Owners that brand their companies tend to enjoy more success. Have you branded your company? Do you need to go back to the beginning and start over?
We hear about branding a lot, but what does it really mean? A brand is what your business stands for and what your customers come to know you by. Branding is a valuable tool for your company.
So, my question is, whose brand do you promote? That’s right, do you promote your own brand or someone else’s brand? If you want to grow your business, you will want to promote your own brand. Why would you spend time and money promoting a manufacturer‘s brand? If a relationship goes sour—and you switch to another manufacturer’s products—you will lose the recognition that you built promoting someone else’s product.
The first question to be asked is: How do you build a brand? A brand has several components, and you must start with your strengths. What are you good at doing and what is the most profitable for you. Hopefully, both of these will be the same. If not, you are going to need to focus on what generates the most amount of profit and then you can grow the other areas over time.
You then need to look at the reason you started your business and then ask yourself, “Why do people buy from us?” Customers buy from your business because of a number of factors including quality, reputation, and uniqueness they can’t find from another source.
Think about the image you want to portray. In other words, what do you want customers to think about when they hear your name? This is something to keep in mind when you design your brand collateral, including logos, signage, wraps, business cards, brochures, tag lines, slogans and websites. They should all be uniform, and they should all project professionalism in everything you do.
How do you want customers to describe your business when talking to friends, family, or on the internet? You can test this by asking your team to describe your company in two or three words. Are you friendly, efficient, experts, leaders, the go-to company for whatever you do? Write them down and see if these are the terms that you would want your customers to use when they describe your company. If they are, then incorporate them into your marketing creative and branding. If they aren’t the words that you want to hear, then you may have to start by changing the internal image of the company so it fits with your vision.
What do customers see in your people or see in your trucks as they roll down the road? Do they project the image that you want your customers to see? Are they clean and undamaged? Do you use a consistent color pallet that runs throughout your company, your website, and your marketing materials? Consistency is the key to building a great long-lasting brand. You will grow tired of your visual imagery long before your customers grow tired of looking at it.
Please remember with any branding effort, nothing happens immediately. The branding focus is long-term and it builds year by year. Start with a solid well thought out foundation and build on it. Consistency is what will drive success when it comes to marketing and branding.