Each day, consumers interact with thousands of companies across a number of different channels. From social media to radio ads, and even in their email inbox, they are constantly interacting with brands, or their branded content, whether they know it or not.
Each of these companies has a different and distinct brand that is all about standing out from their competitors. Those brands that consumers know they’ve interacted with have spent a lot of time and effort perfecting that brand image.
Think about it: a brand is known by its colors, the font used in the logo, and even the words used in its messaging. That being said, it’s safe to say that a strong brand is key to standing out, no matter the industry or the size of the business.
Building a brand is one thing, and keeping it healthy and sparkling is completely different. This article explores what brand health is and ways to keep your online image sparkling.
Brand is an umbrella term, and it can be difficult to give a single definition that will cover everything. In essence, a brand is what people (consumers) know about your company. It is what consumers know to identify your company from the busy crowd of similar businesses. Brand is what sets Coca-Cola apart from Pepsi, for example.
Now, brand health is basically the efficiency of your brand to help you achieve your business goals, be it attracting more clients, selling more, or reaching broader awareness among consumers.
So, when you consider your brand’s health, there are a few aspects you need to consider, including brand awareness, reputation, equity, brand consideration, and employee engagement. These are all essential metrics that can help a business get the full picture of its brand’s health.
But why should companies keep track of their brands’ health? Well, if it’s not obvious, your brand is one of the most important assets you can have as a business. A healthy brand is what helps you reach business goals precisely because it is your image in front of your audience’s eyes.
Ways to keep your brand’s online image sparkling
As mentioned above, building a brand and keeping it healthy are two different things. Once you build a brand from scratch and have it all set, you need to make sure that it doesn’t lose its relevance in terms of how efficient it is for what your business wants to achieve.
Track your brand’s health
The first logical step to improve your brand’s health or even to keep it as efficient as it was up until now is to track it. In other words, you need to use a tool for brand health & tracking to see where your brand’s health stands.
A brand health tool will help you get data across critical marketing and company performance and reputation topics, including audience understanding, brand performance, marketing performance, customer acquisition and retention, and market intelligence.
Keep asking for feedback
The best way to stay updated with what your audience wants is to ask questions.
Can you tell for sure that your customers want the exact same thing they wanted 2 years ago? Or do they want you to deliver content about that thing in the exact same way? We’re guessing you can’t know that for sure unless you ask them.
Consumer needs can shift over time, and so does what consumers want to see from brands. Thus, unless you ask them and gather feedback, you won’t have the answers that will help you reshape your brand in a way that remains relevant and vital to them.
So, use all your channels to ask as many questions as possible. Invite them to a conversation on social media, send them a survey by email, or leave them the opportunity to give you feedback on your website. Whatever you think is more relevant for your brand, use that to ask the right questions to your audience.
Need an example of relevant questions to ask? Here’s one: “What would be the one thing you’d change about our service/product?”.
Tell plenty of stories
Storytelling is a powerful tool that helps companies build brands and engage with their audiences. This is a tool used by companies since the beginning of branding and marketing. And, we can tell you for sure that this is one trend that won’t go anywhere anytime soon because people love stories.
That being said, make sure that your brand tells a story in which your audience can find your values and missions. And, to keep your brand image relevant and sparkling, make sure to adapt the stories you tell to the changing market trends, consumer needs, and changes in your company.
Are you shifting to eco-friendlier practices to appeal to eco-friendly consumers? Make a story about it!
Keep on investing money
Data shows that, on average, it takes about 5 to 7 impressions for people to remember a brand. In other words, your target audience needs to interact with your brand more than five times until they will be able to connect with it on a deeper level. So, if you think you’ve invested enough in your brand, think twice. 5 to 7 impressions are the average. Some consumers may need to interact with your brand a few more times before they are curious to find out more about it.
So, your brand image won’t keep on sparkling if your funds are low. Make sure that you keep your branding budget high and efficient. Invest money in your web design, SEO, content strategy, social media, and so on. Don’t just see branding as an initial investment but rather as a continuous one.
Use the power of content
If you’re not sure just how powerful content can be in helping your brand’s health, find out that 82% of consumers report feeling more positive about a brand after reading customized content. In other words, plenty of consumers gets positive emotions after they read the content published by the brands they follow.
So, make sure to produce awesome, shareable, and relevant content. An efficient content strategy can help your brand in so many ways, from spreading awareness to fixing reputation, building authority, and, ultimately, helping you achieve your business goals.
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