Our posts have been few because we have been on the road almost non-stop since the CHA Show in January. As you can imagine, we stop in as many stores as we can while traveling. We've visited wonderful stores with incredible stories and we've visited bland, vanilla boxes with little or no personality.
Here's the thing: Only you can build brand recognition for your business. And if you don't build it (and manage it properly) customers will do it for you, and you might not like the image they choose for you.
Branding makes your business more visible, but what’s a brand? Here’s what it’s NOT: A brand is not just the creative “stuff” A brand is not just the name of your company A brand is not just that cool logo that appears on your business cards. Question: Who has two red circles? A bulls eye? Target, right? But that bulls eye is a LOGO, a SYMBOL. It's not a brand … The LOGO/SYMBOL is what customers SEE; the BRAND is what they FEEL when they enter your store. So, your brand is a logo and a symbol and a feeling and more. It’s the relationship between your, your store, and your customers.
Your brand is how your store MAKES YOUR CUSTOMERS FEEL. It’s the concept that you own inside the mind of the consumer. Your brand is YOUR STORY -- and your story creates a perception that’s based on expectations. Branding is simply storytelling, putting together the words and images that create the perception of what the customer will experience when they come to your store.
To write your story sit down with paper and pen and write down why you got into this business. What's unique about you? List it all and then turn it into a paragraph. Turn that paragraph into strategies and tactics -- things you can implement in your store to build your brand. Call us if you get stuck: 888.215.1839.
You store is a living, breathing entity. Make sure that its perception and reputation are worthy if it. That, dear readers, is entirely in your hands.
Rich & Georganne
