5 Ways You Could Be Damaging Your Brand Recognition
This article will help you:
Understand how you may be hurting your brand recognition and how to fix it.
Think of the last time you put your headphones on to listen to your favorite band and how the vocals and instruments harmonized magically and memorably. Now imagine if the drummer wasn’t on the beat or the guitars were out of tune. It wouldn’t sound like the band you love, right?
I love using musical harmony as a metaphor for brand recognition.
Your brand recognition is only as strong as those individual elements that help make the brand known. When it comes to building a solid brand, your blueprint for communication needs to be carefully orchestrated and maintained to achieve brand harmony.
Unfortunately, it’s all too common for brands of any size to overlook problems that could quickly turn into significant brand recognition issues.
Here are five of the most common ways you might be unknowingly damaging your brand recognition.
- You don’t have a strategic marketing plan.
It’s easy to get distracted by what’s trending or what your competitor’s doing and end up wasting time (and money) attempting to put together an effective strategy.
While you may earn short-term wins here and there, it’s critical for healthy and stable brand recognition to build a strategic marketing plan. It will help you position your services with the right audiences through the proper marketing channels and at the right cadence. Start by asking yourself: Do I know where my customers are? What social media platforms do they use? Can customers consistently find or reach us?
With a thoughtfully crafted marketing plan, you can plan better, create more effective campaigns throughout the marketing year, and reach the customers that matter most to your business’s success.
Without a plan, your brand recognition is at the mercy of luck.
- Your website isn’t catering to your customers.
Building a website is only step one for your brand recognition. Once you’ve launched a website for your brand, you should regularly consider how to curate and maintain the right experience for your potential and existing customers.
One of the most common mistakes is not establishing a straightforward way for customers to find and understand your services. There is so much information on the web; if a critical customer lands on your webpage but can’t quickly find what they’re looking for and doesn’t understand how you’ll make their life better, they’ll leave and continue their search elsewhere.
Customers generally go with a brand that clearly explains what they offer in a way that encourages customers to buy from you. This is easier said than done! Partner with a marketing writer who can make your offer sound irresistible to your target market.
- Your social media is missing a solid strategy.
Social media is a mighty marketing channel for brands of all sizes. It’s not only a way to promote your business, services, or products to targeted audiences; it’s an excellent way to grow a digital community that can take your brand recognition to greater heights.
It’s critical to ensure your social media channels represent your brand consistently through genuine, visually engaging content.
Additionally, you must prepare to go beyond simply publishing, finding creative ways to interact with current and prospective followers on your social channels. In doing so, you unlock a new level of brand recognition by expressing your company personality through entertaining content, consistency, and a unique writing style. Here are a few ideas:
- Periodically comment on post threads, providing helpful tips and ideas.
- Give praise to colleagues (within your company, in your field, even if they’re competitors)
- Share about why and how your business is going really well
- Share about when you got it wrong and how you’ve learned from your mistakes
- Share personal achievements, both serious and funny
- Share great feedback from customers
These are just a few ways you can use social media to build a strategy for better brand recognition.
- Your contact form is too basic.
This is a particular brand recognition problem, but it’s important to solve because it’s ultimately a defining moment for you and your customer.
When a customer is finally interested enough to reach out to you, you want to ensure the process is seamless and sets the right expectations. The standard intake or contact form is often limited to a name, email, and an open comment box. This generic solution to a momentous touchpoint is a missed opportunity. It should do more to both help and inform the customer.
So consider the scenarios in which your customers might reach out to you. Use unique form criteria to route customers to the most evident next step. Doing so will make them feel taken care of and will help them understand what to expect from your next interaction.
Here are four keys to a killer contact form.
- You’re not showing brand proof of value.
Reading and watching reviews are part of most customers’ buying journeys, and case studies or testimonials are a highly effective way to build and sustain this type of brand recognition. It not only helps prospective customers see themselves as one of your successful projects, but also increases their comfort with investing in you.
When building a case study, the most helpful information to include is:
- Who was the customer? If you’d rather not share names, it helps to share what type of market segment they’re in.
- What goals and challenges did they come to you to solve?
- How did you help them solve the problem?
- What data can you share that indicates success?
By showing actual proof of your brand value, you encourage new customers and continue to seed opportunities to grow your brand recognition.
To sum it up
As you’ve read these five ways you may be damaging your brand recognition, you probably have a few more to add to this list. That’s a good thing!
It means you’re now in the mindset of evaluating the details that can make or break your brand. I do understand, though, if this feels like an overwhelming mountain of problems to fix. But it’s well worth the time and effort to consider what might be hurting your brand and devise a plan to – step-by-step – resolve the issues.
If you and your team feel overburdened, it may be a sign that it’s time to hire an experienced professional to help (ahem!).
Key takeaways
- Your brand needs a solid marketing strategy to amplify its brand recognition.
- You need a website that works for your customers’ needs.
- Your social media presence should have a strategic plan behind it.
- Your contact form is a precious opportunity to connect with your customer meaningfully.
- You need to show proof of your brand’s value through case studies and quotes.
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