Next Level Branding: 5 Branding Business Strategies For 10x Growth
Growing your business may seem a bit of a pain, especially in those early stages. However, with a bit of dedication, perseverance, and branding business strategies, you can create 10x business growth.
It all comes down to branding. With strong branding elements, you can develop a powerful marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) plan for biz success.
Why is branding so important? Without branding, you cannot employ any other communication/consumer touchpoint strategies.
For example, take a look at this list of key customer touchpoints that are part of marketers’ local engagement strategy.
There is nothing on the list that can be accomplished successfully without powerful and consistent branding in place.
That is the undeniable power branding has for any business. Large to small, and in any niche, branding needs to be a top priority.
Our EWR Digital branding team understands just how important branding is. We continually assist businesses with finding their brand story. The message that consumers find compelling and trust.
When customers trust your branding message and relate to your business’ brand story, you will make a customer for life. And a brand advocate. That is the aim.
So What’s your brand story and branding message? Not sure exactly? You best keep reading for next-level branding, the branding business strategies for 10x growth.
The “State of Knowing” and Your Brand Story
To really connect with customers, whether it is B2C or B2B, your business needs to have a brand story, a connecting point between your business and the customers you wish to build a relationship with.
Your brand story and branding message are is what makes your business unique. The differentiator.
This is the “State of Knowing” for your business. The state of having a strong brand that is consistent, focused, unique, and above all — enforced.
Did you know that having brand consistency across all platforms can increase revenue by 23 percent? And it builds greater brand loyalty in customers. Why? Because customers love to buy from brands that are consistent.
This is why brand consistency creates a state of knowledge among your customers and/or clients.
When you have brand consistency and the state of knowledge among your customers, they will trust your story, believe in that story, and retell your brand story.
How do you begin to achieve a state of knowledge among your customers? Employ the following:
- Develop a short-term and long-term branding strategy.
- Develop implementation guidelines that will move the branding strategy forward.
- Always enforce the guidelines you have in place for your branding strategy to remain consistent and focused.
With the ground rules covered, let’s get into the actual practice. These next-level branding strategies for 10x business growth may just shift your entire business into never seen before profitability.
Branding Strategy #1: Create Branding Standards and Guidelines
Branding standards and guidelines should be at the forefront of your branding strategy, since this will ensure consistency when it comes to your business’ branding. This goes for your short-term and long-term branding plan of action.
This means you will need to develop an all-encompassing brand standard with guidelines that will be used to protect your branding.
What are brand standards exactly? This is business branding elements such as brand colors, fonts, lexicon, design rules, logos, and more.
Think about the branding standards of successful companies. You can most likely spot a Starbucks sign from a half-mile down the road. Or know what store a person has shopped at just by seeing a bag.
All of this is what makes branding standards important. And the guidelines you develop will enforce those branding standards.
Branding Strategy #2: Understand The Customers You Want To Connect With
Once you have standards and guidelines in place, it is time to take it to the streets. Well, take it online more likely. But who are the customers you want to connect with?
Like all things business, if you don’t know who your audience is, your branding and marketing efforts will ultimately fail.
Audience is essential. These are the customers you want to achieve the state of knowing with. The customers and/or clients that will become your biggest brand advocates.
To understand your audience better, you can look into these key audience demographics in order to develop your next level branding strategy:
- Goals of your customers
- Daily, weekly, and monthly habits of your customers
- Your customers’ top problems
- Solutions they often employ to solve those common problems
- Major trust requirements for your customers
- The places your customers hang out online
- Type of influencers your customers follow on social media
- The normal demographics (age, gender, income, etc.)
These key audience demographics can help you and your business understand your customers and/or clients better. This will give you insights into your branding strategy you may have never had or seen prior.
Dig really deep on your audience. This will allow you to move onto the next important branding strategy for 10x business growth.
Branding Strategy #3: Shut Up and Listen to Your Customers and Team
This is probably the biggest problem the EWR Digital branding and communications team sees. Business owners and business stakeholders think they know best for some reason, even though the business is stagnant and has little branding elements.
Please do not make this mistake when it comes to building your business, growing it into a successful company, and developing strong branding strategies while doing so.
As a business founder, you might know a ton about your industry. You may even know the technology side inside and out. However, you may not be the best branding or marketing specialist.
So what should you do if this is the case? Shut up and listen. Blunt? Yes. But it is for your own good. And the good of your business.
So what does listen mean? Listen to your team, since they are in the trenches everyday making your business move. And above all, listen to your customers. If you fail to keep your target audience happy, you have a serious business issue that could be costly.
Listen to complaints and issues from customers through social media channels, as well as within your website contact messages. Do not ignore them.
Reach out to the customer and get a real deep understanding. This will help you gain valuable insight for change. And it will get you that customer back.
Branding Strategy #4: Find What Makes Your Business Unique and Make It a Major Part of Branding
When it comes to your brand story and branding message, you need to find the differentiators. Those little, or maybe even big, business idiosyncrasies that scream how unique your business is.
For instance, Starbucks coffee is not that much different than Dutch Bros. or Bixby Coffee. However, there are differentiators that separate those coffee companies.
Starbucks has a unique atmosphere and consistent branding that has created the “State of Knowing” among customers.
One could argue that Dutch Bros. has very strong and consistent branding. However, they historically didn’t have an in-house atmosphere. Until now that is. Here is an in-house Dutch Bros:
Dutch Bros. shifted from coffee shack to coffee house in some locations, like Boise, Idaho.
Find your business’ differentiator. Those unique elements that speak to your target audience. The uniqueness that gives them the state of knowing, making them your best brand advocates.
Branding Strategy #5: Next Level Branding Means Partnering with Social Media Influencers
Once you have all the above branding strategies in place, it is time to get your branding and business out to the masses. This goes for new businesses, or businesses that are rebranding.
How do you effectively get the message out to your target audience? Influencers. Influencer marketing is the top form of marketing these days.
If you want next level branding that generates 10x business growth, influencer marketing should be your top marketing choice.
As mentioned before, brand trust is essential for gaining new customers. Brand trust is also paramount for ensuring your new customers and/or clients gain the state of knowing needed to have powerful customer brand advocates.
Who do consumers trust more than anything, even brands? Social media influencers. Did you know that 61 percent of consumers trust influencer recommendations?
That is a big time difference when compared to the 38 percent of consumer trust that is present for branded company content.
And working with social media influencers is easy. As well as very cost effective when it comes to marketing budget spend. In fact, you can work with nano-influencers for as little as $150 per post.
Here is a great example of a nano-influencer post from Instagram nano-influencer @jen_laurenn:
She only has a following of 3,980 . . .
However, her post engagement is massive with an average of 150 likes and 20 comments per post.
With a handful of nano-influencers, or even a mix of nano-influencers and micro-influencers, you can target the audience you want and need with little marketing budget spend.
That is the power of influencer marketing for business branding. And the reason it is a standalone next level branding strategy for 10x business growth.
Ready to Grow Your Business with Powerful Branding?
It is time to develop a brand story and branding message that speaks volumes to your target audience. Without it, how could you ever create an effective marketing plan?
Running a business is one thing. Growing a business into a successful company is another animal altogether. And don’t feel like you need to develop branding strategies on your own.
There are branding and communications experts available to help grow your business. Like the EWR Digital branding team.
It is time to get your brand story out. It is time to develop an overall branding strategy that will instill the “State of Knowing” into your target audience. It is time to let your business thrive. What are you waiting for? Contact EWR digital today!