Introduction
Law firm brand attributes are the core values that define the overall nature of your company. They represent a set of features that highlight the physical and personality aspects of your brand. These attributes are developed through images, actions, or presumptions. In addition, they help to portray the brand characteristics of your company. Ultimately, they can assist you in formulating your law firm’s brand identity.
“Attribute” comes from the Latin “ad” and “tribuere,” meaning “to assign.” Thus, a brand attribute is a quality that you intentionally assign to your brand. Attributes are assigned to the brand by those who experience it, hence, the audience. Specifically, your audience develops a collective understanding of who your brand is and what it represents. Over time the attributes associated with your brand become part of its reputation and identity.
Brand attributes are developed in the process of creating a brand strategy for your business. Moreover, they represent a foundation for creating your visual identity. Specifically, they will be reflected in the colors, shapes and overall feel of your brand. Ultimately, they will give you a distinctive competitive edge to your brand and attract clients to your business.
Brand attributes can be split into two categories: hard and soft. Hard brand attributes are your name, logo, and slogan. They also involve your vision and your mission statement. Finally, they include what your website, service and content will look like. In general, they stand for everything you have total control over. On the other side, soft attributes involve your credibility, consistency, uniqueness, appeal, and transcendence. Even though you have control over them, soft attributes shape themselves based on your values and company culture.
A Strong Brand Should Have The Following Attributes:
Relevancy
Your brand must be relevant in order to be considered strong. Moreover, it must meet consumers’ expectations and persuade them to purchase your service. That way your brand will form an emotional connection with the existing and your prospective customers. Consequently, you will generate a higher amount of sales and profits. Ultimately, your brand should be able to understand and solve your customer’s problems through its services.
Consistency
A consistent brand signifies what the brand stands for. Consequently, it builds customers’ trust in your brand. For a consistent brand, align your company’s messages with your unique value proposition. Furthermore, your brand must be consistent with its service offerings. In addition, your services should meet the needs and demands of the customers regularly. Ultimately, they are the only factor of trust between your brand and your audience.
Proper Positioning
You should properly position your brand on the market. That way your audience will choose it consistently over competitor brands. Furthermore, your positioning should be aligned with the offerings, nature, and objectives of your brand. Hence, decide on your brand positioning objectives in the early stages. For example, you can choose to offer high-quality services. Or you can have affordable prices as compared to the competitors.
Sustainability
A sustainable brand drives an organization towards innovation and success. Thus, your brand should be sustainable to survive and thrive in the industry. For instance, come up with innovative ideas regarding your service. In addition, strive to constantly improve and adjust your marketing tools accordingly.
Credibility
A strong brand should fulfill the law firm brand promise to its audience. Moreover, your brand should be seen as a credible and trustworthy name in the industry. Hence, strive to offer services that match but also exceed the expectations of your customers. Also, attempt to offer excellent customer service and an overall customer journey experience. In short, reflect credibility as your attribute in everything you do.
Inspiration
Your brand should inspire and transcend the category it is famous for. In addition, it should function as a source of inspiration to your employees, stakeholders and customers. Hence, strive to employ innovative technologies and the latest trends in your offerings.
Uniqueness
Your brand should be different and unique in order to be perceived as strong. In other words- it should set your company apart from other competitors in the market. Hence, make your offering unique in comparison to your competitors’.
Appeal
Finally, your brand should be attractive. Customers should be attracted by the promise you make and by the value you deliver. Thus, strive to always fulfill the promises you make to your audience.
Why Do Brand Attributes Matter?
Having a strong set of brand attributes makes your brand stand apart from the competition in the market. Therefore, make your offering unique and appealing to your current and future audience. In addition, strive to provide the best customer service experience. When you have well-defined brand attributes, it is easier to decide on your brand positioning. Accordingly, it is easier to portray your brand identity in the market. Consequently, marketing techniques and promotional tools will be easier to choose when promoting your company’s services.
Surely, the strong set of brand attributes will bring along success and huge profits for your company. Ultimately, it will give you the confidence to launch new services. Similarly, there will be a strong brand recall factor amongst your customers. Having strong brand attributes will also impact the pricing factor of your services. For instance, you can choose to position your brand as a premium. Your audience will support you, as they have already gained trust in your brand.
How To Define Your Law Firm Brand Attributes
Defining your law firm brand attributes can help you cultivate a consistent brand. Moreover, it can assist you in solidifying your brand positioning amongst competitors. Take the following steps when articulating your law firm brand attributes:
1. Connect With Your Core Values
To start, define your company’s core values. Ask yourself what changes or impact do you want to make on the world? Next, translate your values translate into brand attributes. For example, these values-based brand attributes could be charitable, open-minded and compassionate.
2. Consider Your Company Culture
The type of culture you promote at your organization can carry over into the brand image you project. Hence, your values have to be practiced by everyone who works with and for you. Ultimately, these people will be the ones carrying it out in the world. Hence, you might choose a culture-inspired attribute like curious, innovative and ambitious. Another example could be smart, reliable and knowledgeable.
3. Link your values to your service
Next, connect your values to the services your offer. Linking your attributes to your service will help you set yourself apart from your competitors. For instance, use your unique selling proposition to communicate the attributes you want to embed in your brand. Consequently, you might choose attributes such as sustainable, efficient and exotic.
4. Understand Your Audience’s Personality
Your audience has their attributes and personalities that define who they are as well as what they’re attracted to. Hence, it’s important to understand your audience and their personality. The more you understand your audience, the more effectively you can develop attributes that will appeal to them. Start by describing the attributes of your potential customers. What traits do they share? Could it be, for example- organized, local and simple? Or maybe- family-oriented, intelligent and caring? Afterward, strive to embrace these attributes to provide them with a personalized experience.
5. Include The Emotional Side of the Brand Experience
Consider what emotions your target customer experiences before finding your company. Next, focus on the emotions your customers will have after using your services. In addition, think about what emotions you want to bring out during their brand experience with your services. This can lead you to identify brand attributes such as empathetic, intuitive and optimistic. Or, in the case of your client’s emotions- happy, understood and calm.
6. Translate Your Results Into Brand Guidelines
Finally, capture everything you know about your brand attributes in your brand guidelines. This will involve translating your brand attributes to your brand voice and visuals. In short, your brand voice is how your business sounds to others. Thus, your brand voice can sound creative, friendly or exciting. During this step, consult experts about the selection of words, colors and structures that will provoke certain emotions. Consequently, set the foundation of your brand messaging strategy that revolves around your attributes. This will, ultimately, create a strong brand for your law firm.
Conclusion
After going through these steps, you will likely have too many words to choose from. At this point, choose one keyword from each of the steps above. Remember, these characteristics will be important for designing your logo, business cards, website etc. Once your brand attributes are defined, make sure all your elements align with them. For example- your brand colors, placements, typography, and design elements.
As a result, you will achieve brand consistency in how your brand sounds, looks and feels to others. Your brand attributes will ultimately shine through in your actions and how you choose to present yourself. This will include your communication, but also your visual design. Hence, create clear guidelines on how you will communicate your attributes through content and other channels.
Afterward, communicate your unique attributes traits consistently through your branding and marketing material. As a result, you will claim a unique position in the market and in the minds of your customer as well. Consequently, you will be their to-go brand when they encounter a problem or an issue. Learn how to get started with your law firm and the steps you need to take when launching your practice.