Your brand is your company’s most valuable asset. A good brand will yield considerable returns and help you attract customers. This is why investing in your brand shouldn’t be seen as an expense, but an investment. Another way to look at your brand is that it is your reputation. This is something you need to pay special attention to. It can take years to build up your brand and reputation but an instant to lose it.
A positive brand has two important elements: the external image your business portrays and the internal processes that ensure your product or service is consistent with that image. Here are the best ways to invest in your brand, helping you grow your business and develop a positive company image.
Invest in Web Design Services
Web design is of pivotal importance because it is usually the first time a potential client learns about your company. It is the first impression of your company. Luckily, your website is something you can control. Investing in a well-designed, simple, and effective website will help you keep people on your site longer as well as better engage with your potential customers.
On average visitors determine within the first several seconds if they will stay on a website or move on. You want your website to look impressive. If your site has a good design, it will not only guide visitors to take action, but it will create a sense of trust and enhance the overall reputation of your business.
One of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to logo design is being too detailed and complicated. Logos are not meant to be instructional drawings or diagrams. Your logo should be creative, memorable, and simple. Simplicity is key for numerous reasons, including easy reproduction, high memorability, and instant impact.
However, simply looking good is only the beginning. The website also needs to be well organized. You only have a matter of milliseconds to make an impression. If the organization of your site does not make sense, the user will simply go elsewhere.
If you have an e-commerce site, you want to ensure that the process customers go through is easy. Any barriers or difficulties they encounter will significantly lower the chances that they will complete their purchase.
Your website also needs to convey trust with critical security features. Customers will trust you more with ID verification and security tools. With the high number of data breaches, consumers are careful to purchase things online or give out any personal info.
Stay On-Brand With Corporate Workwear
Depending on the business, having a corporate uniform can strengthen your brand. It is easy to recognize Best Buy’s employees with their blue shirts and Geek Squad’s white shirt with black tie.
Corporate uniforms can help establish a positive corporate identity, increase esprit de corps, and when traveling out and about, be another medium for marketing.
Uniforms that employees are proud to wear can help them feel a part of the team, increasing morale. Just like the Best Buy and Geek Squad example, customers can easily identify who works for your company. If you a company uniform is right for your business, make sure you find a high quality and professional uniform supplier.
You don’t want your uniform to be made of poor quality material, or having your company logo, motto, or slogan not represented well. Especially if they have to wear their uniforms daily, you don’t want the uniform to fall a apart after a few washes. Having well fitting and high quality uniform can help your workplace practices reflect your mission and value.
Look for a supplier that also can adapt to your company and offer a wide selection and customization services. Companies have differing needs; they want to achieve their own corporate identity while creating pride within the company. A good uniform can be a powerful tool in creating a positive company culture.
Constantly Check the Quality of Your Services and Products
Now that the external aspect of your brand is set up properly, it is extremely important to make sure your product or service is consistent with it. Another way to look at it is that the external component of your brand is what makes the promise, and the internal component is delivering on that promise. It is always better to underpromise and overdeliver. How can you do that?
Quality is important to your customers. Even though you have a great website and external image, ultimately it is the quality that will determine if your customers will return. The best salespeople are your customers. If they love your product, they can be strong evangelists by spreading your business’ brand through word-of-mouth.
Your customers can also be your worst salespeople. If someone loves your company, they may tell a few people. If someone, however, dislikes your company, human nature is that they tell dozens of people. Large companies have quality control (QC) employees to spot check a company’s quality. You may not be able to afford a dedicated employee to do this, but you should have every person be a QC employee.
Especially if you are in the manufacturing industry, there are always things that can go wrong. It can be something simple as a wafer ring or more complicated like an electronic device. The key is to finds ways to make it better, improve, and innovate.
Apple has become extremely successful in selling iPhones. It is just one product! But every year there are updates, improvements, and the desire to provide better quality products than the year before. Steve Jobs is known to be extremely meticulous when it came to the quality of their products. You should be too!
Engage Your Customers
You can have years of providing the perfect product or service, but one bad experience can lead that person to post a bad review. This will inevitably happen. This is where customer engagement comes in. Be responsive to their needs, questions, and comments. There are two beneficial elements. The first is that you get feedback on how you can improve your product or service. The second is customer engagement.
The amount of interaction you give to your customers is important. If a customer posts a negative review, reach out to them immediately and see how you can help. Often the fact you responded will help the situation. When people read the reviews and also how you responded, that can help ameliorate any problems. Customers don’t expect you to be perfect, but they do expect that things get fixed.
If customers have questions, ensure that you have a system set up so they can contact customer support easily. Make sure your contact info is easy to find on your website. When customers can interact with a person and not just an anonymous company, they are more likely to feel engaged.
The Right Employees Create Success
Your employees are just as important as the customers. You can only build a great company around great people. The key is to find the right person for the right position and job responsibilities. For each position, know what you are looking for.
Don’t settle, even if it takes longer than expected. A bad employee can take down a company, so having the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seat is the only way you can get where you need to go. Remember that although skills and knowledge are important, it’s also the drive and passion they have as an individual that will make an impact.