Has your business been impacted by a costly PR crisis?
Or perhaps negative reviews have affected your wider brand image?
No matter the type of public scrutiny your business is facing, knowing how to change your brand perception can help you to recover faster and with minimal disruption.
However, changing brand perception isn’t straightforward; it’s a long-term, time-consuming, and delicate process to get right, but it’s certainly possible with the right mix of marketing activity.
Why is brand perception important?
Brand perception is everything when it comes to driving success (or failure!) for a business.
In fact, according to industry analysis cited by Startups, among the reasons that the long-running department store retailer BHS went bust was due to poor branding which directly influences perception.
Brand perception importance ultimately lies in how customers view and connect with a brand, and this is essential for many motivations, including:
Informing buying decisions
It’s simple – consumers tend to buy products and services from brands that they view more positively as they’re eager to support them.
Influencing market share
A strong brand image also acts as a competitive advantage, helping your enterprise to differentiate itself in crowded markets and claim a larger share.
Building customer loyalty
If you can create a positive brand image where customers feel their values are aligned with your own, you can create a sense of belonging that supports greater customer loyalty.
Supporting marketing activities
A positive brand perception can do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to organically promoting your business via satisfied customers who naturally want to shout about your brand.
Making your brand a more attractive investment
It’s not just customers that need to view your brand positively – stakeholders also consider perceived quality and trustworthiness when deciding whether to invest in your business.
Attracting high-quality talent and partners
If you want to encourage the best talent and partners to work with you, then having a strong, positive brand image can be essential to getting them onboard.
How to change brand perception: A step-by-step guide
If you’re worried about your brand perception and want to benefit from the long list of advantages a positive brand image can bring with it, explore our step-by-step guide below!
Understand current perception
The first step is to conduct a brand image audit using market reach to find out how your customers and the wider public view your business. For example, if you’ve been negatively impacted by a devastating PR (Public Relations) crisis, you’ll need to find out how much damage it’s done.
You can do this by sending out (current and previous) customer surveys, analysing user behaviour data and key metrics from your website, and monitoring customer reviews and brand mentions on social media.
Once you have this information, you’ll have a much clearer idea of how the public views your brand and, more importantly, exactly why they feel that way.
This insight can help you to plan your strategy accordingly.
Address root causes of poor perception
Before you can try to move on, you first need to identify the causes of your brand’s existing poor public perception and resolve them.
Whether this means fixing operational issues or changing how a service is delivered, this crucial step can’t be skipped!
Establish new brand identity
Establishing a brand identity isn’t a straightforward process.
It involves input from many individuals, both inside and outside of the business, including the senior leadership team, marketing managers, and designers.
However, it all starts with creating a strategy that revolves around your business’s purpose and core values. At Aqueous Digital, for example, our driving purpose is to help our customers improve their online visibility, secure sales, and build their brand.
And the values that we stick to are TLC – trust, loyalty, and collaboration – and they underline everything we do at our digital marketing agency.
By identifying your brand’s purpose and main values, you can then give your business a fresh start with a new logo, colour palette, and messaging style that reflects these values and your overall mission.
This helps to differentiate your new brand identity from your old one, encouraging both previous, current, and new customers to see you in a different light.
Tell your story
One of the most effective ways to tell your story is with digital PR.
Supported by your new brand identity, digital PR services can help you to build your online presence, reputation, and authority by getting your brand mentioned in all the right places.
When executed properly with the right mix of storytelling and data-driven strategies, they can help you to earn media coverage from relevant news publications, high-quality backlinks from websites, and social media mentions from both influencers and the general public.
In short, by driving visibility, traffic, and engagement digital PR can shine a spotlight on your refreshed brand.
Monitor audience response
While audience response to your new brand identity and PR efforts is unlikely to be instant and will take time to grow, it’s important to observe how the public is responding and to stay agile in case of any unexpected backlash.
Adapt strategy further
After monitoring audience response to your current brand image, you should have a clear idea of whether the changes you’ve implemented have had a positive or negative impact.
If public response hasn’t been as strong or positive as you’d hope, it may be necessary to further adapt your strategy until the desired public response is achieved.
Make your story known with Aqueous Digital
As changing brand perception isn’t the easiest process to undertake, we always recommend enlisting support from a digital PR professional – whether in-house or externally.
At Aqueous Digital, we can provide a comprehensive digital PR service that helps to improve the brand image of your business for both SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and reputation management purposes.
Our in-house PR expert will take the time to understand your current brand image and utilise our media connections to gradually change your brand perception, ensuring your business is featured in all the right places.
To arrange your free, no-obligation consultation with our team, please feel free to complete our online contact form.
We also welcome phone enquiries at 0800 285 1424 and emails sent to hello@aqueous-digital.co.uk.
However you decide to get in touch, we look forward to learning more about your brand and helping move your business forward.
