A common mistake in branding is believing that the work you put into defining your brand—and the hours spent developing a logo, style, standards, and the look of marketing collateral, websites, and ads—is your brand. While it’s true all of these elements are critical to developing your brand’s presence, they do not add up to what your brand is. Your brand does not live in any of the things above: it is in the minds of your audience—the people and organizations you are engaging with, or perhaps more importantly, hoping to reach. It’s their perceptions about your company, products, or services that actually formulate your brand. The tactics mentioned earlier (e.g., websites, ads) are simply means by which you may influence an audience’s perception of your brand. Audiences are opinion-making machines, and their opinions are formed by all the data their minds are constantly collecting. So, their perception of your brand is the culmination of many things: it includes their experience when they call your company, get help from customer service, receive an invoice, read your website, see your ad, and so on. So it’s not that marketing tactics don’t matter, but other, sometimes more subtle details can matter just as much—and maybe even a bit more. Audience perception is a lot easier to control than you might think. Take a moment right now and think about how you interacted with a key audience today. Was it through an email or a phone call? Social media? A blog? A webinar or PowerPoint presentation? In what ways could you have made that communication more authentic for your audience, and ensured you left them with a positive impression of your brand? Fine-tuning how you communicate, in all forms, to your target audiences is what influences their perception and helps make your brand unforgettable (in a good way). Benjamin Lovejoy, Creative Director
Originally published by The Content Bureau. Click here for the original post.
