There are any number of books on branding and it can’t be understated how important your company’s brand is to the long term success of your organization.
While no list of ways that you can build a better business brand will ever be complete, here are 12 keys that you can use pretty consistently if you ever get into a spot where you are trying to shape or reshape your brand.
1. Focus:
Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve seen a brand or company try to do too much? Think about how Apple used to try to do everything back in the 90s or how BMW has started to try and stick their noses into everything. That’s not for you.
Your brand will do its best work for your company when it is tight and focused.
2. Publicity:
You really build your brand with publicity. So embrace those media and publicity opportunities.
3. Advertising:
Advertising has a role to play, especially in sustaining a brand and raising awareness of one time events. But be careful if you attempt to use advertising to try and build your brand. It is expensive and usually unsuccessful.
4. Be Known For Something:
You need to stand out in the market. So you need to be known for something specific.
5. Authenticity:
I know the word authenticity is thrown around a lot lately, but your brand really needs to be authentic. If people don’t have faith in who you are and what you do, you will fail.
6. Quality is Job 1?:
Quality alone isn’t going to be the key to your brand. You need to combine quality with focus and price and maybe some other things like service. But quality alone will not make your brand succeed.
7. Names:
The name of your brand is something you need to live with, but it is nothing more than a name. Some of the greatest brands have been named after their founders or are based off of something nonsensical.
8. Consistency:
Everything about branding, marketing, strategy, and sales is built on one simple idea: consistency. So don’t set out on a mission until you commit to doing it consistently.
9. A singular idea:
Ultimately your brand is a singular idea that holds a position in the mind of your prospects and clients.
10. Letting go:
One of the keys to a successful branding strategy is that at some point the brand gets stale and you will need to retire it. The key is to know when.
11. Knowing when to change:
Just like letting go, you have to know when to change your brand. And, when and how you change is essential to the new branding’s success.
12. Saying good bye:
I don’t know where the saying came from, but in the long run we are all dead and that applies to brands too. In the long run, you or someone after you may have to destroy the brand so that the business can live on. The timing of that is tough and doesn’t come very often.