When many business leaders think of the term “brand” they think of pretty colors, expensive logos, fancy graphics, Facebook cover photos and traditional tv or radio advertisements.
Smart marketers know branding is much more than a logo. In reality, the logo is the easy part and only one small yet very important component of your brand.
Smart and savvy marketers also understand the importance of building a brand architecture and strategy inclusive of the brand identity with supporting visuals, language and more. The colors, language and visuals are supporting elements, not “the” brand. Big difference.
Your brand is your promise and value you offer customers, your community and all who come in contact with your brand. It's a promise delivered. It's value received. It's community. It's relationship. It's empowerment, inspiration, education and the list goes on.
Are you influencing brand perception in a positive way? Your brand is your personality, communication, tone and perceptions of all who experience your brand. At the root of your brand are a set of experiences.
You can't control perception. However, you can influence perception if you know how to build, launch and manage your brand architecture. Every brand touch is an opportunity to influence perceptions, to build your reputation.
At the core, your brand is rooted in who you are and how you care about others. It's not just about you. It's not just about pretty colors or a logo you pay a marketing or branding agency big bucks to design. It's not a brand manual the same agency delivers and you don't look at again until the next agency asks for it.
Your brand is the foundation and one of the most important aspects of your business. Regardless of the size of your business, you have one chance to make a first, second and third impression. Every brand touch counts. Every brand touch is influencing perception and building your reputation. You are either earning trust, building though leadership and relationships or you are not!
A good brand architecture and strategy will enable you to better share your brand story in an authentic way. Doing such can emotionally bring people closer to your brand in a very real, meaningful and human way. The more confidence you have in your brand foundation the more confidence your ideal customer will have in believing in your brand promise.
Would you like to learn where to start in building your brand architecture, strategy, vision, mission and more so that you can impact brand perceptions, increase brand equity and build a loyal tribe of brand evangelists? If you answer yes, then you have landed on the right blog post and podcast episode today!
Take a listen to the 201st episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast where I provide the definition of a brand, reputation and most importantly the top 5 reasons why you must develop your brand strategy and how it can benefit your business, customers and greater community!
Take a listen and be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud!
In this 25 minute podcast you will learn:
- Definition of branding
- Definition of a brand identity
- Definition of brand architecture
- Definition of visual branding
- Definition of brand trust
- Definition of reputation
- Top 5 reasons you must develop a brand strategy for your business
- Importance of brand story telling
- How to increase brand equity
- Risks that lead to decreased brand equity
- Establishing thought leadership, earning trust and credibility via branding
- How to differentiate from your competition via branding
- How to tap into the power of emotional branding
Supporting Resources:
- 15 Tips to Zoom Your Brand (white paper)
- Audience Analysis Worksheet
- 8 Foundational Elements to Build Your Digital & Social Brand in 2016
- Band Humanization in a Nutshell (episode 5)
- Brand Humanization: Social Media Authenticity vs Transparency (episode 16)
- Digital Body Language: 105 Factors Impacting Your Personal and Business Brand (white paper)
- Power of Intention and Trust in an Attention Starved Digital Economy
- Customer Experience is Your Brand – Adobe Summit Inspirations
- Differentiate Your Brand with Personalized Customer Experiences
- Brand Storytelling in a Nutshell: 10 Foundational Elements of Brand Storytelling
- 7 Foundational Steps to Build Your Personal Brand
- Welcome to the Inspiration Age
- Welcome to the Participation Age
- Brand Strategy in a Nutshell
- 15 Characteristics of Human Brands (episode 55)
