When you’re focused on launching a product, overcoming regulatory hurdles, and getting your evidence base built, your brand can seem like a low priority “nice to have”. But what is branding, and why should you make it a priority for your healthcare business?
A brand isn’t a logo or a font. It’s a framework for all of your internal and external work. Branding includes your tone of voice, visual identity, how you engage across channels and the personality or “feel” of your business. It requires commitment upfront, but in the long term, you will reap the rewards.
So, how does branding help grow my business?
Branding creates consistency, which makes your company memorable
When customers interact with a consistent identity, it becomes memorable. This increases awareness and recognition of your brand. So, when your potential customers are looking to solve a problem it is much more likely they’ll come to you if they remember you.
Example:Think about the last time you saw an advert from Apple. You probably can’t remember the exact language they used to describe their latest product, but you can feel what the advert was like. You can picture the font, the characteristic design elements. All of this personality stems from the fact they’ve been consistent and deliberate with their brand.
Consistency comes from using core colour palettes, the same tone of voice, having a set layout structure. These, mostly simple, activities build up the feeling of your company with your audience. It means that every time they see something from you, they know it’s yours.
Better storytelling
By fully engaging with your branding and tone of voice, it will help you tell your story better, and with a more authentic voice. Good storytelling creates an emotional connection with your audience and is key to compelling action, be that from investors, buyers, or patients.
An effective story that is on-brand and tone will also increase your chances of getting PR coverage, which in turn increases awareness of your company. For more tips on writing powerful press releases, see our free PR Insights Piece.
Competitive positioning
Good branding can help position your company in the market through differentiation of your messaging and identity. When executed well, branding will give you a significant advantage over your competitors.
Enables better marketing
Every piece of content or collateral you create should be in line with your brand. By having clear guidelines of how your company should be portrayed, it means everyone is moving to the same beat of the drum. It also makes content creation quicker and reduces burdensome approval steps. Meaning your marketers can focus on executing effective campaigns.
Scalability
When you first start out, it’s easy to make all external communications and content look the same. But as your company grows and starts engaging with agencies, it becomes harder to keep the essence of your company strong.
If you have good brand guidelines which include how you look, sound and how you want people to see your company, then those who are promoting your company on your behalf can echo your voice. This is particularly important for “scaleup” companies, where rapid, decentralised content creation can quickly lead to discrepancies in your brand, reducing its impact.
Credibility
You want to look professional and experienced, and you need your customers to know you’re the best at what you do. A strong brand that resonates with your customers increases your credibility in their eyes. Small things can really impact a company’s external image: a typo, a stretched logo, jarring use of stock photography. Effective brand guidelines safeguard against these issues.
Key takeaways
Creating and maintaining a strong brand drives your business forward. It enables your sales and marketing teams, gives you a competitive advantage, and makes you memorable.
Effective branding needs to be thought through at the outset, to ensure it properly captures your values, voice and goals. Enjoyed this? Check out our piece on creating impactful presentations.
We offer the full remit of brand creation and management services for healthcare companies to succeed. Find out more about what we offer here, or drop us a line: hello@evolene.co.uk.