Five Ways to Enhance Your Brand Image

Image source: PhotoMIX-Company

Is your brand creating a great impression on your prospective customers?

For a lot of small businesses, the answer to that is “no”. Maybe your brand is going pretty much unnoticed … or even worse, it’s putting people off buying from you.

It doesn’t need to cost a lot to put things right. Here are five simple ways to turn things around:

#1: Use Professional Looking Signage

If you have premises, however modest, a professional looking sign will be a great advertisement to prospects … and a reassuring sign of your competence to existing customers.

Even if you don’t have premises that customers ever visit, signage is still important. When you attend events or trade shows, you’ll want to show your brand to its best effect – which is easy to do on a budget using foam board from nonstopsigns.

#2: Keep Your Website Up to Date

Is the information on your company’s website outdated or confusing? Perhaps you’ve changed your opening times, for instance, and they’re listed differently in two different places – or your “About” page was accurate two years ago but no longer truly reflects what your company does and who’s involved.

Make sure you update your website with fresh information regularly – and make sure, too, that everything is working correctly. If your contact form is broken, or if your site is just hard to navigate, that’s a lot of potential business you’re missing out on.

#3: Hand Out Promotional Products

Do you have any promotional goodies to hand out to prospects at events or trade shows? Do you have products that you can use as a little gift or reward for loyal customers?

Promotional products are an easy-to-overlook form of marketing, but they can really make an impact. You can hand out cheap products like pens at events, and promotional mugs are useful to strengthen relationships with loyal customers (plus they’ll likely get seen by colleagues or family, spreading your brand further).

(If you don’t yet have a website, check out these best practices for creating a website for your startup.)

#4: Be Responsive on Social Media

Does your brand have social media accounts? Do you monitor them and respond to customers and prospects – promptly?

Some brands do a great job with social media, but others tend to have accounts that do nothing but “broadcast”: they promote the company’s new products or new blog posts, but they don’t respond to customers who have complaints, or prospects who have questions.

Make sure that you’re available and responsive on social media. This is particularly important if your brand caters to younger users, who’ll expect both a strong social media presence and a high degree of responsiveness.

#5: Create a Google Business Profile

If your brand doesn’t already have a Business Profile on Google, you’re definitely missing out. This is especially true if you’ve got a local business (like a restaurant or estate agent).

It only takes a few minutes to set up a Business Profile on Google – and it will appear not only in searches but also on Google Maps. So if you’re a restaurant owner and someone nearby searches for “restaurants near me”, yours will show up – complete with information about opening hours, a link to your website, and more.

Enhancing your brand image doesn’t need to involve spending lots of money on consultants or paying for glossy leaflets that you’ll never use. Instead, think about the things that would really make an impact on your prospects and customers. You want to win people’s loyalty, and that means showcasing a brand that they’ll be glad to buy from.