The Importance of Branding
When you think of a brand, what comes to mind? Apple, Google, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Intel, Orange? These brands have presence and strong brand values which means that they succeed in cutting through the noise and getting their message out to their audience.
Businesses invest a lot of time and money in getting a brand into the public domain, and creating that buzz can be difficult. Advertising (and a lot of it) is the best way for your brand to get out there, mixed with some great PR, sponsorship and of course great products or services. Big organisations such as McDonalds and Coca-Cola have huge budgets and advertise and sponsor everywhere and therefore have a big brand presence. However, money doesn’t have to be the only way to get your brand message out there. Doing something different and using a good Graphic Designer is a way to cut through the noise if you don’t have big budgets.
Getting someone to like your brand is the hard part; but once they do it is unlikely that they will ever leave your side. When you think of Apple, you think of innovation, forward thinking, great products, great technology and the company that will drive our future technological development, and yet no one remembers the debacle with the iPhone4 when people complained of bad signal or the battery life. That is the power of great brands, the good will always outweigh the bad.
Brands will also thrive when they have brand advocates, Apple has thousands, but even without having thousands as a small business, it is about finding that small group that LOVE your brand and rave about it. Tap into them and use them to your best advantage. Whether that be through social channels or through testimonials, case studies or simply word of worth – get them talking about your brand, reaffirming you as ‘the brand to go to’ in your sector, mix in your online branding with your offline branding and there is a winning formula to develop your business presence and build your brand.
The brands that do well seem to be those that never settle, that are constantly on the lookout for the next idea to develop and move their brand forward, getting brand advocates and always being forward thinking should set your brand in good stead.
