Ways to build your brand

Successful brands share these common characteristics. While it’s important to offer a quality product or service, effective branding is often at the heart of the companies that thrive.

Competitiveness: Gaining an edge in today’s business world isn’t easy. For a brand to make a name for itself, team members should thrive on competition and constantly strive to improve. This is the main principle behind Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll’s book, Win Forever, as well as the way he runs the team.

When it comes to the major players in any industry, none simply sit back and hope that their consumers will do the work for them. Instead, they tend to be the movers and shakers who work tirelessly towards building and optimizing their brand, going above and beyond consumer expectations. The end result tends to be a brand that is continually on the cutting edge of its industry.

Exposure: Another big part of being recognised as a distinctive, successful brand is the ability to reach consumers through multiple channels. Obviously, larger companies have an advantage gaining exposure because they usually have a bigger marketing budget and more existing connections. They can pay for television commercials, be featured in globally-recognised magazines, and rank highly in search engine results pages.

However, the internet and social media have narrowed the gap between small companies and large ones. There are more tools than ever before which offer any company a chance at establishing their brand. By developing a presence on networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+, anyone is able to reach almost any consumer.

Leadership: Just like any thriving community or sports team, there’s typically an influential leader behind every successful brand. For large companies, this may be the CEO. For smaller ones, it’s usually the owner.

To coordinate the efforts of team members and guide a strategic vision for a brand, someone has to step up and steer the ship. The leader resolves complications and acts as a liaison between different departments to keep everyone on the same page. They are also expert motivators and know how to maximize the strengths of different team members.

Source: forbes.com