customer feedback or behavior. Encourage Interaction Always look for opportunities to interact naturally with your customers. The more you have interactions with them, the more likely you are to glean insights on how they view the experience with your business. This research should be ongoing. No customer experience is perfect and all can use some fine-tuning. Through the objective data you obtain during this research, you can identify areas of weakness for improvement. About The Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality.  The journey a customer takes with your company is very emotional. Emotion plays a key role in the customer experience and you should take it into consideration when mapping and planning your customer experience. Why Emotions Are Important The reason emotion is important is that it's a vital part of decision-making. We live in a complex world with many things to consider. In order to make a purchase decision rationally, you would need to carry out a detailed cost-benefit analysis of everything. Most people don't do this and instead make decisions based on emotions, which provide a kind of shortcut. Often, a purchase decision is made because it just feels right. Emotions also play a key role in motivation. How does a customer know when the time is right to finally make a purchase? For most of us, what drives us to act is the emotion we feel about a purchase decision. Emotions Come from the Customer Experience When making purchase decisions, the emotions used are based on everything that has transpired between the customer and the business. In other words, these emotions are shaped by the total customer experience. In other words, the sum total of how a customer feels about your business, which is a direct result of what happens at each touch point, is very important. Emotions Also Create the Customer Experience The fulfilment of these emotional expectations is also important for the customer experience. The customer expects to feel a certain way at different stages of the journey. After purchase, for example, they want to feel fulfilled and confident that they made the right purchase. Subtle changes can have an emotional impact on your customers. In Paco Underhill's book "Why We Buy," there is a case where the feel of the carpet in a department store affected customer buying behavior. Small things like this can work on a subconscious level. Different Emotions for Different People Which specific emotions drive decision making in your customers varies from person to person, or in this case, from target market to target market. Exactly which emotions are most critical depends on many things, including the type of products or services you're offering. The need for peace of mind is important for people buying software security packages. Meanwhile, feelings of excitement and self-expression may be more important for car buyers. The key is to conduct research in order to discover which emotions are important in the experience for your customers. Throughout the experience you offer your customers, you should look for these emotions and identify them. This is part of maximizing the experience. About The Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality.  The best way to think about the customer experience is as a story. This is how your customer experiences it. The story starts with their first contact with your brand, whether directly or indirectly. The plot thickens as they learn about your products or services and begin interacting with you. The plot takes a major turn when the customer decides to buy something from you, and the story continues as the customer's relationship with your business moves forward to future purchases. Think of the Customer Experience as a Story When we're evaluating the efficacy of our methods, we tend to look at data. This data can come to us in the form of statistics like sales data or web analytics, or from customers themselves in the form of survey results. But this data can't fully convey the customer experience as the customer lives it. This data isn't useful because it doesn't convey the totality of the customer experience, and that's exactly what it is – a totality. Rather, this data gives you only the specific data it can, such as how much web traffic you're getting or whether or not your customers think your response time is fast enough. If you're lucky, you'll get a few sentences of feedback, but even this isn't enough. The customer experiences their journey with your company as a story. Like a novel or movie, each scene plays a part in the overall story. In order to understand what's working well or what's going wrong with your customer experience, you need to know this entire story and how all of the small parts fit into it. Know Your Customer's Story The best way to learn your customer's story with your brand is to put yourself in your customer's shoes and write out this story. We do this through mapping the customer experience. A customer experience map starts with the first contact you have with your customer and works its way through all of the story's "scenes," which are the individual touch points you have with the customer. A customer experience map is something like an infographic which shows the entire story. You can take in the big picture at a glance, but it also shows you all of the relationships between the different parts. You can more easily see where problems might occur and areas where you can make improvements in order to maximize the experience. There are many different ways to approach mapping the customer experience, but it should always be in story form. You should understand your company's customer experience through the customer's eyes. About The Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality.  What happens if a customer's experience with your company isn't aligned with your stated core values? It usually results in the customer heading somewhere else.
Let's say that a customer buys from a company's whose stated core value is to put the customer first always. There's a problem with the product the customer bought but it doesn't quite qualify for a refund under the warrantee. Despite the fact that the customer isn't getting the value they expected from the product, the company does whatever it can to deny the refund. Clearly, the company doesn't put the customer first in a case such as this. Every business should make sure its values and experience match. If there's a disconnect between your stated core values and the service you actually deliver, it's likely to cost you a great deal in customer trust. If you fall short of customer expectations, you don't create a good customer experience. The ideal customer experience sets customer expectations and then exceeds them. Your values, your mission, and everything else you say about your company should be exceeded by the actual value you deliver. When you do this, you impress your customers and this has major psychological benefits. How Does Your Customer Experience Measure up? The only way to figure out whether your customer experience is aligned with your core values is to view the situation from your customer's point of view. Take each touch point you have with your customers and ask yourself, "Does this measure up to my company's core values?" Touch points include any kind of direct communication you have with your customer, such as social media updates, email messages, store visits, and follow-up care. There are also indirect touch points, which include what your customers hear from others about you. Start by identifying all of these touch points. Then, go through each one and run it through your core values. Let's take the example of Starbucks. Starbucks' core values are its five principles: "be welcoming, genuine, knowledgeable, considerate, and involved." In order to present a consistent customer experience that aligns with these values, Starbucks needs to ensure that every interaction with customers presents the company and all of its people as welcoming, genuine, knowledgeable, considerate and involved. Beyond Customer Service Every aspect of how your business is run is manifested in the customer experience. The way you deal with customers should be aligned with your core values, but so should every other aspect of your company, from the internal processes you use in creating or delivering your products, to the way you communicate with your employees. When everything is aligned, it creates a strong corporate culture that embodies these values, and customers can see this. It can be a long and involved process, but it's essential that you deliver on these values. About The Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality.  Your brand tells your customers: "This is the unique thing we do that nobody else does." It sets you apart and, in the customer's mind, expresses why you're the best at what you do (the only one that does what you do). Your brand and the experience you offer your customers are intimately related. This is a bit of an oversimplification, but the brand sets the tone for the overall experience. It's instrumental in setting expectations, which is a key part of the experience. The actual experience should live up to the expectations set by the brand. Let's take the example of a restaurant. Let's say that its website makes it look wonderful and it has rave reviews on online review sites. Everything about the brand sets the expectation for the customer that they're going to have a great dining experience. But if the actual dinner is a train wreck and the restaurant isn't anything like it was represented to be, you've created a terrible customer experience. The brand sets the tone and makes the promise, but the experience has to deliver. How Do You Know If Your Brand and Experience Are Consistent? Unfortunately, it's not always easy to tell whether or not you're delivering a branded customer experience. The best way to find out is to rely on feedback from your customers. They'll let you know if you're not delivering on your promises. Here are a few things you can do to help ensure that you're living up to your brand image: Make sure that all employees and management understand the brand well and how to communicate it. In other words, make customer expectations clear. Create protocols to ensure that your employees are providing the right customer service. In your research, try to find out what your customers feel about your brand. By taking a hard look at how your customers feel about your brand, you can more easily see which areas are your natural strengths; in other words, the areas where you're delivering a branded customer experience. With your brand in mind, brainstorm a list of every touch point you have with customers and make an honest assessment of whether or not you're conveying your brand at each point. Monitoring your brand and customer experience is ongoing, so make it a regular part of your routine. Keep gathering and analyzing feedback so that you can refine. About The Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality. |
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