6 Steps To Build A Bulletproof Brand
We have an Advisor – for the sake of this blog post we’ll just call him ‘N’. ‘N’ is a lethal weapon when it comes to selling over the phone. It’s not just that he’s got the gift of the gab, more than that, whenever ‘N’ speaks to someone, he makes them feel as if they’re the most important person he’s spoken to ALL day and treats them as his number one priority. This is no mean feat, particularly since ‘N’ is on the phone up to 8 hours a day, making call after call to prospects, to discuss business opportunities.
Now I’m fully aware that ‘N’ is awesome at his job, but recently the way ‘N’ represents our brand was brought to my attention by one of our newer employees, who told me the story of her first phone call to our business, which involved an enquiry about the job advertisement we’d placed – ‘N’ had answered the phone. She told me, “I just thought ‘wow!’, what a nice guy. He was so helpful and really went the extra mile for me. I got off the phone with an impression in my mind that your business must be a pretty amazing place to work.”
You see, ‘N’ always takes it upon himself to be a brand ambassador for our business and give incoming callers an extraordinary experience. If your brand doesn’t excite or involve the market, you’ll never have much hope of attracting the right kind of recruits to be part of your working family. On the other hand, if your business is seen as an innovative and interesting place to work, you’ll have top personnel climbing over each other to be part of what you do.
Obviously not all of us can be so lucky to have every incoming call answered by the ‘N’s’ of the world. So what else can you do to build an inspirational brand? – and not just for the purpose of attracting the right people to your organization, but also to push your target markets’ buttons and inspire your customers to purchase from you again and again.
6 Steps For A Powerful Brand
1. Conduct a brand audit
Articulate all brand touch points and what occurs at each one. Make an assessment of what your brand is communicating at each of these touch points. Identify areas that need to be addressed.
2. Understand your target audience
The first step in the process is to truly understand your target market. Get a in-depth feel for who they are, why they buy, what their buying triggers are and what’s important to them when buying products or services like yours.
By understanding your customers you’ll be able to:
- Ensure your product appeals to these buying motives – including all features and packaging,
- Ensure your company and physical premises appeal to these buying needs/triggers,
- Ensure your sales process addresses your customers’ buying motives and triggers,
- Ensure marketing material portrays a positive image, and
- Ensure brand and customer service experiences are in line with customer expectations.
3. Understand your competition
Before you can articulate your own brand you need to be able to understand where you are currently positioned in the marketplace. So – how do you compare with the competition? Do a mystery shopper exercise and find out. See how you compare on positioning, price, quality, service, flexibility, convenience, capacity, and more.
4. Articulate your brand essence
Brand essence communicates the heart and soul of your brand. It’s a short, crisp statement that communicates your uniqueness. It’s also known as a “brand mantra” or, in combination with your brand promise, is also known as a “Unique Selling Proposition” (USP).
5. Develop your brand identity
Do this by rendering the physical and visible elements that shape your brand. In other words, design the logo, redecorate your office, train your team, and so on to be commensurate with your brand identity.
6. Create brand awareness
Feature your intention, vision and mission prominently inside your premises and on your website so customers can instantly find out more about the essence of your company.
These tips are great starting points to get your brand building underway, but remember, your brand is something that you should work on over time – bulletproof brands aren’t made overnight, but from months and years of nurturing, continual research and savvy marketing. When you have an irresistible brand at the end of it however, the resulting market share will have been well worth the effort.
