The public image of your brand is how you’re seen by everyone with a basic awareness of your business, not just your target audience. Remember, while your potential clients are your primary target, they’re also susceptible to opinions of others, even those who were never to become buying customers, to begin with.
This means that controlling your brand’s public image may be even harder than you’ve initially expected it to be. Still, there are a couple of ways around this and here are six tips to make this job somewhat easier and your efforts more effective.
1. Build a relationship based on trust
Trust is the most important asset that a business can possess. Now, don’t confuse trust with likability, seeing as how people don’t have to like your business in order to trust you. The simplest way to boost these trust levels is by valuing transparency above all else. For instance, you need to avoid tricks like excluding taxes and shipment costs from your pricing strategy, even if this does make your product appear more expensive. If there’s an issue with your product or your company, you need to be the first one to address it.
2. Let your infrastructure become a promotion tool
You also need to understand that the infrastructure of your business can and should be used for your brand’s image. First of all, you can use the location of your enterprise in your branding, in order to hit it off with the local audience. Other than this, you can use group images of your staff for your next marketing campaign. When it comes to services that you offer and practices that you use, a lot of businesses mention them in order to look more professional or set themselves apart from the rest of the business world. Either way, it works.
3. Digital branding
Constructing your brand in a digital world is crucial for your efforts. Therefore, you need to make a website and register on all the major social media networks as soon as possible. Other than this, it would be great if you could make a blog, so that you have one more way to connect to your audience on a level that truly speaks to them. Keep in mind that, when it comes to digital branding, it’s all about creating quality content to fill all of these websites and accounts with. In other words, your content marketing is a top priority.
4. Use promotional products
Even in the digital era, the use of promotional products is the simplest way to generate value for your audience. After all, making customized promotional hats means a free hat for your audience and who’s going to say no to this kind of a gift. The very fact that they’ve generated value the last time they’ve been in touch with your brand is going to make them want to interact with you again. This is a neat little psychological trip that’s been used in the world of marketing since its humble beginnings.
5. Try to time your responses
Being late to the party can make your company appear inefficient or even unprofessional, which is why you need to recognize a growing trend and get onto it as soon as possible. Timing your responses is incredibly important, especially if you find yourself in the middle of a controversy. Responding too quickly might make you seem too defensive or even make you unable to respond to some of the facts that may appear later on. Waiting for too long can make you seem guilty, as well. So, the ideal solution would be to start your own PR department.
6. Create a lenient return policy
A single purchase, no matter how valuable, will be able to make or break your success. A dissatisfied customer spreads negative WOM (word of mouth), leaves negative reviews and may even sue your company (for false advertising if nothing else). This is why great customer support and a lenient return policy are necessary in order to avoid this kind of a problem. Even if this means losing a part of your profit, it still lets you maintain a positive brand image, which matters a lot more in the long run.
Conclusion
As you can see, the more aspects you manage to cover and the more channels you manage to use, the better the result will be. By trying to promote your business as a trustworthy, customer-friendly, professional enterprise, you’ll be able to speak even to those demographics that you previously believed were reluctant to listen. All in all, you create a stronger brand image.
