Is your brand worth falling in love with?
A couple of weeks ago I went to a panel discussion at Creative Sydney and the topic was ‘Creative for a Cause’. It was very inspiring and made me think about brands and why some are worth falling in love with and others are not.
After a bit of thinking, I came up with the 7 Cs to make your brand worth falling in love with.
Community: People love and have a big need of belonging, it is one of our core needs. Think about how you can create this sense of belonging in your business. Can you create a community of people that have special access to certain resources? Or can you build community by organising exclusive client dinners or even get them to join you in a joint effort to raise funds for a good cause?
The hardest thing is usually to get the first follower, after that more will follow if your brand is worth following.
Content: Content is crucial. No matter how funky your brand looks, if the content is not very attractive, people won’t fall in love with your brand. It’s like when you buy a box of chocolate that has a great packaging, but when you open it, the content is not as promising as the look of the box (that’s why I always go for Lindt chocolate, great content guaranteed).
If you are a service business, your service is your content. So make sure your clients get what they’ve been promised and more.
Creativity: Creativity plays a big role in making your brand worth falling in love with. Use your creativity to create awareness for your business and its products and services. You could even think about how to use your brand creatively to support a good cause.
Character: Character is crucial because it makes you stand out from the crowd. Create your own character by turning up your (good) qualities. You don’t need to be somebody else, just turn up what you already have. What’s your character? Are you serious, empathetic, funny, cheeky, strict, funky, playful, factual, intellectual, generous, optimistic?
Consistency: We all know how important brand consistency is, but here I speak about a different kind of consistency: being consistent with your promises and actions. Do you do what you say you would? Do you stand by your values and promises? Do you only recommend products and services you know will be beneficial for a certain client (rather than sell whatever you can)?
Culture: Create a brand people want to work with, buy from and get involved with. Think about how you can create an awesome company culture. Put in place ‘cultural rules’ such as staff volunteering days, recycling, peer support etc.
Contribution:Start giving now, don’t wait until your business makes more money. So many people say they’ll be able to give when well, that moment usually never comes because when they are there, there will be something else preventing them from giving. Make generosity part of your brand.
To your brand worth falling in love with,
Franziska
