Your Online Brand Reputation is the image of your company seen by internet users. It’s how the public feels about your products and perceives your brand. A positive brand reputation- both on and offline- means that customers not only trust your business, but they are also likely to purchase your product or service.
Brand Reputation Management is the process of monitoring how consumers perceive your business and taking strategic action when necessary to improve your brands image.
The key to a winning reputation management strategy is recognizing that you don’t have to wait for people to form their own opinions of your brand. Instead, by building your brand’s experiences around your target customers’ needs, wants, values and opinions, you can also shape how they perceive your company.
Brand safety ensures advertisements, their content and any content shared by brands are appropriate and not associated with topics of consumer opinions that may be negative. By making sure your advertising is legitimate, your consumers won’t feel deceived by your brand and keeps them from having to second guess your business or distrust what you have to offer.
Various factors such as, online reviews, consumer forums, news articles, social media behavior and visibility in search results all impact your brand reputation. Your online brand reputation has become increasingly more important as the digital era continues to explode.
Building a strong brand takes a lot of work. Having a solid reputation strategy will not only help you on your goals of achieving your ideal perception but will also help when your brand inevitably must deal with a crisis.
Why is Brand Reputation Management Important?
Creates More Loyal Customers: For Outdoor Power Equipment companies, the majority of earnings come from a long and loyal customer set. When you follow a brand management strategy, you can look more closely at what avenues will attract and retain the most loyal customers. Customer Loyalty programs work because people like to do business with people they like and trust. Maintaining your brand’s reputation helps to build that trust.
Quickens Your Response to the Competition: Having a marketing strategy in place will help you identify what marketing or sales tactics you need when dealing with a competitive threat. Your Brand reputation strategy can help you decide if it’s a better idea to prioritize a new marketing campaign that focuses on selling to your existing clients, or if it’s better to narrow in on acquiring new customers in a currently under-served area.
Stabilizes Employee Growth: If you articulate the way you want your brand to be perceived, it’s much easier to identify good hires that will promote the culture you are trying to create. People look for jobs where they feel fulfilled and can make a meaningful contribution to something they believe in. Companies that have a clear brand identity and a well-founded brand reputation are the ones who offer these types of opportunities to perspective employees. With a great reputation both inside and outside, a company will have a more devoted workforce and lower levels of turnover and turmoil.
Build Your Brand Identity: Before you can even begin to think about a brand management strategy, you must first create a brand worth managing. Developing a strong brand identity ensures you have a clear understanding of what your company stands for and can help guide decisions in certain situations.
Your brand identity should include:
Logo, Colors & Imagery that are Cohesive
A Consistent Voice from the Brand
A Clear Company Mission, Vision and Value Statement
Establish Your Online Presence: Create a website that will allow visitors to experience your brand identity and form an accurate impression of your business right from the start. Setup and Manage your Google Business Profile and Social Media Accounts.
Actively Ask for and Respond to Reviews: The average consumer will read 10 reviews of your company prior to deciding they can or cannot trust your brand. Make sure to include a place for customers to leave reviews and include them as testimonials on your website. No matter the venue, make sure that you respond to every review as they come in, even the bad ones. If you address them honestly and quickly, many times you will find that you are able to turn a poor experience around and retain your customer’s business. Not only that, but it will show other people reading the reviews, that your brand cares about your consumers and that you will listen and resolve issues and complaints when they arise.
Listen to Feedback: Keeping an eye on what is being said about your brand is key to reputation management. Add a form to your website to create a place for customer feedback. The input you will receive is incredibly valuable.
Improve the Customer Experience: According to Microsoft Consumer Data, 58% of Consumers who feel like their experience falls short with a brand will sever all ties with them. It’s not just the lost revenue that you should concern yourself with.Customers who have had a poor experience are much more likely to leave a public facing review for a company than those who had a good one.
94% of consumers say a bad review has convinced them to avoid a business.
You must be ready to manage your brand reputation before others do it for you. A single bad review can deter multiple potential customers from doing business with your brand.
Company Culture Counts: Good things happen when a company promotes a healthy and positive internal environment. By giving your team members meaningful work and empowering them to take charge of their professional lives, they will become more confident and productive collaborators instead of individual contributors. This has a huge impact on your public reputation. When employees are more satisfied and fulfilled by their work, they will take pride in what they do, and as a result, do better work. Company culture also effects your internal brand reputation. The better supported your employees feel, the prouder of their work they will be which in turn will have a positive influence on your overall brand reputation.
Create a Brand Style Guide: As your company grows. You must always maintain the same identity and message across all channels with internal documentation. Creating a Brand Style Guide ensures that everything remains consistent when it comes to design choices, communication strategies, quality of customer service, etc.
Brand Reputation is critical to any growing business. A Positive brand reputation builds loyalty and increases customer confidence in your brand and product, ultimately, driving both sales and bottom-line growth.
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