How to Build, Renew, or Improve a Brand Image?

Today, markets are highly competitive, and it’s no longer enough to offer quality products or services to convert potential customers into regular ones… To stand out, it’s essential for a company to succeed in creating a brand image powerful enough to attract consumers and establish a lasting presence in the market. So, how can a company position itself in the top of mind of consumers? What are the key steps to create a powerful brand image? Trustt explains everything. Let’s get started!

Focus on the Concept of Brand Image

First, let’s take the time to define the concept of brand image and explain why it represents an essential strategic issue for companies today.

Definition of Brand Image

Brand image, or branding, is how a company is perceived by the general public. It corresponds to the representations of the company in consumers’ minds at a given time.

According to Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon: Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.

Brand image is a creation process that combines several factors (its identity, its products or services, and its communication) and allows a company to distinguish itself from the competition.

The Importance of Brand Image

A good brand image is a sign of popularity and customer loyalty for a company. Indeed, when the image of the company’s product or service offering is perceived positively by consumers, it promotes:

• Brand attachment;
• Trust;
• And therefore conversions and sales.

However, there can be a gap between what a company wants to convey and how it is perceived by its target audience.

According to a study on the importance of branding conducted by the Renderforest platform in 2020:

– “1/3 of consumers instantly have a brand in mind when they need to make a particular purchase”.

– “59% of consumers prefer to buy products from a well-known and reputable brand”.

This is why it is crucial for a company to focus on creating a coherent and consistent brand image if it wishes to engage consumers, create a lasting connection with them, and establish its position in the market.

Key Steps to Build a Brand Image

Building a good brand image is a long-term effort! Here are the essential steps to implement to create a solid and impactful brand image step by step.

1- Introspection and Analysis

Before implementing a marketing strategy to develop its brand image, each company must take the time to take stock of what it is, to know its customers well, as well as its competitors.

Here are the right questions to ask to get started:

• What are the characteristics of our product or service offering?
• What is the added value of our offer compared to that of the competition?
• What distinguishes us and makes us unique?
• What are our core values? Our vision? Our mission?
• Who are our customers? What are their needs, expectations, and motivations? What solutions do we provide to our customers?
• Who are our competitors? What do they offer? How do they communicate? What are their differences in the market?
• Etc.

Answering these questions in detail is essential for establishing a coherent brand image. This phase of introspection and marketing analysis allows the company to precisely identify its strengths and weaknesses, as well as its opportunities and threats. This step is long and tedious, but crucial, as it allows the company to know its strengths, which it can then highlight to its audience.

2- The Message and Content

The second step in building a brand image consists of creating a message that the company conveys through all aspects of its communication, both internally and externally.

The right question to ask for each company is:

• What do we want to tell our customers to make them embrace our universe and make them want to buy our products or services?

This message will be embodied by all members of the company (customer service, sales, marketing, communication, etc.) to customers at all stages of the sales process.

Based on the information gathered during the introspection and analysis phase, the company can now define all the elements that concern the message it wishes to convey.

For this, the company must:

• Use language and tone in accordance with its identity that speaks to its target audience (formal, relaxed, humorous, offbeat, extroverted, bold, etc.);
• Choose keywords that define it and convey its personality;
• Create a slogan, a baseline that is easily memorable and consistent with its identity;
• Use storytelling to tell its story, mission, and vision in order to show its target audience who it is and evoke emotion.
• Define an editorial line consistent with its positioning and targeted audience.
• Be human, accessible, authentic, and transparent in all its messages. The message is conveyed through all the content that the company creates, whether online or offline. It is important to maintain consistency across all this content to avoid sending contradictory messages. The message conveyed by the company must resonate with its target audience.
• Create quality content to demonstrate its expertise. This promotes your online reputation and increases your visibility.

3 – The Visual

Building a brand image necessarily involves creating a visual identity that reflects the soul of the company. Indeed, good design allows consumers to immediately recognize and memorize a brand.

Here are the different visual elements that contribute to building a strong brand image:

• The logo:

It’s the most recognizable key instrument of the brand. It must be unique and adaptable to all communication media. Moreover, a company’s logo has the mission of clearly conveying its message and values. Generally associated with the slogan, it reflects its positioning.

• Typography:

This element is part of the company’s visual identity, conveys emotions, and contributes to its identification. All visual communication materials must use the typography defined in the company’s graphic charter.

• Colors:

Their choice is very important, as they diffuse subliminal messages in the minds of consumers. Colors participate in creating a unique visual universe.

• Iconography:

The photographs, images, and drawings that the company uses on its communication/marketing materials are very important! They must be of high quality, harmonize with each other, and integrate perfectly into the visual identity chosen by the company.

To create a sufficiently impactful brand image, the company must use its visual identity in all aspects of its activity and on all its communication materials: website, social networks, advertising campaigns, business cards, email signatures, etc.

4- Communication Channels

To achieve its visibility objectives and convey its identity, message, voice, and all the elements that make up its brand image, the company must be present on all communication channels that allow it to reach its audience:

• Website,
• Blog,
• Social networks,
• Marketing tools (emailing, targeted advertising campaigns, customer reviews…),
• Print (posters, flyers, business cards…),
• Etc.

It is important that it conveys its brand image consistently and harmoniously on each of these channels, in order to maximize the impact of its actions and to be quickly and sustainably identified by its audience.

The proper perception of your brand image by your audience largely depends on a coherent choice of communication channels. This is why companies must be vigilant in their choices in order to meet their visibility objectives.

5- Continuous Improvement

Building a brand image is an ongoing effort! In the digital age, where everything moves very quickly, it’s important that the brand image remains current. Thus, to continue to be perceived positively in the minds of consumers, the company must constantly evolve, improve, and renew its image.

To do this, it is essential to:

– Constantly question oneself and learn from mistakes;

– Be constantly attentive to the needs and expectations of consumers;

– Implement regular monitoring to know what’s happening in the market, with competitors, but also to detect emerging trends;

– Innovate continuously to maintain a competitive edge.

Various tools allow a company to measure its brand image, such as:

– Quantitative and qualitative studies;

– Consumer reviews and satisfaction questionnaires;

– Surveys on social networks;

– Analytics tools.

Thanks to the collected data, it has all the necessary tools to rectify, improve, renew, and establish its brand image throughout its lifetime.