There are over 30 million small businesses in the United States. With numbers like that, there’s bound to be a few company’s in the same industry as yours right nearby. These businesses are your competitors, and if you don’t learn about business branding, they will steal your customers from you. What’s the best way around this? Build a brand. Building a brand is the first step to taking your company to the next level. Anyone can start a business, but brand building is what people remember for years to come. If you want to achieve massive success, you’re going to need to learn how to build a brand.
This article will walk you through a brief introduction to brand building.
Define Your Brand Voice
Much has already been written about developing a great product and great advertising — so we’re going to skip over that. Everyone in the world knows that if you want to bring in a high quantity of customers, you’re going to have to have a high-quality product. But while many great would-be businesses come up with great products and spend considerable sums on advertising, they often fall behind. This is because they’re not able to effectively great a brand voice. People don’t simply encounter brands as companies. They encounter brands as personalities, similar to human beings. This helps them understand what a brand is all about and make decisions about products.
Manifesto Making
Your business has to have a clear, distinct voice, so people can figure out whether they like you or not. Make sure you come up with a brand manifesto that drives everything. This will make sure your brand has aesthetic and practical cohesion. A famous example of a brand manifesto is Apple’s dedication to simplicity. Steve Jobs had an obsession with making things simple, and so everything, from the layouts of Apple’s digital interfaces to the sleek designs, to the minimal white boxes, to the open-concept Apple stores, is based around simplicity.
Another example of a brand manifesto is the TV show Seinfeld’s motto of “no hugging no learning”. Larry David encouraged the writers and actors to make sure to never get sincere or sentimental, which turned Seinfeld from another sitcom into a new sort of show — the most popular show on television at the time.
Implement
When you implement your brand voice, you have to be unafraid to go all-out with it. Subtlety is not your friend in the 2020s. If you want your business to stand out from the crowd, you’re going to have to make sure your voice is loud.
Implement your brand’s manifesto from the top down. Make sure every product is similar — and make sure that similarity fits your manifesto. Let the packaging, customer service, and advertising all feel like they’re part of the same brand experience.
Design A Great Website
Your website is your new front door. Digital advertising recently surpassed traditional advertising in revenue generated. There’s a good chance that you’re going to get significantly more business in your online shop than your in-person store. This means you need to have a great website.
The standards for a business’s website have vastly shifted in the past ten years. The internet has aged exponentially, and styles that are only a decade old already look outdated and untrustworthy.
If your site is too crowded, too hard to navigate, buggy, or slow, there’s a good chance that customers will assume it’s going to load their computer up with a virus. Design a sleek and efficient website to give your customers the smoothest experience possible.
Be sure to have your contact information readily available only on your website. Attention spans are short in the 21st century. Unfortunately, if someone likes your product or the look of your service, but can’t quickly find out where they can purchase it, your sale might fall through.
Make use of blog content to generate interest and SEO on your site. SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of designing your website so that it gets ranked high on search engine results. You can improve your SEO by finding which exact phrases (keywords) your customers are using when they’re searching for your product, and creating content that people stick around to read.
Get On Social Media
Social media isn’t just about hanging out anymore. Businesses that make use of social media effectively unlock new realms of possibility for brand voice development. Ones social media posts can easily act as ways to communicate the unique and dynamic voice of your brand. You can stagger timeline posts and stories (on Instagram) to get a mixture of more professional and more casual content. On top of this is the interactive element of social media platforms. Stick around long enough, and people will comment on your posts and direct message you, giving their opinions and asking questions. Respond to each of these interactions in your brand’s voice and you’ll further the understanding that your business is a personality. People will get to know your business well. They might even start talking about just how cohesive your brand is.
Make sure that your social media pages link back to your website, so you can generate more traffic, bring in more customers, and improve your SEO.
To learn more about social media marketing trends, check out this blog we wrote on the subject.
Learn How To Build a Brand
If you want to succeed in business in the 2020s, you’re going to have to learn how to build a brand. Brand building is the best way to take your business to the next level. No matter what you do, make sure that the brand you build is communicated in every step of your process. Let people know what you stand for, and they’ll think you with their patronage.
For more information on company branding and branding tips, contact us at Eraserfarm today.