How to develop a brand image | 5 key actions to ensure your brand’s image reflects the brand identity

Do your customers understand your brand? Do they get you? If you feel like they don’t, this one’s for you. We’ve got 5 key actions you can take to start building your desired brand image.

Are you the cool brand? The reliable brand? The brand that’s always trying new things and shaking up your market? Do your customers know that? This – the distance between the reality of your business and how it’s perceived by the public – represents all the work you need to do on your brand image.

1. Know your brand identity before you start working on its image

This is the foundation of all the subsequent actions.

Brand identity defines what your company is, while brand image represents how others perceive it – essentially, brand image is your reputation. You need to distinguish whether you need to develop your brand identity, or your brand image, as the 2 are different challenges with different solutions that can only be completed in one order.

So before you go working on your brand image, make sure you know what your company stands for and clearly define and flesh out that identity if necessary. Think about it this way, you can’t really introduce or recommend someone you don’t know.

2. Do market research to build up an accurate understanding of your brand image’s health

If you’re trading, you have a brand image. If you’re interacting with stakeholders, a brand image is out there, whether or not you’ve given it much thought.

Whatever industry you’re in, you should conduct thorough market research to gain accurate insights into how your brand is being perceived by your target audience. You can use surveys, arrange focus groups, and utilise social listening tools to get an idea of your brand image, and then identify areas for improvement (or areas to double down on).

3. Use gamified content to better engage your audience in your branded messaging

In the modern, super saturated communications space, gamification is one way that can truly cut through the noise and connect branded messaging to its target audience.

This is because gamification takes messaging and puts it into the form of – you guessed it – games. By appealing to people’s desires for discovery and competition, and providing fun, interactive challenges, user concentration is enhanced, and rather than passively scrolling past static images and text, they can be drawn into an immersive experience to give you a better shot at influencing their perception of your brand.

This could be mini-games that form part of product launches that subtly make the point that you’re a playful, innovative brand, or more complex, multi-level games that can be used to convey your corporate social responsibility initiatives, to draw the desired white hat above your brand image as if to say, “We’re the good guys.”

Pro tip: Gamification may sound like it’s difficult to do, but it’s actually never been easier. Using gamification platforms like Drimify, you can fully customise battle-tested game engines easily, and completely revolutionise your approach to communications.

4. Audit and update customer touchpoints to see how they reflect your brand

Ensure that every customer touchpoint – from your eCommerce site to your customer service interactions – reflect your brand identity. If your brand identity is described as “innovative, playful, and cutting-edge,” make sure these qualities are on show in all customer interactions so your brand identity follows suit. These interactions are ultimately what define your brand image, just as much if not more than advertising.

For example, if you are supposed to be the young trendy clothing brand that’s got a bit of edge, then interactions and crossover between your digital eComm store and your physical store should be seamless to deliver the desired customer experience. If someone buys something online then can’t return it in store, or there’s a load of faff associated with it, you’ll look more like a legacy institution struggling to turn around under the weight of modernity than the counter-establishment touchpoint that is your brand identity.

Go through every point at which a customer interacts with your brand and ask yourself, “Is this projecting the brand image we really want? Is this the quintessential X-brand experience?” If at any point it’s not, you’ve got to innovate and optimise.

Pro tip: Control your brand image from top to bottom by gamifying throughout the AARRR Pirate Metrics framework.

• Acquisition: Use marketing games to introduce products or services to target demographics, or create longer, more immersive experiences to communicate more complex issues.
• Activation: Include calls to action in your gamified experiences to drive people towards your strategic pages in a fun and engaging way.
• Retention: Use gamification to create a more engaging loyalty programme, and stay connected with customers.
• Referral: Refer a friend, earn points, get entered into a prize draw… it’s all about incentivising participation and spreading the word about your brand.
• Revenue: Gamification is a really effective delivery system for promo codes. They play through an experience, learn about a product or service, see how it could fit into their life, then they’re rewarded with a promo code – the final incentive to convert them.

5. Create social proof to reinforce your desired brand image

Working with influencers who are active in your industry or niche and align with your brand’s values can not only promote your products or services, but can influence your brand identity as if by osmosis. If an influencer blows up and by all objective measures is wholesome, good natured, and fun, any brand they promote and endorse is likely going to be perceived in that way too. As much as you can piggyback on an influencer’s reach, you can also piggy back on their reputation.

Conversely, if you are working with influencers, for your brand image or for reach, you should keep your eyes peeled in case their image slips in public perception, and assess whether it’s a blip, and cutting ties will harm you in the long term, or if they’ve genuinely transgressed. If they legitimately go on a crime spree or reveal themselves to have secretly been the devil incarnate all along, you need to cut ties – if their brand image isn’t helping your brand image, there’s a good chance it’s hurting it instead.

Additionally, you should actively seek customer reviews and testimonials. Nothing builds trust and reinforces your desired brand image than happy, satisfied customers that prospective customers can identify with.

Key takeaway

Developing a strong brand image starts with properly knowing and understanding your brand identity. When you know that, you know what you can, and want to reflect or project into the world.

Whether you’re just starting your business and are thinking about brand image, or whether promoting your brand image has been on the backburner and is in need of some attention, these 5 actions can be easily implemented and followed, regardless of your size or sector.