Brand is a term many of us take for granted. It brings to mind images of highway billboards, logos and taglines. But, for an entrepreneur, a brand is everything. It is how you are perceived by your customer. Are you hip, cool, stuffy or old-fashioned?
Entering a new year is the perfect time to reassess your branding. Colors, words, pictures and posts all help to craft this complex, critical piece of your marketing. In some ways, branding is the sum of the parts that make up your marketing strategy.
Therefore, a strategy to reinvigorate your branding is going to require focused changes to a variety of things. The end really does justify the means. The end is your desired branding, and the means are all the pieces that need to be polished up and refocused.
If you’re fired up and ready to start making positive branding changes, here are the strategies you need to implement. And, as with virtually everything in business, the sooner the better.
1. Consider how your target market has grown and changed with time.
Another year wiser and stronger. This is true for both your business and your customers. The things they were worried about in 2016 are probably different from the things that matter in 2017. Sure, your value-propositions might be similar from year-to-year, but the way these VP’s are presented need to be adjusted.
For example, consider the story of Barbie’s evolution as a brand, which started in the 1959 Toy Fair. While Barbie has remained much the same doll underneath the clothes, the way she’s marketed is starting to change. In the beginning, the focus was on beauty and femininity. Today the focus is shifting to include the context of empowering girls to become strong, beautiful, independent women.
Before the shift towards empowering girls, Barbie sales were dipping. Since the branding refocus in 2015, sales have increased more than 20%. The underlying product, dating back to the 1950’s, is much the same, but the way it’s presented is now more compatible with modern culture.
2. Remove the barriers to the humans that breathe life into your company
Telecommuting is more popular than ever. Automated software (Software as a Service) is a booming market. Big Data is giving companies incredible insights into their market. But all of these things are replacing individuals with a serial number, a screenname or a market segment.
Customers crave human contact. Virtually everything is being automated. When your brand reaches through the digital jungle and connects on a human level, magical things can happen. Customer loyalty skyrockets. Customers feel like your product or solution speaks to them. And, most importantly, your brand becomes a living element that can evolve with your customer.
Mackenzie Fogelson contributed an excellent article to the MOZ blog in 2014. 4 Ways to Build Trust and Humanize Your Brand is an excellent read if you’re ready to start humanizing your brand for 2017.
3. Perspiration based inspiration.
Share your journey with the communities that can benefit from your product or service. Remember the suggestions above about humanizing your brand? You can make a huge leap towards this goal by sharing your success and lessons from failures. There’s a balancing act that will need to be perfected. You never want to come off as braggadocios. But, humbly sharing your journey will inspire others that are struggling through their own personal battles.
Mark Cuban and Robert Herjavec are masters at using their experiences to inspire others to keep fighting. They are prolific businessmen. But you can adopt some of the techniques they’ve used to become an influencer, even if you haven’t achieved the pinnacles of success that they have (YET!).
I call this strategy “perspirations based inspiration” because the things you share are based on the struggles you’ve overcome. The blog articles, Facebook posts and tweets that you use to communicate this should be based on PERSONAL ACTION, not THEORY.
By inspiring others with your personal stories, you can subtly communicate the values behind your brand. Let your personal brand boost your corporate brand. And, in turn, your corporate brand will further justify your personal brand. There’s a brand boosting cycle that can be tapped into for some incredible results in 2017!
