4 Tips to Improve Your Company's Brand

Branding your business is about more than just choosing a logo or color scheme. Your brand is simply how customers perceive you. Below are four tips to follow to ensure that your brand is memorable.

1. Be simple and concise
Your brand shouldn't be confusing or require customers to perform mental gymnastics to understand. Complicated messaging or loud, busy graphics will only turn people off. Focus on one main value or benefit that customers can expect to experience when they work with your business. By keeping your message simple and concise, too, your customers are more likely to remember it.

2. Consistency is key
Varying your brand from month to month will leave customers confused and unclear on who you are. Stay consistent to make it easy for customers to recognize who you are and trust that they will receive exactly what they expect when they do business with you.

Everything from emails and printed materials, to uniforms and the company's physical building, should be cohesive. Messaging should focus on the one main value or benefit that customers can expect from your business. Over time, living up to that consistent message will create loyal customers that trust you.

3. Find out what your customers think
Most business owners believe they know what sets them apart from their competition. Often those opinions are wrong. A brand is based entirely on how the customer perceives you, which may not be the same as how you think the customer perceives you.

Before making a decision on what your brand means to the market, find out what your customers are saying about you. Conduct customer satisfaction surveys, monitor online reviews and social media postings, and ask your customers and prospects directly through market research. Chances are, they will have some insights into your business that you had never considered, which you can use to drive your brand to reach new markets.

4. Be patient
Great brands aren't built in a day. It takes time and effort to establish a reputation and trust in any industry. While it's important to keep your business relevant and stay in touch with the latest industry trends, you need to balance that with honoring the heritage of your brand and the main value you offer.

Whether you're reaching potential customers with emails, company materials, commercials, or an online presence, be consistent. Most important, don't change your brand on a whim just because things don't seem to be going the way you'd planned. Any deviations in your brand should be researched and tested to ensure that the outcome will be exactly what you want it to be.