Protecting your brand for business growth
We all know the results associated with a successful brand but may not know the formula that goes into making it so popular.
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Defining businesses on a careful plan to deliver what clients want entails more than the normal forecasting. So wherever your business finds itself, either in the service, manufacturing or in the agricultural sector, it is your brand that tells what you do, who you are and what you can offer your customers.
Indeed, the stronger your brand, the bigger the relationship with the purchasing patterns of customers.
Your unique symbols, words, designs or a combination of all these truly identify your product or service. When effectively utilised over a period, they create an image in the minds and eyes of consumers who associate and identify your products adequately from competitors.
This, therefore, becomes the most valuable treasure of your business; without which your place in the market cannot be guaranteed.
Basically, your product, its quality, value and durability can only be demanded when you ensure a proper brand management in these days of volatility, price under-cuttings, ambush marketing and fierce competition in every task environment.
The way to brand your business appropriately has a long path encapsulating what is called the business identity. If seen as such, it transcends beyond yourself, your staff and or team members and your customers as well.
The defining idea here actually captures the main activities of the business and its attendant values, not forgetting what its vision and goals are. Should your efforts be recognised by your external audience, most categorically your customers, they would then share in the beliefs and values of your brand.
This ultimately leads to increased sales and better brand differentiation. In addition, this significantly leads to customer loyalty, increased revenue and sustained growth to realise your business’ objectives.
Therefore, once customers genuinely associate with your brand, your business would have the opportunity to leap in its growth and development stages. You could diversify and become multi-purpose; which is a real platform to strategically build shocks and survive in these days of economic downturns.
By considering the possibilities of a successful brand, it would be good if management tables what drives the entity well in terms of the business philosophy, values, missions and goals and try to link that with the long-term relationship with their customers who are definitely the backbone of the enterprise’s turnover and profit motives.
It would also be fair on the part of management to define what their business’ brand actually is with a notion to review their product features, value and durability and at the same time find out what innovative ways could be brought in to serve the needs of customers in competitive markets.
Tentatively, the true character trait of a brand should set the business apart from its peers, link well with its customer base and take giant steps in the market.
Ways to protect the brand:
No matter how big or small your business is, the value and the protection of its brand are crucial as far as market space and share is concerned. By being able to differentiate yourself with your logo, colours, slogans and symbols from your competitors, you are able to withstand product tampering and counterfeiting while leveraging your score with price leads, customer loyalty, perceptions and goodwill.
Protecting the brand for growth will, therefore, entail these:
Creativity
By being distinct, you are able to carve a niche that the market associates you with. This makes you unique and very different to compete with. This, as shown in your quality of work, product name, slogans and features, surely will protect the business for profit increases.
Register your brand
By registering your brand, you give it a legal backing. This protects you from infringements. It gives you power to sue and that prevents saboteurs from riding on your hard-earned reputation and the quality that you have taken years to build. Register the product name, colours, symbols and slogans at the Registrar General’s Department to give you the right to safeguard your brand.
Look out for competitors
To safeguard your brand, constantly monitor the market for infringement against your product name, shapes, contents, colours and packaging. Check out from competitors’ websites, newspapers, magazines and from other search engines. Management ought to note that once an infringement goes unnoticed for long without raising any red flags, it would be difficult fighting later. By frequently fishing out for under-cuttings this way, it would take less time and cost to fight counterfeiting at the law courts for remedies.
Constantly make use of it
In order for your brand to be well protected, it ought to get stuck in the minds of the consuming public. The more you use your logos, trademarks, name and slogans, the more distinct and stronger it becomes in the market.
Legal
One big way to ward off infringements is to task your attorney to settle claims of disputes at the court. If persuasion fails in asking ‘parasites’ to back off from your brand, logos and symbols, take them to court and fight for your cause.
In sum, managers of businesses should then know that a well-respected and recognised brand is an enormous asset.
As a result, all efforts must be marshalled to protect it because that is the surest way to guarantee the firm’s identity.
The Writer is a Business and Financial Analyst.
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