In just a moment, the hard work put into years of building an organization or business can come crumbling down without prior notice.
Having to witness the death of an organization is the worst feeling any leader and organization executives can have. But the building blocks to ensuring the survival and its dominance in the market are usually left on autopilot to naturally determine the course of business, with the hope that it’s steered into profits and successes.
Like every great story on both businesses and individuals, achievements are usually hinged on their ability to fully comprehend and understand the demands of the audience and/or consumers.
Knowing what a company is and stands for, is the first step to reeling in the right audience to buy into the product or service. But how does one do that without necessarily selling themselves or the company short?
Understanding Brand As An Identity
Basically, having a well-rounded view and understanding of a business or an organization’s brand is critical to its takeoff and survival. But it all begins with its identity.
The identity of an organization business’s branding is more important than one can or might think. On the outside, the brand may seem like it consists only of elements such as logos and colors, nonetheless, an organization’s brand is actually the entire identity of its business.
More than just a splurge of colors and designs, having a peculiar brand gives an organization its unique personality. One cannot easily take branding out of the equation when it comes to the business of things, simply because branding has always been a vital part of business, although it may be more important now than easily be identified either by their symbols or a slogan.
By this, the distinguishing feature when it comes to establishments of such standing is honed from a place of personalization. It is very easy for ‘newbie’ companies especially to get sucked into the crowd and lose their essence. However, the ability of organizations who gain global recognition and notoriety is by virtue of their ‘specialty’.
In this current dispensation, millennials and Gen Z employees want to be recognized for their unique skills and talents. As such, the personal brands of company’s leaders and employees have a major impact on the organization’s ability to hire, engage and retain top talent.
For consumers and users of products and services, the ‘buying point’ goes beyond the flashy advertising and message conveyed, in fact, such affinity is drawn from the point of resonating with the brand, what it represents and its impact on not just the lifestyle of consumers but their success stories as well.
For millennials who are also looking to join a company, the brand of the organization and the brand of its leaders are equally important to the job that is being offered. In the hiring process, leaders and other team members are being googled. In the war for top talent, it’s essential that the company brand and the brands of your people stand out from the competition to attract the best.
One of the most obvious reasons that businesses need branding is to help them get recognized more often. If a CEO has strong branding for his business, people will naturally take note of it much more than they would a business without it. A business that doesn’t really have any cohesive branding isn’t going to stay in someone’s mind for very long.
However, a business with elements such as a distinct logo, attractive colors and other visual elements will be much more memorable.
Momentarily, someone might see the brand but if it sticks out in a positive way, there’s a good chance they won’t forget it, even if this person isn’t ready to use the products or services just yet.
Trust Is Everything For Organizational Success
Trust is a formidable part of any long-surviving relationship and that which exists between a company and consumers is not different.
People naturally warm up to products and services they can trust and vouch for. As a result, trust from a company’s target audience is one of the most import- ant things it can have as a business, although this isn’t always easy to gain. A business that’s missing key elements of branding will have an even harder time get- ting people to trust them.
Forbes at one time reckoned that for a company, protecting the brand’s reputation never gets easier. In spite of the ups and downs in an organization, the ba- sic need to earn customers’ loyalty never goes away and will remain long after all those internal and external challenges bedeviling an organization fades away.
Today, a brand should stand for more than quality and reliability. Establishing trust in nascent markets, unproven ideas and unfamiliar brands is difficult, but once established, maintaining that trust, even for known and loved brands, isn’t a guarantee, either.
In the early stages of building a business, the vision for what’s possible with a new technology or product can quickly outpace the reality of what’s actually possible. This classic hype cycle can easily breed disillusionment. In an emerging field, the challenge is often twofold — you have to generate trust in your brand as ever before.
Considering the proliferation of social media and its creative element in stoking the interest of consumers, the latter on a daily basis receives a deluge of content and is exposed to new brands every day.
This can be great for consumers who have plenty of options and are able to do research to find the best one, but it makes it harder for businesses to thrive under such conditions and be buried under the myriads of content churned out by the minute.
In this case, developing a foolproof identity and sticking to its unique selling proposition is bound to make the others pale in comparison to yours.
Undoubtedly, there’s a huge amount of competition in real time, and for that very reason, businesses and organizations need to go the extra mile of ensuring they stand out in a crowd.
To do this, a company needs to invest in creating a strong brand that will get and keep people’s attention. With the right branding, it is likely that a formidable organization will have the chance to get some control over how people perceive the business, so it doesn’t get overlooked and lost in the crowd.
Personalizing An Organization’s Brand
It is difficult to mistaken and overlook the big M when it comes to the food franchise company, McDonalds, or perhaps the swoosh symbol of Nike footwear. Like these two behemoths, companies and organizations which have made names for themselves can well as your industry. At the same time, consumers are now more empowered than ever in ways they haven’t been before — the ubiquity of social media means everyone has a public platform to vocalize (and criticize) their experiences with your brand in real time.
Some relevant department within an organization has the onerous responsibility of ensuring that trust is earned and maintained to validate the growth of an organization. Marketing and communications professionals are the stewards and protectors of a company’s brand and must prioritize earning and maintaining the trust of its customers.
Brand Strategy As A Tool For Growth
Growth is a significant part of a company’s success, that is why it is essential for organizations to lay out all the cards on the table with respect to growing the business. In the words of American Entrepreneur, Dan Pallotta, ‘Brand is every- thing, and everything is brand’.
The deluge and almost limitless information provided customers these days have empowered them to make informed purchase decisions, leaving solution providers with the task of earning their business. This makes the role of branding, more than ever, a vehicle for real business growth.
In light of this, a strong brand is designed to not only attract prospectives to buy the products and service but more importantly, buy the idea which drives these services. Once that is bagged, the probability of keeping the loyalty of that customer for years to come is high.
As part of an organization’s strategy to attract buyers and loyalists, developing a strategy of maintaining a strong brand is crucial. By this, the company can guide prospects through the buyer’s journey more quickly from the awareness stage to the consideration and decision stages. In this regard, consistency is very vital in meeting targets and setting new ones.
A consistent brand helps increase the overall value of the company by reinforcing your position in the marketplace, attracting better quality customers with higher retention rates and raising the perceived value of your products or services.
In resonation with the American Marketing Association, not every company will become a household or industry name, however, strong branding is an avenue for companies to thrive despite challenging market dynamics.
Irrespective of what an organization – old or new may be facing, whether it is the slowing market growth or investor concerns over lower prof- it margins, strategic branding offers multiple opportunities to meet and exceed business objectives.