Why Branding Matters.
What do you think of when you hear the word “brand”?
Do you think of your favorite local restaurant? Or perhaps the logo from your morning coffee cup? Many of us encounter dozens of brands throughout the course of our day, and how we feel about those brands impact our buying decisions. Branding impacts both large and small businesses, and positioning your own brand will help elevate your business amongst your competition.
What’s the difference between a small mom-and-pop shop and a big nationwide icon that everyone recognizes? A brand is much more than just a logo. Branding helps define your business model and the quality of the product or service you provide your customers. It’s the piece that gives your employees direction and motivation and gets new customers or clients through the door.
Just like other types of intellectual property, you want to protect your trademark that represents your brand but the value it brings to your business can be confusing to determine. What does a brand really do for a company?
Your Brand Builds a Foundation of Trust
Trusting someone to provide a quality service or the best possible product is significant when it comes to the weight a company’s reputation carries. Building trust can come in many forms - from a money-back guarantee to a bumper-to-bumper warranty or being known for their 5-star, world-class customer service—trust is very important to consumers.
Another area to look at when building trust is the “care” factor. According to the Edelman Brand Trust report, doing right by society can also boost sales, which means how you treat your customers and staff means something. While 47 percent of consumers are able to trust a brand for its products alone, 55 percent report trusting a brand when it offers both a valuable product and treats its customers well.
This is a huge trend we are seeing right now with how different companies are handling the COVID-19 pandemic. Have you walked into any stores recently where you haven’t felt completely satisfied with how they are managing the entrances or whether they are requiring masks to ensure the safety of their customers and employees? Did you leave this store feeling like you might not be back?
There are certainly swings occurring for different big-name brands right now due to trust and it is something you should consider if you’re working on establishing your brand. Take care of your team and they will take care of your brand.
Your Brand Inspires Your Employees to Follow a Path to Excellence
A brand gives your employees a purpose. It makes them feel like part of a team and pushes them to perform better tomorrow than they did today. Even setting strong values, and offering them the best training and other incentives can push your brand to a new level and maybe even get you thinking franchise!
Would you be surprised to hear that incentives and recognition are two of the best ways to motivate your employees? But don’t take our word for it… find out what motivates your staff and do those things more often for them and make it part of your business model to increase the benefits for your top performers.
Your Brand Drives Customer Growth
Building trust in your customers and staff is only the beginning. Put your name on a product and lay your reputation on the line. What would you want that product to say? How would you want people to feel when they were finished using it? Did it exceed their expectations? Would they want to use it again? Would they refer you to someone else? These are things you should think about when establishing a brand.
Many successful brands are designed to help push the customer experience to a new level. Their business model has been tried, tested, and refined for years. They not only have their employees backing the brand but people are providing the world with instantaneous feedback on how the product helped them meet a need.
Every company needs a brand. It’s like a cheerleader on the sideline of the big game. It’s there to build trust with you customers and employees. It will act as your marketing and sales teams and provide overall visibility for your company by standing out from your competition that didn’t think they needed to focus any time on creating a brand.
Stockwell & Smedley provides legal advice to clients in all aspects of intellectual property (IP) and related business matters. With our complete coverage, you will never have to worry about your legal representation; we will always be by your side.
If you need an IP lawyer, please contact us today. Our attorneys have the experience you need to feel comfortable that your ideas are in good hands.
This is an advertisement.