Build A Reputation Your Business Can Stand On
Your business’s brand goes a lot further than the logo, the visual style, or the website. There are parts of the brand that are intangible but every bit as real as the marketing. The reputation is perhaps one of the most important parts of all, acting as a force that can draw people towards the business or away from it. But what can you do to control something as intangible as your business’s reputation? Here are a few ways to make sure it’s building in the right direction.
Pic by mohamed_hassan – Pixabay License
Getting your name out there
If you have no reputation, that’s not too bad. Few start-ups come out the gate with any brand name recognition. It just means that your first step is building awareness. If you’re having trouble doing that on your own, then it might be time to look at the benefit of digital marketing services. The right digital experts can help you build a website that draws in a lot more attention and create an advertising campaign that ensures your name is getting out there in all of the right spaces while opening up new revenue opportunities. From there, it’s a lot easier to make sure your brand gives off the right impression once you’re sure people actually notice it.
Listening and learning
By all means, do what you can to ensure that your business gets a good reaction when possible. However, not everyone is going to be enthusiastically supportive of your efforts. It’s likely that you’re going to face criticism and likely in a public forum, such as through an online review site. The single best way to handle criticism is to make sure you’re responding to all comments as best you can, positive and negative. Instead of getting into flame wars, however, your first response should be to offer assistance, to get in touch and see if you can’t help the person who left the review privately. Even if you can’t help everyone, it shows other potential customers that you do, indeed, listen to feedback and try to rectify what issues you can.
Clear the stigma of small business out of the way
Until you have the chance to better establish your place in the market, the biggest issue your reputation is likely to face is that you won’t have many people to vouch for you. There’s nothing wrong with being a small business or home business, but the same can’t be said for looking like a small business. A virtual office service can help lend an address and phone number that makes you seem a little bigger than you really are, while well-designed business cards and a working website can attest to your professionalism. You can be truthful about your size and newness in the market if you want, but it will create more hurdles than you need to deal with.
Establish values that your business can work by
What are brand values and what do they mean for the business? Essentially, they are broader goals, ethos, and messages that fit not only the company objectives but how the brand aims to influence their audience, their community, and sometimes even the world beyond business alone. A lot of businesses display, demonstrate and operate by values that they share with their audience as well as their staff. For instance, working with local charities and nonprofits to address certain issues can help build a sense of cohesion and community, whilst also showing any newcomers to the business that you’re fulfilling your corporate social responsibility and that you’re in it for more than profit alone.
Project what rep you got
As mentioned, dealing with negative reviews and feedback is likely to become part of the job at some point. However, if you’re concerned that not all the feedback or press you’re getting is fair, then it might be worth looking at reputation management services. Simply put, if there are false information or even concerted efforts to take down your business image out there, you can act against it and have it removed. The sooner you start protecting your business reputation, the better. Otherwise, false information can have time to sink in and affect how your customers see you.
Even if your business has no reputation to stand on or a bad one, you can still turn things around. What’s important is that you’re taking steps to address it by changing how you interact with your customers and clients. With the tips above, you can build the rep that leads to future success.
