Communication and brand building: 3 steps to success
Social media and influencer marketing have muddied the waters a bit of what it means to “build your brand.” When you think of your business’s brand, you might think of your slogans, color schemes, and logos. The true essence of your brand runs much deeper than this. Your branding relies on the experience you provide to customers through every step of their journey.
To build a strong brand, you need to have consistent and meaningful communication with your customers. It all starts with your tone of voice and the way you convey your brand’s message. This is what will make their initial impression and what will keep them coming back for many years to come. So how can you improve the way you communicate your brand’s message? Here are a few places to start:
1. Craft an inspiring mission statement
Your mission statement will declare the purpose of your business to your customers and demonstrate how you can serve their needs. An effective mission statement should include the “what,” “who,” and “why.” What does your business deliver to your customers? Who benefits from your products and services? Lastly, why do you do what you do? It is important to touch on these points, but remember that your mission statement should come across more inspirational and less like a checklist. At the very least, your customers and potential customers should have a good understanding of why your company exists after reading your mission statement. When you are crafting this important hook, be sure to use strong verbiage when referring to the actions of your business such as “create,” “believe,” “empower, “equip,” and “elevate.”If you are struggling to define your mission statement, check out these great examples below from Nike, TOMS, and Starbucks for some inspiration:
2. Craft a strong value statement
When it comes to strong brand communication, your value proposition is just as important as your mission statement. It is common to get the two confused, but the key difference is that your value proposition should demonstrate what makes your brand “tick.” If your mission statement is the brains behind the operation, the value proposition is the heart. Just like a heartfelt Valentine’s Day gesture, the best value propositions are simple. In other words, it explains the relationship between your company, its employees, and its customers.These statements help your customers identify with your brand, which can make or break their ultimate decision. Check out some of our favorites from Vimeo, DuckDuckGo, and Slack below:
3. Engage with your community
One of the best ways to build your brand with communication is simply to engage with your current and potential customers. These interactions can occur both online and offline. When you are crafting brand messages like your mission and value statements, you will start to get an understanding of your ideal tone of voice. Instilling this into the members of your team will help everyone feel more confident when engaging with your community. Some of the best ways to engage with your community include:
- Create positive customer experiences
Can you think about the last time you had a truly positive customer experience? What about the last time you had a negative one? Think about the way that each of those experiences shaped the rest of your day as well as your perception of the business itself. Even if the products offered were similar, you are probably more likely to return to the business that made your day brighter. That is the power of great communication.
- Relate to your customers through your branding
When you think about making your brand relatable, think about the ways that you relate to your friends and family. What are the little things that make you feel more welcome around them? If you try to implement those same qualities into your brand communication, you might find that it comes more naturally than you might expect. The little things will go a long way in this area. Create visuals that are appealing, warm, and welcoming, and make sure your communications go along with that.
- Engage in conversational marketing
Conversational marketing engages customers through dialogue that focuses on interactions with customers through two-way communications. Conversion is the name of the game in conversational marketing. The difference between conversational marketing and more traditional forms of marketing is that traditional marketing is focused on moving customers along quickly. Conversational marketing, on the other hand, is much more customer-focused. Offering your customers multiple ways to converse will give them the chance to communicate in the way that feels most comfortable. Whether this looks more like chatbots, phone calls, social media chats, customer service calls, or emails, never underestimate the power of a good conversation.
Scorpion will help you streamline all of your communications and build your brand in a way that every customer knows they matter. We offer simple solutions to simplify your emails, texts, and chats, and we will also help you craft your brand message. Learn more about what we can do to establish effective, long-lasting communications.
