Large businesses know their brand is one of their most valuable assets. Small businesses, often on shoestring budgets, can get stuck on a hamster wheel – working hard for every sale and neglecting the thing that creates lasting value. Here’s why your brand deserves to be one of your top priorities.
What is a brand, really?
Your brand isn’t your logo or your colours. It isn’t even what you tell people about your products and services. However much you promote your quality, if customers don’t agree, it counts for nothing.
Your brand is what people think and feel about your business. It’s shaped by every single interaction they have with you – your products, your adverts, your social media, your website and every conversation with your team. (I explore this more in why brand is more than just a logo.)
The good news: you can influence it. The challenge: every touchpoint counts.
A strong brand is good for business
A strong brand can:
- win more customers: people choose brands they know and trust over ones they don’t
- support better prices: people will often pay more for a brand they value
- strengthen your hand: with partners and suppliers, and when recruiting great people
- make marketing more efficient: when people already know and like you, every campaign works harder
Ultimately, your brand is the key to a competitive, sustainable business.
Great brands make people feel something
People often can’t explain why they love their favourite brands. It usually comes down to a feeling – and they want more of it. That’s why the most successful brands build their marketing around emotion.
Nike’s Just Do It is a perfect example. By linking a feel-good, empowering mantra to its sportswear, Nike makes customers feel good about buying and wearing it.
Banks do it too. Lloyds Bank’s By your side campaign positioned the bank as a lifelong companion rather than a money-making machine. Partnering with Mental Health UK reinforced that caring feeling and connected with growing public interest in wellbeing.
Brand relationships drive loyalty
Relationships with brands develop just like human ones. At first, you’re cautious. But consistent, positive experiences build trust – until you stop comparing options and simply choose the brand you know will deliver.
Think about Apple. Its long-standing promise to be different and creative has built an incredibly loyal following. Using Apple products makes customers feel creative and stylish too, and many upgrade as soon as something new launches. That loyalty also helps Apple attract top talent and partners.
Brands hold real emotional meaning for people. That’s what makes them loved.
Your brand is bigger than your marketing
A common mistake is creating a brilliant brand campaign, then forgetting the rest of the business. For people to believe your brand, they need to experience it everywhere: in your customer service, your sales conversations, your products and your culture.
If a bank promises to be ‘by your side’ but its customer service is cold and unhelpful, trust quickly disappears. The strongest brands are lived by everyone in the organisation, so customers experience the promise at every touchpoint.
Where to start
- Define what makes you different: work out your value proposition and key messages.
- Bring your team with you: make sure everyone understands your brand and how to bring it to life.
- Check every touchpoint: from your website to your emails, does each one reflect who you are?
- Build your marketing around it: let your brand guide your campaigns, content and channels.
Bringing it together
Your brand isn’t a luxury for big businesses. It’s what makes people choose you, trust you and come back – and it makes every pound you spend on marketing work harder. Investing in it is one of the smartest moves you can make.
Ready to build a brand that works harder for your business? I help organisations of every size with brand strategy and positioning. Get in touch to find out more.