For an established company, your brand is often the most valuable asset you have. Therefore, it should logically take time to strengthen your brand to be at the top of your priority list. As a top web development company, we have developed an approach that we share with all our customers and today we share our 10 step brand development strategy for your professional service business with you.
Why is your brand important ?
Your brand and brand image are so much more than a logo and color scheme. Many owners consider their brand second, as something that is necessary for a business, but not so important because it does not add value to their products or services. That cannot be wrong anymore.
Your brand is a representation of your company. Customers not only buy a product or service, they also buy what your brand stands for and stands for.
It makes an impression – Making a good first impression is important in both personal and business environments. That first impression is formed in seconds and for your business it reflects superficial impressions such as a good looking logo or slogan. When business cards were a standard, you could tell a lot about someone based on the effort put into a business card, such as using a matte finish, reflective logos, or a tactile element compared to a generic card. Your branding makes that first impression with customers across all channels.
It ensures recognition – A great brand is instantly recognizable. Consider the biggest brands on the world stage that you recognize by looking at their logos, such as the Nike Swoosh or the red shade Coca-Cola uses for labeling. By steadily paying attention to your brand and creating a consistent brand image, your company can also develop into an easily recognizable one.
It Demonstrates Credibility – Continuously working on your brand and creating a stable brand image that reflects your values will make your business more credible. People know what to expect from your company and what they will get out of it if they have a relationship with it.
10-step strategy for brand development
Review your business strategy – Your brand concept should fit within the framework of your existing business plan. You use your brand to help your business grow and achieve your plan goals. The two plans need to work together, so it’s important to rethink the business strategy before creating the brand development strategy. This is the most important aspect of creating a brand development strategy.
Limit the demographic of your target audience – Far too many customers have a very wide target group, some even go so far as to mention “everyone” as a potential customer. As beautiful as it may be, it is highly unrealistic and often prevents a company from reaching its potential. The larger the target audience you have, the more your marketing efforts will be weakened. This leads to lower conversion rates and ROI while a more limited focus results in better marketing results, increased ROI, faster growth and ultimately higher profits.
Research Your Audience’s Demographic Target Group – Once you’ve narrowed down your target audience, it’s time to learn everything you can know about them. You have to jump in their shoes and fully understand their priorities, problems and perspective. By doing this, you can better anticipate their wants and needs, creating targeted messages that resonate. In addition, research will help you discover how your company and brand are perceived, including strengths and weaknesses. Researching your demographic audience is a practice that should be done regularly for higher levels of growth and profitability.
Make a Brand Statement – The brand statement can be difficult to make because many companies try to do too many things at once. That’s one of the reasons it’s such a crucial step in the process, because you need to have a limited focus to achieve success. Your brand statement consists of 3-5 sentences and describes your brand in terms of how your company is different from the competition and why potential customers in your target audience would like to use your goods or services to meet their needs. It is important that the statement is something your company must continuously work to achieve.
Create a name, logo, and slogan – If your business already exists, your current name is probably the name you should use. However, if you are stuck with one name that may not fit the direction of the company, a change may be in order. In both cases, a new logo and a new slogan must be created to match the new direction of this strategy. An important note; your logo and slogan are just symbols of your brand. They are a way of communicating with your audience (and potential audience) and like such should be designed based on what will resonate with your target audience. Make sure not to overdo a logo. In many cases, it should be simple or elegant target. Finally, make sure to trademark your brand! All that hard work needs to be protected.
Research the competition – It is important to know what your competitors are doing. This is doubly important when creating a brand development strategy. A lot of like audience research, there should be regular competition research to see what they do that works, what doesn’t work, how you can be unique in your products or services, and what you should focus on to stay ahead of them.
Create a messaging strategy – Consistency is a must, especially in a multi-platform environment. The best way to do this is to enable a clear messaging strategy your brand statement in messages that will reach your target audiences. Every group should get the same message regardless of their relationship with you business (customers, partners, influences or potential employees) only with a different emphasis and focus.
Create a content marketing strategy – Take the time to develop a strategy around your brand. A goal in content marketing should be to improve the brand by increasing your reputation and reach. This is done with quality content that reflects your brand values and goals. Help build your brand by being useful and an authority in your niche for your customers.
Create a website – Your website is the most important tool for developing your brand. It is the new calling card and often the location where the first impressions arise are made. People come to this place to meet their needs. Potential customers will decide whether or not to do business with you based solely on your website. It is critical that you have a site built that conveys your brand message and meets the needs of your customers.
Apply the strategy – You would think that anyone who hit the road to create a brand development strategy would automatically apply it no matter how many times that does not happen. People are busy with tasks that need immediate attention when building your brand is something that can be done “later”. But if you want grow your brand and so it must be applied, checked and adjusted.
It comes down to
The bottom line is that a brand development strategy is just as important to a business as your business plan. You simply cannot grow a business effectively without it focus more on branding because the world is so busy that attention has become exponentially harder. Our 10-step strategy for brand development for your Professional Services Firm can help you grow and grow.
