Many consumers today are expecting more out of companies than just providing good value in products and services. A study shows that a business’ “brand” – how it is identified and perceived by the public – is defined significantly by showing social responsibility and having a higher sense of purpose than making a profit.
Building a company that connects with people on a personal and emotional level requires “conscious branding,” which begins with a business being aware of its identity (who we are, what we stand for, and what future we would like to co-design), the ecosystem it lives in and how it can add value to the world and its people, says Julius Geis (www.juliusgeis.com), a branding expert who has created strategies for over 40 companies and is the creator of Identity Built Branding™ (IBB).
“The way we relate to brands is radically different now, and the upheaval of 2020 magnified this,” Geis says. “People want brands to be a navigator for change. They expect responsible branding and for companies to be proactive and transparent.
“Brands that only see dollar signs need to shed their rigid conceptions of business. The brands of today must be living organisms that are relationship-centric inside and outside the company. When a brand is anchored in an organic identity and moving from a place of purpose, consumers are drawn to its authenticity. It’s time to move away from brand-fakes that manipulate people. Let’s embrace branding designed to strengthen our collective connections.”
Geis offers three tips for businesses to build their brand inside and outside the company in ways that connect people and a higher purpose:
Engage in organizational self-searching. Geis says companies can determine their purpose by asking questions such as: What is the core reason we are in business? What are our non-negotiable, guiding beliefs? Where do we come from, and what are our backgrounds of experience? What do we wish for the world to become? “The understanding of a company’s collective self,” Geis says, “or its founding spirit, is the focal point for strategic development and decision-making.”
Investigate disruptive relationships. A deep analysis of relationships within the company and with the outside world, Geis says, is a fundamental part of removing the obstacles on the road to company self-identity, unity, and greater purpose. “It starts with your culture and extends to everyone your company has contact with,” Geis says. “Probe relationships, from internal employee-manager connections to the relationships between the brand and its suppliers, consumers, and communities. The problems lie where these relationships are disrupted. That points to the underlying cause and leads to ways to strengthen these relationships in a sustainable manner. But without solidifying the work culture first, connecting in a stronger, sustainable fashion with consumers can’t happen.”
Embrace truth and change. “Change happens when a company finds its true sense of self and strengthens its culture accordingly, rather than continuing randomly or aimlessly and manufacturing a false identity that will inevitably crumble under the pressure of reality,” Geis says. “When you’re operating from a place of truth, your relationships are grounded in trust and a like-mindedness that allows them to move and react to the flow of business and culture. Rigid relationships built on false premises or forced connections will always struggle to evolve.”
“Many brands have lost public trust,” Geis says. “They’ve lost their power and their way. But finding or rediscovering their purpose can connect them inside the business, which must happen in order to connect with today’s consumers that demand a world awareness. As we move towards a better understanding of our interconnected culture and economy, branding in its traditional structure and motives will disappear.”
Tim Maleeny, head of planning at Ogilvy North America, speaks at the BRITE ’11 conference about how Ogilvy has designed a template (The Big Ideal) to help build brand platforms from a combination of a company’s purpose and the relevant cultural tensions it’s suited to address. The BRITE ’11 conference on brands, innovation, and technology was hosted by the Center on Global Brand Leadership at Columbia Business School. Learn more at http://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/globalbr…
Today, more consumers than ever are demanding that companies become transparent and take hands-on approach to making the world a better place. They’re looking for what experts call “conscious brands,” companies that embody a higher purpose by having an intentional purpose or embracing social responsibility. Think: Tom’s Shoes or Jessica Alba’s Honest Company.
According to a report by MWWPR, not only do 90% of consumers say they’re more likely to patronize companies that take a stand on social and public policy matters, 80% say they’ll even pay more for products from such brands.
But you don’t have to be a big name in order to transform your business into a conscious brand. Follow these three steps to make sure that your actions resonate with your ideal customers, helping you multiply your revenue and make a lasting impact.
1. Be clear about what you stand for
Ben & Jerry’s is an iconic conscious brand. Climate justice, LGBTQ quality and Black Lives Matter are only a few of the socially responsible causes the company has advocated for over the years. And it only makes people love their brand even more.
As people become savvier, trust in marketing is growing more vital each day. It’s not enough to just offer a great product or excellent customer service. Customers want to do business with companies they like, trust and align with. Those brands that sit on the sidelines regarding important issues are coming under greater scrutiny. Meanwhile, those with the guts to take bold but strategically sound stands are being rewarded.
Follow B&J’s lead and include your views and values in your marketing. Share your beliefs, and ask your audience to take part alongside you in supporting the causes you believe in. By intentionally integrating social responsibility as part of your daily business routine, you can ensure you are doing your part in practicing social and environmental responsibility and be seen as a thought leader in your niche.
It’s one thing to talk about the causes you support, but it’s another thing entirely to actually do something about them. People are jaded by outdated marketing techniques, false advertising and businesses and influencers who don’t walk the walk. While building and running a conscious business requires more intentional decision making and an uncompromising commitment to the mission for good, the reward is the creation of a movement that leads to unparalleled success and impact.
Patagonia is a noted leader in environmental and social responsibility. Their mission statement reflects this well: “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.” From supporting grassroots activists working to find solutions to the environmental crisis to suing the former president of the United States, Patagonia has taken action on the most pressing environmental issues facing our world.
There are countless ways you can become part of the change for good: collect donations, offer scholarships, take part in activism. Use the resources you have — your voice, your business and your community — to take action. When you weave these actions into your company culture, and it’s embodied by employees and customers alike, you create a movement. By embracing ethical business practices while creating transparency and accountability, and providing immense value, your brand will rise up over the competition.
3. Cultivate partnerships based on values
Co-branding with another company is an effective way to double the awareness around an issue, increase the impact of an effort and, ultimately, expand the visibility of both organizations. Who you partner with has a direct impact on your reputation, your bran and your potential customer’s perception of your business.
As reported in a recent Hubspot post by Sophia Bernazzani, “In 2015, Target partnered with UNICEF on a campaign called Kid Power, which committed Target to one of UNICEF’s sustainable development goals (SDGs). The retailer sold kid-friendly fitness trackers encouraging them to complete various fitness activities, which ultimately helped deliver food packets to underprivileged children around the world.”
To ensure that you’re making smart partnering decisions, choose partnerships that align with your values. If you have not yet determined your brand values, make it a top priority. The best way to do this is to follow my 3S Method. First: Source. Do a Google search of “brand value words.” Choose as many words as possible that you resonate with and feel are important.
I like to put them on index cards (or you could use digital Kanban boards) to make step two easier. Second: Sort. Group the index cards with similar words. For instance, honesty, integrity and truth would go in the same pile. Finally: Select. Choose your final words from the groups by what you feel best represents your deepest values.
Now, use these brand values as your North Star. Refer to them any time you are making decisions, such as who to partner with, who to hire, which clients to work with and more. Doing so is sure to help you stand out amongst the noise online and attract raving fans with similar values.
Branding is one of the most vital parts of growing a business. It’s how you differentiate yourself from your competitors. It’s how you stand out from the crowd, and it’s what your customers feel when they think of you. It’s the promise you make to your customers, and your business’s success depends on how well you fulfill that promise.
Your brand is the exact blueprint of how you will represent yourself to your customers. It’s the manual that tells you and anyone in your company who and what your company is not only from a design standpoint but also, who your customers are, what their wants and needs are, what the voice and tone of your marketing efforts and communication will look like.
Branding is the upstream driver of everything that comes underneath a business’s marketing campaign. It drives culture, tells customers what to expect, and ultimately drives a business to succeed or fail.
We’ve all seen brands change and grow throughout the years. Logo changes, changes in marketing messages, new angles and approaches to delivering a product or service — a brand’s changes evolve and mold to fit different changes in the market. Most brands who’ve stood the test of time use these three ways to differentiate themselves and stand above their competitors.
1. Sell emotions
If you look at great brands, you’ll see trends emerge. A mentor I once sought for advice used to say, “success leaves clues,” and while there is a lot left unseen when you look at large corporations… There are many traceable and tangible variables that can be monitored and valuable information to be gleaned from them. First and foremost is that most brands sell emotions.
Coca-Cola sells happiness. So does McDonald’s. Visa sells the feeling of freedom. Toyota sells freedom, reliability, adventure. Many large brands sell you a feeling and deliver it through service or product. They deliver it through an experience.
Understand what emotions your customers are craving, and you will win your branding efforts. Oftentimes, a business’s marketing campaigns focus too much on delivery mechanisms and not the state the customer will be in once they receive the product or service.
Most customers don’t actually want the specific item, service, or product they purchase. They actually want more safety, security, happiness… or less pain, less stress, less time or effort output, and more results. Most customers’ wants and needs are simple. While attempting to stand out, entrepreneurs tend to overcomplicate things and think that because their mechanisms of delivery for their products are so different from their competitors that their customers care as much about it as they do.
This isn’t true… Ask yourself questions like;
What emotions are evoked when my customers receive my product or service?
What are the pain points that my customers are trying to solve?
What is the end-state of receiving my product or service for an extended period of time?
What are the results my product or service delivers?
Use the answers to these questions to understand what your brand or business delivers. Create a roadmap of the emotional journey your customer goes through. Then speak to each part of the journey in your marketing messages.
When people are first learning about your product or service, what are the emotions they are feeling? As they move from a cold/unaware person to a warmer and more educated lead, what emotions and thoughts do they have about your product and service?
Map the customer journey using emotions as the basis for transformation and let your marketing then speak to each segment as they move through the conditional logic that is your marketing funnel.
Consistency is the key to any branding campaign. Since branding is a promise, you make to your customers. This promise MUST be made consistently throughout your front and back-end marketing campaigns to maintain integrity.
One of the hardest things about our current entrepreneurial world is how many shiny objects fly around our purview and get us distracted. I have often found myself exploring new and deeper territories of marketing, new ways of advertising, or new ways of delivering our product or service.
It’s so easy to see a gap in the market and innately rush to try to fill it. As entrepreneurs, we capitalize on the opportunities we see in front of us. That’s the job of an entrepreneur… It’s to see room for improvement in society and then create that improvement.
When you define your brand, you create a container for your business. You figure out what fits into “the box” that defines who and what your business is and who it serves. You understand what it is that you do you and what you don’t do. When you’ve created this roadmap, it allows you the ability to say no to opportunities that will create inconsistencies in your business.
Define your brand, create a consistent message that speaks to your audience’s emotions, and make sure you continually measure any and all new possible products, services, or marketing channels against who and what your brand is. If it fits, run it. If it doesn’t, you’ll know, and saying no will be so much easier.
Branding isn’t just about messaging anymore. It’s not just about consistency either. It’s also about creating community. The best brands created communities accidentally. For instance, Costco didn’t intend to create a community with their memberships, but you know if you’re a Costco member and you’ve had a discussion with another member that you’ve likely talked about some product or service they have. Maybe you like their gas or their return policies… Maybe it’s the deals on dried mangos (that’s me). I often find myself sharing tips, tricks, or items I have found valuable there… but it’s only relevant to those that have a membership.
You’ll find that communities are created inadvertently by large brands. If you own a Toyota 4Runner, you’re a part of a club that only 4Runner owners can be in. That community of enthusiasts then created more containers for the community online through forums, Facebook groups, and other places to gather and exchange knowledge.
eBay is another great place to look at community building done through forums. If you google nearly anything about eBay, you’ll find that their forums generally dominate the SERP. In those forums, you’ll find sellers and customers collaborating to find answers to their questions.
Large brands create community by their prominence in society. Just by buying a product or service, you signal to others in the world that you are a person who “does things like that,” as Seth Godin would say.
If you buy a Tesla, you signal to the world that you’re forward-thinking. Maybe you like technology, renewable energy, or you just like fast cars? No matter what emotional reason you bought the car, fun, safety, prestige, status… or any other reason, you still signal to the world that you’re the type of person that would buy a Tesla, and you join a silent club of Tesla owners.
Great brands don’t just silently induct you into communities… Great brands create communities and places for their customers and clients to congregate, communicate and create new relationships. Look at Peloton and the gamification and ability to ride in classes with others or look to Literati, the online book club curated by celebrities and thought leaders that allows you to not only get access to the knowledge that has shaped Stephen Curry, Malala Yousafzai, and Richard Branson’s life’s, but you actually get access to a community where you can speak to other book club members and the curators themselves.
In the age of information… finding the information we actually need is sometimes like finding a needle in a haystack. We often find ourselves with answers, but because the internet is open source, it’s hard to trust that the information we get is true or exactly what we need…
When you create a community and involve celebrities and thought leaders, you do two powerful things for your customers. You allow them to relax and trust the information’s validity (compared to a forum or googling.) You’ve earned social authority with them by leveraging someone they know, like, and trust…
At the end of the day, branding is much more than marketing or a logo… Branding is exactly how your customer feels about you and your products/services and every touchpoint they’ve ever experienced from your business. It’s about providing your customers with solutions to their problems that create a change in their lives and, most importantly, in their emotional state and quality. It’s about creating a consistent place of business where they can reliably come to get their needs met. And most importantly, it’s about creating a community where they know their answers will be met with the best and most reliable information they possibly can get.
As information and technology become even more widely democratized, your business and brand will win or lose based on these three foundational factors. Can you define who you are, who you serve, and then consistently provide solutions and community? Answer yes to these three questions and your brand will inevitably grow, win more market share and become a staple in your customers’ lives.
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Brand awareness is more than people simply recognizing your business name or your logo.True brand awareness entails your audience getting to know the personality behind your brand and what makes you different from your competitors.
It’s vital to build brand awareness because consumers are much more likely to buy from a brand they know and trust than one that’s new to them.A research study found that over 80% of people searching for a product on Google chose to click on websites they were already familiar with, regardless of their position in the results.
Content marketing can be a highly effective way to build brand awareness. With every piece of branded content an individual sees, they become more familiar with your brand. But while exposure is important, it’s not the only factor at play. Content can help to build your brand in several different ways.
Quick Takeaways
Content marketing is an excellent way to demonstrate knowledge and expertise and build trust with your audience.
The more content you publish, the more exposure you give your brand. Every piece of content has the potential to widen your audience.
Your content is an important part of your overall brand and can be used to amplify your brand voice and reinforce your commitment to your brand values.
1. Demonstrating Authority and Expertise
By regularly publishing informative and educational content that helps to solve your audience’s problems, you demonstrate the fact that you know what you’re talking about as an expert in your industry.
For example, take a look at the blog published by marketing and CRM software company, HubSpot. HubSpot publishes a lot of detailed and useful articles on subjects such as content marketing, web design, email marketing, SEO, and customer experience.
Most of these articles are not written with the aim of selling more software licenses. Nor, indeed do they even mention the products and services that the company sells.
This informational content is not published with the aim of making more sales, but rather to share knowledge and cement HubSpot’s position as an authority in the area of digital marketing.
The audience reading HubSpot’s blog may not immediately be looking for a marketing software solution. However, with each piece of content they read, they’ll build a stronger association between the HubSpot brand and marketing knowledge.
If at some point in the future they are in the market for a CRM or marketing automation software, they’ll already have HubSpot in mind and be confident in the brand’s experience and knowledge.
2. Building Trust
Consistently publishing helpful information for your audience not only helps to demonstrate your expertise and authority but is also vital for gaining the trust of your target audience.
People don’t like to feel like they’re being sold to or that brands only have an interest in gaining their business.
Content marketing means publishing content that’s not sales focused and demonstrates you care about your audience and their problems, rather than just making the sale.
The more content your audience reads and the better they get to know your brand, the more likely they will be to trust you. The more they trust you, the more likely they are to spend money with you in the future.
Many brands offer very similar products and services, often at similar prices. Your brand personality is what distinguishes you from your competitors and builds relationships and loyalty with your customers.
Your content should reflect your brand values and mission. It should demonstrate what you offer beyond the products and services you sell.
Every piece of content you publish should also reflect your brand tone and voice. Whether this is fun and friendly, creative and quirky, or confident and informative depends on your audience, the industry you’re in, and how you want to position your brand.
To get this all right, it’s important to have a clear and defined brand, mission, value, voice, and content strategy that pulls it all together. Skipping over any of these steps will result in content that doesn’t have a clear voice or personality, and your brand will be weakened as a result.
4. Increasing Brand Exposure and Mentions
Every piece of content you publish gives you a new opportunity to expand your audience and reach more eyes.
Publishing content around the topics that your audience and customers are interested in is a highly effective way to boost your SEO. This means your site is more likely to come up in searches for keywords related to your business. The more content you publish, the more chances you have of showing up in search results.
Good content can help you to attract traffic from many other sources apart from search engines.
People share high-quality content on social media. Social media mentions are doubly effective because they not only help you to reach a wider audience, but a social share acts as a vote of confidence and demonstrates that others trust in your brand too.
This is increasingly important these days where 83% of consumers say they are more likely to buy a product or service if it is recommended by a friend or family member.
5. Building Customer Loyalty
Content marketing is not only important for attracting new customers but also to keep the customers you already have.
Strengthening relationships with your customers is also important for building your brand. When customers are loyal to your brand, they are more likely to recommend it to others.
Consistently publishing new content is a great way to stay in touch with your existing customers, keep your brand on their mind, and give them more opportunities to share your content and products with others.
6. Engaging Your Audience with Brand Storytelling
Everyone loves a good story. So it’s no surprise that much of the most successful content on the web involves some element of storytelling.
Likewise, some of the world’s most successful brands have a great story behind them. Just look at Apple (founded by college dropouts out of a garage) or Toms shoes (inspired by the travels of the founder and the barefoot children he met along the way).
If you can use content to tell the story of your brand in an engaging way, you’ll build an emotional connection with your audience that will make them want to read more, interact more, and buy more from your brand.
If you are ready to get more traffic to your site with quality content published consistently, check out our Content Builder Service.
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