Remaining proactive in this worldwide shift requires businesses to stay conscious of how their marketing efforts impact their overall brand awareness and image. Thankfully, the experts at SIS Global Marketing have worked diligently to develop strategies that organizations can leverage to improve upon their existing brand equity.

Brand Awareness

tells an organization how identifiable their brand is and the associations that customers have established with it. With brand awareness, consistency is critical. Organizations must use cohesive messaging and brand imagery to remain identifiable – even with new products or services. Organizations that communicate inconsistencies with their brand will struggle to establish an intense instance of brand equity.

Brand Experience

Customers associate experiences with brands. Customer service, loyalty programs, shopping experiences, and more are all part of the brand experience. Brands must remain consistent with their internal and external values to ensure that customer perceptions stay constant and that their experiences are similar. McDonald’s is an organization that offers a different brand experience, even on a global scale, and has proven that consistency can generate exemplary results.

An essential aspect of brand equity is that it carries several benefits in terms of ROI (return on investment). Businesses that focus on a robust brand image often experience greater returns than their competitors while spending less. Additionally, a strong brand image can benefit production environments, advertising efforts, and marketing initiatives. For instance, businesses that have established positive brand equity can typically charge more with consumers. The values communicated by these brands are often associated with their product offerings and incentivize customers to pay a premium for a product they believe in. Furthermore, organizations that already have an established brand can launch and market new offerings under their already-established brand equity. This is standard practice amongst industry-leading beverage and food brands that release new products for a limited time under the guise of their pre-existing brand image.

Establishing positive brand equity can pay significant dividends to an organization, but it is not something that comes easily. Building positive brand equity requires substantial work, research, and investment to establish and maintain. First, organizations must understand their target audience and the values that matter most to them. A brand must also understand what differentiates them from its competition. With these items established, businesses must continue their marketing efforts to attract and retain new customers while staying engaged with existing customers to transition them to loyalists.

Understand why you started in the first place

Every successful organization backs its brand with a purpose. Far too many organizations focus on communicating how they intend to serve their customers but often lack an apparent meaning behind those efforts. For large enterprise organizations, the why is immediately apparent. They constantly push boundaries and focus their advertising efforts on their brand instead of their products. Because these organizations focus on their brand versus a specific offering, they enable their expansion into new and exciting areas.

Create a consistent message

Today’s consumers want transparency from organizations and expect messaging that will align with their values and deliver on their expectations. Organizations looking to build positive brand equity must develop communications and advertising elements informed by the consumer’s voice. Leveraging consumer research and market data can help establish these messaging efforts and ensure success after launch.

Boost brand awareness

With a clear, concise message in place, companies should focus on boosting their awareness for their brand by emphasizing brand attributes and referring to the why. With digital solutions and e-commerce platforms shifting how organizations do business, establishing and advocating for long-term strategies can be challenging; however, when executed correctly, focusing on long-term brand campaigns can yield positive results with customers down the road.

Build the customer experience

With the rise of the internet and the rapid transfer of information, brands can no longer rely solely on their advertisement messaging to define who they are. Brands are becoming the sentiment that consumers foster around them. Establishing a customer-centric business model and centering them in the middle of all business decisions will elevate the overall brand and product offerings. A great way to capture this user sentiment and leverage it for brand equity is online product reviews and social media. In both cases, organizations can identify areas where they may be misaligned with their target audiences and better their overall brand equity.

Whether through product experiences or even store environments, customers expect that their engagement remains uniform when interacting with a particular brand – unless changes are communicated explicitly. Furthermore, customers associate overall experiences with brands, so remaining consistent with experiences and not just messaging is crucial. If an incident, messaging campaign, or product offering does not stay consistent with a brand’s image, do not pursue it – no matter how strong of an idea it may be.

Conduct a Brand Audit

Whether your organization has established positive brand equity or not, conducting a brand audit can be a powerful tool for strengthening or creating new initiatives. To perform a successful brand audit, leverage comparison websites, social media sites, website analytics, and other digital tools to understand your current positioning. Consolidating this information to review user sentiment around your brand and products will help evaluate whether your organization is aligned with its customers and long-term objectives.

At SIS Global Marketing, we have an established team of industry-recognized professionals dedicated to driving success for your organization.

Our experts have decades of experience building brand equity for global organizations and industry leaders. We pride ourselves on valuing long-lasting strategic partnerships over transactional interactions. No matter where your organization lies, our services can begin or refine your brand equity process. We offer a variety of brand equity services including, but not limited to:

• Brand Auditing
• Brand Equity Plan Development and Execution
• Brand Awareness Consulting
• Digital Brand Equity Consulting
• Brand Marketing Alignment
• Consumer Research and Target Audience Identification

Contact us today to see how SIS Global Marketing can bring your brand equity to the next level and begin a new chapter for your organization.