“There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s__”. You totally filled in the blank with “MasterCard,” didn’t you?
No doubt you also recognize Nike’s “Just do it,” and the one and only “Snap! Crackle! Pop!” from Kellogg’s Rice Crispies. And who could forget Kentucky Fried Chicken’s “Finger-lickin’ good?”
These are all well-recognized examples of taglines from famous brands. They are so well established that you can probably imagine the cereal box from Kellogg’s in your mind right now, along with Nike’s famous tick.
Not only that but remembering these companies’ branding probably makes you feel something, even if it’s hunger for KFC (#sorrynotsorry). These taglines aren’t just words. They can move you to think about how these brands make you feel. They can make you imagine the experience you’ll have when you buy from these famous brands.
While taglines are only a part of branding, you can see the power of a good, well-created, and established brand from these examples.
Imagine if your med spa could stand out from the competition and have the same instant recognition with people in your local area. Think of the difference that would make to your marketing when you don’t have to tell people who you are and what you do because they already know. You have brand recognition that fills in part of the conversation for you before you even start trying to persuade someone to buy from you.
But where should you start and how do you go about gaining brand recognition? Read on for Surefire Local’s top branding tips for med spas.
Defining What Your Brand Is
Before we get into how to build your brand and achieve brand recognition, first let’s address the question, what is your brand?
You might immediately think of logos, color palettes, and taglines, and they are part of your branding. But a brand is a combination of perception, value, and awareness. When you create your brand design and establish a brand voice, you’re putting out to the world what you want people to think about your med spa business. However, branding is also what other people think of your company. It is the recognition that they know your logo and your colors and relate them to your company name and what you do. But it’s how you make them feel.
Branding really can have value if done right. In fact, good branding can add to your commercial value and make you more attractive to investors and buyers, should you ever think of going down either route. It’s not just an exercise in pretty designs or something you do because your marketing people are pushing for it.
Here are just some of the statistics on how great branding and increased brand recognition can affect your bottom line:
- “60% of customers who consider themselves loyal to a brand will tell friends and family about it.” – Yotpo
- “Brand trust (81%) is a deal breaker or a deciding factor when they’re considering a purchase, trailing only quality (85%), convenience (84%), value (84%) and ingredients (82%).” – from 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report, In Brands We Trust?
- “When consumers find a brand and logo they like, 85% say they stay loyal to that company.” – from Study Finds.
Branding can help your clients feel more connected to your business, and Harvard Business Review’s study found that “Fully connected customers are 52% more valuable, on average, than those who are just highly satisfied.”
According to Forbes, “Consistent brand presentation across all platforms increases revenue by up to 23 percent.”
Branding really isn’t just a ‘nice to have’.
Whether you’re creating a new brand or rebranding your med spa, here are some questions to consider before you start:
- Do people know of your med spa by name?
- Does your med spa rank highly in local search results?
- What do people think about your med spa? Do you have reviews? Do you have a high star rating? What are they saying?
- Does your med spa deliver on its promise to help clients?
- What value does your med spa bring to the table that other med spas in the area cannot?
You need to know who your audience is and what sets you apart from your competitors before you can begin to create your brand. If you don’t have this information, you have no idea who you are aiming at and what they prefer to see from you. You can’t create your brand design and you certainly can’t communicate well and build relationships with your audience if you don’t have these answers nailed down.
A brand includes these core assets:
- Business name
- Logo
- Color palette
- Slogan/tagline
- Voice/tone
- Design style
But it’s more than just these elements. As we’ve talked about earlier, it’s about how you make people feel and what sort of experience they think they are buying from you. In fact, the most important aspect of your brand is knowing what will compel a potential client to pick up the phone and call you.
Understanding How To Build & Maintain Your Brand
We’ve provided some starter questions above to get you thinking about your brand. What you need to know is what your current brand perception is so that you have a good starting place.
To find this out, of course, you can ask your existing clients. You could simply chat with them next time they visit, or you could send out a short survey or poll in your email newsletter.
It’s also helpful to monitor your business name for social media mentions. You can listen in on real-time conversations through social listening and find out exactly what people are saying about you. This is incredibly helpful, not just for brand building, but also for enhancing customer experience and finding out what other products and services people might want from you.
Another way to find out about your current brand perception is to analyze your star ratings and look at what people include in their reviews.
Following on from that, take a look at your messaging. Is your brand voice consistent across your website, emails, social media, on the phone, and in-person? Are you conveying your value? Is your website copy clear and concise? Are you conveying the very best about your med spa with your content?
With a combination of research and examination of your current marketing, you can see if you’re hitting the mark or if you need to adjust your branding to give people the right impression of your med spa.
Lastly, look at your digital footprint. Do you come up on search in your local area? Are you listed in the Local Pack results? Can people find you quickly & easily?
If you search for your own company name, what results do you get? Can you see a good mix of excellent content, entertaining social posts, great images, good reviews, and more? It’s always about creating a great first impression and then continuing to keep that impression high in people’s minds.
To ensure you have an attractive and wide online presence, you need to claim your online directory listings, your Google Business Profile, and relevant social media profiles. However, don’t just claim them, ensure you fill them in completely and use every section you have available on your profiles. Use targeted keywords in your copy, quality images, and stick to your branding like glue across every profile.
Consistency really does matter with branding. You can’t afford to have a logo with the wrong colors or a different font out there, or the wrong brand voice in any copy. These things create dissonance in your customers’ minds and don’t leave them with a good impression of your business.
6 Activities to Achieve Exceptional Brand Recognition
1) Run brand sentiment analysis
You can compare what people are saying about your med spa online and how they feel about your brand/business with brand sentiment analysis. Given how much of branding is about emotion and what clients feel, this is vital information. You need to know how your branding is coming across to your customers and what impression they have of you.
2) Get more reviews and write replies
Focus on consistently gaining new reviews every month. Potential customers tend to only pay attention to the few newest reviews and it doesn’t look good if your last one was several months ago.
It’s also important to reply to every review you get, even the negative ones. Customers do look at whether or not brands reply to their reviews and they love to see positive engagement and well-handled negative reviews.
3) Measure your total average star rating across all review platforms
What’s your average star rating? If you don’t know, check it and keep an eye on it. Many customers won’t use a company that has less than four stars on average. And even a half star can make a difference if you’re just that bit higher rated than your competitors overall.
4) Run email marketing campaigns that send surveys and questions to your client base
Great feedback can make all the difference to both how you run your business and to your branding. You can learn so much from asking your clients how they feel and what they’d like to see.
This also enables you to spot anything that customers aren’t happy with and to deal with it quickly.
5) Organize your brand’s visual assets in a centralized location
The last thing you need is for logos to be missing or taglines not available when your team is trying to post and create a great impression on the internet.
Instead of having pieces of your brand scattered across different drives or only available to the marketing department, organize them all into one central place. Make it easy on your team to keep consistently using your brand assets correctly.
6) Be easy to reach
Customers now don’t care that you’re on multiple social platforms and you have a customer help section on your website. Well, they do care about that. But they want you to be easily accessible on every platform and option. They want to contact you when and where they want to, whether that’s through text message, email, phone call, social media, direct message, or website chat.
The easier you make it for your potential and current clients to get hold of you, the better customer experience they have and the more likely they are to return to you and bring you repeat custom.
All of these six activities are vital to maintaining and building your brand. You can’t afford to let any of them slip through your fingers.
However, that could mean constantly logging into and out of many different platforms and handling a lot of updates manually. At that point, keeping up with your marketing and branding might seem like just too much work.
But there is an alternative.
Demo Surefire Local’s Business Intelligence Marketing Software
Why not attend a Surefire Local Marketing Platform demo and see how we can help you seamlessly and easily manage and grow your brand?
With our software, you’re able to do all six of the activities we described above from a single platform, with just one log-in. You can save yourself time and effort by managing everything from our dashboard, including your email campaigns and social media.
Instead of having to individually a range of business listings, you can do that once in a single place and we’ll update over 80 different directories for you. You can also keep on top of your Google Business Profile, add posts and images, manage your content, ask for and respond to reviews, and so much more.
Building your brand engagement is straightforward and simple with our local marketing platform. You have total control over everything and it’s a simple matter to check your reports and find out how your business is doing. You can do everything yourself on our platform, or we can provide one of our marketing specialists to help you build your brand and attract your ideal customers.
Get in touch with Surefire Local to book your demo.
