Corporate Branding: Why Is It So Important for your Business?

Think about the world’s biggest brands. Google, Apple, Nike, Coke Cola. Each one has a very distinct brand, and this kind of branding doesn’t happen by accident. Brands play with your emotions. They speak to your sense of style. They even tap into your values. The end result is brand loyalty, even if you don’t know it’s happening.

There’s a reason that people will wait for days outside the Apple store for the latest release. And there’s a reason that people prefer Nike over Adidas or Pepsi over Coke Cola. Brand wars play out on social media, with accounts like Wendy’s using their pithy sense of humour to connect with people and troll their competitors. It might seem like their social media manager has gone rogue, but in all likelihood, it’s a carefully planned exercise in branding.

So, why is corporate branding important for your business? You don’t have to be running a multinational corporation to care about corporate branding. It’s something that should underpin your entire online strategy to help you connect with customers in a human way. Whether you are in the B2B or B2C industry, we’re all just trying to connect with people, and astute corporate branding is one of the best ways to achieve this.

Help your company stand out

It doesn’t matter what industry you operate in, you will always have competition. Whether it is direct or indirect competition, you still need to find a way to stand out. Branding isn’t only about the tone of voice and the way you communicate with your audience. All of the visual elements such as your logo, fonts, brand colours and choice of images help to connect with your audience. The end result is a brand that your customers can recognise anywhere, from the side of a bus to an advert on Facebook.

Let your employees know what is expected

When you take the time to define your corporate brand, this becomes enshrined in company culture. If you want to avoid misrepresentation and let your employees know what is expected of them, then defining your brand is vital. As Abacus Marketing explain about corporate branding, first impressions count. If you want to make sure that every single person in your company is on the same page and ready to give the right first impression, then you need to define your brand.

Build a loyal following

People connect with personality, so if you can inject some personality into your branding, you’ll be one step ahead of those who shy away from this. If you want to build a loyal following, you need a strong brand identity that your audience and identify with. One area that companies often fall down is that they try to be everything to everyone. Not everyone is going to connect with your brand, so instead you should focus on building a core loyal following.

Increase brand awareness

Brand awareness is something that every company wants more of. If you run a dog grooming business, you want your customers to think of you first, before they’ve even had a chance to ask Google. This can be the difference between a customer heading to Google to search for “dog groomers near me” and searching for your company name. By developing a strong and memorable corporate brand, you can generate repeat business from your most loyal customers. They are also far more likely to recommend your company to their friends and family, so this just another perk of strong corporate branding.

Communicate your values

If it’s important to you, you can guarantee that it’s important to someone else. Your corporate branding can be used to communicate what matters to you the most, such as saving the environment or workers rights. While some companies will shy away from taking a stand, there’s a lot of value in daring to be divisive. Some companies take this to the extreme and can sometimes generate negative press around their approach to social and political issues. Lush is one example of a company that has ingrained political and social activism into their corporate brand. While it can backfire at times, they have also garnered a lot of brand loyalty for daring to take a stand.

Have you read?

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