When you see Nike and Adidas, do you see a difference? Does Adidas appear to be Nike’s cousin? They happen to be around at family visits but not exactly on the front stage.
When I think of Nike, I think of sports, power, and energy. When I see Adidas, I think creative, open and endurance.
Both Nike and Adidas make the same product, but they look and certainly feel different to me. That’s what branding is about.
For someone who is not obsessed and doesn’t care about sneakers that much, I do know their brand identity. This happened through consistent marketing and awareness, even when I thought I wasn’t paying attention or caring at all about sneakers. I am sure you feel the same way.
The beauty of branding is that it’s a powerful force that can keep you earning leads. It’s like investing money in the stock market, which continues to bring dividends until it crashes (or when a negative brand perception occurs).
It works two-fold: It attracts new clients easily and keeps past clients loyal to your business.
What exactly, at a high level, do you need to be able to be doing to reap the benefits of brand equity?
The following are examples of what you can control and where you can take action. However, you must measure your efforts against how clients perceive your brand. You’ll go back and forth between what brand initiatives you undertake and gathering feedback to make adjustments.
1. Your brand should have a personality.
Add a bit of life to your content. What I mean by that is to show some personality. Are you a down-to-earth, unfiltered type or adventurous?
It is easy to get into the typical medical branding as a way to be safe. But that’s the problem with hearing clinics.
“When you play safe, you limit the opportunity for people to experience positive results in their lives.“
Plus, if your website and marketing collateral are bland and contain basic messaging like every other clinic, competition will be more difficult.
Why would you increase competition for yourself?
You have to remember that most people search multiple businesses at a time. People respond well to messaging that stands out and differs from the crowd.
If your website’s tone and style are the same as others, visitors will have to look for other signals to decide who to do business with. Those signals are often not logical in the end.
Your brand personality may be an extension of yourself. You can use tools for brand identification. While these apply to developing a personal brand, they can work for your business.
2. Increase your perception of value
People need to see your brand more than a commodity.
Commodity happens when you put your business alongside others, like the selections of pasta on the store shelf. Most of the time, nothing stands out, and you are looking for the product on sale to buy.
The customer has no loyalty, and the next time it’s looking for pasta, it’s not looking for the same brand for pasta; it’s again looking for a low price.
When people base decisions based on price, a large percentage of the reason is that it doesn’t understand or perceive any value.
You can demonstrate value in your content by:
- Showing that you can fix someone’s unique problem
- The least amount of effort and time your clients need to get what they want.
- Show how other clients are benefiting from working with you.
3. Have a point of view.
A great way to bring your brand to life is having a point of view.
Points of view which go against the norm and the unspoken message often get the loudest applause.
If you look at today’s influencers online, like Andrew Tate or Jordan Peterson, they both have personal brands which speak to the Gen Z white male who feels left out of society. They both have built popularity by having views that do not match the narrative that society has placed.
Ask yourself, why did you go into business? What did you see that’s not being addressed and you wanted to change? What do you stand for?
Your point of view needs to be different. ‘I believe in quality hearing care’ has already been taken (thousands of times), so pick something else.
What branding is not?
Notice that I am not referring to logos, brand names, slogans, packaging, etc. These are brand images which are not central to branding.
What we highlighted above: Personality, values, and point of view are the drivers, and in the end, the brand image follows.
Start with a brand identity, and stay consistent by measuring the response to your effort. Yes, it will take time to see results, much like your investment in the stock market.
If you need help putting together a brand identity strategy, I’d be happy to assist you.