Tips to Increase Your Brand Value

Here are 8 tips on what you can do to have an immediate impact on adding value to your brand:

1. Stay on top of your customer needs – Be “high touch” with your A-level customers, build solid relationships, and keep tabs on their problems.

Setup or discussion forums, read all reviews (yes, don’t ignore them!).

Visit customers regularly not only when they need something, and attend network events are great ways to strengthen the relationship and expand your reach at the same time.

2. Be visible to your customers - Make sure they’re aware of your value continuously; try to remind them of your value strategically.

Offering an updated version of your product or tagging on a free service are good ways of letting your customer know you are constantly improving.

Convince your customer that your existence makes their lives easier, better, happier by providing them with information they value and care for.

3. Know your competition – Always be on the lookout for what others are doing out there.  Be ready to explain your value proposition versus your competitors’.

You must be able to provide the facts to back up your claims.

It will make you more competitive if you can level the playing field just like how all the restaurants are offering smaller portion meals in their own way.

4. Go the extra mile – Do things that are outside the scope of your business.   Go above and beyond your normal routine by solving their “other” problems.

This will help you stand out from the competition.

5. Reward loyalty – Similar to the rewards program, give your customer something more for sticking with you or using your products and services.

It could be tickets to a baseball game, gift certificates or discounts for doing business with you in the future. You want to build a relationship that extends as long as possible so focus on

6. Try new ideas – If you’re in a highly commoditized market, you need to think about where you make your profits.  Most of times there is no point in competing on price or service alone.

Try new ideas like the where it may be worth it to give some of your products or services away for free and charge for value-adds or premium account later in exchange for maintaining the relationship.

Gmail is free because Google makes their money from ads displayed in Gmail, giving them more advertising channels.  Some Apple iPhone basic apps are free because they have a full version that will cost money.

7. Improve experience – The entire experience in doing business with your company should be present from start to finish.

Try to make every step as frictionless as possible and think from your customer’s perspective.

They should know that they can contact you with their concerns with the expectation that you will respond quickly and effectively.

This also creates great leverage for word-of-mouth marketing.

8. Include a human element – Many companies don’t focus enough on humanizing their brand.  As a result, customers can feel out of touch.

They need to feel like they are more than customers.

Logos, slogans, taglines and websites are just references, they’re marketing vehicles.

Besides receiving your newsletters, brochures, emails and phone calls, allowing your customer to reach you in other engaging ways can help your company grow.