Are You Giving Your Brand the Attention it Needs to Thrive?

Though visual elements are essential to your brand, they are among several factors, including intangibles, that can help shape your company's reputation.

The ultimate goal is to build a brand that strikes the "right" emotional and psychological associations with your company, product, or service.

Everything from creating a logo to obtaining feedback from clients and staff members to establishing your voice is part of building a brand, says Allie Decker in a blog for Foundr. 

It's a broad procedure that yields a focused result: your brand, Decker adds.

A business's brand is defined as the total of all the feelings, thoughts, images, history, potential, and rumors that exist in the marketplace about a given company, according to Luke Sullivan, author of Hey Whipple, Squeeze This, in the post.

Are you giving your brand enough attention? It may seem like big-company marketing, but experts say small businesses also need to pay attention to branding if they want to grow a loyal customer base.

"Putting in the time and resources to develop your brand is crucial to your long-term success,” says a blog by Belle Wong in Small Biz Ahead, a site published by The Hartford.

Let Your Brand Drive

There are differences between branding and marketing, explains Wong in the Small Biz Ahead blog.

She says that where branding is about the long-term, marketing is more about achieving tactical goals through short-term objectives, such as sales and revenue growth, new customer acquisition, and expanded market dominance.

"But despite the differences, a successful brand marketing strategy understands the interplay between the two concepts," Wong writes.

Let branding guide or "drive" your marketing plan, she says. Wong adds that marketing promotes your business, products and services by building and leveraging the power of your brand's power.

Be Consistent

Everything from your messaging to your graphic must be consistent across channels for branding to be successful.

"Keeping a consistent brand image helps customers position you as a business, and makes it easier for them to remember you or associate with your brand," writes Maryam Mohsin in the Oberlo blog.

She cites research from web-based publishing app Lucidpress that indicates consistent brand presentation could increase revenues by 33 percent.

Choose Authenticity

Customers favor doing business with companies that are open about their identities. They value truthfulness.

In a survey by Stackla, 88 percent of consumers say authenticity is important to them when deciding what brands they like and support, 

Consumers expect companies to be truthful, according to Mohsin, head of media and communications for Bond, a network of international development organizations based in the UK.

It is therefore not unexpected that customers want authenticity in the way businesses present themselves and conduct their operations, he says.

Do a website check-up and look at other content you're producing to be sure it reflects who you are. Are you painting an accurate picture of what your business is all about?

By being honest and upfront in their branding and message, as well as by adhering to their core beliefs, brands can start acting more authentically, writes Mohsin.

Then, he adds, they will be able to establish enduring relationships with their clients and potential clients in this way.