Episode #6: The Best Investment You Can Make to Bulletproof Your Business.

Your brand is the reason why customers buy from you, it’s what attracts and retains quality employees, it’s what beats the competition, and it’s what builds a community of loyal brand advocates.

Everything you do from your marketing campaigns, how you design your visual identity, how you speak to your customers, to how you cultivate internal company culture, are all influenced by your brand.

With this much power and influence, it is obvious that branding is one of the soundest investments a business can make, because a well crafted and implemented brand strategy will yield exponential returns within your organization.

However, it still amazes me how many startup businesses and entrepreneurs fail to build this critical foundation.

Or how many organizations continue to struggle day to day because they have not consistently maintained and managed the structure and guidelines set within their brand strategy.

So to help convince you that branding is worth the investment, here are 7 proven returns of branding that will positively affect your business for many years to come.

Number 1: Attract Better Customers

During the research phase of developing your brand strategy you will identify exactly which types of customers align with the products or services you offer.

When you have a clearly defined target demographic, you can effectively create messaging directed to the right customers.

Plus, those customers are more likely to become loyal brand advocates who will convince their friends and family to buy your products or services as well.

Number 2: Command a Premium Price

People are willing to pay more for a brand that they suspect to be better and more valuable than the competition.

By differentiating yourself, branding gives you the power to position your brands worth above the competition. Therefore you can command a higher price and increase your revenue.

Number 3: Close More Sales

A well defined and positioned brand is easier to sell because most of the hard work has already been done for your sales and marketing teams.

Branding gives your employees the tools they need to confidently speak your brand’s message, design on brand creative, and close more sales because the quality and superiority of your products or services will have already been articulated through your brand strategy.

Number 4: Reduce Marketing Costs

A cohesive, well-articulated brand increases the efficiency and effectiveness of all your marketing campaigns.

When you have a well defined and specific audience, it is much easier to develop highly relevant marketing campaigns and target your most engaged customers.

Plus, when you have a strategy that supports your brand strategy, you will develop language and visual identity guidelines that can quickly and easily be integrated into all your marketing campaigns.

Number 5: Increase the Value of Your Company

The perception of your brand is based upon the behavior of your customers.

If your customers value your brand and are willing to pay a premium price for your products or services, that will ultimately increase the value of the brand itself.

Therefore, when it comes time to possibly sell the company, it’s your brand’s equity that will determine its value.

Number 6: Solidify Brand Authority

Once you’ve defined your brand purpose and targeted your ideal audience, you can precisely identify your optimal niche within the marketplace.

This Brand authority enables you to become the industry leader, and beat out the competition.

Number 7: Attract Top Talent

Branding not only attracts better customers, but it also gets the attention of quality talent.

People want to work for companies that stand for something and maintain similar values and beliefs to their own.

When you are authentic to your purpose, and are able to articulate your goals, it will be much easier to recruit and retain top talent.

So to sum all this up, branding is an investment in the future growth of the company by attracting better customers, creating loyal brand advocates, elevating your company above the competition, allowing you to charge a premium price, retaining the best talent, increasing brand equity, and becoming the industry leader.