What is Brand Image and Why it is an Essential Factor for the Success of a Business?
Brand Image is your Brand’s status, which requires years to build and minutes to ruin.
For entrepreneurs, starting a new business might be an exciting venture, but it has it’s complexities too. At the beginner’s level, for branding a small business, you need to create your website, design a brand image and create marketing assets. A content marketing strategy is needed to reach your targeted audience. This is where the idea of brand image emerges. To transfer the focus of your brand from what you want it to speak for, to what your customers think of it. Analyzing your brand image is important if you want to understand if your brand and your targeted audience are synchronized.
What is a Brand Image?
Brand image shows what customers think of their experience with your brand and how they perceive it. The customer’s point of view is affected by several factors, including the quality of your company’s product, the impression you create through brand marketing, and your level of customer service.
The cunning part of a brand image is that it is continuously changing and can be altered both positively and negatively by external factors like the opinion of other people about your brand.
To understand this concept better, let’s assume ourselves as a customer.
Say you decide to hire a virtual assistant, from a company, to create, design, and maintain your website. The virtual assistant has done a good job and you enjoyed working with them, and you think to yourself, “This company has good virtual assistants providing services, and you will reach out to them again when needed.” With those 18 words, you have cemented the brand image of that company.
Whereas, on the other hand, if your experience wasn’t great with the virtual assistant of that company you would’ve conjured a negative brand image. This will probably prevent you from hiring any virtual assistant from that company again and you’ll recommend the same to your friends.
An American businessman, Scott David Cook, said : “A brand is no longer what we tell the customer it is, it is what customers tell each other it is.”
Why is Brand Image an Essential Factor for the Success of a Business?
In this section of the article we will take a closer look at the importance of brand reputation. Why is it considered the essential factor in the success of any business? Why do most creatively designed brand strategies turn into a complete waste of money if it does not take the brand image facet into account?
Makes an Impression.
Brand reputation will affect the opinion of people, regarding your brand, even before they experience your business firsthand. It could be because of word-of-mouth, social media, testimonials, or personal experiences. People will develop an impression of your business with each interaction they have.
When people reach your website and find an impeccable website design with testimonials of your clients and find all the required and relevant information, it will leave an impression on them, and they will in all probability decide to make good use of your service.
Creates Brand Awareness.
Brand awareness shows how well-known your brand is, and a positive brand reputation will help you in gaining popularity. By maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction, you’ll become a brand whose audience will remember and eventually, depend on it.
We can take an example of Apple, which has been successful in creating its positive brand image with the history of providing quality products, which results in the increasing customer dependence on these products.
Adds Value.
Your brand reputation depends on manifesting your value to your audience, employees, and community people. By maintaining a defined motive and showing your importance in your area of focus this will demonstrate your value and brand equity, specifically to the customers who are seeking these qualities.
We can take an example of a company like Tesla, which displayed its commitment to the environment by making eco-friendly electric cars. This creates a strong impression on car-buyers who look forward to reducing pollution. In addition to this, other qualities of the car like appearance, price and size will add value, and people will likely purchase it. Tesla has created its brand image through these features, which helps in boosting its sales.
Increase Conversions.
A well-maintained brand image increases conversions, which means it converts the visitors to leads or customers. Whether it is through firsthand experience, or word-of-mouth, becoming a brand audience will make it simple to convert potential buyers into loyal and lifelong customers.
Best Ways to Manage Brand Image.
Managing the brand image could be a task in itself, therefore, to help you out, below are some of the proven ways to manage it.
Create a Professional Website.
A professional and up-to-date website makes a great impression on customers. It’s like a virtual hub for your brand image. A website makes it possible to inform and interact with the customers, engage with a new audience and promote the brand through a well-designed logo, home page, etc. If you invest time and money in creating a website that looks good, it will surely make a strong impact on the customers and it directly helps in the creation of a strong brand image.
Make Good Use of Marketing Strategies.
Never underestimate the power of marketing and its ability to influence the customer’s opinion about you. There are various types of marketing techniques including inbound marketing campaigns, influencer marketing, social media marketing, etc which are all in contemporary use of big brands.
Furthermore, the interaction with the brands is happening through online means, especially social media, where an average person spends over 2 hours a day. Therefore, an effective marketing strategy can create a good brand image around the world, even if you are sitting in your home.
Improve Your Customer Satisfaction.
You can have knowledge about your customer satisfaction through customer feedback. This can be done through online surveys, in-person interactions, online testimonials, or reviews in the comment section on your social media handles, etc.
If the feedback is negative, then, that’s a hint that something needs to change. On the other hand, positive feedback indicates that you are right on track. Brands are also using different types of social media tools like Facebook messenger to interact with their customers more to manage their brand’s reputation.
If you have any problem regarding website designing, marketing, social media, email, and all other related things, you can rely on our team to solve it for you and assist you in the best possible way!
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