How do you build a brand image that will be remembered?

Brand image, often associated with the notion of branding, is one of the pillars on which your success is built. Visual identity, slogan, social media strategy... but what is a brand's image and how can you turn it into a real asset for the development of your business?

This article, co-written with Anthony Rochand, consultant, trainer andco-founder of LEW, gives you a definition and tips on how to grasp all the issues involved. You'll then be able to deploy a marketing and communications strategy that guarantees a consistent, strong and memorable brand image.

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What is a company's brand image?

A company's brand image is defined as the representation that consumers have of that brand. For example, one brand instinctively evokes premium or even luxury. Another brand naturally seems to appeal mainly to millennials...

💡 As a general rule, the criteria governing brand image fall into two categories:

• objective criteria: for example, the quality or price or range of the product ;
• subjective criteria: less obvious factors such as reputation and consumer experience.

A company's brand image is therefore sometimes difficult to put into practice, since it is based on feelings, mental representations and the appropriation of the brand by each individual.

What are the components of brand image?

A brand's image can be perceived through a number of very specific components, such as

• brand recognition
• brand awareness
• visual identity
• culture
• reputation,
• brand concept,
• customer experience,
• range status,
• quality,
• storytelling,
• internal and external relations.

How do you build a memorable brand image?

1 - Define a brand strategy in line with your value proposition

First and foremost, it's important to ask yourself what your value propositionreally is. To do this, you need to ask the right questions:

• How will you raise your profile and differentiate yourself from your competitors?
• Do you want to project a high-end product image?
• Would you prefer to highlight your eco-responsibility?
• Or your technological advances?

Whatever the case, your added value will serve as a common thread throughout the development of your brand image, as you will focus on it to remain consistent in all your actions:

• consistency with your products and their prices
• consistency with your brand name
• consistency with your visual media
• consistency with your business development,
• consistency with the expectations of your target audience
• consistency with your values and practices, etc.

💡You must truly embody your value proposition by adopting practices, particularly internally, that correspond to the image you want to project. For example, if you sell organic products, public opinion expects you to implement ecological practices within your company or in the way you address the market. In the event of a paradox, your brand image could be damaged.

2 - Clearly define your target

A company's brand image needs to meet its audience, so always ask yourself who you are primarily interested in, who you need to target.

That's why it's important to know your personas. Ask yourself the right questions

:

• What is the socio-demographic category you want to target?
• What are their characteristics?
• What are their expectations and needs, and how can your offer meet them?

3 - Take care with your offer

Always ensure that your products or services match the expectations of your personas. What's the point of a well-honed marketing strategy if your offer doesn't live up to your target's expectations? Or not in line with your visual and written communication?

Price, technical features, design, degree of innovation... these are all parameters that need to be considered, and changed as necessary to keep in step with your audience and changes in the market.

4 - Think "customer experience

Customer experience, by its very nature, is also a matter of feeling. So have a positive influence on your customers' feelings, by adopting a customer-centric approach that extends beyond your product alone.

How can you do this?

👉 By taking care of all the interactions and the relationship they have with your brand, at every point of contact:

• website
• social networks
• after-sales service, etc.

To do this, don't hesitate to use CRM software. By centralising and analysing all your prospects' and customers' data, this tool enables you to send them the right messages and take the right action. In this way, you can optimise the customer experience and customer satisfaction.

5 - Adopt the right visual communication

Images, and therefore visual identity, have a considerable impact on how potential customers perceive a brand or company.

• How do you design your logo?
• What colours should you choose?
• Which typography is best suited to your needs? And so on.

To answer these questions, draw up a graphic charter that is consistent with your value proposition and your target audience. This document will serve as a reference for aligning your actions across all your communication media.

💡 Did you know that there is software that can help you consolidate your visual communications? These are the famous DAMs, dedicated to digital asset management. Bynder, for example, helps you streamline the processes for creating, validating and distributing your content. And thanks to its Brand Guidelines and Brand Templates modules, you can centralise data relating to your branding, so that your teams remain consistent with your brand image.

6 - Prefer good written communication

Words also play an important part in developing a solid brand image. For example, the importance of :

• storytelling: telling the story of who you are and where you come from encourages a closer relationship between the customer and your brand.
• Slogans: an impactful slogan can make a lasting impression. Provided, of course, that these few words skilfully encapsulate the company's value proposition and identity.

7 - Show your expertise

As well as prioritising the quality of your products and the professionalism of your team, it's worth positioning yourself as an expert in your field to gain credibility and establish a climate of trust with your target audience.

Content marketing is a good way of doing this:

• Write articles and/or white papers on different subjects in line with your business sector. For example, if you run a jewellery sales website, you could write articles on the different manufacturing or transformation processes;
• Publish photos or videos from the field. As the manager of a jewellery e-commerce site, you could take photos of your workshop or a video of the packaging of a typical parcel, for example.
• Take part in events related to your business sector. For example, you could announce your participation in a webinar on jewellery design.

8 - Equip yourself with a specialised tool

There is brand management and marketing intelligence software that allows you to track the performance of your actions effectively so that you can manage and build your brand image based on real data.

The main functions of this type of software vary, but all aim to improve your brand image:

• Create a brand portal that reflects your image,
• Connection to your social networks to assess your digital reputation,
• Gathering opinions to assess customer satisfaction,
• Automatic filtering of your content according to your target audience,
• Integrated statistics tool to monitor your online performance and boost your e-reputation,
• Assisted logo and visual identity creation, etc.

Visibrain, for example, is an intuitive, easy-to-use social network monitoring platform that helps companies manage their strategy: protecting their brand imageand developing their influence on social networks. A real performance booster, the tool promises you real-time brand monitoring, a crisis management module, influencer and new trend detection, an automatic alert system so you're always up to speed. system to keep you informed of any abnormal activity around your brand, post-campaign analyses, competitive audits, etc. What's more? You'll benefit from comprehensive, tailor-made support from a dedicated consultant!

How important is brand image?

Its impact on consumer behaviour

In an increasingly competitive market, having a good brand image is clearly an advantage if you want to stand out from the crowd. In other words, for the same service or product, consumers are more likely to choose a brand that reflects the brand identity and values they feel are most positive.

We have also seen that brand image influences brand awareness. The better known you are, the more you become a benchmark within your market.

Its impact on the company itself

Within a company itself, an enhanced brand image can have an impact on corporate culture and the employer brand, and consequently on team cohesion, performance and recruitment.

It also generates trust. What does this mean? The scales tip more easily in favour of the company when negotiating with investors or distributors, for example.

💡HR software like Taleez integrates natively with your website, recruitment process and corporate culture to enhance your brand image and attract the best talent. A true all-in-one platform, Taleez lets you take advantage of a career site customised to your corporate image, a modern application form and intelligent application management. What's more? You can multi-post your adverts directly via the tool to over 70 job portals and 15,000 higher education courses!

The threats to a good brand image

Bad buzz

What's the worst thing that can tarnish your brand image?

Being the victim of bad buzz.

And with good reason! A deteriorating reputation or worse, a scandal, encourages consumers to turn to your competitors.

That's why all the players in your company must always provide an irreproachable offer and quality of service. In this way, everyone contributes to maintaining a positive brand image.

At the same time, keep a constant eye on your reputation and e-reputation through rigorous monitoring. Knowing what people are saying about you means being able to intervene quickly in the event of problems, in particular through :

• curing: contacting the author of the negative content to persuade them to withdraw their comments ;
• flooding: drown out the negative content by producing positive content that will rise to the top of Google search results.

Lack of follow-up

To be successful in terms of brand image, you need to be able to analyse your results in concrete terms! There are several ways of carrying out your brand analyticswork.

For example:

• Set up regular monitoring, as we saw earlier.
• Gather testimonials:
  • Customer reviews: take a close look at them to define your areas for improvement. You should also be aware that some reviews management software will help you with this task. They give you visibility of all the reviews on the web and help you rationalise the actions you need to take to manage them.
  • Surveys or questionnaires: send them to your customers (via your newsletter, for example) and find out how they feel about your brand image.
• Analyse your figures. Use Google Analytics to find out where your website visitors are coming from. If they've found you by typing your name into the Google search bar, they already know you. With Insight Yooda, you can find out how many searches for your company are carried out each month.

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Brand image: in a nutshell

In the age of the Internet, information about a particular brand travels at breakneck speed.

At the same time, competitive pressure is growing ever stronger.

In such a context, it's hardly surprising that a strong brand image has become a major lever for business development.

But the good news is that, thanks to your identity, your values, your offer, and your marketing and communications activities, you can take control of your brand image. All your customers will want to do is remain loyal to you... and your future customers will want to discover you!