This Is How To Know You Have A Strong Business Brand

There are tons of copycat businesses out there that, on a daily basis, look for good businesses who are doing well and then clone their ideas, their processes and their style.

While nothing really can be done about copycat business owners who poach other people’s business style, one thing they cannot successfully poach is the brand behind the business.

Of course, many businesses start out copying popular brands or brands they admire, but I promise you, brand copycats cannot last for 5 months, talkless of 5 years.

The purpose of having a strong, cohesive and recognizable brand is not only to be recognized easily by your target audience but to have a compelling identity that can never be duplicated by another business owner (in this case, a business poacher).

A strong brand will stand the test of time, it will exceed the 5-year failure mark and provide value to its target audience. If you worry whether your business may not have that, here are 8 signs that show you have a strong business brand.

Before we get into it, I want you to check out what I’ve written about the 10 mobile apps that you need to scale your business without doing any work.

1. You Have A Clear Message

A clear message is one of the most important signs that show you have a strong brand. It tells your audience who you are, what you do and why you do what you do.

A clear message is one that your audience will identify with very deeply because you are speaking to their major challenges and because they have seen that your message hits their problem at the centre and solves their pain.

For example, if your brand message is clearly about helping young people secure their dream jobs by teaching them how to position themselves in the job market and write professional resumes, you will attract people in that category.

Your brand message, if communicated clearly, will help seek out your target audience and draw them to you.

To ensure that you reach the hearts of your audience, make it a point of duty to communicate whatever your message is in your blog posts, your copies, newsletters and your social media posts.

2. Your Message/Offering is Relevant

Helping young people secure their dream jobs by teaching them job interviews etiquette or helping them write enviable CVs is a great offering, that, if you get your target audience right, will be very valuable to them.

A good sign of a strong brand is that it offers what the market really needs. Don’t make the mistake of going to market with an idea that you think will bring the world to its knees because you think it’s great.

This is where market research comes in. By properly researching the market you intend to enter, you will be able to create products or services that will be of great value to your audience.

Never assume anything when creating a business, content or product. Let research be your buddy.

A good offering will speak directly to your ideal clients’ issues. Match their greatest needs and solves their biggest struggles. This is a sign that shows you have a strong business brand.

If you have a specific niche you are serving, then this will be easy to do.

3. You Are Passionate About Your Brand

If you’ve been reading lots of social media captions, you probably would have read captions about passion not being enough to build a strong brand.

Some outrightly tell you that you don’t need passion at all, all you need is a good idea and a great marketing strategy. Yes, passion is not enough or even needed, if you want to sell phone cases or popcorn syrups (If there’s anything like that).

But if you dream of building a profitable, scalable and recognizable brand, you need to be passionate about your offerings.

My sister runs a make-up and skincare business where she teaches secondary school graduates, between the ages of 16–22 how to start their own make-up businesses even before they gain admission into the University.

The business idea was borne out of passion because she waited for 2 years before she got into the University, doing practically nothing.

She later realized that 2 years was an opportunity lost because she could have built a profitable business by now, had she started then. Considering that the Nigerian job market isn’t smiling to anybody.

Passion brings out enthusiasm when you talk to your audience. If your audience can sense this, they will begin to see signs that you have a strong business brand.

4. You Value Your Audience

Every successful brand knows that its audience is the most important part of business success. You must be obsessed about serving your audience. You must value them.

Your audience is at the core of your business. The ability to serve them well will lead to more purchases, more money, and customer loyalty.

You need customer loyalty because it takes much more to attain new customers than to keep old ones and encourage repeat purchases, valuing your audience is a great sign of a strong business brand.

The audience that you serve is a strong force that keeps you going. Your audience, if they can properly relate with your brand, will, in turn, become loyal customers.

A business without customers is a business that will soon go under because customers are the reason your doors are still open.

5. Your Story Resonates With Your Target Audience

One major sign of a strong brand is a great and compelling Brand Story.

A good brand story is compelling and authentic. People connect more with stories more than they do with stats or data or anything else. In truth, stories help to strengthen your relationship with your customers.

Therefore, if you want to resonate with your audience, you must make them understand your story. A brand story helps you to connect with your audience on a deeper level.

Developing a strong business brand goes far beyond imagery and identity. It goes deep into people’s perception of your business, how they interpret your story and if the story is a reflection of their own stories too.

A good brand story talks about the WHO, the WHEN, the WHY and the HOW of the business. So consider these things when crafting your brand story.

An effective brand story puts its audience in mind.

Here are 3 simple steps to creating a great brand story

6. Your Presence is Cohesive Across All Platforms

Many small business owners, especially startups, are usually awed to be creating logo concepts, picking colours and other visually appealing branding elements.

What they fail to realize is that the visual elements, although important, are not what truly makes up a brand.

The ability to maintain these visual elements consistently across all platforms every single time is the key to building a brand that is cohesive. This is a sign that shows that you have a strong business brand.

A consistent brand is a brand that utilizes the same branding elements, including visual elements, messages, services and products, relationships with their audience, how they show up etc.

It starts with being consistent with your designs across all materials. For example, the imagery, shapes or colours that you use for your social media and website must correlate to those ones on your brochures, business cards, magazines, etc.

Check out this post on 10 highly important brand touchpoints for your brand.

7. You Put People Before Products

If you want to grow a successful business brand, know that putting people first is very necessary. When you are genuinely concerned about your audience, you build trust and foster great relationships.

So you don’t want to be creating low-quality products and selling them at high prices because you are in it for the money alone. If they sense that you are trying to be dubious and cunning, you will lose them fast.

Also, a lot of internal engagement is a great sign that shows you have a strong business brand. Your employees are living and breathing your business brand and core values and your customers are seeing that they do.

Customer service, customer experience, customer relationships are signs of a strong brand as well.

8. You Are Constantly Evolving

It’s very easy to rely on what has gotten you success over the years and not change your approach to building relationships with your audience or building your brand.

However, if you want to remain relevant to your target audience for a long period of time, you have to keep evolving, innovating, embracing change and trying new ideas.

A very good example of evolving is being flexible. Flexibility is not about changing your visuals and messaging style from time to time, but about looking for new ways to execute your strategies, adopt a flexible mindset and disrupt your procedures.

Conclusion

So, put your customers first, craft a good brand story and have a clear message. But understand that all these things cannot be attained in a day. It’s a gradual process, so keep on going.

If you are a startup, or a small business owner and you’re looking for ways to distinguish yourself from the plethora of business owners out there, the key is to have a cohesive brand. Let’s do that together, join the tribe.