What does a new brand do for you?
Especially if you’ve never worked with a branding agency in Orange County, it can be difficult to pinpoint what, precisely, a powerful new brand can do for you. Is it just another part of your marketing efforts, or is it something else entirely? Branding and marketing are linked, as are so many of the processes of your business. It’s usually not helpful to think in a vacuum, and to try as best you can to see how various processes interact with one another. Still, for the purposes of this blog, let’s set aside the processes of marketing, which is the money and effort to put your product in front of people, and focus on BRANDING, which is the money and effort you put into communicating the story of your business, and your product: it’s helping people know you.
WHAT BRANDING DOESN’T DO
We’ll be the first to say it: it’s sadly true that branding doesn’t win you customers in any meaningful way. It’s easy to see why. This is analogous to building a beautiful palatial mansion in the middle of the forest. If you want people to come to your house, and enjoy their time at your house, there needs to be some effort put into getting them there. Branding is the effort into making the house awesome. Marketing—the ads, and commercials, and sales team work, is the work that will actually drive people to your ‘house’.
WHAT BRANDING DOES
Let’s take the metaphor a little further. What if people hear about your lovely palatial mansion in the woods and decide to visit you, but when they get there, they notice that the garden hasn’t really been tended to, and the décor from room to room doesn’t match, and worst of all, there isn’t really anyone to look closely after the guests, and make sure they have drinks and food. In short, the product doesn’t live up to the marketing hype. Will the guests stick around? Will they tell their friends they had a great time? Probably not.
What can branding do for your business? The best branding ensures that, inside and out, your company and your product communicates the best of what can be expected in your product or service. It ensures that everything, both customer-facing, and internal, resonates with the truth of your brand.
Best of all, when a business is well-branded, a number of tangible, measurable benefits become noticeable:
- Shorter sales cycle— You’ll notice, after a rebrand, that your sales people don’t have to work as hard, or as long, to convince potential clients that you’re the business for them. That’s because everything that they see will resonate with the truth of what your team are saying.
- Loyalty—You’ll also likely notice that it’s easier to hang onto clients’ and that your relationship deepens, making it easier to cross-sell other products and services.
- Referrals—If your company benefits from referrals, by nature, you’ll likely be able to see more action from customers telling their connections about you, because your brand is more memorable and relatable!
- Bigger Marketing ROI – No matter where your marketing spend is, from traditional ad buys to social media and other web marketing, a good brand can exponentially increase the return your ad spends get you. Your product is great. Your brand needs to be able to show that greatness to the world.
In a word then, branding COMMUNICATES, and that better communication can energize your business in countless ways. Will your logo win you sales? Probably not. But a new logo, along with developing a unified identity, with the help of a branding agency in Orange County, enables you to connect faster, and more meaningfully, with your clients and customers, and all the benefits that come with that better connection.