There is an abundance of opportunity in the market for startups, which means there’s also an abundance of competition.
In the crowded marketplace, setting your startup apart is crucial to its survival and success.
They say reputation builds brands, so it is vital for you to nail your first impression and create a positive perception in the mind of the users.
While excellent design, a captivating logo, high quality services and products all promote the brand, it’s the positive image of your business that helps build a strong, standout startup.
Your brand image resonates with the users, builds loyalty and lets you stand apart. So when it comes to delivering your public presence, attracting users, and building your business, you want a great start.
Here are 7 tips to create a strong startup brand keeping in mind the current trends:
1. Define your brand purpose, not just its promise
Every brand makes a promise, but in a market where consumer confidence is low, it isn’t about the promise but about defining your purpose.
Outline the reasons for launching your business, highlight what makes your different from your competitors and what is unique about your product or service.
Take IKEAfor instance, it’s a furniture company with a vision that is to ‘’create a better everyday life.’’ Define your brand using a vision and mission to appeal to both existing and potential customers.
A blog at HubSpot shows examples of some great inspiring mission and vision statements and how they can help your business.
2. Maintain brand consistency and cohesiveness
Once you have your image set, you want to ingrain it in the minds of the target users and make sure you maintain it. Keeping your message consistent across all your digital platforms will keep your user from getting confused and establish a sense of trust.
Every element of your marketing should cordially work together to enhance and embody your brand’s personality at every platform.
This blog shows examples of businesses with stellar, consistent branding for inspiration.
3. Create connection through an emotional voice
To be successful brands need to create an emotional connection and build a relationship with their audience. Many users rely on a product to evoke emotions. Many make purchasing decisions based on emotion as well. Using this strategy, people believe they are part of a larger community.
Don’t keep sharing your dry corporate endeavors but rather push messages that appeal to the emotions of your users.
This great blog by Creative Work Marketing talks about why your brand needs emotional branding and how its adds to the success of your business.
4. Create creative and original content
Content and content marketing go hand-in-hand. Branding a startup is all about marketing good, useful and fresh content. You should always aim for high-quality, unique and relevant content.
When you think of Red Bull, you think of an energy drink for the adventurous. Because Red Bull has done excellent branding using videos, the Red Bull blog and social media campaigns that engage and interact with users.
Blogs are a great way to drive traffic to your website, boast your search ranking and establish a brand’s position. Social media marketing is one of the most important tools in branding a startup today. Make your content so great that your target audience has no choice but to bow down to your brand’s greatness.
Another powerful tool for branding that’s on the rise is video marketing. Videos allow you to create and share remarkable content for your users in an interesting, memorable manner.
Here’s 11 tips by experts on creating shareable content that is both creative and original.
5. Cultivate enduring customer loyalty
Customers are the foundation of any business, and loyal customers are the ones that keep your business running. So make sure that your cultivate loyalty among your followers, consumers and patrons.
You can build loyalty by talking to them; be it a personalized thank you note, or you listen and ask for their experiences online as customer reviews or testimonials. Be sure to foster conversation on your social platforms. Offering quality service is another formula to create loyalty.
You can also find ways of rewarding your top customers and show your appreciation. A great blog on Forbes discusses 4 steps to cultivate insane customer loyalty to get your business thriving.
6. Keep a flexible approach
Can your company pivot easily if necessary? Can you adjust to new circumstances? Can you alter your dream startup idea to meet new expectations?
These are all important questions of flexibility. Startups face all sorts of new challenges and being flexible can be a major advantage. Flexibility allows you to make adjustments to new generation’s expectations from your business, changing trends and keeping up with the rapid, evolving world of technology.
Taking an example of Old Spice, the perfume for men, it found a way to connect to both old and new customers, and build a strong brand by maintaining a flexible approach.
7. Hear and be heard: Offer great customer service
Train all your employees on effective customer communication and service. A well-mannered communication with your users will go a long way in winning trust and loyalty.
Zappos, a popular shoe manufacture excels at customer service. It has a separate department that addresses customer queries, as well as, a segment on its website called Zappos Insight which includes FAQs, videos and more mediums of communication to assure and service the customer.
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