One of the most important assets related to the brand is its equity or reputation. The success of your products/services both in the marketplace or market space is significantly dependent upon the reputation your brand enjoys among customers. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that most of the organizations spend heavily on building a strong brand reputation. We describe below eight powerful ways that help you to strengthen your brand reputation among all the important stakeholders.
1) Wisely Select Social Circles:
A man/woman is known by his/her company, and this adage proves equally true for building a strong brand reputation online. Associating the brand with the social circles is time-honored branding practice though you need to be very careful about associating your brand with a particular social circle.
Selecting the right social circles and people to promote your brand is not an easy task to accomplish. It requires comprehensive market research before making any decision in this regard. While selecting the brand ambassador, make sure that the personality of the chosen one is in line with the values your brand exhibits among consumers. Similarly, in the online space, you must associate with the right social circles that relate to your brand’s ethos.
2) Set Standard Procedures for Conflict Management:
It is not uncommon today to witness ugly online wars on various social media platforms. With more and more people becoming vocal about their opinions, you are bound to land in a situation where conflicting viewpoints might spring and threaten to erode your brand reputation.
In such a scenario, you need to have a pre-determined standard set of procedures that will be used to resolve the conflict. Don’t act in haste in such situations and, more importantly, think twice before publishing anything in response to derogatory/ inflammatory comments posted by social media users. The focus of the organization must be on resolving the conflict rather than being going personal about the conflicting situation.
3) Solve Customers’ Issues Promptly:
Any swift reply to the customer’s response is going to be very helpful for the brand to build a solid reputation among the prospective buyers. It is especially true when the response happens to be negative. Most of the people try to evade the negative feedback while only a handful of good organizations see this as an opportunity to further bolster their reputation in the minds of the customers. In response to the negative feedback, you must focus on addressing the problem while regretting the inconvenience caused to the customer because of your offering.
4) Constant Monitoring:
Building a brand reputation is not a one-off event. Rather, the process requires continuous monitoring by experienced professionals. The constant surveillance will help the organization to keep track of the key indicators that will ultimately become instrumental in strengthening the brand reputation.
You are required to keep a strict vigil on the online conversation happening around your brand and must pay close attention to any negative buildup that might harm the brand equity in the future. Sometimes, competitors also try to play a spoilsport by posting inaccurate information about your company’s products/services. In such a scenario, you need to counter these facts with the right information to clear any misconception about your brand and its reputation.
5) Deliver Value Experience:
More than anything else, the experience which adds value to the life of consumers is one of the sure-shot ways to build, maintain, and strengthen brand reputation. Successful brands are the one which delights the customers every time with their value delivery experience. These brands make superior value promise to customers, and with each delivery, they exceed the expectations of the consumers.
However, exceeding customer expectations is a very tough nut to crack. To achieve the desired results, the brand must constantly upgrade processes, products, services, and delivery to achieve the ambitious aim of delighting customers.
6) Integrate Feedback:
Listening and responding to feedback is one thing, but integrating the feedback to improve upon the products/services is altogether a different ball game. Reputed brands never shy away from implementing the customers’ feedback to reinvent their business processes even if it has cost implications for the company. In fact, the real motive of receiving the feedback is to improve upon the existing practices, and incorporating the changes will strengthen brand reputation among consumers.
7) Don’t Overpromise:
Most of the brands dissolve their identities as they tend to overpromise to customers. Before making any heightened claim about your brand, make sure that you can deliver on your words. By overpromising, you run the risk of enhancing customers’ expectations, and if after using the product, the perception of the customer lags behind the inflated expectations, your brand will sure to take a hit. Therefore, it is in the best interest of the organization not to overpromise while promoting its value proposition among buyers.
8) Be Transparent:
Being transparent is considered a virtue that can help you to win customers’ trust and loyalty. It is especially relevant in the case of digital branding, where you need to be extra careful about the facts and figures promoted on your website or through your channels. The values like transparency and truthfulness must figure in your organizational charter, and employees must stand by these values while carrying out the business.
In sum, building a brand reputation is a long process and requires patience, transparency, and consistent efforts from the organization’s side. However, the results of this painstakingly long process are extremely beneficial for an organization with companies benefitting in terms of increased market share, better-realized revenue growth, and enhanced customer loyalty.