Building a healthy, fruitful, meaningful business is dependent upon the ground zero of an attractive brand that stands out from the crowd and attracts the ideal clients. Every move that a business makes reflects on that brand, and if the moves are well-calculated and the reflection positive, the likely pay-off will be increased profits, a wider consumer audience and an abundance of organic opportunities for growth.
While every business owner would love to reap the benefits of a brand on fire, unless a brand can manage to remain relevant to a consumer market that has a constantly evolving list of likes and dislikes, it will eventually meet the same dismal fate of other brands that have ignored changes and become stale and irrelevant. Instead, successful businesses recognize that branding is an ongoing task, and seek to reinvent in order to re-engage consumers, through marketing, innovation in product lines, technology and other ways.
Stuck on how to keep your brand relevant? While businesses worldwide are hopping on the content bandwagon, and for good reason, there are other steps to take to keep the fame from burning out as well.
Here are 7 Ways to Reignite Consumer Passion and keep your brand relevant to get started:
1. Ask Questions:
A brand can go wrong even when it is achieving all that it sets out to achieve simply by having goals that are not in line with what consumers want. Assuming to know what consumers want is a mistake that even the most seasoned brand managers can fall victim to. After all, if consumers like something one day it can be easy to fall in to the trap of giving them that same thing the following day without asking the necessary questions to find out whether tastes have changed. The truth is that consumer tastes are fickle, and what was on-trend one season may not be the next. To stay in the know about what its target audience wants, businesses should constantly be asking questions via as many avenues as possible: social media, focus groups and retail data collection. The information gathered will prove invaluable when planning how to convince consumers of the value that the business’s product or service will add to their lives.
2. Innovate:
Brands with a history can use innovation to reignite excitement surrounding them. While veering entirely away from the products or foundation that brought success in the first place is ill-advised, making buzz-worthy changes or additions can help current customers as well as a new generation of potential customers to re-discover a brand.
3. Take Chances:
Never say never! The consumer buying process in 2016 is entirely different than it was even a decade ago, and certainly worlds apart from what it looked like generations ago when some brands that are now household names first introduced themselves. Be willing to consider all things when it comes to business, understanding that the thing that made a company successful at its inception may no longer be relevant today. Many businesses have gone under simply as a result of a stubborn aversion to change. Be open-minded to avoid becoming one of them.
4. Define the Target Market:
It can be easy to assume that marketing efforts are making it clear who a brand is directing its attention towards. This is a big mistake. Instead, be as specific as possible internally as well as when constructing marketing messaging about exactly who a product or service is for. Cultural differences abound not just from one age group or socioeconomic group to another, but also within those individual groups across geographic areas or language groups. Defining who a business is targeting is the first step toward making sure that advertising and product or service development is culturally relevant to that group.
5. Immerse the Branding Team in the Consumers’ Culture:
Data has its place, but relying on date alone is not enough. Immersing oneself in the live culture of the targeted consumer can provide insight to the branding manager that no amount of spreadsheets can give. Getting out of the office and into the places and frame of mind that its customers occupy is imperative. Build relationships, have conversations and attend sporting events, restaurant happy hours and concerts as appropriate to gain a much better idea of what problems customers have that the business can solve. Do not source this work out to junior level employees or interns. This is a job for the most senior in the company to take on. Doing so regularly grows the most wildly effective brand-builders.
6. Keep it fresh:
A business that stays relevant does so by regularly evaluating itself internally. A good rule of thumb is to evaluate brand strategy every six months. Do so while considering what is going on in the company, the community and the world to see both intimate and big picture needs. Then, tweak things as needed, including brand language, image, goals and audience in order to keep things fresh and avoid ever falling flat.
7. Keep it Buzzworthy:
Even brands with undisputed consumer value and a good marketing plan run the risk of turning in to background noise without some hoopla now and then. With that in mind, keep momentum going by creating buzz through events, contests and engagement with causes that are relevant to the consumer. Providing customers with surprise, excitement and entertainment will leave them with positive associations with the brand and help the company’s message spread organically.
To talk about how to keep any brand relevant, please contact us. Thank you.
Fancy a coffee to discuss your creative brief?