A crucial part of any business is having a strong brand with which your market engages. Their experience with your brand is what helps them decide whether to buy your products or services over your competition. The question becomes, how well do you understand your brand’s reputation? Answering this question for your company could mean the difference between increasing sales and lost sales.
What is Brand Reputation?
Perhaps you’re wondering what brand reputation is anyway? Brand reputation is how your business is perceived by others. We’ll discuss how brand reputation and social media are inextricably tied together and how to manage your brand reputation through a robust Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.
Have you heard the phrase “all publicity is good publicity”? It refers to the idea that even if people are talking about you because of something bad, it’s better than no one talking about you at all. That may have worked in years past, but these days in our social media world, even one negative review or faux pas on the part of a company can come back to bite you. And if it’s on the internet, it’s there forever. Good news is that there is a way to manage your brand reputation online without having to hire a publicist and become an expert at branding. We’ll get to that in a minute.
Social Media & Brand Reputation
Social media plays a critical role in building and reinforcing your brand reputation. But first, you need to already have a good product or service in place that is providing value for your customers. No amount of stellar social media campaigns or posts can make up for an inferior product or service.
However, where social media can really shine is “if your company has something of a bad reputation for what it offers, your social media can provide some help climbing back up to a better place while you’re working to improve what people dislike” [1]This is what managing your brand reputation is all about. If you currently don’t have the best brand reputation, it is completely possible to redeem that reputation.
The brands that are the most successful are the ones that create a positive emotional appeal. Being able to connect your company with your ideal customer on an emotional level is the best and easiest way to create brand loyalty and trust. This can eventually lead to increasing your sales.
Keep in mind that people don’t buy what you do, they buy who you are. This is probably the most important thing to understand when it comes to building your business through branding. You want to create buzz and excitement around your business? Get real with your customers and engage with them on an emotional level. Show them that your company is one that delivers exceptional value and is also a company they can trust.
People are looking for more authentic experiences with the companies that they are considering purchasing from. “Social media content and campaigns that associate your brand with your customers’ and prospects’ positive, relevant emotions go a long way to cementing positive sentiments around your brand”. [2] Any sale made this way becomes effortless because people know who you are and trust you.
Importance of a CRM to Help Manage Brand Reputation
Perhaps you are wondering how it’s possible to efficiently and strategically manage your brand’s reputation. It’s not the easiest thing to do but it is nonetheless important. The best and most efficient way to do this is through a CRM system. A CRM software can help you strengthen your company’s brand and help automate these processes because let’s be real, managing and building your brand can be time-consuming and overwhelming.
In addition to saving you time, one of the best reasons to utilize a CRM software is that it provides you with trackable data on what is working and what is not working, where you need to pivot and many other actionable insights to help you move your business forward.
A solid CRM system “gives you all the relevant information about your target market enabling you to craft better stories to attract more customers. It can also provide you key insights to determine the best way to put these stories out there for customers to see. In turn, helping you improve your brand reputation“. [3] If you want to really connect with your current and potential customers, you’ve got to understand what drives and motivates them.
Older and more traditional forms of marketing and branding are fading out. What is going to help you capture your slice in the market and stay relevant, is keeping your ear to the ground and listening to what your market wants and then cultivating authentic and positive interactions with your brand.
Brand Reputation and EverGenius
If you’re reading this article because you either receive emails from us at EverGenius, you’re a current user or maybe you’re just checking us out, we have something for you. After laying out the importance of having a strong, positive brand and the effectiveness of a CRM system in helping you to manage and build your brand reputation, we would be remiss if we didn’t share with you that EverGenuis does all of the above.
Why waste time searching the internet for multiple systems to help you run and manage your business when EverGenius provides you with an all-in-one system. Build and manage your company’s brand while also managing and enhancing your brand reputation. You can’t do alone and we’re here to help you grow, build and scale your business.
