Brand Effectiveness • How to Figure Out if Your Brand is Actually Working
So you’ve got yourself a brand! HELL YEAH! You’ve been learning all about brand strategy, you’ve invested in a beautiful logo, you’ve been making the necessary changes to your website copy… but how do you know if it’s working? How do you actually measure brand effectiveness to know if your branding is successful?
Here are 9 signs to look out for that confirm you’ve got an effective brand:
1. You’re on track to achieve your mission
So yeah, it turns out mission statements aren’t just word salad – who knew?! An effective brand needs to exist for a reason, and every single one of your business goals should be leading you to the holy grail: your mission. If you really want to measure brand effectiveness, start with figuring out wtf is the point of it all and work backward!
2. You consistently work with your ideal clients
If the words “ideal client” make you wanna throw up in your mouth a little bit, I hear you. I really do. Buuuuttttt that doesn’t change the fact that knowing who you’re selling to is crucial to actually closing sales! Not every single person you work with is going to be the absolute 100% perfect client, but ideal doesn’t mean perfect. Instead, let’s look at it like this:
Are most people who find you and buy from you pretty awesome? Do they respect your boundaries? Do they pay their invoices on time? Do they communicate well? Are they cool human beings? Do you share similar values?
If you said no to any of those questions, sit down for an hour and really figure out who your ideal clients are. The ideal client avatar gets a bad rap, but that’s ‘cause the branding industry is doing you dirty by teaching you to look at it in all the wrong ways. If you want to determine who your ideal client is once and for all with one simple but groundbreaking tool, you can find the goods in here!
3. Your audience understands what problem your business solves
As a badass CEO (hey, that’s you!), it’s important that for the most part you operate in your zone of genius. So if you get frequent requests to do work outside of your scope of services or feel like you have to explain your work process over and over again, your potential clients might be confused about what you actually do. If that’s the case, start refining your messaging to make sure the benefit of the product or service you provide is being communicated clearly.
4. You have consistent unlikes/unfollows/unsubscribes
No, it’s not a typo! This is actually one of the best ways to measure brand effectiveness because it means you’re sharing polarizing content. Remember – an effective brand attracts and repels. And it’s not about being purposefully offensive or trying to piss people off. It’s about believing in something so strongly that you’re willing to share it – even if it means offending people in the process.
When you believe in something beyond what you sell and when you’re able to weave those beliefs into your business, it’s easier for your customers to feel like they’re a part of what you’re building. And when your clients believe in your business? It’s MUCH easier to sell to them. That’s effective branding, baby!
5. You never question whether something is “on brand”
Because of what the branding industry has taught us, we have a tendency to think of our brands as our businesses (wrong) or a separate entity that’s outside of ourselves (also wrong). So it can be easy to hide behind your brand when you have a fear of being seen or judged. Hiding behind your brand is a critical sign that your brand isn’t effective, and it might show up as:
-Not wanting to “get political” on social media
-Obsessing over coming across as professional
-Staying neutral to avoid rocking the boat
-Feeling like you can’t be yourself around your clients
Friendly reminder: anything can be on brand for you when you have a strong brand.
6. Your customers experience a clear transformation
In other words: is your brand actually delivering on the promise it’s making? If not, your initial reaction is probably to focus on your products and services – but it’s far more efficient to start with your brand strategy! How do you truly want to help people, beyond the surface-level result, and why does that matter? Once you know the answer to that question, only then can you start designing your offers as the vehicles to deliver the desired transformation.
7. Your business is making you happy
When we think of “brand effectiveness” our brains usually go to profit margins and quarterly growth and whether goals are being met. But the best part about solid brand strategy is that it allows you to be successful and happy. You can make money and make a difference. You can scale your business and take Fridays off. If your business isn’t making you happy, your brand isn’t working the way it should. Stop everything and figure that shit out ASAP. Developing your brand strategy won’t just help your business – it will help you, too.
8. You have a never-ending flow of ideas and are excited about sharing them
There’s really no in-between; you either love content creation or hate it. When you’re excited about your ideas and know what makes you unique it’s easy to talk about it non-stop!
If ideas are always burning in your brain and you get a rush when you hit publish to share them, that’s a great sign of brand effectiveness. But do you tend to shy away from sharing your thoughts? Do you post something polarizing and then decide to delete it? Are you scared of being judged by your audience instead of welcoming conversation from them? Those are all red flags, and it’s time to develop your brand strategy!
(Alternatively, if you do have plenty of ideas but just hate marketing, that’s a different conversation – one we explore in-depth over here!).
9. You believe what you do actually matters & you have a clear vision of how you want your business to impact the world
OOOOF. But you KNOW I had to include this one, right?! Listen, some entrepreneurs just want to make shit and sell it and are totally content with that. But other entrepreneurs, the ones like you and me, crave more depth in our work. That’s usually why we quit our day jobs! We don’t just want an income, we want to make an impact. And we want to use our businesses as tools to do it.
So stop sacrificing your vision for comfortable mediocrity. You deserve better, and so do your clients.
Were these tips for how to measure brand effectiveness helpful? Keep riding the brand strategy wave:
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