A brand or brand identity is quite a fascinating concept, considering that it incorporates all of your values, your ideas, the product you sell, as well as the customers you want to target. With things like your logo or your brand colours, you can only give your customers a hint of what your brand is all about, hoping they see in it what you see in it.
Right from the beginning of your business journey, building your brand and your brand identity is crucial. To ensure that your brand represents your business as good as possible while attracting your most valuable customers, here are some points you should consider when building your brand.
1. Simplicity is key
Simplicity and clarity go together hand in hand.
Just picture all the big-name brands that people know, Facebook, Amazon, Apple. They all have a straightforward and clear logo with a very monochromatic colour scheme.
The same should count for your brand.
Your brand should be easy to understand.
Nobody will sit down and analyse your colour scheme and your brand to try and understand what you want to say with these specific colours and forms. When they are just scrolling through Instagram or walk through the town, your brand should be eye-catching and simple enough so that it’s not overwhelming. Make your message clear and straightforward.
It’s the same throughout the whole customer journey as well. Your approach to converting new customers should be straightforward but also guided. 41% of shoppers have abandoned a transaction during checkout in the past year.
Having a complicated checkout process doesn’t help to reduce this number. You want to check out as quickly and easily as possible. The same goes for delivery communication. Most customers don't want to pick up the phone and call but they still want to know where their order is. With Siids branded tracking page, your delivery communication is easy to use for the customer and allows them to see the status of their order with one click.
Simplicity is essential throughout the whole customer journey. Customers don't have a problem abandoning their carts and shop with competitors, just like they don't have a problem not to shop with you again if they aren't happy with their post-purchase experience.
2. Keep it consistent
The critical importance of a consistent brand lies within the advantages of a recognisable brand.
Keeping the crucial points of your brand consistent throughout the whole customer journey and beyond holds plenty of advantages, mostly related to trust. With brand recognition comes trust, which is fundamental to stand out against competitors and increase brand loyalty. Loyal customers don't only spend 33% more than new customers, but they can also be ambassadors for your brand. Besides, increasing customer retention by just 5% boosts profits by 25% to 95%. Having a consistent brand that people recognise, this customer retention is easy to accomplish.
Just like keeping it simple for your customer is vital throughout the whole process, keeping your brand visible is as well. Most of the time, the only connection your customer will have to your brand after the purchase is unpacking the actual product in the end. In between, there can be hours, if not days going by, in which your customer doesn't get reminded of your brand.
With a branded tracking page, you fill this gap and allow your customers to quickly see their latest shipping updates while having another option to engage with your brand.
The connection to your customers doesn't have to end there. By implementing your socials, you can further stay in contact with your customers, especially when they follow the same consistent branding rules.
So, when you think about your brand colours and logo, make sure they also work on all channels.
3. Know your competition
In a competitive marketplace, to succeed, you need to stand out against your competitors, but to do so, you need to know your competitors first. If you don't know what they are capitalising on, how are you supposed to know what niche you can capitalise on? Points like the clarity of message, design, user experience, reputation and differentiators should be taken under the magnifying glass.
Especially on the reputation front, you can easily differentiate from competitors by offering a seamless post-purchase experience. With Siids order management software, you can ease the order management process, reduce errors, and save time. Afterwards, you can ship the goods using the best rates thanks to Siids shipping management feature and throughout the whole process, your customer can track their order with the branded tracking feature Siid has to offer.
Having a seamless post-purchase process alone will separate you from most competitors. With a branded tracking page, you can extend the lead by having your brand show every time your customer checks their shipping progress, reminding them where they've bought from and, best case, where they will buy from again.
4. Know your customer
In order to know how your business must differentiate itself, you must understand what customer base you're targeting.
If you are still at the beginning of your business journey, a buyers persona helps determine who to cater to. Still, if you have had customers already, a customer profile is a more accurate way of seeing who your actual customers are. Comparing between your buyer’s persona and customer profiles, you can see how your ideal and your existing customer fit together. Look to identify how your branding efforts worked on your preferred customers, by analysing the ones that you managed to attract.
To go even further, with the help of segmenting strategies, you can find your most valuable customer within your existing customer base.
This knowledge will not only put your brand even further afield but also provides an opportunity for small businesses to find a niche they didn't think of targeting before.
If you target customers in a specific niche, you can be assured they also surround themselves with same minded people that could become your customers as well. People tell an average of 9 people about a positive experience with a brand, but 16 about a negative one. If they have a good experience, they will tell other like-minded people about it and gain more valuable customers for your business. If they aren't happy, you will lose these potential customers right away.
The same principle works for social media. If a happy customer starts following you on your socials, their followers will see their interaction and gain awareness of your business. Amongst them can be more valuable customers.
Give your customers the chance of finding your social profiles by implementing them onto your branded tracking page.
5. Rebranding with ease
Rebranding is a scary word, especially considering how much time and effort has gone into your brand. Still, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. If your business isn't differentiated from your competitors enough, or you realise that you catered to the wrong niche all along, rebranding can help to lift your company again. Especially now knowing what niche you should be catering to and what could differentiate you from your competitors.
Some of the biggest companies have rebranded and re-boosted their business including McDonald's, Instagram and Subway.
Don't forget to change your tracking page as well. Now you can make sure the right people remember your brand and the branded tracking page is even more successful in acquiring new customers than before.
Stay in your customers minds. Book a demo today and make your brand unforgettable, with Siid.
