The Importance of Brand Values

Having a ‘Brand’ is more than just a logo or a slogan — the term encapsulates the entirety of your business and influences how customers perceive you. The way you handle your brand image is vital in determining opinion and gaining market leadership. Your brand values are the foundation on which your brand is built.

Your Brand Values are essentially what you have decided as goals, methods of interaction, the way in which you express yourself, and the ‘voice’ of your business. It is essential that you have a strategy in place for promoting these values to ensure optimal reach and positive exposure. Your customers will want to know who your business is, what your company stands for — and what position (if any) it takes on wider social issues; these are all matters that your brand values need to address.

In their study, MediaCom found that, ‘40% of consumers have abandoned a brand because of poor values’ (Source).
This is a huge potential loss to a business, and highlights just how important your brand values are, and why you need to get them right.

Why Branding Is Important

When your customers purchase from your business, they aren’t just buying a product or service — they are buying trust and confidence; they are trusting that their purchase will be of a high standard and do the required job. So how do they initially come to you? Where does the initial trust come from? The short answer is the marketing and promotion of your brand.

‘The idea of branding is to make sure that you create a positive experience and back it up with quality processes and technology.’ (Source: https://www.mirrorandsmoke.com/importance-of-brand-value/)

Your brand is the face of your business — it is the first interaction your customers have with you, and it is how they will initially decide to choose your company, or decide to remain with you.

A strong positive brand is also a form of immediate identification — it is a way of standing out in a crowded market, and it is a shorthand way for customers to become brand champions — even if they cannot remember details, a strong impact will impart something, and can lead to them advertising your brand for you.

‘A brand is an intangible asset (name, term, design, symbol or any other feature) identifies one seller’s product from another and is often a corporation’s most valued asset.’ (Source)

What Values Do Consumers Look For?

Brand values aren’t limited to the product or service alone — they relate to your business as a whole; how you conduct yourself — be it in its postings, customer services or social media responses, its ethical values and awareness of its environmental impact, as well as accessibility (physical, digital or otherwise).

‘The power of brand purpose is also reflected in how much consumers are willing to pay — one in two people say they would pay more for a brand that supports a cause that’s important to them.’ (Source)

In short, consumers are looking for:

• Quality — Reliability and Understanding
• Honesty / Transparency
• Social Responsibility & Integrity
• Consistency

It is vital to underscore that these factors should be present not only in the product or service, but reflected in the business as a whole.

1. Quality — Reliability and Understanding
   With so many different products and variations available for purchase, consumers will look for the company that has a strong reputation for quality products, who can be relied upon to provide them with what they need, and who have a clear understanding of both the market and their consumer needs, especially when the consumer may know what they want — but not fully understand what the monetary value of the difference is.This could be done through ‘customer value models, which are data-driven representations of the worth, in monetary terms, of what the supplier is doing or could do for its customers.’ (Source).
2. Honesty / Transparency
   Strong relationships are built on trust, and your company is no different. Your customers want to know that what you tell them can be believed and trusted. This is true for the promises you make about your product, and how you run your company. If you make promises about yourselves and your product, you need to make sure you keep them.
   For example: If you don’t test your product on animals, but one of the component parts supplied by a 3rd party is, declaring that you don’t test on animals may be true, but is likely to bring you negative reputational impact if it is revealed that the component part is.‘An authentic company owns up to their mistakes and is honest with customers. Doesn’t sugar coat anything or sweep problems under the rug.’ (Bonfire Marketing — Source).
3. Social Responsibility & Integrity
   ‘The results of a 2,000 consumer survey show that people are increasingly abandoning brands that do not demonstrate social responsibility, with 63% believing brands should give back to society and 80% stating they must take steps to minimise environmental impact.’ (Source)This means that the vast majority of consumers, who are approaching your brand, will have these expectations. If you are not seen to be aware of your social and environmental responsibilities, and taking action to make a measurable impact then you are putting yourself at a disadvantage.Related to the expectation of honesty, consumers are generally suspicious of wide reaching claims — ‘with 65% believing brands overstate their environmental credentials and 45% admitting to being cynical about brands that overtly claim to support good causes.’ (Source)To alleviate these consumer fears, it is important that your company acts with integrity, and actually follows through with any claims it makes regarding social and environmental activities.
4. Consistency
   Although not considered the most important value from the customer perspective, it is perhaps the most important from the point of view of your business.‘Businesses are in a communication crisis, as consumers and clients demand that you engage them on all channels and platforms, talking their language and addressing their needs. Providing consumer relevant information through: web, social media, print, via-readers, newsletters, Facebook SnapChat and Instagram; is a must.’ (Yves Preissler — Founder YP Consulting)To handle the challenge of representing your business through so many different streams, consistency is key. If you have a clear vision and ‘voice’ for your brand, then you will find maintaining consumer interest easier — if people know what to expect from you (honesty and trust), it builds their confidence and allows them to feel as if they ‘know’ the brand, and they will feel more inclined to champion it.The most potent factor in building a reputation and brand identity is time — but just letting promotions run, or posting irregularly will see the public consciousness slip away from your business. You must maintain a visible presence (whilst balancing on the line between enough content and too much), and a consistent image will strengthen that.‘Research has shown that when people hear information, they are likely to remember only 10% of that information three days later. ‘(Source) — if your brand image and message is all over the place, then it will be much harder for consumers to connect in any way.

Getting Together a Brand Value Strategy

To go forward with optimising the value of your brand, there are steps that you need to look at taking:

1. Examine Your Product / Service — What are its highlights? What makes it different from your competitors? What are the key points that will appeal to your customer? How can it save them time / money / effort?
2. Ask Yourself Questions and Answer Them — Do customers believe us? Are we showing that we care? How can we make people’s lives better with our goods? Is our current approach garnering the results we want?
3. Engage With Your Team — Your employees are your greatest asset, find out what they think — both the good and the bad, and action any changes that will help the business.
4. Be Aware of Trends and Changes in the Market ­– Change happens all the time, make sure you have your finger on the pulse with a comprehensive social media strategy, when changes happen or new trends come in, evaluate them — if they can be used in conjunction with your brand (remember consistency) then be positioned to take advantage of them.
5. Be Seen — Even if you have the best strategy in the world on paper, it means nothing if you can’t action it and be seen. Get yourself out there and recognised.

‘Staying timely, accurate and relevant and congruent through all channels is a challenge. Mistakes can cost you your business. I believe the most important app, remains the human app, the real interaction by humans with humans within the business, creating experiences and value — however the market place and the marketing is digital, so a pro or a 3rd party contractor is not an option, but a must on your team.’ (Yves Preissler — Founder YP Consulting)

These are just a few ways in which you can create a strategy and increase your lead generation, with the end goal of increasing sales and customer satisfaction through a strong, vibrant and socially aware brand.

This post The Importance of Brand Valves was originally published at www.virtual-solutions.co.uk

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CATEGORIES: BRANDING

TAGS: AMBASSADOR ADVOCACY EMPLOYEE ADVOCACY SOCIAL MEDIA ADVOCACY