Selling products is one thing; building a brand is a different thing altogether!
Your company’s brand is the emotional bond between your customer and the company’s products or services. The stronger the positive emotional response people have to the name of your business, the more successful you are likely to be.
You need to consider several vital aspects while building your brand. You want your brand to be effective—that is, relevant and memorable to your target audience.
Your brand should stand out from the competitors when it comes to customer satisfaction and quality. The fact is, most consumers can tell the difference between the brands they like and those they feel indifferent about.
But is this all? What does it take to establish a brand? How do you protect your brand legally?
To help you better understand the topic, we have divided this article into two parts:
- Establishing Your Brand
- Protecting Your Brand
Have a look.
Part 1: Establishing a Brand
Be Different
Your brand has to be unique and connect with people so that you and your business gain a competitive advantage in the eyes of your target audience. Your brand should identify you and you only.
Develop An Audience Persona
The most effective way to tap your customer’s hearts is by offering a product or service they are looking for. To do that, you need to understand and know your customer and target audience.
Developing an Audience Persona would help. It identifies what your target audience looks like so you can target that audience. The persona is a rough outline of your ideal customer and includes information like:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Disposable Income
- Interests
- Pain Point
You will be in a better position to tune your solutions once you know the demand of your target audience.
Quality Over Quantity
Some people think that high likes or lots of visits are the key to a brand’s success. But likes does not equal brand quality and does not mean that people are buying what you are selling. Quantity may fetch you short-term success, but it’s the product or service quality that imprints your brand’s name in the good books of your customer.
Moreover, high-quality products or services also contribute to high brand recall, translating to more sales in the long run. Remember, your want your brand to be remembered so customers return.
Part 2: Protect Your Brand (Legally)
Some people want a brand that is never copied. But a brand that is never copied is not a successful brand. People will follow quality and reputation and attempt to copy those things. If you do not protect your brand, people will copy it and you may be a financial loss due to the copying of the brand.
Here’s how you can protect your brand:
Ensure Privacy and Confidentiality
Keep the new trademarks, patents & other intellectual property information away from the public eye and only disclose it with confidentiality agreements.
Patent and Idea Ownership
Create a formal contract with your partners, document writers, and app developers where you clearly state you own the intellectual property and the brand. If you don’t do this, you risk others thinking they have an entitlement in intellectual property and trying to claim ownership over it.
Conduct Trade Mark Clearance Search
It is essential to determine if the brand you want is already being used by another trader. This can include logos, names, taglines, etc. Your intellectual property lawyer can help conduct “clearance” searches to ensure that if you start using the brand you are not infringing other traders’ rights or that you are competing with other traders under the same brand.
Apply For Trade Mark Registration
Once sure there are no existing issues in the use of the brand, immediately file for trademark registration. A trademark, once granted can be enforced against other traders who adopt the use of your brand to try to trade off your reputation and success. After your trademark is granted you can use the registered trademark symbol (R) to indicate it is a registered trademark.
Register Brand Based Trade Mark Derivatives
To ensure other traders don’t try to use your brands in social media, register social media accounts corresponding to your brand. This is particularly important for companies that are in the digital space.
Also, make sure you register the domain name corresponding to your brand to avoid brand duplicacy.
Specify Your Legal Ownership
You must make sure that all your published materials (online or offline) have a trademark indication or copyright declaration to tell the world that you own those rights.
Final Word
The goal of your business’ branding strategy should be to create a valuable and sustainable business, not just sell more products. Once your brand is developed the products can sell themselves. It’s important to remember that trust is the lifeblood of your brand — when there is no trust, there is no brand.
What is your biggest roadblock in brand building? Let us know in the comments!
Interesting Related Article: “Lifelong brand loyalty“
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