We have all been told that branding is something we must have! But do you actually know why it’s so important? Because I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable investing large sums of money into my business if it wasn’t going to provide with a great ROI. If you know you should have a brand but unsure how it can actually influence your sales…it’s time to leave the how to’s and let us discuss exactly how a brand can effectively increase sales and your conversion rates. Knowing how branding can actually work for you will help you make a better informed decisions with your brand building process. Whether that’s DIYing it to the best of your abilities and budget. Or if you’ve go the funds and ready to make the investment to hire a brand professional. Either way if you’ve given your branding very little thought you’ll realise the importance to change that today!
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What Is Branding ?
We all know brands should have a logo, colour palette, and fonts etc. However, a brand is much more than these visual cues, that I enjoy designing. Your brand should have a personality an intentionally crafted essence of a more simplified human. Your brand should stand for specific values just how a people would in life. All these elements makes it easier for your people to understand, identify with your business and feel a great emotional connection. Specially if your brand and customers values are fairly similar to their own in life they will have strong pull towards your business.
Why Is It Still Important Today?
Branding today is still a vital part for both large and small businesses. Arguably could be considered as more important now that ever. With the rise of easy built website platforms and social media anyone can start there own business fairly easily! When Nasty Gal was just building her clothing empire, she had to hire a website developer to build her website, whilst she was probably reading business for dummies books. Where as today we can pretty much learn anything from internet. Social media definitely has been the catalysis of this need to have a brand, we are exposed to new brand on the daily now! Great for consumers but for business rather difficult we are constantly competing with more on the daily!
Why we brand
If you asked 100 different small business owners why they branded their business you’ll probably receive 100 different responses. For example people may say,
Just because you have to have a brand
I needed a logo some more specific
I want to attract my ideal clients
I want to stand out etc.
And essentially they’re not wrong, but I think one of the core reason to brand your business is just so you can gain some amount of control around how you want your people to perceive and judge your business. It’s less about a specific element like a logo, but more about knowing how you want to present yourself and how you would like others to see. The other core reason is because having a brand will help increase your sales, let get into the hows and whys now!
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Branding Helps Awareness
To gain more sales it’s fair to say that you will obviously need to gain a lot of eyes on your business, you’ll need to grab peoples attention and they need to have awareness that you actually exist, right? You must have people to know about you before you can even think about converting them into buying customers.
Marketing really does set the ball rolling here, but your brand is what your people will keep coming back for. Your marketing efforts can be heighten by making sure you are present your brand cohesive throughout your ads, post and campaigns. Therefore you it’s fair to say your brand is a vital element within your business when generating sales and leads.
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Branding Gets You Noticed
Branding not only enhances your marketing efforts by giving it a more of a punch, it can also be the reason you get seen! Branding has helped business owners time and time again getting noticed by being different, not just through looks but through there brands personality and ethos, usually presented through values and mission and or purpose! Differentiation is key specially as us small business are now sitting in a rather over crowded and saturated marketing place. Why do us brand designers always say don’t copies someone else’s brand. Well because you’re branding should take on the likes of a wallflower. Your brand is a time for you to carve out a new space for your business within your industry landscape. A we already mention getting noticed is key to converting them. Therefore by having brand you can differentiate yourself from others, allowing you to increases the likely hood of being noticed.
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Branding Increase Memorability
Being noticed is one thing, being remembered is much different. Once a person knows your brand, we of course want them to remember us. Therefore, when a problem does arise that your product and service solves we of course want them to come back to you. This is why being consistent and having a cohesive brand is incredibly important to build that memorability with your people. We don’t have long to make an impression, but even felting positive brand moments can have a last impression on your ideal people.
Reinforcing your brand perception is essential, if your brand looks rather flaky like Phoebe from friends or disjointed therefore each post looks like a different brands, it’s unlikely your brand will stick in your ideal people’s minds. When a brand has been intentionally crafted with distinctive visuals and consistency, branding can actually help you stick and stay in the minds of your people for much longer! So much so that they can instantly recognise a post from your brand with a brief glance.
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Branding Helps Mould Perceptions
To gain more sales first of your people need to know you exist therefore they have to notice you, then to keep them coming back remember you. But also they also need to have a positive perception of your brand, the people that have interacted with your brand will have had experiences with you, a feeling and thoughts about your product and or service. So what branding can do for you is to mould this perception, we must however remember that it’s what people believe a brand represents, rather than what you say it represents. Perception is important because this can indicate whether or not they will become loyal customers and recommend you. This is whether you brands touch points need to be thought about strategically so your people have good thoughts and feelings about you. Remember branding can’t have complete control of your peoples perceptions of you but it can most definitely help mould it in a direction you wish to be seen in.
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Branding Help You Build Trust
Once your people do have a good perception of you the last hurdle is building trust. Your people must trust you before they will purchase a product or service. I’m sure you all have ordered off amazon that’s because they are an established trusted business etc. So for small businesses we must work a little harder here because we won’t be on the same scale as Amazon being intentional established with thousands of sales transactions a day. This trust is need to convert your people to by and you can do this through having a cohesive and consistent brand look and visuals and personality across all platforms, upholding your values. And building relationships with your people online. Looking professional will always make you feel more trustworthy, it’s like going on a interview you wouldn’t go wearing mismatch clothing and un-ironed outfit. You’d want to present yourself in the best light, branding does this for your business.
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Brand Your Small Business to Increase your Chances of Making Sales.
There are 5 key areas I have discussed that branding increase the chances of your people converting to paying loyal customers and or clients. It’s a journey, start from gaining awareness, getting noticed in a crowd, become memorable, moulding your people perception of your business, and building trust. Marketing is responsible for a lot in business, but strong branding increase the chances of those people you grab within your the marketing to actually become paying customers and or clients tenfold, which means more sales! If you unsure about the difference between marketing and branding go Listen to Episode 34 on The BrandMade Podcast.