Just as you feel that your lifestyle business has started to grow, you look around and notice that competition has grown too – both quantitatively and qualitatively. The lifestyle market is teeming with other companies – both big and small – in the same domain as yours. How do you cope with the pressure?
Branding is one way, of course. Alternatively, should we say, it’s the only means in today’s age to survive the competition and keep moving ahead. Brand building has started to assume much more important than ever before. Your brand is the only way to differentiate yourself from a million others out there. Again, only having a brand name wouldn’t help much unless you make efforts to make the whole world know about it. In addition, that’s what brand building is about.
Here we share a few tips to facilitate effective lifestyle business branding in the coming New Year.
- Create a unique logo
A creative and innovative logo is the first and most important visual detail of your brand. It is what will make your brand stand apart from several others in the market. However, it needs to be unique in terms of design, color, and even wordings used if any. Also, remember that an effective logo is the one that is timeless and not affected by on-going fads and trends. You may not always be able to keep changing it simply because your audience would associate your brand with its logo and it’d embed deep in their memory.
- Design your website and mobile app
You may already be online but if you aren’t already, 2020 is the time to establish a strong online presence for your brand. Nearly half your target audience is online today and so are most of your competitors too. The only way to survive through is by creating an appealing website and most importantly, a user-friendly mobile app because most of your users would be more comfortable using smartphones and portable devices than PC/laptop.
- Leverage on social media
Social media channels and messaging apps have today come to rule the business world. You’d find most lifestyle businesses on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and the like, and the best way they can promote their business content is by leveraging the power of messaging apps. YouTube and Whatsapp are the best mediums to promote video content and get your lifestyle brand known to the masses.
- Interact with your audience
This is particularly important for your brand. People these days like to interact with the business/service provider they use. Gone are the days when buying and selling could take place without human interaction. In addition, people prefer interaction possibly because it gives them a chance to provide appropriate feedback to the lifestyle brand owner. This is also highly necessary to maintain good relations with your audience and encourage them to stay loyal to you for longer.
- Go visual as far as possible
This is a world of imagery, with more digital and fast-moving images too. Images tend to be retained in human memory faster and longer than text. Therefore, if you want your brand name to be remembered for long in the market, think more of visual content – promotional videos that have higher user engagement than normal text content. You can also leverage the power of images when using articles, blogs, or social media posts.
- Leverage influencer marketing to your advantage
Influencer marketing is a kind of word-of-mouth promotion; however here you depend on famous personalities with a huge fan following to spread the word about your business on their social media platforms. You only need to be sure about who you choose as an influencer for your brand; someone whose personality suits your brand and product well. This activity is really picking up and promises to be one of the most effective branding strategies of 2020.
- Maintain your personal touch with your audience
It isn’t too difficult after all; it might need some investment of time, effort, and money though. After you’ve used the above steps to get your brand name out in the market, now is the time to maintain that brand’s popularity by establishing a personal connection with the target audience. It could be in the form of holding events, exhibitions, or Q&A chat sessions on social media channels. This gives you a chance to interact with your market and the latter too can get their queries addressed.
Summing Up
Branding is a vital characteristic of setting up and running a lifestyle business. Without brand building, you’d be lost from people’s memory in no time. Spend some time and money on it for long-lasting yields. Competition is tough but you can still score an edge over it with brand-building efforts. Let 2020 be the year for your business success.
| Author Bio
Bharat Patel, who heads the digital marketing team at Brainvire Infotech, is armed with over 12 years of experience in the fields of online marketing and project management. He is extremely proactive in implementing the latest technological innovations in his projects. Bharat’s core expertise lies in search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, and conversion rate optimization, among other things. His immense flare of writing encourages him to consistently pen down words revolving around current trends and innovations that relate to his fields of interest. |
