9 Tips to Help You Build a Strong Brand Strategy

You’ve launched your new business and are seeing some success. Now it’s time to take that next step and grow your brand! You may be thinking to yourself, “What the heck is branding?” Well, you’re not alone. A lot of people have asked themselves this question but never really knew what it meant or how they could implement a strategy in their own company. If this sounds like you – no worries! We’ll break down the basics so you can start developing a strong personal brand for your company right away with these 9 branding tips:

1. Developing Your Own Unique Style

This is so much more than just your logo. Your style can be seen in the way you talk to customers, how you answer certain questions about your product/service, and even the color scheme of your company website. Take some time out to really find what makes your brand stand out from others. How do you want to be perceived? What message are you trying to convey through your company style? These questions will help guide you in the right direction.

2. Differentiating Yourself

Do you know what sets your company apart from everyone else? Is it really just a different color or do other people have the same product/service as you but at a cheaper price point? If so, this means there is room for improvement. Find ways to increase value and provide more value than anyone else in your industry. This will help build trust with customers plus show them why they should stick with you instead of going somewhere else.

3. Give Your Customers A Reason To Buy

Now that you’ve set yourself apart from the competition, it’s time to give your customers a real reason to buy. Make sure they understand why this is the best option for them and be specific about how their lives will improve because of purchasing your product/service. Be very detailed in listing out all of these positive outcomes so they can envision themselves using what you’re selling with ease.

4. Understand Your Target Audience

Who are you trying to target? It doesn’t mean who do want as customers but rather exactly who would benefit most by buying into your company philosophy. Once again – if there are multiple people within one demographic group, find ways everyone benefits even more than before by choosing YOU instead of someone else. Think outside the box on this one and make your company stand out even more.

5. Be A Resource

People love to feel important and valued as a customer of any business, so why not embrace that concept? It’s okay if you don’t have all of the answers but just let them know you will find an answer for their concerns or questions ASAP. This shows you care about what they think plus it allows them some time to talk with others about buying into your product/service without feeling like they’re alone in this new adventure.

6. Don’t Get Stuck In The Details

Sure, branding is all about details but too many can leave people confused and uninterested. Don’t get stuck on perfecting every color choice or font type instead focus more on how these choices benefit your overall strategy. The details will fall into place once you work on the big picture and develop a plan that makes sense for everyone involved with your company.

7. Know When To Be Flexible

Being flexible doesn’t mean just changing things up because you’re not happy or something isn’t working as well as before, it’s about knowing when to make those changes based on what other companies are doing plus how best to adapt to current trends in branding strategies happening around you. It might be difficult at first but if this is really going help move everything forward, don’t think twice about making those decisions.

8. Work With Your Logo

This might seem like an obvious tip but many people overlook it all of the time without realizing why their branding efforts are falling short. Your logo is the first thing people will see on all of your products, marketing materials – including your website and social media accounts. Work with that design to make sure it ties into everything else you’re doing plus comes off as approachable instead of cheesy or too “in-your-face.” It’s okay if some designs don’t work out but be patient until you find something that truly matches what makes your company special.

9. Be Consistent With Everything You Do

Even though branding strategies should always change over time (to stay relevant with current trends) there are still certain things that remain constant throughout every move made by a business no matter how big or small those decisions might seem at times. Make sure whatever changes take place fits the big picture plan you’ve already created for your company plus it needs to be consistent with everything else that’s been done in the past.

John Lawson is one of the most trusted and experienced eCommerce professionals in the industry. John is the founder of The Ecommerce Group, which he started in 2011 to share his knowledge with other entrepreneurs in the industry. It’s the oldest eCommerce group on Facebook with over 8,500 members from around the world!

John speaks at conferences all around the world, including Retail Global, South by Southwest, Etail, Digital Summit, Hubspot Inbound, Ad-Tech and more. He also writes for several international publications such as Power Retail, Small Business Trends and Disrupt Magazine.