Improving your brand’s reputation does not happen overnight. It’s a long, steady process that takes a lot of work and patience; without that, you cannot expect results. Luckily, it is doable for just about any company, no matter what product or service you sell.
Your reputation is important for several reasons. Firstly, it ensures that consumers who come across your brand online discover that you are worthy of their time and money. On top of that, it can bring in job applications from better talent. There’s no reason not to dedicate your time to your reputation. So, how do you do it? If you’re ready for your brand to be known for all the right reasons, follow this guide to improving your brand’s reputation.
Work with Influencers
Influencers provide excellent access to multiple consumers. While there are plenty of influencers on social media, but that doesn’t mean you should work with just any of them. Ideally, you’d work with an influencer whose niche matches your own and who has a large and dedicated following. To help you find just that, use a global influencer agency focused on generating value. That way, you’ll reach the perfect target audience through an influencer that’s trusted by their following.
Define Your Brand Persona
To gain a positive reputation, you must first define your brand persona. Otherwise, your messages could end up coming across as messy and inconsistent. Who your brand is will depend on who your customers are and what you sell. A makeup brand, for example, might choose an up-beat, body-positive persona, whereas a tech company may go for a stable, forward-thinking persona. Once you decide who you are as a brand, make sure you thread that through everything you put out there, whether that’s a website, social media posts, or the product itself.
Become an Eco-Friendly Company
More and more people are shopping exclusively with eco-friendly brands, while others would still choose a green brand over one whose practices aren’t as well known. Due to how much worry there is about sustainability and climate change, this makes sense. Not only will showcasing yourself as green help you increase sales, but it’ll also boost your reputation. A couple of ways to do this include:
Buy from Green Suppliers
To be green yourself, you must first ensure you buy your supplies from eco-friendly suppliers, so do some research before your next purchase.
Create Recyclable Products
Whether you’re selling something single-use or a product that comes in packaging, make as much of it recyclable as you can. It ensures less waste generated by your company, which will, in turn, make consumers feel better about shopping with you.
Reduce Paper Waste
More offices and warehouses are going paperless. It might sound tricky, but tech can make the process a whole lot easier, and it’ll help you contribute to fewer cut down trees.
Educate Consumers
By using the right language to tell your customers how to be more eco-friendly, you show that you are in the know about climate issues as well as actively doing your bit to change things.
Reward Loyal Customers
It’s important to reward the customers that come back time and time again, and this will help secure you as a trustworthy brand. To reward your customers, consider giving out freebies, offering free trials, and sending discounts via email. Your loyal customers will feel much more appreciated by you, and they’d be more likely to recommend you to others.
Write a Blog
Creating written content is a great way to drive traffic to your website as well as show consumers that you know what you are talking about. When creating content, it’s important to focus on the right topics as well as high-quality, as this will help create a positive reputation. So, if you don’t have a knack for writing, it’s a good idea to hire a professional to write your blog posts for you.
Deliver Excellent Customer Service
Customers expect to be treated with respect at a bare minimum. To truly stand out as more than just a professional and polite company, you should go above and beyond to deliver excellent customer service. That means addressing issues promptly, offering advice to customers in need, and communicating in a friendly manner. Not only will this help you get in the good books of those customers, but it will also help your brand’s reputation in terms of word of mouth and customer reviews.
Respond Well to Feedback
Feedback is an important part of any up and running business, as it provides insight into what the customer wants while telling other potential customers whether you are someone to shop with. The truth is, you are likely to receive some negative feedback at some point or another, whether that’s due to a miscommunication, a faulty product, or something else entirely. In this situation, you must respond to feedback as politely as possible, no matter how rude the customer has been. Address the situation, help in any way you can, and remember that your brand isn’t defined by a single negative review.
Likewise, responding to positive feedback is just as important. Let your customers know how much you appreciate hearing about their great experience with you!
Improve Your Product
It may seem obvious, but improving your product is a simple way to boost your brand’s perception. After all, you can’t just tell people how great you are; you have to prove it, too. With an excellent product or service, people will naturally start talking about how great you are without you having to put much effort in. Remember, though, not to fix what isn’t broken! Customers will get just as annoyed at a changed product when the old one was great as they would a bad product, to begin with.
Focus on the Little Things
It’s the little things that customers tend to remember, whether that’s a well-packaged product or a freebie sent out after the first five orders. That sort of touch can turn casual customers into loyal ones. So, whatever you sell, try to do something small and personal for each customer to help them remember you.
Engage with Your Audience on Social Media
Social media should be used by all brands, as it provides access to millions of consumers and is an easy way to shape people’s perceptions of you. To help move this along, engage with your audience as regularly as possible.
Of course, the way you engage with followers will differ depending on which platform you are on (and it’s crucial to remember the difference).
Facebook users tend to communicate via posts involving a mixture of text, video, and images, with many conversations going on in the comment section. To engage with your audience on Facebook, make sure you reply to comments below your posts.
Twitter holds much shorter conversations than Facebook, with the main way to communicate being in the form of tweets and DMs. If a follower tweets you, it’s a good idea to like the tweet and reply. Try to avoid responding to negativity on Twitter, though, as this can do more harm than good.
Instagram is all about images and videos, with the focus being on images. For this reason, you should post high-quality pictures that represent your brand well. When followers comment, you should like and reply much like you would on Twitter.
TikTok
TikTok also has a comment section to engage with, but the posts are very different from other social media sites, as they use videos exclusively. If your audience is from the younger generation, TikTok is a must, as many younger people use this app frequently.
Build a Great Website
People will judge your brand based on your website, so make sure you create a functional and aesthetically pleasing website. Your goal is to make the experience as easy as possible for the user while showing them who you are as a brand. Huge chunks of text and pages that take too long to download must be avoided! Consider creating an ‘about us’ page to tell your story, as this will help secure trust from users.
Treat Your Employees Well
Your company’s work culture actively contributes to how you are perceived as a brand. For this reason, focus on creating a positive work environment full of satisfied employees. Some simple ways to do this include paying a good salary, hosting staff events, providing great benefits, and allowing for a flexible work schedule.
Consider What Your Audience Wants
One of the most important things to consider when boosting your brand’s reputation is what your audience wants. After all, there is no point in trying to please everyone, as that runs the risk of pleasing nobody. By understanding who your audience is and what they want out of a brand, you have a better shot at exceeding their expectations.
As you can see, creating a positive brand image takes a lot of time and work. The results are worth it, though, so follow this guide and watch people gravitate to your company.