The Value of Good Branding
Strong branding makes you stand out from the competition and makes you noticeable in an already saturated industry.
We often get asked by prospects, why do we need branding? We are an SME and not corporate, do we really need to invest in branding?
The answer is a resounding YES.
Without a comprehensive and workable brand strategy and identity, your organisation is unlikely to be noticed, recognised, or remembered by your audience. So it is a vital asset to elevate your business regardless of your, size, scale or offer.
In this blog, we share 7 ways how good branding will deliver value for your business in the long run. But let’s dive into what Branding is, what’s involved and what the process can look like.
What is Branding?
Branding is the creative process of defining what your organisation is all about. The process typically includes creating a Brand Strategy and a Brand Identity.
Creating a Brand Identity involves shaping and managing the image of your brand in the minds of your audience. A Brand Identity can incorporate a number of creative elements such as logos, identity design, storytelling, tone of voice, colours, fonts, website look and feel, key messaging, and so on. Effective branding helps you identify and create your company’s image.
“A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.”
- American Marketing Association
A Brand Strategy involves deciding on what your brand stands for, what your purpose is, your mission, vision and values and how you intend to deliver your promise to your clients. Once you have narrowed down these details, your branding will guide your organisation’s decision-making process. With a brand strategy in hand, you can confidently position yourself in your industry and explain to stakeholders and clients alike what makes your brand unique.
The Branding process
Your brand is how the world perceives you - it is your company’s reputation. It is what people say about you when you are not in the room. The process of creating your brand image is a process of forming positive associations with your brand in your clients’ minds. Companies that work on their brand strategy and brand identity will see a boost in their brand image.
Branding is a continuous process. Your organisation and products/services are continually evolving. Updating your brand through effective branding helps your organisation in the long term and will deliver long-lasting results.
The value of good branding for your business
1. Branding connects you to like-minded clients
Effective branding helps you clearly identify your niche in the market and communicate this with clarity to your clients. It helps you convey where your expertise lies and why clients should choose you over others in the industry. It showcases your mission, vision and values which help you attract like-minded clients with similar brand alignment.
2. Branding brings consistency
Branding involves establishing a brand identity. Once you have established what your business stands for, what makes you unique, and what your position in the market is, you can spread the word across your channels. Branding ensures that your client experience is consistent across all your platforms. It ensures that you methodically convey the same message every time by clearly defining what your brand message is. It ensures that your brand image remains consistent on all platforms through a unique visual presentation, language, and tone of voice.
3. Branding makes you recognisable
Branding helps you distinguish yourself from competitors. In the process, it helps make your brand easily recognisable. When you convey your brand identity in a unique way and with a memorable story, clients can connect your brand name with your brand identity instantly.
4. Branding encourages loyalty
If you successfully create your brand identity to make a good impression on clients’ minds, this will encourage loyalty. With an effective branding strategy, you can appeal to the emotions of your audience in order to encourage clients and potential clients to choose your products and services over those offered by competitors. The aim of branding isn’t only to attract new clients but to keep your current ones engaged. A powerful branding imprints an image of your company in your clients’ minds, which in return builds up a lasting relationship with your clients and advocates
5. Branding is an asset
Branding can transform how people perceive your business and drive sales. Your brand image is how people perceive you. A fine-tuned branding strategy helps you generate future business by making a good impression on your target audience. It adds value to your company by presenting you as an appealing brand to invest in and by helping you communicate effectively with clients. Just as branding creates new business opportunities, it can also help clarify your brand’s expertise and goals to current clients, and subsequently retain them.
6. Branding builds trust
Strong branding instils a sense of familiarity and trust in clients. When a business is able to clearly define who they are and communicate this through visual identity (such as their logo, their colours, their visual elements) and published content, clients feel a sense of familiarity with the brand. Through your brand identity, clients can get an idea of what they should expect from your business.
A good branding strategy tells your current and prospective clients a story (with cohesive textual, tonal, and visual elements) that foregrounds your reliability, your track record of delivering projects, and your ability to collaborate. Your brand should convey positive connotations, and above all trust, to your leads and contacts.
7. Branding improves employee satisfaction
Employees will feel motivated when they understand the aims and goals they are contributing towards. Those who work in your organisation will feel a sense of pride and will remain loyal to you if they feel they are working for a respectable organisation. Working with a reputable brand is enjoyable and fulfilling. Effective branding helps shape a positive image of your company in the eyes of employees which boosts employee satisfaction, boosting your talent retention and talent acquisition strategies.
In conclusion
Strong branding is vital if you want your brand to be recognisable, memorable, and reputable. You need branding to drive new business and express to potential clients what they can expect from your company. Branding also helps with retaining your current clients externally and your workforce internally.
In short, there is immense value for your business so go forth and invest in your branding!
Need help telling your story?
Get in touch - we’d love to offer you tailored branding and marketing support to grow and elevate your brand through the power of storytelling.
Concept Culture has a wide experience of creating, developing, and delivering branding, content, marketing, and web design services to a variety of clients, including architects, developers, placemakers and sustainability consultants.