Why Corporate Branding is Critical to Success
Though many people think otherwise, corporate branding is an evidence-based system. Marketing has become central to the survival of modern brands, and now more than ever, we must rely on data to drive corporate branding decisions. Within competitive corporate markets, there is very little room for experimentation and guesswork. Without a sound branding campaign, corporations have little hope of making it in-state markets. Because consumers have the entire world’s worth of companies available to them, local businesses must use competitive strategies to stand up to the global competition. The ultimate goal of all branding is to stand out among one’s peers. However, the pool of business peers has grown exponentially within the past decade.
Though many small businesses have a loyal local customer base, branding is still of the utmost importance. The reason for this is multifaceted. Primarily, the modern customer prefers to view corporations as having a personality — part of customer loyalty includes an attraction to a company’s general feeling or aesthetic. This company personality creates return customers and gives consumers a way to connect with their favorite brands.
This connection then inspires word-of-mouth advertising, as well as long-term loyalty. Long-term loyalty turns into brand recognition, a place where your company has become notable on the local or national level and can be recognized on branding alone. Long before a corporation can reach that point, however, airtight branding efforts must be made through trusted branding agency services. Hiring a corporate branding agency gives your corporation the resources to stand out in the market and achieve long-term recognition.
REDKOR – Who We Are
At REDKOR, we utilize unique strategies for a corporate branding company. While we do capitalize on consumer emotions like most other successful marketing strategists, this is not the only tactic we use in our work. Our projects and ideas are all based on consumer research, giving us a strong edge when it comes to navigating markets. Using a customized and personal research process, we dive deep into your consumer base to learn what attracts them to your company, what drives them away, and what they believe you are missing. This research allows us to implement emotional branding in the most effective way possible: by highlighting the emotion that is already there, rather than creating new emotional tactics. We believe that simply guessing what will drive consumers based on general human emotion is not enough. Instead, we turn to the source of your business and develop a branding strategy that delivers evidence-based results.
Are you a small business in Utah? Utah’s corporate market is incredibly competitive and poses significant challenges to companies big and small. Many corporate branding services don’t have a method that can amplify local and state businesses the way that we can. At REDKOR, our highly developed branding research system can help you to stand out, no matter how long you have been around or how established you are in your community. Our research methods can allow small businesses in Utah to use pinpointed branding to achieve the branding results of a company with a much larger reach.
The REDKOR Method
Our branding services process is different from other companies that you will find in the corporate branding world. Because our system is evidence-based, we have a set method for collecting data and can lay out our process for you before we begin. Our corporate branding services generally look like this:
Stakeholder Audit
We begin the process with you. Our first step is to meet with you and understand where you would like to go with your branding efforts. We will use empathetic conversation to glean a deep understanding of your Utah-based business and how you wish to grow your business in the near and distant future. Your preferences and goals are the groundwork for the project, so we begin by collaborating with your team to determine intention.
Competitive Audit
To make a branding campaign that is competitive in your market, we must assess other companies that compete for your client base. We assess how your competitors are doing in their branding efforts, what they are doing right, and how they could improve. We also determine where your company fits within the fabric of the market — though there will always be multiple businesses competing for clients, understanding your relationship to other companies can help to highlight your strengths.
Group Audit and Research
The process really begins to accelerate when we talk to your customers. Because they are the determining factor in your success or failure, we have to consult them and see what is currently working. Our consultations with your client base will allow us to determine what the current public perception of your company looks like, how we can use it to your advantage, and where we might like to change it. This phase assesses everything from values to current branding to general perception.
Story Creation and Content
Once we have done the above research, we can begin to build a framework for the project. This phase is essentially a summary of the corporation’s reputation among consumers and provides a roadmap for the direction of the project.
Creative Design Concepts
From here, we can begin to develop the branding for your company. We use information from our research to develop a branding strategy that highlights your strengths, capitalizes on your values, and amplifies your existing reputation among consumers. During this phase, you can expect to see ideas for fonts, messages, graphics, and other stereotypical branding aspects come to life.
Concept Testing
At this point, our research is far from over, even though the development process has begun. We develop a wide range of options based on our research and collaborate with you to determine which ones fit with your vision. From there, we approach your consumers once again. By taking potential branding back to your customers, we can understand how they will perceive the new branding and whether it has the intended effect. In this way, the project is evidence-based, as is the final product — the research itself is a multi-step process.
Notable Brands in Utah
To understand what your company may look like with successful branding, we can look to any number of Utah corporations that have successfully implemented their branding strategies. These companies utilize a range of emotions to inspire consumer engagement.
Intermountain Healthcare
Intermountain capitalizes on two significant emotions: serenity and confidence. As medical providers, they want to convey to their clients that their services are not cause for concern and that you can have confidence in their ability to care for you. This is demonstrated everywhere, from their positive-looking logo to their professional and straightforward fonts. As the largest medical corporation in Utah, they assuage customer fear by using bright but professional branding.
SkyWest Airlines
SkyWest uses positivity and happiness to sell its Utah-based brand to consumers around the country. Their messaging and values are based in upbeat and cheerful vernacular while displaying these values in a professional font. They use a creative typeface for their logo that is easy to read but stands out as well. This appeals to two of their major client bases: those going on vacation and those traveling for business to and from Utah.
Nu Skin Enterprises
As one of the largest companies in Utah, Nu Skin focuses on individuality in its branding. As a natural health company, Nu Skin understands that their market likely wants to be valued for the ways in which they are unique. By infusing this concept into their branding, they send the message of individuality before the consumer even begins to shop. We can see this message everywhere, from their unique font choices to their diverse model casting and even in the layout of their website itself.
Contact REDKOR
If you are ready to build a brand that is based on customer research, contact REDKOR Brand Campaigns. We have decades of experience using consumer needs as the backbone of successful branding strategies, and we can do the same for you.
