In today’s hyper-connected world, competition is rising rapidly and dramatically in the business sector. Factors such as globalization, increased usage of digital devices, internet, changing customers’ expectations, and many more are putting an immersive pressure on organizations to deliver a stellar customer experience as well as establish a strong footprint in the market. To tackle this, they need to build a solid reputation, make their business stand out from the competitions and project their values to attract new clients. This is where Brand Identity makes an entrance. Brand Identity helps business owners and entrepreneurs create a compelling story to attract customers towards their products, services, and solutions. This is a powerful weapon for startups and growing companies as they need more and more customers to form a clientele base. However, what is brand identity exactly? And the answer is simple. Let’s understand its definition and why is it so important for the business?
What is Brand Identity?
According to Wikipedia, the Brand Identity is a marketing concept, which provides that the identity of a company is solid and clear so that the target audience can recognize the brand simply and align it with the brand image (defined as what the consumer recognizes of the brand). In a simple term, it is how an organization portrays itself to the customers. It is the aggregate of brand name, tagline, brand voice, brand positioning, brand relationship, and brand personality. For example, large corporations such as Coca Cola, Apple, Nike, Adidas, etc. is recognized by billions of people. These companies spend millions of dollars, pounds and euros per year to promote and grow their products, as they know it has a direct impact on their revenue and market share.
Why Is It So Important For Business?
For organizations, brand identity acts as a differentiator and is used to promote their products, services, and solutions. Moreover, a brand’s identity is not restricted to the brand name, logo, and tagline. It is more than this and involves visual elements that give rise to a rich brand experience. Because of these elements, customers can recognize the organizations’ brand and purchase its products, which in turn, boost in the sales and revenue. Therefore, investing in creating a brand identity can help startups and small businesses leapfrog others. Following are some of the areas where brand identity plays a key role.
- Creating a Personality: A brand identity represents the organizations’ values and ‘personality’ of its brand. So, it is extremely necessary for the business to design an identity that communicates the company’s overall message and promote business goals.
- Maintaining Consistency: It is crucial for businesses to develop a unique identity as it allows building a consistent message across all marketing materials.
- Making a difference: Numerous organizations are working in the same sector resulting in confusion for customers to choose. So, having a unique identity will help business owners to differentiate their business from others.
- Establishing Loyalty and Reputation: A strong brand identity leaves a mark on customers to remember certain products, services, and solutions. Furthermore, if a customer’s happy with any products or services, a solid brand identity helps to build customer loyalty across clients’ business.
The aforesaid points help startups and small businesses to reach a wider audience as well as expand their reach new height of success.
Avoid Common Mistakes
It is not unusual for companies to make mistakes when it comes to branding which weakens their branding efforts. They don’t understand the significance of having a strong brand identity, which in turn, creates a hurdle for them. So, following are some of the common mistakes that are made by businesses:
- Irregularity In Contact With Customers: Consistency in messaging is key when it comes to creating the brand, but companies also work towards branding those components, while ignoring certain components such as their phone messaging, website, business cards, etc. As a result, a gap is formed between the brand and customers. This also impacts on the revenue generation and sales.
- Shortage of Internal Training: It is a shocking fact that the number of companies introducing a new brand fails to train their employees to get them on board. These companies need to understand that their employees are walking billboards. So, it is very important they recognize not just the brand but what the brand stands for so that they can express deeply the message you want to convey.
- Not Leveraging Latest Marketing Materials: Business owners and entrepreneurs should not forget to review their marketing material and make sure all their products are on the post. Building a trustworthy and memorable brand comes down to the details, which is why marketing materials like custom pocket folders can make a huge difference as folders are useful for anybody, meaning even more exposure and brand awareness for your company. They need to leverage the latest tools and technologies to match pace as well as to stay ahead of their competitors.
Tips To Keep Brand Identity Under Control
Today, small businesses and startups need to make sure that that they are taking proper steps to control their brand identity. If they don’t follow proper steps then the consequence can be hazardous which can impact the loyalty and reputation of the business. So, business owners and entrepreneurs need to follow and apply the below-mentioned steps:
- Step 1: Build a brand identity that best suits your vision and projects for which the organization your target audience wants to work
- Step 2: Track your reputation online so you don’t get surprises. Ask happy customers to provide feedback of your business niche on Twitter, Yelp or any other review websites
- Step 3: Provide the value that the customers deserve with any contact they have – from the website, customer care, telephone calls and emails sent. Also, make sure to treat customers how you want to be treated if you were a customer.
- Step 4: Networking and expanding your presence in your network and in social media. Creating relationships is key to creating brands and the best way to do that is to support people in ways that differentiate you.
Conclusion: As we have already mentioned, brand identity plays a significant role in creating a strong footprint in the market. Businesses need to understand and leverage the latest tools and technologies to create a unique brand identity that not only differentiate themselves but also leave an impression on customers. It is up to business owners and entrepreneurs to build a unique identity for their business which is attractive and inimitable.
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