Post Originally Published on Forbes
Written By: Expert Panel, Forbes Coaches Council
A big part of running a successful company is getting people to buy into and become loyal to your brand. If a company’s brand is lackluster it can damage the chances for further success and growth.
Recognizing that their brand isn’t flourishing can be a bitter pill for an organization to swallow, but they must if the business is to succeed. To help, we asked 15 members of Forbes Coaches Council for their No. 1 tip for clients who have lackluster branding and why it works.
1. Discover Your Difference
If a brand is lackluster, it’s not making the impression it must to get you seen and heard in today’s noisy market. Branding is key to establishing your position and defining your uniqueness. When this occurs it’s time to take a new look at who your target audience is, what they need and want, and what you provide that’s different or better than your competition. Then we create and relaunch. - Tracy Repchuk, InnerSurf International
2. Give Your Customers A Voice And A Vote
Spend time with the customers you serve, and with those you’d like to serve, to better understand their needs. It’s common for brands to assume that they know what their target audience needs instead of investing the time and resources to truly understand what they want. This strengthens the relationship with the customer and establishes brand loyalty by giving your tribe a voice and a vote. - Carolina Caro
3. Build Your Personal Brand
Though it may sound counterintuitive, I recommend my clients build their personal brand to help their business brand. The logic and success behind such an approach are because of the way we relate to brands. A well-recognized personal brand can easily transfer credibility and loyalty to a business brand. It is the same reason why influencer marketing works so well. - Kamyar Shah, World Consulting Group
4. Make Sure Your Presence Has Contemporary Appeal
The business landscape is increasingly competitive, although not with competent entities. Choose to highlight what you do best and ensure it’s physically appealing. It only takes two to three seconds for a potential customer to back away from a dated presence. - LaKisha Greenwade, LuckiFit LLC
5. Get Back To Basics
With all my clients, I try to trace it back to the core values and motivations that drive them. Help them connect to why they exist, and more importantly, why it matters to them. From there they can take a fresh look to determine how and if their brand is truly reflective of the ideas that are most important to the company. - Tonya Echols, Thrive Coaching Solutions
6. Focus On Your Customers
Focus on your customer experience. While this may sound simple, I need to clarify by imploring you to focus on both your internal and external customers. Employee experience is a great predictor of customer experience, and anything you can do to boost the internal experience will yield high returns in terms of customer experience and thereby on how your brand is perceived. - Eugene Dilan, Psy.D., DILAN Consulting Group
7. Analyze, Assess And Act
Complacency equals lackluster performance. Avoid complacency by always staying current with what’s happening in your market niche and with your customer base and competitors. Perform regular comp set analysis, send out surveys to your customers and use the data to keep your brand up to the minute. Rapid advances in technology change the competitive landscape quickly; be sure to stay current. - Linda Zander, Super Sized Success
8. Tell Your Brand Story
Many brands fall flat because they haven’t taken the time to write their own authentic brand story. Think about your why. Why are you in business? What inspired your idea? What are your mission and long-term values? From there, think about how you can showcase that on your website and in your digital marketing. This is my go-to advice because it works every time. Authenticity wins. - Kyshira Moffett, The KSM Group
9. Invest In Relationships
This is my advice whether a company has polished “brand” assets or not. If a client has good relationships with consumers (they deliver products on time, they provide incentives, they are enjoyable to work with and so on), this will carry more “brand” weight than logos and other designed assets. - Billy Williams, Archegos
10. Be Clear, Consistent And Compelling
Make sure your message focuses on the three C’s — be clear, consistent and compelling — and you’ll be able to attract people, situations and opportunities that’ll help your company grow. Get clear on the company’s values and incorporate that into the message. When putting your message out there, make sure it’s the same base message — although it can be tailored — for each outlet. Finally, make sure it’s relevant to your audience. - Rosie Guagliardo, InnerBrilliance Coaching
11. Evaluate Your Company Culture And Vision
If you brand is lackluster, look internally first and determine if your company has a strong culture and compelling vision. A brand is much more than a cool logo and website. A brand really is a summation of all of the interactions your company has with its customers over time. Look internally and reimagine what it would take culturally and operationally to create raving fan customers. - Robert Fish, Insight CXO
12. Keep The Fire Burning
My go-to tip for a client with a lackluster brand is reconnect to your passion. Every brand should have a component of passion in it. It’s the piece of your brand that will keep you connected to your fire. As business owners it’s easy to get so consumed with the functionality of business you forget the core of why you started. Revisit the “why” and reignite the love for your business and your brand. - Lisa Guice, Lisa Guice Global-Vision, LLC
13. Write A Catchy Tagline
Like a good song hook, taglines provide an opportunity to create a memorable company identifier. Develop a catchy, meaningful and concise tagline that expresses the essence of your company and the impact it has on the world. Even a boring brand can bring excitement with a great tagline. - Deborah Hightower, Deborah Hightower, Inc.
14. Create A Brand Promise
Assess the company’s current image and decide what you want your brand to look like. Once you are clear about who you want to be, create a brand promise — an agreement between you and your customers that you will commit to consistently delivering. It is important that there are ways to measure how you are doing. Make sure your internal processes and policies and who you hire match your brand promise. - Brad Federman, F&H Solutions Group
15. Infuse Your Unique Edge
Focus on what makes you different and unique. It’s common to fear that you might lose business by being too different, but often times you are losing business by blending in with every other competitor in the market. When you infuse your unique edge into your branding, you create a lane of your own that will do a better job at attracting more of your ideal clients. - Ashley Bradley, Purpose & Prosper
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