Though it may be intangible, your brand is one of the most valuable assets you have. It’s the summary of the way your target market thinks about you and your products or services, and will be an overarching, influential factor to all of your marketing efforts. Almost every brand has room for improvement, so here are a few things you could be doing to add value to your brand.
Emphasise your Areas of Expertise
There are a lot of businesses that manage to turn an admirable profit and grow at a healthy rate, despite not having anything that’s special or disruptive about them. If you really want to inject some value into your brand that will carry its marketing forward, you need to be emphasising the value you can provide to customers in all of your marketing materials. Every business model has something valuable to offer. For example, professional office removalists have specialised expertise in getting furniture and equipment between different commercial spaces. Whatever it is you can offer to your target market that makes it worth the money, this should be a defining point in every little bit of branding work you publish from here on.
Become a Thought Leader
Content marketing, as you’re no doubt aware, is one of the most effective methods businesses can use to communicate what the brand is all about, and boost value in the process. If you can publish content that can set you aside as a thought leader, it will make it more attractive to your customers, and even turn some of them into brand advocates. Making sure your content adds value to your brand is all about providing quality and value to your audience. You can accomplish this through detailed buyer personas: semi-fictional concepts of your ideal customers, including details about their interests, hopes, fears and so on. Weaving buyer stories into your content is also a very smart move, as it makes it more relatable to your target market, and presents your brand as one that genuinely cares about the people who buy from them. Finally, try to keep the language accessible and simple. Unless you’re running a B2B business, all that jargon you use in the boardroom isn’t really appropriate for customer-facing content.
Bump Up Your Standards of Design
The various pieces of graphic design that go into your brand is visual communication. In today’s world, visual content is often seen by the average consumer as much more interesting and valuable than anything text-based. The way you use colours, shapes and layouts on everything from your website to your email letterheads needs to be well thought-out and attractive to the kind of customers you’re fishing for. Remember that graphic design trends are constantly changing, and what seems attractive and professional today may not be next week. This is something you’ll need to be on top of, especially as a small, fledgling business. Think of all your visual materials as the packaging you wrap your business in. Like a product, this packaging can easily make or break a customer’s decision.