Getting Up Close And Personal With Your Brand

In the midst of the digital boom, it can be easy for some brands to sink beneath the murky waters of the saturated market. Knowing your brand DNA can go a long way to making sure you stay afloat…
As the business-minded among you will know, there’s a whole onion of layers (Shrek, anyone?) that work with each other within your business to give real personality to your brand. Being personable, especially in the technical industry, can fill the missing link between your brand and your customer.
Many technical businesses operate within the virtual space, living in the cloud itself as it were. Bringing substance to this place of non-existence can be a trying experience; what do your consumers want from your virtual technical biz? And how can you get it to them?
Regardless of whether you’re working to connect with other businesses, consumers or internal employees, it’s important that your brand ‘knows’ itself so you can create a face for your company. In this (heavily) personified breakdown below, the layers of your potential brand DNA have been stripped back and taken to pieces. Can you identify the face of your brand with our help? We sure hope so.
So, let’s think of your brand as a human form:
Legs; ‘legwork’
Starting from the ground up should be nothing new to those in business. Every entrepreneurial endeavour, be it small or large, came from humble beginnings. That’s right, even Apple was a start-up once upon a time! Your very own beginnings are a great place to start building your brand DNA; bringing your biz (quite literally) back down from the cloud so you can review all the legwork that’s really gone into making it what it has become.
Ask yourself:
Where did you start out?
What is the greatest obstacle you’ve overcome to date? And how has this helped shape your business as it looks today?
What keeps you humble?
TIP:
Incorporate your ‘legwork’ story into your website so that your consumers have a platform on which to relate with the brand as a group of people who have built something up – recognising all of your hard work is important when discovering your brand DNA.
Hands; ‘hands on’
Your consumers, employees and business connections will all benefit from identifying the hands-on work that your brand does. When you’re way up in the virtual techie business space, it can be hard for your customers to get a look at the inner workings of the brand. Likewise, as a business looking to define its brand DNA, it’s important to get to grips with just how much work people put into your company at all levels. Sense of cohesion within your brand is always a positive factor in brand DNA.
TIP:
Talk to your employees, especially face to face where possible. Although it may be time-consuming getting to know what it is that keeps your business ticking over on a day-to-day basis, it can help you recognise just how important your team really is. A happy team = a happy brand, and a happy brand puts a smile on the face of your brand DNA.
Heart; ‘flow regulation’
In the virtual space of technical business, the consumer can be forgiven for not believing that there’s really a heart in there. Here lies an opportunity to really get in touch with your target audience, by showing that somewhere in there lies a big, beating, mechanical heart that’s keeping your brand alive.
Ask yourself:
What does your brand stand for? Do you have any philanthropic stance?
Is your cloud biz as clean as it could be?
Do you care for your customers?
Do you care for your employees?
How do you go that extra mile in such a highly competitive industry?
The heart of your brand should show that you have compassion for the world at large. It is perhaps the most important component of your brand DNA. Use it well…
Face; ‘look, listen, interact…’
Getting to know who you’re dealing with is essential when working on your brand DNA. The creation of your brand’s DNA must work its best for your business and so must be compiled in accordance with the market that you currently work with.
TIP:
Use social media – it’s free! Sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are absolutely invaluable resources for your business. They can help you get a real look at your target market. Being able to interact with customers in real time can help you build lasting relationships which can grow alongside your business; having someone at the other end of the keyboard can mean the world to your consumers. Finding out what your customers both like and dislike about your brand can help you get a look at some criteria for your brand DNA.
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