Branding Strategies That Sound Good, But Will Hurt You

 

A recent article in Entrepreneur talked about “4 Branding Strategies That Sound Good, But Will Hurt Your Growth” link.  As a Brand Owner, your brand is your greatest asset. There are plenty of people willing to give advice. As with most other things, some will be good and some bad. One strategy discussed in the article has to do with “availability”:

You’ve probably emailed someone and gotten an auto-responder back saying something like, “I’m very busy and will try to respond when I can.” That’s annoying because, unless you’re a president or CEO, an auto-responder is usually overkill.

Your first goal in building a brand is connecting with your leads and customers. Unless you’re taking time off, for most entrepreneurs, an email auto-responder is probably unnecessary for all of your email accounts.

It’s silly to pretend if you don’t have an assistant. If anyone finds out — and chances are they can — you will lose trust with your audience. People will be more surprised if they get a personal response from you. That will help you stand out because other people are building filters, too.

… the best way to build a brand is through authenticity and connection. People can tell if someone is putting on a front — they can sense fakeness. But when they see someone who’s genuine, they tell everyone they know, because that quality is rather rare. Be different by connecting whenever you can.

People buy from someone they know, like and trust. Management consultant Peter Drucker said, “People buy with their hearts, not their minds.” Legendary ad executive David Ogilvy said, “The consumer is not an idiot; she’s your wife.” You can try to build your brand in a way that makes you unavailable and on a pedestal, but you’ll never make a connection with your audience. If there’s no connection, there will be no engagement. If there’s no engagement, you won’t get many organic leads.

A personal connection, to your customers, your suppliers or anyone that deals with your company will always be better than some automated process. No matter how much you tell people “Your call is important to us” while they are waiting to speak to someone, eventually they won’t believe it.