Branding and Reviews

Effective Branding and Protecting your Brand

Effective branding gives your business an edge over the competition but how can good branding help your business specifically? It doesn’t matter whether your brand operates on an international level or on a hyper local one. It also doesn’t matter how big or small your business is. Branding is all about how you portray yourself to the marketplace. It’s about what comes to consumers’ minds when they see your logo or when they think of your company.

Branding and Reviews

Your brand is impacted by other people’s opinions online.

Whether you spent billions building your business or nothing at all, your brand still exists and it offers consumers a general perception of who you are and what your business stands for. In fact, every time a consumer interacts with your business, the brand itself reinforces an idea about the business – whatever that idea may be.

It is easy to forget about branding when you’re just starting out. This is understandable because you’ve got other things to do. There is the first profit to think about and product lines to develop and sometimes, you may even have to worry about overhead expenses. Answering the branding question is easy. All you have to decide on is knowing what your business is all about and why you do it.

How does branding affect a business, though? Great branding gives you a competitive advantage. It sets you apart from everyone else. It also has its own economic value even if it is considered intangible. Amazon, for example, has a brand name value of over $50 million. Coca-Cola, on the other hand, has a brand value of over $70 million.

For those with small to medium sized enterprises, these numbers can be dizzying but there is one thing that you can learn from the likes of Amazon and Coca-Cola – branding matters.

If you already built a brand that is recognizable to many people, you deserve a pat on the back. However, it also signals that it is time to step up. This doesn’t mean that you have to spend more money on advertising, it just means you have to ensure that your brand conveys the aspirations of your company. It also means you need to protect it.

The Importance of Brand Reputation Management

Your brand is the heart and soul of your company and it needs to be protected. To do this, you would need to be more active with your brand reputation management. You can start by responding to all the reviews that your business has gotten through the years. We are sure there must be some out there. If you’ve been in business for over a decade, it is possible that you already have a number of reviews online and they were probably written by former employees and consumers who have gone to your shop or those who have tried your products or services.

If you don’t know where to start, you can take a look at Yelp, Google My Business, and Facebook. Look for your company in any of these sites to see if your brand is mentioned there.