To ensure that your brand is built to stand the test of time, it is essential to establish a strong foundation. Here are the four steps to create a lasting brand in an ever-changing market.
To ensure that your brand is built to stand the test of time, it is essential to establish a strong foundation. Here are the four steps to create a lasting brand in an ever-changing market.
Your brand strategy is a comprehensive plan that charts your course. It establishes your beliefs, values, and intentions to help you stay focused and reach your goals. It is what you should refer to when you’re making decisions.
Your brand strategy sets the tone for how your company operates, communicates, and your visual identity. When making decisions for your company, everything from hiring new employees to introducing new products, always consider how it relates to your brand strategy. By aligning your company’s actions with your values and mission, you strengthen your brand while building lasting connections with customers who share similar values.
The second step to future-proofing your brand is connecting to your audience. This includes your customers, your employees, and partners.
One way to do this is by routinely doing customer and employee surveys to stay informed about satisfaction, sentiments, and industry-wide patterns. Using data helps you tailor your products, services, and messaging to align with your audience's evolving needs and preferences. Additionally, we recommend routinely checking in on social media and review platforms like Yelp. This demonstrates that you value your customers' opinions while providing valuable insights into potential areas for improvement.
It can be tempting to pivot every time a new trend rises, but these come and go. Making sure that your brand is authentic and rooted in strategy will help your company avoid trendy pitfalls.
Be genuine in your brand's messaging and actions, authenticity resonates with consumers and establishes a deeper emotional connection. Strive to communicate your brand's values and mission in your voice and tone, avoiding the temptation to ride on the coattails of passing trends. When designing new elements for your brand, or for a marketing campaign, there is nothing wrong with looking at current design trends for inspiration. However, relying on what is currently trendy may hurt your company in the long run because your designs could look outdated in a short time.
Consistency is one of the most important things when it comes to creating a recognizable and trustworthy brand. This does not mean that your brand should feel stale, but rather, keeping visual identity, messaging, and customer experiences consistent with the look and feel of your brand.
Being consistent in everything from your customer experience to your marketing reinforces brand recognition and helps your audience connect the dots between different aspects of your business.
Future-proofing your brand requires a strategic and proactive approach. By leaning on your brand strategy, understanding your audience, prioritizing meaning over trends, and maintaining consistency, you can build a resilient brand that stands the test of time.
If your company is ready to build a future-proof brand, give our team a call!
Like our work, the Hardy Brands team is an embodiment of the perfect balance of strategy and creative. We’ve cultivated a team of certified brand specialists and strategists, designers, copywriters and marketing professionals who are ferocious about helping you succeed. We’re a Montana marketing agency that will constantly strive to improve your business.
As a branding, marketing and design agency, we partner with all types of businesses, from restaurants and breweries to building and real estate professionals, nonprofits to accountants and many others. Get a better idea of who we are and what we do by visiting our Work page.
