5 Simple Steps to a Winning Brand Strategy

08 September 2021

Perhaps people’s greatest delusion is that a winning brand strategy is all about a stunning logo and a catchline. The truth is that creating a winning strategy is nothing less entailing than growing a child. Just as you would nurture, take care of, and enrich your child, similarly, you have to develop and build every step of your brand strategy.

It requires utmost care, consideration, effort, and planning. Keep reading to learn five simple steps that can help you create a winning strategy. With these, you will soon get your brand on its feet and ready to conquer the world.

A Brand- What it is

One of the essential assets your company will ever own is your brand name. A brand is a name that becomes the identity of your organization. How you market your brand could stand for loyalty, quality, faith, and trust. Your brand is in short, your reputation!

Developing Your Brand Strategy- Make it Simple but Impactful

Branding is a very extensive process and demands careful planning and time. However, many often underestimate the power of a simple approach in building a strategy that is winning and effective. It all depends on strategic approaches and elements. Here is how:

1. Find Your Market Niche

A winning brand strategy is one you develop with a clear idea of your market niche. But finding your niche is not an instantaneous process. You must take time to serve a specific class of audiences with your specialized services. Then you must shortlist where you have performed excellently.

Similarly, with products too, you should first focus on those that best cater to your customers’ needs. This way, you get the best idea of which products have performed optimally, and therein lay your expertise.

The problem with niche-ing down is that many falsely believe that they are under-suing their potentials. But the truth is that when you downsize your niche, you make a strategic and beneficial move in several ways. Here’s how:

You are able to stand apart from the competitors who appeal to the same or general audiences
You get the golden chance of charging premiums upon offering specialized expertise
You minimize wastage of essential resources, including finances
You free up more time, energy, and capacity to create the finest experiences, services, and products for your loyal customers

In the end, the biggest advantage in specifying your niche is that you do not have to scatter and stretch to be the best for everyone. Instead, you only have to use your resources where they’ll yield and achieve the most.

2. Research Extensively

By now, you have surely realized our emphasis on spending time and taking time to build your brand strategy. It is not an instantaneous process: it is a research-based and time-consuming one. The more you spend time researching your brand, the more effective a strategy you will design.

Rather than build your strategy in a bubble, take the time to study your competitors and the other ruling businesses. Take time to observe how your audiences are engaging with them and what professional services branding techniques they’re using.

Next, DO NOT COPY them. Rather, take your learning of the industry and competitor brands to market position your brand. Design compelling ways to engage with your audiences and draw responses actively from them. Draw inspiration and strategic insights and then unleash your own creativity to set yourself a class apart from the crowd.

Come up with products, services, and experiences that you know for sure no other business is offering. And this, you can only deduce and conclude after you have researched thoroughly!

3. Vision and Mission

Remember how we said simplicity can be a vital component in helping you build a winning strategy? We stand by this truth.

Despite your extensive research, there is no certainty that you will manage to come up with something truly one of its kind or unique. If that was possible, there would be endless unique brands around the world today. The fact is that while uniqueness may not come naturally, playing your cards right in the industry can and should.

So even if you have nothing new to offer to the audiences, they’re still several ways in which you can stand out and at the top. Do you know how? With your brand messaging!

By playing this card right, you can make your brand strategy soar to heights of success. You can take the world’s most popular commercial coffee chains for example. Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks have an unbeatable global reputation, despite the fact that they both sell the same products. But why do they stand out so distinctly in the whole world?

Brand messaging my friend, brand messaging. You can make your business stand out by customizing your brand strategy with a winning message. Here’s how to do that:

Include personal vision and mission statements
Reflect your core values in the message
Give a crystal clear description of your unique approach to solving their problem
Attract them by promising exquisite experiences

4. Blogging

Make blogging a firm part of your brand strategy. In an all-digital age, there’s no understating the power and influence of blogs. It has done many established businesses immeasurable good, starting with increased sales and increased online visibility.

Give your business easy identification by producing qualitative, highly informative, and communicative blogs. Let the blogs reflect your company’s unique personality, expertise, and intent in detail. Choose relevant topics and information and make them interesting with images and stats.

5. Be Cohesive

Your social media accounts along with your website are the most accessible representatives of your company. To be a distinguished brand, it is important that you maintain a cohesive voice and visuals. Therefore, for a successful brand strategy, it is important that you unify all your existing media platforms into one.

From Instagram, Facebook, to Twitter, unite all your social media handles into one voice and identity to ensure customers of your reliability and consistency.

Final Thoughts

The success of your company largely depends on the success of your brand strategy. A brand starts with an individual, but it ends with the perception that audiences have of that business. By shaping and putting considerable effort into every aspect of your brand strategy, you will positively impact the response and perception of your audience.

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Retail Tips for Success Post Brexit

As the UK’s divorce from the EU grows closer there are still many questions that need to be answered. The impact of Brexit on companies who retail both domestically and overseas is still uncertain as politicians attempt to thrash out the finer details. Whilst some businesses are sitting tight, waiting to see what transpires, there are others who are trying to take a more proactive approach by looking for solutions and even advantages. And it is with this in mind that we offer some retail tips for success post Brexit. Consider the Customers: No matter what the outcomes of Brexit are, perhaps the most important thing for retailers to do is to consider their customers – let’s face it if customers walk away in their droves, then little else matters. Post Brexit customers will still be looking for value and they will still be looking for a great service. Maintaining this is paramount to the ongoing success of any retail operation, but what does it involve? There needs to be an equilibrium between the three involved parties; the supplier, the retailer and the customer. If price outstrips value, then the customer is likely to look elsewhere. Retailers may need to re-examine their relationship with suppliers should Brexit bring about cost increases. Focus on Retail Spaces: In order to meet the challenges that Brexit poses and to exploit the opportunities it brings, a new focus on retail spaces may be required. The high street is now notoriously difficult to navigate for retailers and so optimizing the return on investment is vital. Increased agility may be the answer and to achieve this the expertise of a real estate advisory service such as GVA Worldwide may be the most effective solution. If retailers are looking for a prime urban location, for example, the help of a team that has intimate knowledge of the environment could prove to be pivotal. This is particularly relevant if companies are looking for retail space in the EU. Employ First Class Logistics: It would be naive to think that e-commerce will not be a key feature of a post-Brexit retail world and that capitalizing on it will be a necessary factor for success. And as customers come to expect more and more, a first-class logistics service will be required – one that can operate just as well across borders as it can in the UK. Retail companies need to use logistic providers that can offer a fast, quality service to anywhere in the world and who are safe and reliable – world markets will become even more important in a post Brexit business climate. Protect Your Staff: Many companies who are based in the UK employ staff from the EU and protecting them will help ensure success after Brexit. Staff comes second only to customers when it comes to the retail business and making sure that they are safe and secure should be high on the agenda. Consulting immigration lawyers may be one way of protecting your staff and therefore your business. In the short term it is unlikely that there will be any great changes post-Brexit, but looking to the medium and long-term is what retail companies need to do for ongoing success. Read More: Top tips for making business purchases. Money Borrowers, A Profitable Business. Major financial problems that can affect new business.

What Are the Ways to Prepare a New Employee?

It’s the end of your first day. You’ve completed a plethora of online applications, psychometric tests, digital interviews and hopped through all manner of recruitment rings of fire – and you’ve landed the job of your dreams. Or so you thought… But do you know what are the ways to prepare a new employee? You arrived at your fancy new office, but there was no one to greet you. After waiting near an hour, your co-worker-to-be apologized and took you to your desk, only to find it hadn’t been cleared. Grimacing that your equipment hadn’t been set up, your ‘guide’ spun you around the office’s sea of blank faces. Did they even know you were starting? The awkward acclimations were interrupted by an irritated-looking administrator who lugged a thick binder of forms to fill in. You missed lunch with the gang. After finally navigating through all the red tape, the person you were meant to shadow was never notified so you were given menial tasks to pass the time, while they were in an important meeting with a client. You stared at the clock, waiting, waiting, waiting. With the day over, you’re just sad you didn’t get out sooner. Wait – is this really your dream job? New hires expect and need their onboarding to run smoothly. The above scenario sounds like an exaggerated horror story, but in a survey, Cezanne HR asked new employees about their onboarding experiences and was shocked to find: 52% didn’t know what to expect on their first day 30% didn’t have a buddy 8% didn’t meet their managers 23% didn’t have a desk ready 6% didn’t get told about health and safety regulations 5% didn’t have data security training 6 didn’t have a laptop or computer. Great onboarding is extremely important. It increases retention and reduces staffing costs. It delivers an engaging experience for new hires, so they connect with the organization and colleagues from the moment they’re given the offer. Also. it should turn first-day new employee anxiety into genuine excitement. It should make them feel prepared for the new job and welcome! Of course, no one said it’s an easy process, and orchestrating the activities to get onboarding right is time-consuming for everyone. In addition, the burdens of paper-based systems or dancing between data spreadsheets, such as Excel, allow important processes to slip through the cracks – which shouldn’t happen in a modern workplace. However, with the right HR software, you can make new employee onboarding engaging and straightforward, while automating and streamlining the admin involved in bringing on new hires. Here are the ways to prepare a new employee: Stay in touch after the job offer It’s very important for a new employee to engage with employers from the moment they’re hired. This can go beyond a simple email. Make sure you consider the following: Welcome portals are a very common feature in HR software because they do precisely that: they welcome people. Welcome portals act as an information hub and enable constant communication. They are a platform to share all essential details, including the new hire’s start date, office location, and contact details. It’s also a great way to prepare the new hire by letting them know how their first day will be structured and what their first projects will be. Make sure you send your new hire links to any documents they need. Provide them with essential advice including what they should bring with them on the first day or week, including items like their passport, P45, national insurance number and other relevant work documents. You could use your HR software system’s welcome portal to deliver this information and advice. Get the paperwork out of the way in advance of the first day. Signing a lot of forms can delay more pressing tasks, such as the relevant introductions, training, and the new hire’s first projects. HR software can be especially effective here. Instead of wasting time filling out form after form, new hires can sign documents electronically. It streamlines admin processes and makes everything available in one place – and it can all be done before the starting date. Making use of welcome portals and their visual content is a powerful way of engaging with new hires and allows companies to add photos and embed company videos – it might be a hello from a CEO, or a video demonstrating the company’s culture, or brand values and goals. Portals can also allow new hires to self-serve, adding a profile, information, bank details and the like. Moreover, all information you collect should flow straight through to your HR system. Cloud HR solutions should come with onboarding modules that are simple to set up and accessible 24/7. Storing information in one place also cuts back on the task of re-entering the same data into multiple systems. Prepare the desk When your new hire’s first day comes, ensure you’ve got a plan: assign someone to receive and greet them at the door put in an order with IT and prepare all the relevant equipment: a computer, phone, email, and network access, and office supplies moreover, ensure security and compliance policies are explained as appropriate. Spread the duties for onboarding tasks across different departments. For example, the IT department might be responsible for setting up the new hire’s laptop and email; the finance team might organize payroll, and the line manager will arrange inductions as well as check-in meetings. HR software’s task management systems can help significantly here. HR software makes it much easier for these departments to fully understand their roles in the onboarding process. Task managers and checklists make use of notifications, meaning important processes don’t get forgotten about. It gives an overview of what’s been done and what needs doing. Involve your employees Send the first-day welcome announcement to the organization and share the news of the new hire with the team. Give their name, title, and something that distinguishes them: it might be a hobby or interest, for instance. This allows current employees to easily see if they have anything in common, making everyone more prepared for the big day. Moreover, give your current employees details of the new hire’s background, making sure the new employee’s biggest strengths are acknowledged. Find a peer and assign them to mentor/buddy the new hire. This will help the new hire to get settled and to be comfortable enough to ask any questions that are on their mind. This also helps build relationships with the team, integrating the new employee into the company significantly faster. Also, consider explaining who’s who – HR software can create a staff directory mapping this for you. This will help your new hire to familiarise themselves with their co-workers and assists them in directing their queries to the right people from the right departments, so they don’t feel like they’re barraging their mentor with questions. Planning welcome social help breaks the ice, too – and not just between the company and the new hire. From team lunches to company happy hours, both new hires and current employees can benefit from getting to know each other in a more open and casual environment, building stronger relationships and channels for collaboration. Establish a formal training program The importance of setting a clear and comprehensive training program can’t be overstated. Doing so helps prepare and motivate the new hire for the first day and sets a precedent for the weeks and months ahead as they approach their new projects. Such a structured program does much to ease their potential short- and longer-term worries. Indeed, the HR portal assists here, too. By being able to provide access to important training documents, setting out a comprehensive program schedule through calendars, and by making use of notifications to make clear to current employees what is expected of them in the onboarding process and when. On top of this, it’s an effective and simple way for new hires to view set assignments and tasks, as well as their own schedules. Check-ins Check-ins are a series of regular discussions between managers and employees about their progress. They are: ongoing and build a rapport, setting short and long-term goals an extremely effective way of ensuring employees are continuously aware of their professional development within the company, allowing them to express any concerns and ask questions, and they form a crucial part of the onboarding process. At the end of the first week, give the new hire the opportunity to ask any outstanding questions. This helps demonstrate your enthusiasm towards the employee’s start beyond just the first day and will help set a clear and lasting relationship between the new hire and the company. HR software can make continuous performance reviews and check-ins an integral part of company culture. Cezanne HR, for instance, provides a seamless and engaging way of recording conversations, achievements and agreed goals or outcomes, so it’s easier to ensure everyone is aligned. The right HR systems are equipped with performance management functions that allow employees to make use of their flexibility and to collaborate in an online forum where others can easily and securely request feedback, record check-in conversations, and track outcomes. Poor onboarding is a wasted opportunity The benefits of great onboarding are infinite. It reduces unnecessary barriers that might otherwise inhibit the new employee from settling in or performing at their best. It gets new hires up to speed swiftly and immerses them in the company’s values, vision, and culture. Furthermore, great onboarding protects your new investment. A robust, systematic onboarding process boosts new hire retention by 50%, and new hires that experienced strong onboarding are 58% more likely to stay with the company for more than three years. Why would you waste all your efforts with a dissatisfactory onboarding process? Onboarding can be the difference between a quick and costly new employee turnover, and a long and lasting productive relationship. Above are just some of the boxes to tick to ensure an engaging onboarding experience. Do you have any more? Let us know! Read Also: Fastest Growing Company, on Creating the Best Place to Work How Private Hire Insurance Takes You Out from Problems?

5 Ways To Improve Workflow Efficiency In Your Office

A workplace is a place where we spend most of our time. It needs to be organized and productive. But when it comes to managing office technology, it can be a challenge. How do you ensure that your employees can work efficiently without getting distracted by noise or other distractions? The answer lies in optimizing your office's workflow efficiency. Here are some tips on how you can improve the flow of information within your organization: Priorities Clarification To make sure you're working toward a goal that will actually help your business, make sure to clarify priorities. Define the problem you want to solve before starting on a solution. First, set goals for yourself and your company. It can be hard not to worry about what others' goals are, but don't compromise your own or those of other team members just because it's more fun or exciting! Be ambitious and realistic at the same time: if everyone else is doing 5 push-ups per day while you're doing 50, chances are high that it won't work out well if everyone suddenly decides they want to do more push-ups than they've been doing previously! What kind of tangible fitness goals could we achieve in 3-6 months? For example: running three times per week for 30 minutes each time; completing one full marathon within six months; running 5km without stopping, etc. Structured Cabling Systems Having structured network cabling is a great way to improve the efficiency of your office. A structured cabling system is a network that runs throughout the entire building, giving each office access to all other parts of the company. This allows for much more communication between departments and makes it easier for employees to communicate with each other. It will also help you be more productive because you won't have to make multiple trips back and forth between offices to get information or files from someone else. Excellent Internet Connection It is important to have a good internet connection because, without it, you will not be able to send or receive files, videos, and updates from clients. This could impact your workflow as it will take longer than usual to send or receive the file. You should ensure that there are no problems with your internet connection by testing them at least once a week. You could also consider getting installation services for data cabling in Newcastle in your office so that everyone has access to high-speed internet connections at all times regardless of where they are working. Automation Automation is a way to improve workflow efficiency in your office. It allows you to do more with less, saving time and money. It also improves the quality of your work by eliminating mistakes that result from human error. Here's how automation works: You can set up report automation in Excel that will perform a task for you automatically when it needs to be done, without any human intervention at all. When the task has been completed, this system can notify the appropriate person by email or text message so that they know what's been accomplished (and so they don't have to keep checking on it). Workspace When you're encouraging workers to do their best work, it's important to let them make choices about how they want to work. One of the best ways to help your employees achieve this goal is by giving them freedom over where they set up shop. If you have a team that works remotely or in different locations, they're probably going to have different preferences when working in an office environment. Some people prefer quiet, private spaces and others enjoy being around others while they work. Either way, it's important for employers like yourself who don't have control over where your employees will be working from day to day (or even month to month) to provide enough variety so that everyone can find what works best for them at any given time. Conclusion In conclusion, I would like to reiterate that it’s important for you to invest in a good office automation system. It will not only improve your workflow efficiency but also help you save time and money in the long run. Read Also: Why You Should Design New Offices Carefully? – Content Rally Top Expert Tips for a Stunning Condo Interior! 7 Expert Hacks for Downsizing to a Smaller Apartment

5 Simple Steps to a Winning Brand Strategy

A Brand- What it is