In today's fast-paced business landscape, one factor stands out as a powerful catalyst for success: brand growth.
Understanding and harnessing the potential of brand growth is not only essential; it's a cornerstone for expanding your business, influence, and bottom line.
The importance of brand growth to business growth is often misunderstood so let's delve into the significance of brand growth within the broader context of business expansion. In this article we'll explore the origins of brand growth, how to measure it, and most importantly, provide actionable tips for corporate leaders looking to supercharge their brand's growth and, consequently, their business.
What is Brand Growth and Why Does It Matter?
At its core, brand growth refers to the steady increase in the reputation & popularity of the brand, the steady increase of people who are engaged & loyal to the brand, and will advocate for the brand, a steady increase in people who will refer the brand to others; if done well, this leads to an increase in brand profitability and steady increase in market share for the brand.
Brand growth focuses on attracting a following and building brand advocates. Brand growth strategies see & hear their audiences and engage in follow-through. The Brand's audiences follow & engage with the brand because they believe in the brand's purpose, vision & mission.
Brand growth strategies connect the brand with their audiences. This connection goes beyond the products or services you offer; it encapsulates your company's values, mission, and unique identity.
Brand growth matters for 4 key reasons:
Market Differentiation: In a crowded marketplace, a strong brand sets you apart from collaborators & competitors. It's the beacon that guides consumers towards your purpose & offerings, amidst a sea of choices.
Customer Loyalty: A robust brand elicits trust and builds connections & loyalty. When customers feel emotionally attached to your brand, they become brand advocates, ensuring repeat business and word-of-mouth referrals.
Premium Pricing: Successful brands can command higher prices for their offerings. Customers are often willing to pay more for brands that solve their problems, give great experiences, assure quality & provide social value.
Resilience in Adversity: During challenging times, a strong brand can weather storms more effectively. A strong brand has advocates who will stick around and support the brand through ups and downs.
The Genesis of Brand Growth: Building Blocks and Measurement - 4 Insights
Brand growth doesn't happen overnight; it's the result of careful cultivation and strategic planning. It originates from consistent efforts across various fronts:
Customer Experience: Exceptional customer experiences are the bedrock of brand growth. Every touchpoint, from marketing to post-purchase customer success, shapes how customers & employees experience & perceive your brand.
Authenticity: A genuine brand that lives & breathes their purpose, values, vision & mission resonates with their employees and target audiences.
Personification: An authentic brand with human-centric qualities living authentically and audaciously, yet building emotional connections through brand stories, which extend beyond transactions, pull on heart strings & convert strangers into brand advocates.
Innovation: Evolving with the times is crucial to growth. Brands that innovate, whether through the development of new offerings, new markets or by adopting new technologies, streamlining processes & putting "wow-factors" into the brand experience, continue to demonstrate vitality and relevance for their employees and their customers.
Measuring Brand Growth: 4 Metric areas that Matter
Brand-Image: Track & measure your brand's image. What associations come to mind when your employees or target audiences think about your brand? Are these associations similar to or different from your brand's identity? Are the associations getting stronger or weaker over time. Are the number of brand associations increasing or decreasing over time? These can be measured easily through polls, interviews, or brand storming facilitation & association techniques.
Brand Conversions: Track & measure your conversions, what percentage of strangers are converting? What content is increasing conversions? What elements in your nurturing sequences are converting? What channels provide your brand with the highest conversion rates? Identify where your conversion rates are increasing and review your strategies in areas where your conversions are at a standstill.
Brand Advocates: Analyse customer engagement rates, customer retention rates, customer loyalty numbers, existing customer new offering purchases, repeat purchases & referral rates. Are they increasing or decreasing?
Market Share: Monitor your market share relative to substitutes in alternative industries and brands in the same industry as you. As your brand's influence expands, your slice of the market pie should also increase. When you understand your brand's elasticity with regard to brand extensions and offerings this helps you to understand which industries to measure in terms of market share growth.
4 Strategies for Amplifying Brand Growth
Authentic Messaging: Ensure that your brand message is authentic, is aligned with your brand's purpose, values, vision, mission, image & identity, and continues to be perceived as relevant and evolves consistently visually across all platforms.
Engage and Interact: Actively engage with your audience across all channels, encourage target-audience-generated feedback, content, & co-construct new offerings with your audiences & employees, collaborate with your community, comment on their user-generated content, build a supportive community that addresses the specific needs of your employees & target audiences.
Collaborate: Partnering with influencers, collaborators or complementary brands can expose your brand to new audiences or in different ways to highlight your values, purpose and vision, and to enhance trust and credibility.
Employee Advocacy: Your employees are brand ambassadors. It's important that when developing brand growth strategies to consider the significance of your employees, create a brand culture built on values & the superpowers of your employees, bring them into the fold on brand strategy sessions, cultivate their engagement & loyalty, encourage them to represent the brand positively both within and outside the organisation.
In conclusion, brand growth is an indispensable component of overall business expansion. By cultivating a strong brand-image (the perspective of how employees and customers see the brand), fostering brand advocates, solving issues that are important to customers, and embracing innovation, you can fuel your business's growth trajectory. It's not about products or services; it's about brand connections and building relationships with your employees and customers, listening to them, and acting, building positive emotions, relationships, and perceptions. As a corporate leader, recognising the power of brand growth and integrating it into your business strategy is a key step towards sustained success in today's competitive landscape.