Brand is important in business, there’s no denying that. Just how important is it? Well, read on to find out. And read on to find out how your business’s brand can be protected, too.
The importance…
The importance of brand to the audience
The audience is the make or break factor in a business getting custom, and it losing it. Well, this audience are the ones who are turned into customers, and ultimately customers hold the key to every transaction that takes place in the workplace. So, targeting this audience right from the get go and getting on the right side of them from the off is pivotal if you want to not only turn them into customer, but turn them into customers that are going to provide you with strong custom. To do this, your brand must be at the peak of its powers. It must be attracting. It must be fresh. It must be appealing. To make sure this is the case, don’t be afraid to work alongside a brand manager. What such a manager would offer you is knowledge on the current market trends, as well as an ability to monitor them and translate them into your business. They would provide you with a distinctive brand after working various different teams, product develops, researchers, creative agencies and other marketing personnel. And, most importantly, they would ensure your business’s brand and image values are followed meticulously.
The importance of brand to employees
Brand is important to employees, too. When all employees of a business are wearing that business’s brand day in, day out, a uniformity is forged between them that makes them feel together. And, this uniformity is vital in the world of work, as people only naturally want to work together and in teams in order to see that their work is done properly. What’s more, because the in-house abilities of employees are boosted by this uniformity, so are the chances of employee retention. So, give your employees a strong look and brand their workwear with your business’s logo by turning to a developer of custom patches.
The importance of brand to you
Yes, the importance of brand in business stretches itself all the way to you, the owner of a business, too. It stretches its way to you because it is the defining factor of all the hard work you’ve put into your business. It is one of the only physical forms of recognition you will get from the business of it having its own identity. It was one of the only things you can look at and be able to recognise all the work you’ve put in to change your business and take it to where it is today. So, make sure to take a moment to look at your business’s branding every now and again and appreciate just how good it actually is.
Protecting it…
You must manage your digital assets
If a lot of your business’s assets are now not wrapped up on the Internet, then you’re doing something wrong. And, because most of them are (or should be), you should be doing all you can to manage them and protect them. You must be doing so because, if you don’t, your business’s brand could take a real battering as a result. Basically, all the aspects of branding that your business owns online, such as any media it owns, need to be managed and kept safe at all times. If you don’t, absolutely anybody else at all could get their hands on this media and use it as their own, and that would be terrible news for your business and its brand. So, manage your digital assets professionally and make sure they are kept out of the hands of absolutely everybody that shouldn’t have them, and also think about setting up Google Alerts as that would alert you to anybody on the Internet mentioning or using your brand in any way.
You must get registered
To give your business’s brand the best possible chance of surviving whatever storm comes its way, you must get it legally registered. You must do so because, when you do, you will make it impossible for anybody else or any other business to tap into your brand and make their own money from it. Basically, what this means is that you should get your business logo, slogan, name and anything else that is intrinsic to its brand trademarked, and you should do it before anybody else does. By doing this (it is done by getting in touch with the Patent and Trademark Office of your country) you would give yourself full legal right to do whatever you please with your brand, meaning its future is solely in your hands.
Make sure to always think globally
Trademarking your brand in your country is pivotal, and it is just as important to get it trademarked elsewhere around the world, too. It is important to do this because different countries work on different trademarking laws, meaning that you could own the intellectual property of your brand in one country but not in another. In fact, in some countries, you having used the brand before is even not enough to call it your own — in China, trademarking is done on a ‘first-to-file’ basis, meaning that your business’s brand could be swept from under it over there if you don’t act quick enough. So, just make sure to bare the rest of the world in mind, especially if you have global aspirations.
Brand is everything to business. It is what draws custom, it is what inspires employees and it is the measuring stick of how far a business has come. Therefore, it must be protected. It must be protected online, it must be protected in the world of copyright and it must be protected the world over.