Every business and every person has a brand whether they like it or not. The question is what is your brand identity and what does it say about you, your company and your organization? Your brand is the space or mental real estate your product occupies in the mind of your target market. What feelings, thoughts and images come to their mind when they think about your product? Is your mental real estate a relaxing and inviting country club or a rundown shack? We hope it’s the country club.
Here’s a list of questions to ask yourself to help determine your brand identity:
- What benefit do you offer that is better than what the competition offers? If you’re a gunmaker, are your firearms lighter, more accurate, smaller, more powerful, more luxurious or affordable than the competition? Figure out your core benefit and build that benefit into your customer’s mental real estate using targeted PR, advertising, packaging, logos and slogans.
- Is your brand trustworthy? It doesn’t matter if you sell the world’s best fishing lure if you are constantly mixing up the orders and sending your customer the wrong lure. Bad Yelp or Google reviews will let all your customer’s know that you aren’t to be trusted. People like brands they can trust like Toyota and Apple. Make sure that you are building trust and not breaking it.
- Are you creating a relationship with your customer? People don’t buy from nameless, cold, uncaring companies. People buy from warm, friendly people like them that they could kick back and grab a meal with. Do whatever you can to humanize your brand. Send thank you notes after purchases and make sure that if your customers call you they can get a hold of a real person on the phone. Talk to your customers and let them engage with you using social media and events.
- What is your brand’s voice? Is your brand smart, fun or both? Is it dependable and straight laced or carefree and hip? Your brand’s voice should be whatever your target market wants it to be. If your target market is 20-something millennials than you should opt for the fun and cool approach. However if your selling life insurance to baby boomers you better have a voice that’s dependable and levelheaded. Your brand’s voice will influence the tone you use when writing marketing copy, social media posts or press releases and the colors, packaging and logos you use for your products.
