The importance of Branding

Why branding is your biggest tool in business?

When we speak about brands or branding, the temptation is always to think very big. To think that brand focus is a practice reserved for globally recognised entities. The Coca-Cola Brand, Brand Beckham, Apple branded products. The very term can conjure up visions of unattainable recognition and grandeur. This may be the reason why many small business owners do not see the importance branding, and do not invest their time and efforts into getting it right.

However, this should not be the case. Effective branding is absolutely crucial for businesses at every level of the pyramid. From the aforementioned global powerhouses to the smallest of sole traders.

Speaking to your audience.

A brand is what identifies your business to consumers and distinguishes you from your competition. This includes visual elements such as the colour tone, logo, social media pages and your website. However, brand is so much more. Your brand can help guide and bring focus to all of your business’s activities.

Once translated into one dynamic package, branding speaks to your audience and communicates exactly what you represent as an organisation. This is an important factor when building credibility, engagement and aligning your business model with how you and your business operate/ perform.

Using Piston as your branding professional, we ensure the suggestions in this article are are included in your project build. The below are key elements we believe we can implement to your brand//

Trust

Having strong branding with clear and consistent messaging is the first step towards gaining the trust of the consumer. If consumers can easily understand your offering and feel like you are being honest with them, this drastically increases the likelihood of them conducting business with you.

Trust in your branding works two-fold. Not only does a trustworthy brand put first-time customers at ease, also, consumers who go on to have a positive experience with your brand will be far more likely to repeat business and become regular customers. A brand is effectively a promise to customers that they can know what to expect every time.

Our modern content management systems (CMS) uses SEO-friendly URLs, so implements easy to navigate pages and in a language that is understood by the major search engines..

Association

Customers enjoying a positive experience with your product or service is great, but this has to be married with recognisable branding. If your branding does not effectively differentiate your business from the competition, highlights what makes your business amazing and capture the minds of the audience, then your hard work delivering an experience can be undone. You need to be memorable - for all the right reasons!

Culture

Strong branding is key for small businesses when building and growing a culture. A clear and consistent brand allows a workforce to understand just what it means to represent that organisation. It creates a focal point for emotional investment and something staff can really get behind, believe in and be proud to associate with - they will help sell the business through its positive culture.

Consistency

Your brand influences every action taken by the organisation. No matter the size or scale of the business.

A strong brand has to be consistent. This goes back to the “trust” we mentioned earlier. Consistent brands are far more trustworthy to consumers. If a brand is inconsistent with its messaging then this will confuse the audience, leaving them uncertain of your offering.

Profitability

If you walk into a local supermarket and head for pharmaceuticals section - You would see that a standard pack of 200mg Nurofen would cost roughly £2, whereas the basic home brand equivalent Ibuprofen would come in at around the 40p mark - stay with us...

... This is to be expected though, Nurofen is far more effective than your bog-standard Ibuprofen, it 'targets your pain directly', 'gets to work faster' and 'lasts for longer right? The answer is no. In tablet form, Nurofen is chemically identical to its Ibuprofen counterpart. There is no difference between the two, in all likelihood they are probably made in the same factory!

So why is it that Nurofen are able to charge over 400% more than standard home brands? Quite simply, this is the power of branding.

In summary

Branding is extremely important for businesses of any size. It helps to build trust in what you are offering. Brand is the source of emotional investment for both your customers and employees.

Your brand represents all that you stand for as a business, it makes a promise to the consumer, celebrating what makes you different from and better than your competition. Brand influences all actions carried out by your business, it guides your activities and ensures that a consistent message is conveyed to all audiences.

It can add a huge amount of value to your product or service which vastly effects profitability. So, any small business owner concerned about their bottom line (which in reality is probably everyone) should without a doubt be thinking about investing in their brand. As investing in your brand is investing in your future.

Piston can provide a full turn-key solution for branding. From Logo design, Slogans and Videography to Ground up website design, hosting, apparel print/ design and social media management!

Get in touch and see how we can accelerate you and your business.

studio@pistondesign.co.uk