Strong Company Branding Helps You Keep - and Gain - Ideal Customers

When you start a business, you probably have a strong sense of what you and it stands for. You’re crystal clear on what you do, for whom and why, as well as the physical identity and look and feel of your company’s representative materials. All those elements make up the foundation of your brand. According to LumenLearning.com, "A brand consists of all the features that distinguish the goods and services of one seller from another: name, term, design, style, symbols, customer touch points, etc. Together, all elements of the brand work as a psychological trigger or stimulus that causes an association to all other thoughts one has had about this brand."

Over time, as you get busy acquiring customers and actually running the business, your company branding may take a back seat. Your marketing may stray from those core factors on which you built your business causing your messaging to become diluted and wishy-washy. When you’re no longer leading your marketing charge from your company’s fundamental elements, you may find you’re attracting fewer customers or that the customers you are attracting are less than your ideal clients. Being out of alignment with your brand can cause your marketing efforts’ effectiveness to suffer.

Since marketing is a primary way to entice customers to do business with you, you obviously want it to be as effective as possible. A regular review/audit of your marketing message and practices can help you to stay on message, thus consistently cementing your company’s brand in the minds, eyes, ears and hearts of the public. Some factors to consider for maintaining a strong brand message in your company’s marketing include:

1. Have your branding articulated and described somewhere so it can be easily reviewed. Consider these questions:

• What is your company’s mission?
• On what core values is your business founded?
• Who does your company seek to serve? Why?
• How does the visual look of your logo, color scheme, text, overall design, etc. represent your company’s foundational values?
• Does the written copy associated with your marketing materials promote those values and speak directly to those you seek to serve?
• Does your branding need an update to remain fresh and interesting?
• If there have been changes to your foundational values, have you articulated those to customers in an on-brand manner?

2. Conduct marketing inquiries to keep up with potentially changing needs and wants of your ideal customers. These questions can be asked in person or in the form of surveys/questionnaires as well as dialoguing with your audience on social media - however you can get and keep your hand on the pulse of your potential clients.

3. Should you learn your offerings or the way you articulate your brand is not resonating with your ideal clients, make changes (so long as they still align with your company values) as necessary to continue to meet their needs. You don’t want to be marketing to a years-old version of your clientele. They’ll move on to someone more appealing who also meets their needs.

Knowing who you are as a company is a crucial first step in marketing your identity to customers. Once that’s been determined and fleshed-out, branding can help solidify your company’s identity in the minds of the public and make you stand out to those who really want to do business with you. Staying true to that identity in your branding as you market your business is key to retaining ideal clients - and gaining new ones.

Does your business take full advantage of the power of branding to attract your ideal customers?