Last time, we began talking about how to break down and build your brand (part 1 here) by focusing on defining your brand’s identity through target customers, pricing, and values. Now, we’ll look into how you convey who you are as a company to the world.
How are you communicating?
Your voice and tone is how you communicate your brand to the outside world. This should be consistently communicated across every level, far beyond printed words. Style and design choices like logos, fonts, colors, and preferred language choices are all immensely important. Every image and written text should feel as though it’s coming from the same person, or a cohesive, united front.
You should get an immediate sense of how a brand wants to be perceived based on how their voice and tone is represented on their website, packaging, promotional materials, tagline, and even how employees engage in phone conversations or respond to online questions. It should feel fluid and reliable.
How you communicate your branding visually and verbally is essentially a promise that you make to customers that you are who you say you are and your values are steadfast.
To get there, create templates for employees to follow when interacting with customers or vendors, and consider hiring help for the digital branding elements if you don’t have the time or expertise.
Outside of basic communication, you’ll want to consider how much you’ll use other media. It is an incredible asset, but it requires complete confidence in your brand’s identity and…
…you need to know precisely how you want the world to see you.
If you’re aiming for a younger demographic, then a stronger focus on a variety of social media might be the most effective route. Advertising and creating a following on platforms like Instagram have been shown to create exceptional loyalty and financial returns, especially among millennial shoppers, but only when done right. If you don’t have something new, interesting, funny, or genuinely informative to say, then you’ll just be white noise.
However, if you want to take a more serious approach and be seen as an authority in your industry, then you may want to forgo putting time into some of the more “fun” social media platforms and instead submit your business’ quotes for relevant press requests. If your brand’s voice offers enough distinction and expertise, then you can be used as a reliable interview source for print and televised journalism. The more of these interviews you can collect, the more you can create a wealth of backlinks and increase your SEO.
You may want to experiment with how you communicate in the initial testing phases until you hit the right note that properly conveys your company’s values, but once there, stay consistent in your messaging to make sure your customers know they can rely on you.
