As entrepreneurs, we learn that sharing our value is the key to cultivating relationships with our target audience. Have you ever considered that your audience could also see your value as equitable?
The term brand equity is defined as the value of your business. Companies with significant brand equity provide customers with premium quality. They are reliable, and their message is memorable.
Dartmouth University professor Kevin Lane Keller argues that businesses must create a positive feeling associated with their brand’s product or service and shape their customers’ perception around their brand.
Large brands such as Apple, Target, and Amazon understand the power of building and maintaining their brand equity. These companies consistently provide customers with a specific value that they do not believe they can get from another brand.
However, smaller brands should also be strategic in building their brand equity. Here’s why: when a small business builds its brand equity, it is positioning itself for long-term success. The questions below will help you begin to develop your business’s brand equity.
What’s Your Identity?
If you want your business to build its brand equity, you have to create awareness about your brand. How does this happen? Your target audience–loyal customers and leads–should be able to recognize your brand and its message. The best way to develop your identity is to consider your unique selling proposition–what makes your business special. Then, you can use your USP to craft strong messages on your website and social media platforms.
What Is Your Brand’s Message?
Often, we consider messaging as only the content we write on our websites or social media. But there are many ways that small businesses can send messages to their customers. One way is through their performance—which shows how well your product or service can meet your customer’s needs. Small businesses should also think about the messages they send through their service to the community. A few examples of that include being committed to supporting local organizations, sponsoring activities, or highlighting this commitment is essential to your brand. In time, people in the community will associate the brand with specific activities or events.
How Do You Respond to Your Customer’s Feelings About Your Brand?
A study found that customers are seven times more likely to forgive a company for a mistake if they feel a sense of loyalty to the brand. Your customers will forget sales gimmicks. They will forget about a small mistake. However, they will never forget how you made them feel. It is vital to provide quality service, be credible and meet the expectations of your customers. Thinking with this mindset allows customers to build positive feelings about your business and will enable them to become loyal.
How Are You Developing Relationships?
Building solid relationships with customers should be part of the soul of your business. As a small business owner, customers will be judging you so heavily on your credibility and ability to deliver consistently. When you can develop strong customer relationships, they will make repeated purchases and refer others to your brand.
Building brand equity is a task that every small business should consider honing. By intentionally building your brand’s equity, you’ll be doing more than sharing the value of your product or service–you’ll be sharing your business’s commitment to consistently meeting the needs of its audience.
