Introduction
In short, your brand values are your firm’s non-negotiable core beliefs. They represent the beliefs that you, as a company, stand for. A strong sense of brand values builds morale within your company and increases brand loyalty. Additionally, your brand values guide your brand story, actions, behaviors, company culture, and decision-making process. Furthermore, they influence everything from whom your firm hires to how it provides services.
Essentially, brand values are a crucial part of your business. To gain customers who believe in your brand, you need strong core values that are well communicated to your employees, partners, and customers. As a result, they will deliver real engagement and direct you towards more powerful bonds with your target audience.
Ultimately, your brand values will guide your purpose, personality, and unique value proposition. Without a brand value proposition, you can’t hope to differentiate your company from your competitors. Moreover, it will help shape the culture and community of your brand, ensuring that you connect with your customers in a meaningful way.
Foundations Of Your Brand Values
Essentially, your brand values definition should be:
Memorable. They should be constantly represented by the things you do and say. To make an impact, they must be memorable enough for employees to embrace it and use it during customer interactions.
Unique. Your core values should be a unique reflection of your culture and identity. Discover what makes your company unique and make sure your core ideals represent your company in order to differentiate your values from competitors.
Actionable. Your brand value proposition will guide how your business works. Thus, when defining what matters to your company, choose an actionable language. If you want your company’s employees to live by these values, document them in a way that will prompt action.
Meaningful. If you want your core brand values to resonate with your customers, include things you’re willing to fight for. Most importantly, make sure they have deep meaning for you and your business.
Specific. Keep your promise short and use language that’s easy to understand. Your values should be clear, and straight to the point while still effectively conveying the desired ethics and emotions. Ideally, your primary customers will share your values and connect with your brand over them.
Timeless. While companies and customers can change with time – your brand values should remain consistent and strong. Hence, make your principles able to grow with you over the years, and maintain consistency.
Accessible. Your values must be easy for employees, partners, and customers to find. Thus, list them on the “About Us” page of your website. Moreover, put them in a centralized digital asset repository everyone can access and even print and put them in your office to increase visibility.
The Benefits of Brand Values
The brand values are essential to understanding how people view your company, and the services you offer. A powerful brand value proposition can provide a foundation on which you run your business, dictating everything you do – from the updates you share on social media, to the way that you shape your organizational structure.
Having strong core values can help your brand in many ways. For example, to connect with customers and employees. Additionally, when you identify and claim your core brand values, you separate yourself from the crowd. Consequently, you begin to create a community that your followers can join to feel a sense of power and belonging. As a result, you will get customers who believe in you not just for what you sell, but for what you do as a company.
Attracting New Customers
According to the statistics, 77% of consumers buy from brands that share their values. Additionally, your core values form the marketing narrative that fuels your brand’s storytelling. And researches shows that storytelling content is 22x more memorable than facts. Thus, it’s important to define and express your personality and values.
Improving Brand Experiences
The average consumer has 7 interactions with your brand before they make a purchase. Having clearly defined core values helps you stick to a central message that creates consistency across touchpoints. Companies with well-defined, consistent branding achieve an average 91% higher increase in customer retention rate than those without brand consistency.
Building Brand Loyalty
Loyal customers are key to long-term business success. They are 50% more likely to try new products and spend 31% more on your business compared to new customers. Essentially, clearly establishing core brand principles helps you maintain brand authenticity, which increases customer retention and lifetime value.
Increased Employee Engagement
Similar to customers, employees want companies to have core values, too. Multiple studies show that working for a company with values similar to their own has a significant impact on employees’ engagement and retention. Building a brand with strong standards and beliefs inspires teams to work together to grow a business that they’re proud of and passionate about.
Improving Operational Efficiencies
Defining your core brand values helps leaders and employees become more efficient decision-makers. Following the brand guidelines can align an entire team and improve the speed to market for product launches and campaigns.
Developing A Competitive Advantage
Communicating your values through marketing allows you to present your brand to the world in a way that resonates and forms deep connections with your customer base. When customers feel connected to brands, 57% increase their spending with that brand, and 76% buy from it over a competitor.
How To Discover Your Brand Value Proposition
Discover Your Strengths
To start, find words that describe what makes your company powerful and unique. If you want your brand values to help you stand out from the crowd, think about what you’re truly passionate about. Choose ideals that appeal to both your co-workers, and your customers, and start building a community based on them. Additionally, take a look at your brand story when researching the words for your core values.
Know Your Customers & Competitors
The most powerful brand values respond to an existing need in the marketplace. Rather than trying to tell your customers that they should feel the same way as you about a particular concept, find out what your customers already believe, and what they want to see from their favorite brands.
In other words, find out what your customers already associate with your company, and try to grow your brand values from that. They might believe you have exceptional customer service or the best quality service on the market.
Hence, innovate new ways to customize your customer experience, and advertise your efforts. Ultimately, work to appeal to people who purchase from your brand, encouraging brand loyalty. To build customer relationships, ask them questions like:
- Why do you choose our services instead of our competitors?
- What do you think we do well?
Their answers will give you insight into the things they value most and your brand’s key strengths. Next, include their needs and expectations, while considering the pre-existing solutions that your competition has to offer. Moreover, conduct a competitor analysis to find a gap in the market and better differentiate yourself from existing offers.
Maintain Consistency
Your brand value proposition should remain the same over time. While your logo, colors, and even your business name could change with time, the principles that you embody need to stay the same if you want to achieve brand loyalty.
When constructing your brand values definition, think about how you can simplify what you stand for into a few keywords and phrases that can act as guidance points for your business team. The more your team understands your values, the more they can ensure that you maintain a consistent brand image online and offline.
Conclusion
To conclude, your brand’s core values are at the heart of what your company is and does. They help you frame your brand story in a way that resonates with your target consumers. Moreover, they are incorporated into the look of your brand, marketing campaigns, and customer service.
By articulating what you stand for as a brand, you can attract better customers and employees that share your beliefs. In fact, studies show that organizations and employees who have shared values are 9 times more likely to experience exceptional customer satisfaction.
By working with branding experts to establish your brand values definition, you can ensure that you have a roadmap in place to guide your company through important decisions, and maintain the long-term loyalty of your customers.