Everything your business does reflects on your brand’s image, so it’s beneficial to understand both in order to start grasping how to get noticed, whatever your industry might be.
Brand vs Business
Isn’t your brand the same thing as your business? It’s a concept most people get confused about and quite frankly this misconception is most natural. If you own a business, you know how every decision you make will reflect on its success or lack of it and your brand image doesn’t really differ from this line of thought that much, besides the fact that your brand goes far beyond your business.
When we talk about business we are usually referring to a transaction. What this means is that your business is fundamentally a monetary exchange of a product or service. But everything your business does reflects on your brand’s image.
Essentially your brand is the message behind your business, how you are perceived in the market and ultimately how you make people feel.
How to Build a Brand
Your brand’s message is one of the most important aspects of your strategy as this is what will make you stand out from your competition. Your values and your mission have to establish a connection with your audience. People crave human connection, it’s in our nature, and when it’s down to businesses there isn’t much of a difference. Visitors become customers when your brand’s message has made a connection with them.
Start asking yourself:
- What is your mission
- What are your values
- What is your message
Mission
Your mission is the reason behind why you started your business. Usually businesses start out of a passion, a vision or out of bare necessity – whatever the reason this should be clear to your visitors.
Values
Your values are what you stand by – your promise to your audience and how they can trust you. Notice how we are already starting to build a human connection with these simple steps.
Message
Your message sums up your mission and values together and can be summarized in a phrase.
Your brand is reflected upon your business visual identity, your social media presence, your voice, your customer service and your media presence. In an overly saturated market this is what can make you stand out and get noticed.
Community
Once this connection has been established you can start building your community. How you establish this connection will depend on how your message has been perceived and how your brand makes people feel. Your community is what will support your business and help it grow. The more focused and engaged your community is, the more they can help increase sales.
A marketing strategy cannot be complete without a brand audit where all media presence is analyzed and researched to help maintain your main goal. When we target the right people we can increase a brand’s awareness but a brand must be sure who their right audience is and how they can tap into that market.
Consumers long for lasting relations and one thing that this pandemic has shown us is that the most successful businesses have been the ones that are the most transparent, who listen to their customers and value their employees. This is what makes a brand stand out.
