In today’s world, brand recognition is how people remember a company. Most people think about a logo when they think about brand recognition, but creating a recognizable brand encompasses much more. Fostering your brand is how your employees answer the phone, how you describe your product or service on your website and the charitable organizations you partner with. So, how do you get started building a recognizable brand? Here are a few tips!

Consistency

Being consistent is important when trying to establish or maintain your company’s identity. Your tone of voice, visuals and values should be uniform across your website, social media and news releases. The use of style and text guidelines can be applied to guarantee that your brand is consistent. These guidelines can be both visual – colors, fonts, photo treatments and staff uniforms – or more conceptual – the tone of voice you use, how your email confirmations come across and the way you handle customer complaints.

I worked with an office on my college campus where one of our main goals was to bring in more students. One of the ways we worked to achieve this was by providing consistent material for the office to use, whether it was for social media content or emails that the office sent to students. These few small changes helped them increase the number of students it saw and its interactions on social media. Having consistency will strengthen your brand’s recognition and build trust with your customers. 

Engagement 

Hosting events, participating in fundraisers, volunteering and collaborating with other companies are great ways to engage with your community and shape your brand. By showing concern for your community, you are building a relationship with customers. While this doesn’t necessarily sound like a “brand” component, it absolutely can be! Think about Tito’s Vodka’s recent dog-focused advertising campaign. The company has always supported animal-related causes (branding itself as “vodka for dog people” even six years ago), and its animal advocacy is so central to its brand that the organization capitalized on this in a mass-market advertising campaign. 

Create a Narrative/Tell a Story 

Every company has its own story, so be sure to tell yours. Discuss why you started your business and why you saw a need for it. Knowing how or why a business got started can allow people to connect with your story – especially when you tie it into the people who made the business happen. When it comes to telling customers about its “why,” few have done it better than Patagonia. The organization is celebrating 50 years of developing sustainable outdoor apparel. One visit to its website tells a very clear story. Its “worn wear” clothing recycling program is one component of its commitment to reducing the amount of clothing that ends up in landfills. It also houses a portal that connects customers to nature-based causes in their own communities – and that’s an addition to its own 1% self-imposed tax to corporately support land, water, climate, community and biodiversity efforts. Its website encompasses consistency, community connection and creating a narrative, whether or not you plan to hike the Tetons or kayak down the Chattahoochee. 

Fostering your brand recognition is an everyday choice that your company makes. We recognize that is a lot of decision-making, so let us be your sounding board. We would love to help you do these small things to continue creating a successful environment for your employees and customers!