In these days where every product that you sell or service that you offer has a thousand other competitors providing the same products and services, what will you do to survive in the market jungle and still make money?
The strategy is to create your identity and image that sets you apart from the competitors. How will you do it? The answer is simple -by branding your business.
A brand is a collection of experiences and association connected with a business, a product or a service. Buyers make their choices and buy a product or service according to brand identity, relying on the perception, impression, or qualities of that product or service that your business or the competitors provide.
Branding your business offers a form of guarantee, a set of ready-made values attached to a product or service that the buyers can adopt upon purchase. Once the buyers like your products and services, they will continue to patronize it and become your loyal customers, no matter how many your competitors are. This is because they have already developed a loyalty to your business.
How do you create a brand to make your business different and distinct from your competitors? This can be accomplished by taking the following four easy ways:
1. Be close to the customers by providing them quality products and services. It is only by doing these that you can meet and satisfy their needs, tastes and preferences. In branding your business, your objective is to create a beneficial relationship with the customers, including your target and potential market so that both parties, you and the customers, are helping each other. Brand loyalty is the result of serving the customers effectively and well, and of communicating to them an image, impression, or characteristics of your business.
2. Differentiate your product or service. This is a technique to make your products and services stand out in the marketplace, and will complement the brand or image of your business. Differentiate your products and services by pointing to the customers the attributes, such as the quality, packaging, fast service, reliable after-sales service, that will make them choose to purchase from you rather than the competitors. These differentiation factors are what the customers will remember the most when they are through with the transactions, resulting to their coming back and becoming your loyal buyers.