Ultimately, you want your brand to be synonymous with your company’s offering so that when a consumer has a need for your product and/or service, you are top of mind. Kleenex got this right with their brand name often being substituted in requests for tissues. Another good example is Google with ‘to Google’ is now used as a verb to denote the action of searching online.
Reputational risk caused to brands
If your brand suffers reputational damage – such as the recent intellectual property incident that a major retailer had with one of their product lines – you run a very significant risk of there always being a black mark against your name. This – if not erased quickly enough – will linger on in the minds of your consumers and could ultimately turn them (and future customers) away from you. A misstep such as this could result in hundreds of thousands of rands lost in revenue and potential revenue.
“Thus,” says Lisa Schneider: Managing Director of the Digital School of Marketing, “it’s vital that you ensure the reputation of your brand is always kept up to the standard that you want to portray to the market. You, as the owner of the business, or your brand manager need to keep a close eye on how your brand is perceived in the marketplace as it is very easy – especially with social media – for unhappy customers’ comments to go viral.”
Why you need to do a brand management course
To make your brand stand out in your market niche you need to be passionate about your brand identity and love nurturing it every single day. You need to study a brand management course so that you can learn everything you need to know about branding and understand the steps that you need to take your company’s brand to the forefront of the market.
How to keep tabs on what people are saying
To make sure that you guard against reputational risk for your brand, the first – and most important – thing you need to do is to monitor what people are saying about you on the Internet. Set up Google Alerts for your company name and monitor your social media feeds so that when someone tries to contact you regarding a complaint, you deal with it straight away. Remember that the more time that the negative commentary about your business is out there, the worse it is for you.
On a social media management course, you will learn how to build your brand’s image on social media so that you project a professional image to the world which will serve to draw customers to you.
The Digital School of Marketing is an online provider of accredited brand management, social media and digital marketing education. To find out more, visit our website on www.digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za. call us on 0861 428 710 or e-mail: info@digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za.
Source: The Media Online
