How to Build Your Brand and Use It to Win More Work!

Learning how to build your brand can be a strange and rewarding. To demonstrate this point, let’s do a quick test.

Name the first thing that comes to mind after reading this sentence to mind:

What do you call the object that’s used to clean up dust, crumbs, and dirt from floors?

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If you said “a hoover”, then we have something in common! 

Although technically, that means we’ve both made a mistake…

Now, I know I’m not alone in this (Google told me so), but it was only a few years ago when I learnt that “a hoover” is actually a brand. They make a vacuum cleaner that’s so popular, it’s become the generic word for every commonplace vacuum out there (mind blown!).

But why is this important?

Well, the humble hoover is a great example of great branding in action and a useful story to keep in mind as we discuss how to build your brand, too! 

Simple branding done right can work wonders for your business.

Of course, if you’re wondering how to build your brand to achieve success, then look no further. Let’s break down how to build your brand!

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How to build your brand in five steps:

A great brand—and your brand in particular—should make an impression, evoke emotions, and be memorable. Heck, some brands can even change the way we talk!

After all, you don’t say “I’ll Dyson the floor!”, do you?

To build your brand successfully, you need to generate awareness of your business. 

You may well be doing some of these points already, but there are both subtle and more obvious ways that you can approach branding and make an impression.

Not only that, but you can even get customers involved to help you take things even further!

Let’s dive in and see how building on your branding can help you to win more work.  

1. Use your brand name & logo.

Your name and your company logo—even more than the staff that your customers will meet—are what many customers will see as their first impression of your business. 

What does your brand say about you?

It’s not always an easy question to answer. And particularly in a digital age, attracting attention (or not) will have a huge impact on how successful you are at engaging customers and winning business prospects.

Of course, many of you will already have a company name and a logo. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t build your brand by refreshing, updating, and adapting your designs. 

Take Commusoft, as an example:

You’ll notice that our name hasn’t changed, but how we present our brand certainly has.

Below, you can see 3 variations starting from when the company first launched over 15 years ago. There’s also an updated design, and a refreshed logo that that kicked off 2022. It’s familiar, but different:

The reasons for updating your branding could be numerous. You might update your brand to better reflect the size of your growing company, showcase new services you’ve added, or even for a fresh coat of paint.

Regardless, it’s important to approach the decision by thinking about what you want to demonstrate with your new design. This decision making will impact the customers you attract to your business. 

How to improve your logo:

When it comes to your logo and branding, everything, from the colours you choose, to the promotional phrases you write, they’ll all influence your audience.

You need to make them count, especially if you’re plastering new designs on vans and uniforms! 

Of course, it can also be important to avoid changing too drastically. This can be overwhelming and even unwise. After all, your customers will have gotten used to certain aspects of your service.

If your product suddenly becomes unrecognisable, it could undo the hard work you’ve done to build your brand. It’s important to strike a balance and maintain familiarity you’ve built up over time. 

In fact, familiar branding helps with something known as “aided recall” and it impacts both customers and prospects. For instance, aided recall “requires [a person’s] memory to be jogged by using a logo, slogan, or [other memorable aspects] of a company” (Talkable).

If your brand suddenly changes or is altered dramatically, recall will be less likely to happen and it can be difficult, not to mention time-consuming, to regain. 

Instead of doing a complete 180, focus on making a change that builds on the brand you’ve already established. Depending on the type of business you run, there are some potentially easy choices to make. For plumbing and heating, warm colours like red, yellow, and orange work well, and for HVAC blue, white, and green are cooler and evocative.

To learn more about the impact of colour check out “Colour psychology in marketing”, here.

With care, rebranding could be the ticket to reinventing and reinvigorating your brand.

It’s a natural part of how you grow and attract attention from new and old customers alike! 

Take Stock: an episode on design

To learn even more about the effect and impact of great design, be sure to listen to Take Stock. We spoke with Commusoft alumni, Courteney Lockley who shared her expert advice on how to approach branding!

2. Show yourself off: from uniforms to emails

When thinking about how to build your brand, it’s often the little things that will add value over time. You can start by making sure your customers see your beautifully designed logo and fancy slogan. Featuring them in as many places as possible will help, including on uniforms.

With so many of your engineers out meeting and greeting customers, a uniform; even something as simple as a branded polo shirt or jumper, is an opportunity to make a strong impression that will help to win them over. 

Besides, your engineers aren’t just random people. They’re professionals, there to assist and do great work, so they should look the part.

It’ll make a greater impression when they turn up to do their job.

Granted, depending on the types of service you provide, clothing can get messy, so it’s important to keep things practical. Nevertheless, making sure your team is presenting themselves professionally is always a good idea. 

Of course, clothing isn’t the only place to keep in mind when it comes to branding. We hear all the time about businesses who want to show off their logos, but find it difficult to do it well. 

To help out, we put together a few resources to make it easier. Whether it’s an email or a letter sent by post, get noticed and improve the professional appearance of your brand. With it, you’ll build on customer appreciation, respect, and trust, too.

3. Create a place to be found: update your website

Your website is your digital storefront. In some cases, your only one, as many field service businesses don’t have a physical brick and mortar. That’s why it’s especially important that your website makes an impact.

There’s a lot your website can do when it comes to building a brand. A great site will make it easy for customers to get in touch and provide information about your services. It can even make it easy for them to submit a request and book a job online with you.

4. Get customers talking: generate reviews

Getting customers to talk about your business will make an impression. If you create a buzz around your brand by generating reviews and getting customers to share information (whether it’s a picture, video, or text review), it can really help build your brand awareness. 

Happy customers should want to share experiences with friends and family, but many may need a little more encouragement or a gentle nudge to get them to leave a review on a website, or even with you directly.

Requesting reviews from customers has become a necessity, though, so you need to use a variety of tools at your disposal to collect them. After all, reviews play an integral role in how your service attracts new customers and continues to generate attention. 

Requesting reviews from customers doesn’t have to take a lot of effort, and better yet, doesn’t require having to spend lots of money, but the return on any investment can be significant.

Also, it depends on the places you select to share on your website, and where it is you want customers to leave reviews too!

5. Get yourselves talking: become a conversational consultant

Building your brand isn’t only about what you show customers it’s also about the actions you take. In a particularly insightful article about 16 strategies to help you improve your brand, the phrase “Stop ‘selling’ and be helpful,” pops up:

“Prioritizing quality engagement through creating meaningful interactions can lead to loyal customers and sometimes even brand evangelists. – Lianne Lyne, PLP Coaching, LLC ”

Forbes

Your actions will often speak louder than words… but words are definitely important!

It’s these reviews that are vital and will help you to have productive conversations with your customers. Through them, you can uncover what a customer truly wants and needs. 

After all, your brand might look incredible, but if the work you do isn’t what’s promised, you’ll end up becoming infamous. And no one wants to develop a brand whose name, logo, or slogan evokes negative feelings.

It’s all about building rapport with your customers and after all, you’re the expert at what you do and if a customer has hired you to do a job, there’s already reason to believe they’ll appreciate the advice you have to offer, too. That will only go on to make your business more memorable and keep them coming back when they need you, too.

Here’s how to build your brand

With all that said, let’s return to Hoover and everyone’s favourite wide-eyed vacuum, Henry. Did you know Henry isn’t even made by Hoover?

It’s Numatic who created Henry! But over the years, consumers got so accustomed to calling vacuum cleaners “hoovers”, that even products from other brands have got stuck with it. 

How about that for a brand with impact?

If you want your brand to have an even greater impact, then you know that communication plays an important role. And to help with that, we’ve created The Customer Communication Toolkit.

Download it, here: