Synkd Blog
The Brand Entrepreneur

3 Top Tips To Build A Brand that Resonates

What does is take to build a brand that resonates with a customer and why should you care?
By ‘resonate’ I mean a brand that stands for something – either a value, an idea or a cause that it invokes or evokes such a strong emotional (and logical) appeal with a consumer that it… impacts, affects and strikes them at their inner core. Just like a ringing bell, it chimes with them. The brand, and what it represents, resonates with their being through its identity (look and feel) and tone of voice (messaging). It ‘moves’ the customer. It has meaning, substance and significance to the customer. Only when this state of being is achieved is a brand truly formed in the heart and mind of your customer. That is the power of your brand. Are you taking advantage?

Creating a solid yet flexible framework for a brand is essential to building brands that resonate and support long-term business growth. Remember, brand strategists, marketers and designers don’t build brands – your customers do.

So why should you care? Because from a strategic business perspective, building your brand makes all the difference between defining and distinguishing yourself from your competition, elevating yourself away from a ‘commodity status’ business where you’re competing on cost alone, and allows you to successfully associate your business with an inherent ‘value’ that customers are prepared to pay more for. Building a brand can empower you to command premium prices based entirely on built trust, improved perception, demonstrated expertise and perceived value. Those ‘in the know’ know that brand just makes good business sense – adding additional value to your offering.

So without further ado, here are 3 top tips to build a brand that resonates:

Tip #1 – Be clear.

Its easy to get distracted. Business and life happens. Achieve mental clarity on what you stand for and what you stand against. Identify your brand values, your vision and purpose. This is not fluff. In fact, its quite the opposite – 100% clarity and focus. It’s essential to identify, articulate and communicate your brand values throughout your business and to your customers. This process is exactly what helps your brand to ‘resonate’ with your prospects, dig deeper and cut through the noise. If you can align a brand value with a pressing and relevant customer pain point then bingo! Bonus brand points for you! You will truly be resonating with your customer.

Tip #2 – Don’t Be ‘Everywhere’. Just ‘Be’ where your ideal customers are.

A common misconception – many marketers advise businesses to be ‘everywhere’ under the guise of ‘fear of missing out’. Admittedly its an effective fear-based strategy. If you’re not online, you’re nowhere. True, up to a point. Most people are online these days in some capacity, but not everyone is ‘everywhere’ online – nor do they need to be.

Burnout is a burning problem for many marketers and businesses today. There’s a reason why. The constant pressure (put on by ourselves) to be ‘everywhere’, ‘all of the time’ can take a heavy toll due to scattered energy. There’s a price to pay trying to be all things to all people. While there are many strategies to maximise your time, there are still only 24 hours in day. The solution? ‘Be’ smarter and use the time you have wisely.

Instead of trying to be all things to all people, everywhere, all of the time, focus instead on identifying where your ideal customers hang out, how they consume their media, how they like to be communicated with and build your brand and marketing around these behaviours and insights. This will determine where you need to focus your energy and marketing revenue. Stop trying to please everyone and focus only on pleasing your preferred target customers.

Focusing on 2 or 3 marketing activities or channels will help you to reveal valuable insights and determine the viability/ROI of that strategy (Twitter not generating engagement or leads to your website? Ask are your prospects even on Twitter? Stop activity and ask are they on FB instead? Then test & measure.) Don’t spread yourself thin, get overwhelmed and attract poor results. Laser-focus your energy and time for long-term, organic brand results. BE smart. BE your customer. Put yourself in their shoes. Where are they? Identify this and you can resonate directly with them.

Tip #3 – Be Consistent With Your Brand.

While it may be tempting to change your picture on Facebook or Linked In or even alter your Twitter Cover Art every now and then, I suggest you don’t (there was once a client (no names mentioned) who wanted to suddenly change their logo colour to red because they were ‘fed up’ with ‘blue’ that particular week!) People forget that while you have been accustomed to your brand assets (i.e. logo, colour, fonts or photos) for years, your new prospects are not. Mismanaging your brand colours, using cropped, pixelated logos and lacking visual consistency across your brand touch points will create doubt in the minds of your new prospects. A confused mind never buys. To resonate with customers there needs to be a visual consistency between platforms so that your market knows who you are wherever they come into contact with your brand. Remember, visual consistency creates certainty in an uncertain world. If you’re changing your appearance ‘chameleon-like’ constantly (Lady Gaga and Hollywood celebs excluded) how can I or customers trust you? You’re leaving little space to allow the ‘know, like, trust’ factor to grow – which is just another expression of resonating with your customer.

So there you have it. Three top tips for brands that resonate because ‘resonating’ with your prospective customer – or connecting with them energetically in another sense – is a crucial part of your businesses sales & marketing activities.

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I hope you learned something new, insightful or useful from this blog.

As The Brand Entrepreneur, I believe in helping businesses and savvy entrepreneurs to ‘market smarter’ for sustainable long-term business and brand growth. I do this by deeply defining your ‘ideal’ customer with The ‘My Avatar’ and ‘Ideal Customer Personality’ Workshops and then creating design assets that convey your ‘Why?’. Successful brands in the future care about customers, not branding. I believe that future is now. I’m passionate about creating brand stories & design assets that help brands get ‘in sync’ and connected to customers they ‘care’ about.

Jamie Thomas – The Brand Entrepreneur

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