How to build a Successful Brand

If I write, and you don’t read, I wouldn’t be impacting, neither will I want to do more. But your constant following has made me want to do more and I am really grateful for that. Thank you for reading always and also for telling people about Creative’s Corner. My sincere apologies for not posting yesterday, it was due to a situation which came up and was beyond my control. As compensation, I will drop two more posts after this before the end of this week, so help me God. #winks.

So, in my previous post, you can check it out here, I talked about Brand: What it is and what it is not. A lot of people were able to see what their brand is not but not what their brand is. This is why I will mention it again here and then we will look at how to build a successful brand.

Let me start with some examples for better understanding. Take a minute and think about GoTV, they have a lot of stations. So now, think about African Magic, what do you associate it with? Movies (Sincerely, I don’t associate them with News, they don’t even say news). Now think about NTA, what do you associate it with? News, it’s just imbedded in our hearts to the extent that you don’t even think that they show movies there. Let us look at another example, when you want to buy a new and nice phone, you most times think of Tecno. But when you want to get a new and nice laptop, you most likely think of HP (Hewlett Packard). Now all those feelings of security and trust that you have in these brands, they came because you have experienced it before, or you have someone that told you about it, then you are not scared that they will give you low quality things, that is their brand that they have built in you.

Let us go to drinks which is common to us all. Follow me. You are coming from work on a hot afternoon, you had a long though short and tiring day. The sun is scotching and you just wish you can get something to drink. Now there is a drink shop down the road and you manage to get there. What do you order for? Well for me, I would order for chilled 7up (Yes, it’s one of my best drinks), open easily and gulp as fast as I can. Now notice I did not order for wine, say Veleta, not that Veleta is not very nice too but because I have associated it with having an occasion, it’s a wine for Christ’s sake. But 7up, it will give me that immediate feeling of refreshing which Veleta won’t give me until I chill it, set my table, wear fine dress and pour out in a wine glass. Now these two companies have built a feeling in me, a response, a perception about themselves in me, which I believe is not peculiar to me alone, now that is building a brand. It was not about their name alone, not about their logo alone, not about their tagline alone, not even the website not their colour nor packaging and other things alone, but a combination of all these things.

Now that you understand what a brand is, let us now look at how to build a successful brand for yourself. I will talk about 4 major ways today which can help you.

The first is to define how you want your brand to be perceived. How do you want your customers to think about you after they finish using your product?  How do you want them to talk about you to their friends? Positively or negatively? You have to decide that. Because if you, the brand owner doesn’t know, then it will be impossible to communicate anything to your customers.

Now that you know what you want to tell your customers through your products, organize your business based on this promise. Let everything about you be telling them and showing them. Remember I said in the last post that your tagline is a short-written promise to your customers. As it is written in your tagline for them to see it, it is showing in your theme colours, not the one that they will see and be repelled, it is also showing in your packaging method, it is showing in the way you respond to them when they give you a call, it is showing in the way your product is, it is showing in everything about you. You are shouting it out to them through everything. Now that way, you sure are building a brand.

After you have organised everything about you to give them your promise, now communicate that promise with them. BE CLEAR! Don’t say A and your customers will be hearing C. Communicate with them clearly what you want them to perceive about you. This way they know exactly what you are saying and they understand what to expect from you. So that they don’t get disappointed.

Consistency they say is very important, it is also very important in creating a brand. If you are a brand builder? BE CONSISTENT!! Don’t go on and off, don’t provide good product today and tomorrow bad product. You are a designer and you are building your brand, give your customers designs that they will love consistently. Don’t be good and be manageable tomorrow (I am earnestly working on that too), Be good always. This way, your customers’ trust will never be broken. Okay, this example is ringing in my head, imagine me that likes 7up a lot. I should now decide to buy one on a certain day and it should be bitter, maybe they mistakenly put something bitter in it. To be sincere, I can manage to drink the one I bought o, so that my money will not waste, but after that, that’s no more 7up for me. Even if someone offers to buy me 7up, I would rather not accept it because they have broken my trust, I don’t know what to expect from them. So, you see why consistency is important in building your brand?

In conclusion, building a brand, trust me can be a lot of work especially in being consistent. And of course, it is not something you can do alone, you will need people to help you as time goes on. This is why before you can communicate your brand promise to your customer, you have to communicate to your staff, they have to understand everything you mean so that they can help you in passing it across to your customers. With this, your brand is good to go. Also note that customers can perceive you wrongly, that makes you a not successful brand but if you are able to follow the steps explained above, knowing what you want them to have and know, letting them know what they should know and expect and being consistent with what you are giving them, then you are good.

A big shout out to all my readers! I love you guys! Thank you so much! Don’t forget to subscribe so you get notifications for new posts. Also send an email for topics you want me to talk about to olamipoada2@gmail.com. Watch out for the remaining two posts for the week.

See ya!