Let me tell you a little secret.
There are two ways to become successful.
The first approach is to walk your own path. To experience the success and failure that comes along that way.
The second approach, which most of successful people follow is by learning from the mistakes of others.
Whether you’re running a small business or working for a well-established business, branding is something which you need to keep an eye on.
Sure, large companies have huge marketing budgets which they can use to experiment on their branding. But with small-scale-company they need to act and think smart. They don’t have a lot of room to experiment and try out things which cost hundreds of dollars. Therefore, we are about to investigate psychology of branding by which you can take away lessons from famous brands without even spending a dime on your branding.
Before I put you on the driving seat an important thing to remember is that branding is all about the experience.
When Jim Meehan was looking to put something unique in his bar, he came up with an amazing idea. Since the budget was low so there was not much which he can do about it. His friend was selling an old phone booth for a cheap price. Jim Meehan took the phone booth and converted it into an entry point for his bar.
Whenever someone wanted to enter the bar he must dial the phone and a secret door will be opened to access the bar. The idea was new, so it went viral like a fire in the forest. This also proved that banding has nothing to do with size of the company. If there is an opportunity, grab it.
It is assumed that Entrepreneurs and small business owners cannot learn anything from big brands because when it comes down to branding the small brands follow a different approach than the big brands. And hence people assume that the most successful companies do something different than small brands.
Regardless of this, the startups can learn a lot of branding from highly successful brands.
Without any further due let us get straight into the branding lessons which small brands can learn from world’s most popular brands.
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A powerful brand starts with a logo
The old saying brand is all about the logo, remains true.
The company name and brand logo are two crucial elements which play an important role in the branding of your company.
A brand is the sum of experience that the customer gets right from the logo till the delivery of the product.
A strong brand communicates the company values via the brand logo.
How it does it?
Simple. By creating credibility and establishing trust among the customers.
Successful brands have the simplest names. Names which can be spelled, remembered, and pronounced easily.
This is important because you want customers to remember your company.
Finding a business name is not easy. But you can use free business name generator to give you some ease in finding the right-fit name for your business.
When coming up with a business name it is however necessary to ask a few questions from yourself:
- What are the goals of your company?
- What are customers thinking about your company?
- How can you differentiate your brand from the competitors?
These questions are valid not only when selecting name for your company, but these will guide you when selecting a strong logo.
When designing a logo for your company ensure that the logo reflects the values of your company.
A professional branding & design agency will start with a questionnaire. A research shows that the right color can improve the readership by 40% making it easy for the potential customers to read and engage on your website.
It only takes 10 seconds to convince the customer and create a strong brand logo impression of the brand.
A study shows that 77% of the consumers make a purchase based upon the likelihood of the brand name. A great brand name can become a verb just like Google.
You must make your logo the main theme of your advertising and marketing activities. Once the logo is associated with the brand, it will be easier for your brand to communicate the message.
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What is the purpose of your brand?
Today, to create a successful brand it is important to start with a purpose in mind.
The purpose evolved with the changing demographics.
This generation carries an impressive buyer persona which makes it easy for marketers to engage the users by leveraging the purpose of the brand.
Moreover, setting a purpose in place is appealing the young people across the globe. This trend is consistent across the globe in world’s biggest companies as well as startups and small businesses.
91% of the consumers prefer to buy from an authentic brand rather than a dishonest brand.
But it’s necessary to understand that what is your target market and how is the perception changing over the years and what your brand can do to establish a strong perception for your audience.
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Either Innovate or Die
One of the key trait of successful website is that they create a strong impression among customers by innovating regularly.
For instance, Tesla is a market leader in electric cars while Apple innovated in computer graphics. But in BrandZ 2018 report Disney stands ahead of Apple and Tesla because of its MagicBand – making visits easy in theme parks.
There is no one form of innovation.
For instance, it takes more than sheer luck to design products which go viral.
How can you compete with large-scale organizations with gigantic money in their pockets?
Simple. Understand how people think.
By understanding human psychology, you can use it to influence the buying behavior of the customer.
Emotions play a vital role in motivating people to buy your product. If you’re able to influence the emotions you can help the customers to buy from you.
The good news is that by understanding the design principles you can develop products which can make them stick in the eyes of the customers.
Creative people are often labeled as crazy and mysterious creatures. And yet, when it comes to innovation the solutions that these people give are of incredible value.
What if I tell you that there is a method by which you can act and think like real innovators. You too can innovate and solve problems creatively.
Welcome, ‘Design Thinking’, a method used by everyday designers and creatives to think methodology to come up with creative solutions for each client.
The simple process which you can follow to innovate is empathize, brainstorm, prototype, and test.
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Big Brands stay memorable
Of course, you’re bombarded with thousands of messages each day. Some in email while others on your mobile phone.
It is nearly impossible for brands to stand out from the crowd.
And for small brands the challenge is even harder.
The difference however is that big brands speak with authenticity and leadership.
For instance, the highly successful brands engage with their audience on Facebook and on Twitter. They get feedback, applauded and even pampered by delivering supreme value to its customers.
One key takes away is that the successful brands don’t sell their products all the time. In fact, mostly you’ll see them educating clients on the benefits of using the products.
Although, some startups do follow this practice but the common mistake they make is they mostly rely on stock photos and templates to take all the pain for them.
Therefore, you need to learn from the market leaders.
While planning your content, is the content relevant to your audience, or it is just taking up some space? Are you using the social media for some good or you’re bugging customers and self-praising your brand all the time?
Each interaction that you have with your audience needs to be authentic. There is no one way to succeed in social media. You need to test and try this and see what is working for your brand.
To wrap things up
The successful brands are not just successful because they’re in luck. They worked for their success. When creating a brand, reputation is something which the small brands needs to work on. Treat customers with respect. Listen to them and help them solve their problems.
No need to rush things. If your customers are not happy, ask them why, and what you can do to make them feel comfortable with your brand?
Starting a business is easy, but to keep the business running is a great deal. And to keep the business running you need sales, and revenue. The only way you’ll get sales is by raising your voice in the crowd and offer something unique.
You don’t need thousands of dollars to market your product, you just need some creative, crazy people who are willing to take the leap and make your brand stand out from the crowd.