Thinking about branding for your business leaves you to answer the question,What you brand?Then the answer should either be service or a product.Lets focus on service branding today and don't forget to check later for product branding right!
Branding a service is very different from branding a product for a variety of reasons, such as:
- Products are made where services are delivered
- Products are used where services are experienced
- Products are tangible where services are emotional
Products are impersonal physical items that can be evaluated before you buy them. Services, on the other hand, are very personal. Customers don’t just buy a service, they buy an experience.Services don’t even exist until we buy them. There has to be a level of trust or even a “leap of faith” from the customer before they will buy a service.
How best to brand a service business?
First you have to remember that marketing IS your business and that your customers will experience your brand at every touch point. You can have a great website and award-winning advertising but if you also have an unresponsive receptionist or sales people, everything fails.A team that is reliable to spread the word as it is,they are the companies opinion formers and leaders for that matter.
Consider every step a marketing step
Make sure every employee understands that everything they do is a marketing step to success of the business and affects the perception of the brand.Services usually only have a few connections. Some of them include:
- Business card
- Website, email marketing and advertising
- Brochures, sales sheets
- Trade show booths and banners
- Reception staff
- Sales people
Make sure that all of them reflect how you want your brand positioned and perceived. If every brand connection to a customer could have contact with is effective and “on-brand” you’ll have a better chance of having a prospect, make that emotional “leap of faith” and do business with you. Starting with us would even be better! Remember..
