How to Build a Strong Brand Image to Attract Your Ideal Customers

When a brand introduces any product or service to the world, 9 out of 10 brands already has a bunch of competitors out there. And that’s how competition begins! A renowned and loved brand could be the most valuable asset for any organization or business. 

According to a Nielson survey, 59% of consumers prefer to buy new products from brands familiar to them.

Building a Brand is much more important than just building a business when it comes to branding.

In this post you’ll get to know how you can build a strong brand image to increases credibility of your business

Now, Let’s learn about Brand and Branding the Business

What Is Brand?

As the Founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos says:

Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.

American Marketing Author, Consultant and Professor Philip Kotler has said:

An image is a set of beliefs, ideas, and impression that a person holds regarding an object

In simple words, your brand can be defined by the perception of your business in people’s minds. YES, You read it right. It’s about your reputation. It’s all about how you are going to make your customer feel about your Business. 

In other words, 

YOUR BRAND IS YOUR HONOR!

Why Branding Of Your Business So Important?

As a business owner or entrepreneur, you might be trying your best and putting so much effort into creating the best service or products for the consumers. However, the quality of the product is not the one and only reason for a consumer to stick to your brand.

It’s about the balance between the Quality of the Product and the Image you are creating in the consumer’s mind (Branding). In many cases, it’s your brand image that is going to make them loyal to your brand forever.

Whatever your business is about or does, creates your identity which lives in people’s Minds and Hearts forever. Therefore, branding is one of the most crucial parts of the future of Business.

How your brand replicates is important for the organization. It tells the people your Name and Means.

Read more: How Can SEO Help You Build Your Brand in 2020?

How to Build a Strong Brand Image That Attracts People

Discover the Purpose Behind Your Brand

Your brand must have a powerful purpose behind its existence. It must define What are you? Why do you exist? What makes you different from others? What sort of problems are you going to solve? and how you are going to add values. 

All these ideas are going to be the foundation of your organization so you must be very clear and stick to them. 

Studies show that 50% of consumers worldwide say they now buy based on a company’s brand values and impact.

Initiate a Brand Positioning Statement

The brand positioning outlines what your company does, who you are, and how you are different from others. It is quite different from a tagline or mission statement. The idea behind creating a Brand Positioning Statement is to create a niche for your brand.

When done in a correct way, it could be the most powerful tool for branding business and an impression that lasts long. Let’s understand this with an example:

The Brand Positioning Statement of Nike is:

“For serious athletes, Nike gives confidence that provides the perfect shoe for every sport”.

Simon Sinek’s the Golden Circle

The three Golden Circle Principles are given by Simon Sinek where he defines the parts of branding i.e.

• What – the products or services you offer to your customers
• How – the things that differentiate you from the competition
• Why – the reason you are passionate and why you exist

Simon Sinek explains that we must take care about what sort of products and services we are going to offer to our customers.

Secondly, we must know what are the things which are going to make us stand out of the crowd and lastly, the reason why we are passionate about the work we are doing and what is the purpose of our existence.

This is what branding thought leader Simon Sinek thinks about business:

People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.

The goal is not to do business with everybody that needs what you have.

The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.

Know the Needs and Wants of Your Target Audience

It’s a universal fact that different people want different things, according to their taste. You cannot target the same way you do to all. When you know your audience is different than, your target approach must be different too.

Knowing your customers’ needs and wants is the center of any business. It will directly affect your business and sales.

You should have an understanding of the Needs and Wants of your audience and that’s how you create the brand your audience is going to love. Once you have this knowledge, you can use it to make a big brand your business.

Read More: Build Your Audience: Why It Is the Next Big Thing

Initiate Your Brand Mission and Vision Statements

Before you target your audience and build the brand your audience is going to love, you need to know the values and services your brand is going to provide. You must be very clear and cut about the reason why you are doing the work you are doing.  Let’s take an example of Nike;

Here is the Mission Statement of Nike where they clearly talk about their mission i.e. to create groundbreaking sports innovation.

This is a fine example of the Mission of a brand and they also elaborate how they are going to achieve the mission. (by making products more sustainably, by building a creative and diverse global team, by making a positive impact in communities)

Everything from your logo to your tagline, voice, message, and personality should reflect your mission and vision.

Outline the Products and Services That You Are Going to Offer

You must be focused on the qualities, benefits, and services that your company is going to offer and the things which are going to branding your business. 

You must give your customers reasons to choose you before others. We must think about how we are going to add value to our customers’ lives. 

Your Products and Service Section should include:

• A satisfactory description of the Products and Services you plan to offer. 
• A comparison of the Products or Services your competitors offer in relation to yours
• How you are going to price your Products and Services.
• A paragraph or so on how orders from your customers will be processed or fulfilled 
• Your upcoming Products and Services you plan to offer.

Form Your Own Unique Selling Proposition

Every organization has its own unique selling proposition, so do You. you must know your uniqueness and your Unique Selling Proposition as well. Your Unique Selling Proposition assures your UNIQUE POSITION in the market by making your Products and Services different from others.

If you assuredly want to stand out of the crowd, you’ll have to be distinctive, and that could be anything, whether your company’s mission or your audience or industry. 

While creating your USP, remember:

Why should customers choose you over your competitors?

What makes you different?

Let’s understand this with the help of an example: 

The brand HEAD & SHOULDER has one of the most famous and yet powerful Unique Selling Proposition – CLINICALLY PROVEN TO REDUCE DANDRUFF

The company defined their unique selling proposition so well that they used the words “Head” & “Shoulder” as ANTI- DANDRUFF and even named their product after that i.e. 

“Head & Shoulder”. 

Build Your Brand Story

When building a brand, one must create a story. One must have the art of storytelling. You must give reasons to your customers to choose you before others. 

Let’s take an example of MAGGI – a Nestle Product 

There was a commercial running on national TV, where the actors recited their life stories relevant to Maggi.

They also asked their consumers to write their own life stories if they have any memorable moments with Maggi Noodles and the company printed the story of consumers on the packet of Maggi. The pictures of the ads are shown above.

And that’s how this marketing strategy helped Nestle to boost their sales with a Bang!! The Ad went viral. People started talking around. The Ad became famous especially among the children and people came up with a large no. of stories. 

That’s the magic of Art of Storytelling.

A brand story is a tool to communicate to your audience and one must know how to do that. 

Design a Logo and Tagline for Your Brand

When you think about the word “Brand”, visuals probably come to your mind first. Yes, visuals are much more important than you think they are. 

It is the most important part of the Brand Building Process to create a logo and tagline for your company. The tagline is meant to provide consumers with an indication of your brand and its market position in just a few memorable words.

Let’s understand the concept with the help of an example of Mcdonald’ 

Mcdonalds’ uses the Tagline with its brand “i’m lovin’ it” and it actually helps them boost their sale why because “it” can be interpreted as referring to McDonald’s food, giving consumers the idea that they’d love to dig into a Big Mac and fries whenever they hear the phrase.

That’s how they made a relevant Tagline that helped them cover almost the whole market of Fast Food.  

The logo will be appearing everywhere and is going to reflect your business, so make sure your LOGO and TAGLINE must be relevant to all. 

Stay Committed and Consistent With Your Brand Building 

CONSISTENCY IS THE KEY, we all know that and the same thing goes with the business branding as well. You must be consistent and committed to your duties and roles. Whatever that we are doing to branding your business, you just need to be consistent.

Whether we are posting anything on social media or posting any content on a website, is it going to work if we are not consistent? In other words, we need to take Calculated Actions and Specific Steps to be consistent in the market. 

If you are not keeping your brand consistent, consumers can easily get confused. And confusion often leads to disinterest. 

Some of the most famous brands in America like; Apple, Coca-Cola, Disney have shaped the way consumers think. This isn’t just by accident or luck. It’s a result of their consistency along with Calculated Action.

Conclusion

Monitor your brand regularly to maintain its brand image. While building your brand image, sometime it becomes quite difficult to track your performance and know what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong.

However, you can use some tools to track key metrics such as; Google Analytics, Surveys, Comments on Social Media, Discussions, etc. This will give you an opportunity to optimize your brand image.