how to build a brand that lasts

Ever wonder why some brands vanish into obscurity while others enjoy viral popularity? Or why certain brands pop into your head when you see certain colors? Why some businesses withstand pandemics, a decade of ups and downs and make it… while others die by the wayside? Building a brand that lasts is a process of commitment. Integrity. Hard work. (Did we mention commitment?) Brand building is also a process that involves coalescing the mission and message of your business into a cohesive, comprehensive identity that customers recognize, trust, and get excited about. Every time they see you appear in their inbox or flash across their news feed.  In 2020, it’s the authentic expression of your company’s core values and mission, done in a way that connects with your customers. When you nail it, you not only create a memorable, enduring brand but one that drives your company’s growth. (71% of customers say it’s important to them to purchase from brands they recognize.) Here’s what I’ve learned over the past nine years building the Express Writers brand from the ground up through a content-first approach – no magic, no gimmicks, no shortcuts. 5 Ways to Build a Brand That Lasts and Grows Organically 1. Roll Up Your Sleeves and Get to Work! 2. Commit to Consistency 3. Put Your Customers First In Everything You Do 4. Make Integrity a Core Value 5. Keep Every Promise You Make [bctt tweet=”Trying to discern how to build a brand that lasts? It seems mystifying, yet the answer is quite simple. It’s all about brand development strategy – not luck or happenstance. Learn more in this post by @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”] The 5 Keys to Building Strong Brands That Enjoy Organic Growth There is nothing mysterious involved when it comes to marketing or building strong brands. If you’re wondering how to build a brand that lasts, you could sum it up in five quick parts: work hard, be consistent, emphasize customer service, practice integrity, and keep your promises. It’s that simple. And that hard. Let’s dive in. 1. Roll Up Your Sleeves and Get to Work! If you want the harvest, you have to spend time in the dirt. It’s a super simple concept, but you’ll be surprised at how few people understand this. Consider this: According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, only 60 percent of Americans believe that hard work is the key to getting ahead. A full 39 percent think hard work doesn’t necessarily lead to anything. In other words, over a third of Americans are unlikely to work hard because they’re not convinced it will do any good. They can’t all be resigned to never succeeding at anything. So, might there be successful entrepreneurs in that second group? Maybe, but the data isn’t optimistic: Data mined from the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that 29 percent of business owners worked more than 50 hours per week. Some 86 percent worked on the weekends. Just 60 percent took just one vacation per year (and then three-quarters of them STILL worked). So, roll up those sleeves and get those hands dirty. Successful freelancers, entrepreneurs, and business owners know that there’s no way around the hard work. Our willingness to engage in it constitutes a defining feature – we wear our 90-hour workweeks like a badge of honor. Still, hard work is the key to success but it’s the key we frequently don’t see. A lot of people out there also don’t want you to see it. They’d rather you buy their book, course, membership, etc., that promises to divulge some secret that makes you rich overnight – ignoring the reality that it takes between two and three years on average before a business becomes profitable. Next time you’re marveling at some on-point branding or the truly-well targeted marketing of one of your competitors, remember that you’re looking at the harvest, not the dirt. 2. Commit to Consistency. Hard work and consistency are linked. If you’re showing up every day to water your crops, they’re going to grow. However, that’s not all consistency involves. A lot of research shows that consistency directly impacts your business’s organic growth whether we’re talking about branding efforts or content publishing. According to Demand Metric, brands that present a uniform presence across all of their platforms are 3.5 times more recognizable than brands that don’t. A consistent brand increases revenue by up to 23 percent. According to HubSpot, companies that published at least four blogs every week saw the highest levels of organic traffic. In short: If you build it, they will come – but you have to keep building even when they’re not coming. As you start to build your brand, commit to consistency from the ground up to give yourself a solid foundation to build. That includes (but isn’t limited to): Aligning your core mission, business goals, and content: You should be articulating the same message across your entire enterprise. Carefully curating your voice and vibe: From your brand identity to your user interface, your customer experience should have a uniform feeling. Cultivating your topic clusters: HubSpot’s 2020 Content Marketing Strategy Report identified topic clusters as the single most powerful strategy for building brand authority. Crafting authoritative, valuable content: Many people believe long-form content is dead thanks to our goldfish-like attention spans, but this isn’t true at all! Long-form content (above 1,000 words) thrives if it’s useful. Publishing strategic content on a schedule: Your readers and customers should know when to expect new content from you – and you must deliver. Updating and revitalizing your brand presence and content to reflect your growth: Content isn’t meant to be published and forgotten about. Spend time auditing your web presence, customer experience, and content to ensure it remains consistent over time. Do these things look familiar? They should. They’re the core of a strong content strategy, your single most potent tool for building a brand that grows over time. Tip: Want to learn more? I dive deep into … Read more