The most significant endeavor your company can do is branding. You may connect with current clients, attract new ones, and foster recognition and loyalty by developing a strong, identifiable brand. Successful branding, however, needs strategic planning and a creative approach, just like any other commercial endeavor. Here are a few strategies to improve your brand image.
Customer Experience
Customers are becoming more discerning. While most companies believe they offer outstanding customer experiences, only about 10% of consumers agree. Good customer experiences result in higher brand loyalty and customer retention, and 52 percent of customers say they go out of their way to buy local brands. However, the best customer experiences don’t just happen when the customer walks into a store. The customer experience is every interaction between the brand and the customer.
To create a good customer experience strategy, a brand must first define a guiding principle and a clear customer-focused vision. The ultimate goal of a customer-focused brand experience is to create a positive experience for most of the target audience.
Public Relations
To succeed in public relations, a company must determine its target audience and how it can reach them. Without an established target audience, there will be no public relations strategy that works for the company. Create a brand persona and identify the core messaging of the company. This persona should appeal to customers and reflect the company’s overall image. It should be relevant, fresh, and aligned with the public relations strategy.
In addition, a strong public relations strategy is based on research. Doing this will help public relations managers be strategic and deliver the correct message. Competitors who do not know your products can copy the strategy and capitalize on the publicity. Hence, public relations will help you find that place in the market.
Social Media
In the early days of the digital age, the belief was that companies could draw an engaged audience by creating Hollywood-level creativity. This belief gave rise to the craze of branded content. Unfortunately, these champions didn’t realize that the crowd was now their competition. In the past, cultural innovation flowed out of society’s margins, and companies and mass media acted as intermediaries between the public and creative content. The rise of social media changed all that.
Significantly, Howard Mittman, President of 888 Holdings U.S, reiterated that businesses should follow specific brand guidelines to use social media to improve brand image. These guidelines should clearly define how to represent the brand on social media, including the language, design visual elements, and what content is acceptable to share with third parties. Following brand guidelines ensure that everyone using social media represents the brand in the same way, helping to build brand familiarity and brand confidence among users.
Awards
One way to boost your brand’s reputation is by winning business awards. Whether you’re a new business or an established brand, winning business awards is an excellent way to make a positive impression on your clients, employees, and customers. As a result, business awards are becoming more critical, as customers seek information on the legitimacy of companies and their products and services. In addition, an award logo shows third-party endorsement of a company’s excellence and can be used as proof during pitches to win new business.