(Newswire.net — April 30, 2019) — Your business stands for something, and you work hard to keep it that way. You’re dedicated to delivering quality products or services to customers and clients, and your employees and resources help you accomplish that. It would be nice if customers could know instinctively that your business is superior, but the reality is that succeeding in business requires more than just quality work. To attract and retain customers, you have to connect your quality to a brand.
Like it or not, customers and clients don’t always make rational decisions. They don’t always remember every detail of their experience. They require a type of shorthand, which is why branding is so powerful. Let’s learn more about branding and how to put it to use for your business.
This is your brain on brands
Customers want the best deal and the best products or services. But they don’t always seek these things out in a perfectly rational way. A good brand can remind a customer of what they like about a business. Sometimes, a good brand could even persuade a customer to pay more for the same product, or even choose an inferior one.
All human beings have certain needs. Some are basic, but others are less obvious. A great brand will address human needs, making customers feel comfortable and perhaps more: For instance, a brand can make consumers feel that they are making an ethical decision, or a cool and rebellious one, or a safe and surefire one.
Defining your brand
Brands aren’t about lying to customers, of course. Rather, the idea is to put your commitment to quality into a brand that customers can identify quickly. Building your brand means investing in basics such as logos and wordmarks. Perhaps you’ll hire someone to pen a radio jingle or a slogan. And then you’ll market your company in a unified, brand-forward way.
This means investing in marketing services, but that’s not all — your brand can also become a part of your customers’ product or service experience. For instance, you could emboss your logo on the folders that you use to present client materials, the experts at custom printing company Mines Press explain. You could put your logo on product packaging and use the same fonts across all of your signs, custom folders, and product labels. In this way, it becomes easier and easier for your customers and clients to identify your brand as synonymous with your business.
Again, your brand isn’t just a collection of fonts, colors, and logos. For all of that visual shorthand, the goal is to mean something to your customers — and to mean the right something to your customers. You and your business need to keep delivering the quality services and products that you’re so committed to. Your brand will give consumers an easy way to remember you and associate all of your actions with you, but that can be a bad thing instead of a good thing if you’re not careful. It is as easy to tarnish a brand as it is to build one — in fact, it’s a lot easier!
Branding and your business
In short, branding is a way to stick in customers’ minds and keep them coming back — but it’s not cheating. You can think of branding as a bank account; your hard work will be stored more safely there, but you still need to earn everything that goes into it. That’s why small businesses like yours, where quality is paramount, should consider investing more in branding. A unified brand identity on everything from your signs to custom presentation folders will ensure that you are better rewarded for the quality and commitment that set your business apart.