A Strong Local Brand Can Mean Big Sales For You

We have all heard the term Branding, but what exactly is Branding? And more importantly do you have to hire a big Madison Avenue advertising agency to develop a brand locally?

Usually when people talk about brands or branding they think of large companies like McDonald’s or Nike. Most of us operate in a very competitive business environment and developing dominant local brand can be vitally important to your success.

There are three things that go into building a brand locally. If you have them in place your advertising and marketing will be more effective and your sales will consistently grow.

If you have found that your company’s advertising has not been effective and you feel like you are wasting your money and time you probably need to improve one of the three points of creating a dominant local brand.

Before we get into what you should do to build a dominant local brand let’s make sure we are on the same page by defining some basic terms.

Merriam Webster defines the word Brand as a class of goods identified by name as the product of a single firm or manufacturer. But a Brand is much more than that, when a customer see a logo, symbol or a name that identifies your business something unspoken is communicated and you want that unspoken thing to be confidence and trust.

Branding is defined as the promoting of a product or service by identifying it with a particular brand. There are several ways you can promote first and foremost is how you present, deliver and service what you sell.

A Brand is simply an identity or symbol for a business and branding occurs with the promoting and exposure of the brand to a target market. A brand is built by not only by promotion and advertising but also with combination of things you do on a daily basis.

One thing all the marketing experts agree on is that a Brand communicates confidence and trust. How do you build confidence? It does not matter it you’re a Fortune 500 company or a small mom and pop shop building a brand at any level involves a combination of Promotion + Public Relations + Image + Delivery.

Promotion is simply advertising and promoting products or services. There is a technology to successful promotion. Successful promotion attracts attention, creates interest and invites action.

Public Relations is the action of inducing the public to have understanding for and goodwill toward a person, firm, or institution; also: the degree of understanding and goodwill achieved. This can be achieved through good service and caring that the customer not only gets what they pay for but also gets more value than they expected.

Image is a mental picture or impression of or toward something. Image is a perception people have which is created by PR and Delivery.

Delivery is simply doing what you say you are going to do when you say you are going to do it. Caring that the customer is happy and satisfied and doing what is necessary to make them happy is the key to referrals and future business.

If you and your people are taking care of your customer by producing a good product, are standing behind what you do and do so as fast as possible you accomplish numbers one, two and three above.

I recently went into a local AT&T store to upgrade my cell phone. There were five people behind the counter and three customers. Three of the employees were sitting around twiddling their thumbs while two worked very hard to help. I waited for 30 minutes to get serviced while the three idle employees watched me waiting offering not a word or any assistance. This gave me the impression that the employees (and AT&T) really did not care one-way or the other. If the three who were sitting around could not or would not help customers they should have been in the back out of sight. It was very bad PR to have them sitting idly while people waited. Over the next 2 hours several people came in and I watched people leave with a disgusted look. This scene was not very good for building a brand or creating future business.

The second part of developing a brand involves logos and promotional materials that are easily identified and remembered.

I want you to ask you to look at the printed materials you hand out to your customers. Things like brochures, pocket folders, business cards and even your invoices.

Do they convey a professional impression of your business?

If your customer is looking at your materials and your competitions side by side, which looks more professional?

When you look at your printed materials, do they look like they belong together or are they mixed batch of themes, looks and designs?

If you were your customer, looking at your company’s materials do they communicate professionalism and confidence?

When was the last time you updated these materials?

Wilson Printing has a team of professional graphic artist that can help you design your materials so they have a common theme and work together to communicate what you do.
Our goal is when one of your customers look at your printed materials they get the impression that your business is ranked in the top ten of the Forbes 500. We specialize in making you look good.