An important part of any business is the brand image they give off. Businesses today, more than ever, are judged off of first impressions and aesthetics. When there are thousands of alternatives for any product/service, each one has to have a reason to stick out. There are many ways for this to be achieved, but here are two of the most simple.
The first method to improve a brand’s image is through brand consistency. 90% of businesses have at least somewhat inconsistent branding. This means somewhere across social media platforms, websites, or advertisements the values and appearance of the brand is unclear. In practice this leads to marketplace confusion, less converted customers, and slower sale cycles.
Improving brand consistency is as simple as prioritizing the values, mission, and appearance of a brand. Does every single place the brand can be accessed give off the same impression? If not, how can that be achieved? There are modern businesses that can assess brand consistency and give suggestions as well if this is a challenging prospect.
Moving onto the second method, a powerful tool to access is hyper-personalization. Essentially this means creating extremely personalized experiences for each customer. As a simple example think about Netflix, Netflix’s recommendations are so powerful it’s how most people access their content. 80% of people use their recommendations while only 20% of users actively search for films and TV.
Of course this type of implementation is more obvious than in other industries, but the principle should always be considered. Starbucks, for example, opts to have a hyper-personalized app, offering suggestions for drinks and saving preferences. The basic idea behind the principle is to help the customer to feel special in whichever way is relevant. It’s typically powered by advanced statistics to build specific suggestions and content for each user.
It’s through these two methods that any business can improve their brand image. Consistency will relate more directly to how the brand is perceived. It’s not always noticed, but people certainly know when it’s lacking. On the other hand hyper-personalization makes people feel the brand cares about and understands them. People overwhelmingly prefer personalized content, so brands that utilize this are more well liked.
Source: BrandGuard