If you spend a few minutes looking online for anything to do with branding, you’ll more than likely come across this quote "Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.”. It was uttered by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and hits the nail firmly on the head.
Most business owners care about what people are saying about their company. If they don’t, they don’t tend to last very long. But most people tend to focus on the big, obvious branding points: their logo, a strapline, maybe their choice of font.
Branding is more than that: it’s how your product is presented; it’s how you answer the phone; it’s how your staff behave and the values they embody. You can spend years building up a good reputation, but you’re only ever one catastrophe from seeing it all come tumbling down.
Building a good brand
To build a good brand you need to first decide on your values; between three and seven words or phrases that your company is going to live by. That’s the easy bit.
The next stage is using them to guide every decision that you make. They should inform your marketing, such as the kind of content you share, and shape every interaction you have with your customers.
Once you have these, review everything you’ve done to date. Does it hit all of your values? If not, it needs updating.
Consistency is key
Next, make sure that every piece of marketing material you have is branded the same way. Make sure your profile pictures are consistent, that the colours you have and the language you use stays the same, and even that your usernames are as consistent as possible.
Repeated exposure to a company’s brand is proven to help people remember it. It should be easy for your customers to identify something as yours, even if your logo isn’t there. Some company colour schemes are so iconic you can immediately recognise them - this only happens because they’ve remained unchanged for so long.
Go public
Once you’ve defined your values and your visual style, it’s now time to be as public as possible. Try and brand as many things as possible, and ensure that everything you do adheres to the values you decided on.
It won’t happen overnight, but even the biggest brands took time to establish themselves. Stick with it, be consistent, and over time you’ll start to see the rewards.
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