Offering your target market a unique value proposition whilst ensuring they know who you are and what you stand will steadily drive your organisation towards its goals. With this in mind, there could not be a better time to look inwards and review your company’s brand offering. Now is the time to instigate small changes that could go a long way to securing business for your organisation in years to come.
Your brand comes down to what your audience think about your company. It’s about their expectations, their experiences and their memories. What are your favourite brands? Can you recall any colours, imagery or feelings that come to mind when you think about them? These memories and feelings summarise the company’s brand. Can you create a more vivid and emotive brand for your customers?
Brand awareness can be influenced majorly with a strong content marketing strategy. Provide your audience with some value, educate them, inspire them, show them a good time, show them you’re the best thing since sliced bread. Utilise all the channels you have at your disposal to distribute your content and hey presto, you begin to build brand awareness. If your quality controls are in place and up to scratch, you begin to develop a good reputation for your brand. Your target audience will associate positive feelings and memories with your brand. The larger your reach, the better your brand awareness and brand recognition should be. Master your content strategy, portray a consistent brand and message in each and every communication to build a consistent image and your levels of brand awareness will soar. Social media, newsletters, SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), print advertising, forums, email blasts, industry magazines – just some of the channels and media you can utilise. Some other opportunities to improve brand awareness include sponsorship, supporting charities and using promotional products.
Let’s face it, is recognition alone ever good enough? You also need your customers to be loyal to your brand. For this, they need a reason. Be it an emotional connection, a memory or status amongst peers, you must give your customers a reason to be loyal. Making their job easier, adding value to their lives or making them feel a certain “warmth” is by far a cheaper option for your organisation than replacing churn! Under-promise and over deliver, build relationships, get personal, appreciate them, show them that you appreciate them, tell them that you care, actually care! If you do a good job, you will breed a herd of brand ambassadors spreading the word to not just their friends and families, but to online communities and anyone that is willing to listen. A high level of brand loyalty can free up budget that would otherwise be spent replacing your churned customers.
Your brand reputation should be protected like a set of fine china. This requires monitoring all of your company’s communications to external stakeholders. Any stakeholder who has a negative experience with your company could do anything from leaving a bad review online to sharing their experience with 7 or more people that they know. This is very bad press, and powerful too being that it is from first-hand experience. “Look after your brand and it will look after you!” On the other hand, if you delight your customers they will sing your praises.
Look after your brand and it will look after you.
If you can deliver a consistent image with a story that sparkles, then you’re laughing!*
*Warning – patience and persistence required!Promotional products have been a popular choice for building brand recognition during marketing campaigns for many years and can have as positive an effect on sales as other forms of advertising. The BPMA (British Promotional Merchandise Association) highlighted a direct correlation between promotional product advertising and an improvement in brand recognition, leading to an increase in sales. It can in many cases yield a better ROI compared to Radio, Newspaper Advertising and Television.
(Research conducted in 2011 and 2013)It should also be noted that promotional products are most effective when combined with integrated, multi-channel, creative marketing campaigns.
69% of respondents claimed they could recall a brand on the promotional product received within the last 12 months.
Most respondents (87%) keep their gifts for longer than a year and over half said their impression of the company improved after receiving a branded promotional gift.
87 percent of recipients keep their promotional gifts for over a year!
The longer a promotional product is kept, the more impressions it makes on the recipient and any other users. But you can’t just fly by the seat of your pants! Before picking up the phone and placing an order for 1,000 pens for a trade show you are attending in 2017, stop and think. Promotional product advertising needs to be treated like any other form of advertising. It needs to be planned. What is your objective? Who is your target customer? What is your message?
Once you start to treat your promotional product marketing as a channel, your eyes will be open to the endless possibilities; bespoke designs, customer loyalty gifts, customer relationship management tools…. Want to read more about how to boost your brand with promotional products? Request our marketing guide, “A Guide to the Effective use of Promotional Products”.