Whether you do business online, on a high street, through word of mouth, well-established connections or social media, your brand’s reputation is what holds you back or pushes you forward when it comes to reaching your target customers.
Standing out from the crowd is the first step (and this can be a tall order in a crowded marketplace), but there isn’t a business or brand on the planet that doesn’t need to be conscious of brand reputation, whether you’re a multinational giant like Nike or Amazon, or a family-run local SME.
In this post we will explore the ways in which brand reputation can make or break your business, and the steps you can take to either prevent negative trends, or repair your brand’s reputation.
Why is brand reputation important?
The wider reputation of your brand is ultimately the perception of your business or organisation, which in turn has a direct impact on whether or not people will consume your product, engage with your brand and promote your channels.
Reputation can be formed using a number of different factors, from your advertising decisions and locations, to the history of your brand and the quality of your products or service. Strong branding can often be the difference between someone buying what you’re selling, or looking elsewhere.
Brand awareness vs brand reputation
Though closely linked as marketing strategies, there are crucial differences between brand awareness and brand reputation. Brand awareness is all about the foundational knowledge you have and implement into the early stages of your brand, building up its name and audience with opening remarks that set the stall of your brand’s messaging and tone for the foreseeable future.
Brand reputation, on the other hand, is how your brand is perceived by the public, and what interactions and decisions mean in terms of the overall sentiment of a brand. Brand reputation only really comes into play when a recognised audience base understands what your brand stands for and represents, and it is at this point where the big decisions are made, around whether or not customers buy your products or consume your brand.
What is online reputation repair?
A business’ online reputation is as important as its physical presence in the 21st century. It is the consensus opinion on how your brand reflects its messaging via social media or website content, and can be utilised to create positive momentum for a company as a whole. Improving your online image can be done in a number of ways, but one of the more popular options is something called online reputation repair, or online reputation management.
This is a process that involves removing or suppressing negative, false or potentially harmful content from your brand’s digital footprint, and instead promoting and elevating your brand’s popular content. This can be done using the classic method of search engine optimisation, or more traditional methods of positively engaging with your audience, taking proactive public relations measures and championing transparency.
Tips to boost brand reputation
Online reviews and ratings
One of the best, surefire ways to spread the digital word about your brand is to encourage online reviews and ratings. Positive word of mouth can not only boost trust in your brand, but also is proven to attract more customers/consumers. If you can, also try to reply to any reviews that are left, as it provides a personal experience for the customer, and also shows you are committed to either maintaining high standards, and are appreciative of the positive feedback, or to listening to feedback and adapting to the authentic customer experience.
Asset consistency
This is perhaps the most important of all metrics when it comes to brand performance and perception, and it’s about much more than merely keeping a presence across a number of channels. It is vital to establish a regular tone in all external messaging and communications, so consumers and potential customers can develop familiarity with the brand.
A logo is great for leaving a first impression but every element of your public presence and outgoing communication needs to harmonise with it. Make sure you have branded design templates, font structures, logos, headers, domain names, whatever it might be, to create a style that becomes synonymous with your brand over time.
Track and monitor
The internet can be a scary place, but it is ultimately the go-to place for most people’s information these days, so avoiding what is being said about your brand through fear of negativity could be fatal for the futureproofing of your brand/business.
Staying on top of what is being said about your brand either on social media, online forums, through earned media mentions or press coverage, could allow you to prepare for potential problems before they snowball into something larger.
Get help with your brand reputation
Protecting and building a reputation can be a longstanding mission filled with immediate challenges, short term boosts and diminishing returns that require innovation, creativity and flexibility.
To get your brand known and respected, our marketing specialists are here to help. Encompassing PR, SEO, PPC/paid search and social media, we are the team you can count on… and our own reputation is pretty good too!
