A business’s brand is the foundation of its marketing strategy. A brand is what connects a business to its customers; it is how consumers perceive a company, how they recall a company and what they know the company by. Often, a brand includes marketing assets like logos and slogans, but a brand should be much bigger and broader than just a handful of corporate trademarks.
Brands are important in every season of business change, and they play a significant role during times of digital transformation. Here are the reasons businesses should pay close attention to their branding as they work to develop their digital designs.
Brands Help Businesses Find New Customers
Different businesses have different goals for integrating digital systems and implementing digital processes. Some are looking to gain a competitive advantage in their market; others are hoping to improve the customer experience. Understanding how factors such as organizational design can impact a digital transformation will help leaders develop a digital transformation strategy that is successful. Regardless, businesses are hoping that going digital will bring them new customers to improve their bottom line — which is a primary goal for branding, too.
Branding helps a business find new customers in a variety of ways. Brands should be attention-grabbing, which helps draw in new customers, and they should be memorable, which helps established customers spread awareness of the brand. As a business moves through its digital transformation, it should be able to rely on the strength of its branding to maintain and grow its customer base.
Brands Connect Businesses With Their Target Market
Whole Foods and Kroger are both grocery stores, but they have notably different branding.Whole Foods strives to attract a wealthier clientele looking for exclusivity and wellness, whereas Kroger is targeting the average American consumer concerned about convenience and cost. These two brands illustrate how branding is critical for businesses in identifying and attracting their target market.
Businesses might find their target market shift slightly as they integrate an increasing number of digital tools and services. If that is the case, businesses need to update their branding as well, perhaps making small but significant changes to communicate to consumers how the business has changed.
Brands Help Increase Business Recognition
A brand is composed of various visual elements, which should combine in a unique way to provide an effortless and accurate impression of a business. A consumer should be able to differentiate one brand from another — and thus one business from another. Because a business will likely go through significant changes during its digital transformation, having a strong and stable brand for customers to connect with is key. Though branding might change subtly to reflect digital updates that could improve the customer experience, the reliability of most aspects of the brand should keep customers grounded as the transformation occurs.
Brands Build a Business’s Trustworthiness
In the 21st century, consumers look for polished brands as evidence of a business’s credibility. Branding that is incohesive, incomplete or otherwise incomprehensible is a good sign that a business doesn’t have the structure to deliver trustworthy products and services, so when customers find a business with less-than-stellar brand materials, they are likely to look elsewhere when they decide to buy.
A digital transformation can be a time of upheaval for a business, and few businesses will find success if they consistently cause customers to turn away with bad branding. Before launching into a digital transformation, businesses might look into enhancing their branding to be certain that customers believe the brand’s credibility as digital services are added.
Brands Motivate a Business’s Workforce
While a brand is primarily used to communicate with consumers, branding is also helpful in unifying and motivating employees. Especially when workers are involved in developing a business’s brand materials, offering insights like values and mission statements, brands can clarify individual and group objectives while inspiring employees to do the best they can for the business and its clients. For example, Apple’s brand is well-known and respected, which serves to give pride to its workforce, who want to produce the best products to support the brand. A business needs to keep its employees engaged and motivated during a digital transformation, so it should be able to leverage its brand for this cause.
Strong branding is important, but it is downright essential during a digital transformation. When a business is undergoing a significant change, it needs to be able to rely on strong branding to see its customers and its employees through.
Article Submitted By Community Writer
