Warrior learns why branding accelerates business growth

A few years ago I was a firm believer that branding was all about colours, logos and fonts. If you used a specific colour, or type of logo - then people would come rushing and buy more of your stuff. What I didn’t realise is - a strategic implementation of your whole brand can accelerate the growth of your business.

In this article, I’m going to share the highlights of a recent interview with our Branding Guru - Bernard - who teaches me more about what branding is and how it helps a business grow faster.

Oh, and if you’re wondering what the “Warrior” is in the headline - my official title at Ucidity is “Warrior of Web and Inbound”.

Let’s read on.

What is branding?

Branding is the strategic roll-out of your business to every place where people might interact with your business. This can include:

• Your reception desk
• Social media - including the profiles of your staff
• Printed collateral - e.g. business cards and brochures
• Your website
• Sales tools like PowerPoint slide decks
• Digital customer interactions like invoices and email newsletters
• Live customer interactions such as phone calls

For a lot of businesses, they might be surprised to discover that their branding list is far longer than this. I certainly was one of those businesses.

Let’s take a quick looks at that phrase “strategic roll-out of our business” .What does this event mean?

Well, when you start a business, you normally have a couple of components already in sorted - even if they’re a thought in your head:

• Your vision and mission - or a bigger picture of why you exist and the problems you’re solving
• Your values - the core beliefs you run your business by, e.g. integrity, fun and empowerment

When a business strategically “rolls-out” its branding - it’s making sure that whenever someone interacts with the business - they’re experiencing the vision, mission and values. 

Why should your business invest time and resources into branding?

To put it bluntly, if your branding is not right - then you’re probably losing business to your competitors.

Branding is the doorway to trust

If one of the elements of your brand is slightly off, then it chips away at that level of trust. When enough trust is eroded - people start to look for businesses with more trust.

Imagine walking into an Apple store with a logo that’s missing the leaf, one of the staff members are grumpy or you get a photocopied brochure with the wrong fonts. You’d probably shake your head wondering what’s going on.

Everyone has a different level at which they’ll tolerate an erosion of trust - so you can probably “get away with” broken brand elements for a long time. 

Branding determines the types of clients you get

Ever heard the phrase “my day would be great if all these clients disappeared!”. It’s probably a sign of a business that needs some love with their branding. Let’s explore how....

A lot of client journeys start with someone checking out a website. If the business is trying to attract boutique clients - but the website shouts out “we don’t care about our image”, “we compete on price” or “it’s hard to find anything” then guess what - they’re probably going to get a whole bunch of clients who they took on board because they desperately needed clients.

Are there clear examples of ROI from an investment in branding?

I’m a firm believer that everything you do in your business needs to have a return. I was super curious when I asked Bernard whether he’s experienced any tangible results from a branding project.

One of Bernard’s favourite results is a strata management company who worked with us at the start of 2020, right when COVID was hitting Australia.

The company’s original name was “Concierge at Home”. They approached Bernard because they were suffering from the symptoms of their branding being off. 

They were finding it hard to close sales, partly due to people ringing them for concierge services. 

Bernard led a naming and branding strategy with tem and we rolled out a proper CRM system for them.

The result was a new company name - More Than Strata - and a whole new branding.

The owners of the business are ecstatic - particularly because they love their new customer base AND they manage to hit their sales goals 90 days ahead of schedule - whilst COVID was damaging the rest of the market.

There are a lot more ROI examples that Bernard and our team are proud so feel free to check them out on our website.

For me - I love hearing stories like More Than Strata - because it cements in why I get up every morning and why Bernard and I founded Ucidity.

Conclusion

Yes, I used to struggle with the concept of Branding and how it could possibly help a business grow. Through learning and being a witness to brand implementations - I'm definitely now a convert!