8 Steps for a Bullet Proof Brand Perception
Trying to understand how your audience perceives your brand is probably like trying to count how many grains of sand are in the Saharan desert.
Most likely a useless endeavor.
However, in the case of brand perception, the main issue holding companies back from having an accurate measure of their brand perception is how subjective everyone’s opinions are.
Say you tried Airbnb, probably the best house renting service that owns no houses. If you had a negative experience when you tried their services, are you likely to use their service again?
Probably not.
In a study conducted by the University of Cambridge, it was found that individuals are more strongly firm about their negative opinions of a brand than positive ones. They also found that people are more likely to disagree with negative evaluations of a brand than positive ones.
What’s the Importance of Brand Perception?
Most brands would like to have a positive brand perception simply because they want to occupy a positive side of the mindset of their audience, in the age of people checking multiple reviews on a product, site, or service, having a positive brand perception can literally boost your sales tremendously.
While having a negative one can force you to live on unstable ground, waiting for someone offering the same services with a more positive perception to de-throne you.
In a more practical sense, having a positive brand perception means you occupy a better position to be chosen against your competitors, and it also means that you’ll be the first stop people go to when they’re searching for good brands that solve their issues.
That’s just one of the advantages that a positive brand perception will give you.
What’re the Advantages of a Positive Brand Perception?
Consumers Prefer You Over Competitors
Just like the previous points, if you have a great brand perception, your consumers are going to gravitate toward you before going toward your competitors.
In addition to that, since many reviewing platforms now have a sort of scoring system, if they find that your overall score is more than your competitors, you’ll be able to attract many more customers without spending a dime just by having a positive brand perception.
Get Free Brand Ambassadors
Studies show that 60% of customers refer friends and family to their favorite brands. This is why you shouldn’t consider a sale to be the final consumer journey, they might like your brand so much that they let their friends and family know how great your services are.
By willingly becoming brand ambassadors, they help you maximize that social proof aspect that your brand desperately needs, not to mention boosting your brand perception, since the process of referring friends and family doesn’t end.
Increase Customer Loyalty
We’ve previously mentioned how having a loyal customer base is essential for the longevity of your brand. A loyal fan base can be created by having a positive brand perception, and in addition to that, they act as a shield against any damage your brand perception might have.
Think Tesla fans, it’s likely that no matter how expensive their products will get, they’ll always be a shield against any negative criticism, Elon Musks’ perception might have taken a blow due to the Twitter acquisition, but Tesla remains a positive perception despite that.
How Can You Improve Your Brand Perception?
According to a study by “Bain and Company” 80% of companies say they provide great customer experiences. However, when their customers were asked about said experiences, only 8% of their customers agreed.
That might not be intentional on the company’s part, that’s because companies usually interact with their customers and they solve their problems on a daily basis. If they have a good track record, they’ll naturally consider their services as positive.
Based on their interactions with their consumers, the companies inflate their brand perception, thinking that it’s more positive than what it really is, by a considerable margin, according to the study.
Create A Common Theme for All Your Messages
Many first-time businesses fall into the trap of randomizing their designs and themes in an effort for something to stick.
That’s really not the way you should go about creating a positive brand perception, what you need to be doing is thinking about your design and development of your messages.
A strong visual theme goes miles into improving the image you present to your audience, and as a result, it improves your brand’s perception.
In addition to that, having a unified speech pattern or messaging style can help cement that theme throughout all platforms.
Understand How Your Audience Views Your Brand
You must look beyond the data and understand how your audience might view your brand.
If you’re marketing for the Gen Z segment in LA, then you’d probably market your brand differently than if you were selling for the same segment in Houston.
By looking beyond the raw data, you’ll help your brand better identify with your potential audience.
Create a Relateable Brand Persona
If you really want to maximize the effectiveness of your brand, you need to create a brand persona.
Use what you learned after understanding how the audience views your brand, and create a persona based on the common theme you set out for your brand.
Wendy’s is a great example of a relatable brand persona, a mischievous girl relates to their target audience, and her home was in social media, where she could show off her personality where most of their consumers spend their time.
Maintain a Positive Connection with Consumers
Your brand perception is subjective, but a great way to boost that perception favorably towards yourself is to make your messages about your consumers rather than your products.
By maintaining a positive connection with your consumers, you will not only boost your brand perception, but you’ll actually be helping yourself out in the long term because your consumers will feel comfortable giving you constructive criticism.
Take Criticisms and Be Transparent with Fixing Mistakes
You might think it’s the end of the world when a consumer notices something wrong with your product.
However, that might be an opportunity to improve your brand perception once again. By admitting your mistake and being transparent about fixing it, you’ll build your brand credibility, which does wonders for improving your brand perception.
UGC Boosts Your Brand Perception Tremendously
Do you want to know something that’s going to not only raise your brand perception through the roof but also inspire your consumers to take an interest in the success of your brand?
You can do that by using User Generated Content (UGC), with the help of UGC, your brand can build its image using one of the biggest indicators, social proof.
If anyone checks out your brand and finds that you’re supporting your consumers by posting the content they provide, such as testimonials, reviews, videos, or social media posts, they’re more likely to have a positive view of your brand.
Take Huge Steps, and Make Sure Everyone Knows
Ever heard of that story about a hero who saved the world but never told anyone? Nobody knew who he was and he failed to be recognized as the world’s savior.
In a similar vein to that, small steps you take to improve your brand perception won’t make as big of a splash as you want to, you need to have a significant impact with every step you take.
In addition to that, you should let everyone know that you’re taking these steps, if a client messages you about a problem they had, you should make it a statement that you agree with them and that you’re nipping the problem in the bud.
Boldly stating what your brand stands for helps your customers better perceive your brand, and if you want to really drive the point home, never break your promises.
Avoid Getting Cancelled
Easier said than done, right? In today’s cancel culture brands have to literally look behind their backs.
Making sure that they never said anything controversial or offensive 10 years ago that they could be canceled for today.
If you’re looking to improve and maintain a positive brand perception, you need to look to the future.
Nowadays, everyone knows the trending topics and mistakes that every brand has done. If you’re trying to avoid getting canceled, ensure you never implement policies that negatively target minorities.
In addition to that, you should make it clear if your brand’s vision supports causes that can improve people’s lives, that way you’ll have a bulletproof brand perception. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t get called out for some questionable decisions.
In that case, you should stand your ground if that’s for the betterment of your brand or humbly apologize if you know you messed up.
We hope this article helped show you how having a positive brand perception will be for your business. We’ll see you again in the next article!