"Vicky's creative thinking and management skills meant this community event was a huge success with £1500 being raised for a local charity. Games such as ‘Throwing the bouquet the furthest’ and an ‘Extreme alternative vote to ‘gunge an MP’ gathered media interest and so far have attracted over 11,000 hits on You Tube. Vicky’s PR skills are amazing and meant that the event was very well attended with hardly any advertising costs. I would definitely recommend Vicky and The Brand Surgery to any organisation which needs a successful launch event organising”.
The Brand Surgery® created and relaunched our 'night rider’ brand across the 'Coastliner route' in East and West Sussex. The project included designing a launch logo, designing bus livery, and organising two brand launch events within record time in both Worthing and Brighton. We’re delighted with the quality and organisation of this critical project. It is essential that we have a company like The Brand Surgery® who we can trust 100% to get on with the job with minimum input from us. I am happy to recommend Vicky and her team for their brand development and launch event services.
After I finished X-Factor 2012, I decided to get some of the other contestants together and put on a show. I wanted to put this show on within three weeks and I soon realised the vast work that is involved. I hired The Brand Surgery® because they have had amazing success organising events like Worthing Idol and the Royal Wedding picnic. Vicky negotiated with Worthing Theatres, created the event strategy, co-ordinated the after-party venue, hotels for the performers, charity liaison, PR and branding of the event, insurance, wristbands and security. I can’t believe she managed to do this within three weeks. We sold 700 tickets and the profits went to Help For Heroes. I would definitely recommend The Brand Surgery for any event that requires the WOW Factor.
See the Wow Factor video.
Type your message below and we will be in contact soon!
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On the run-up to the Euro Final, I heard Kriss Akabusi describe England’s achievement in the final as ‘design not default’. As The Brand Surgery’s 20th anniversary approaches, I have been reflecting on how I ended up as a business owner as a result of default, through redundancy, back in 2001. What have I done to design my way to success. I’m interested to learn how many businesses owners are in their position by default or design?
Then my thoughts extended to how many of us have defaulted back to various positions due to the pandemic. How do we design some oomph back in our lives – both professionally and personally? Rather than being a victim of the pandemic, how can we creatively design our future?
When people think about creative design, they often think about brochure or website design.
Creative design boosts your bottom line
“Design-driven companies have outperformed the S&P Index by 219% over 10 years.” (Source: The Design Value Index).
Creative design helps you connect
Great design helps you connect and sustain engagement with your audience encouraging them to make instant and positive decisions about your brand.
It creates brand love
Great design communicates your brand 24-7 in a way that customers will love, wherever they are, and when they want it. It’s time to make your brand work harder.
Create design can tap into the mind
Great design communicates your brand 24-7 in a way that customers will love, wherever they are, and when they want it. It’s time to make your brand work harder.
The Chartered Institute of Marketing revealed:
“Trade Show attendees were recently ask to rate the value of the brochures handed out to them. 87% of the brochures were rated as inadequate to their needs.”
In 1985, Bernstein revealed:
“All organisations have an identity, it is just that some organisations chose to manage their identities, and some do not”
Creative design gives your business a competitive advantage
We eat and breathe creativity and naturally our core values include creativity and curiosity. However, before we begin designing your project, we always conduct marketing research to understand what type of design and words will engage your perfect client.
We guarantee that our creative design solutions will help your business to grow because our Chartered Marketer because our in-house Chartered Marketer injects tried-and-tested marketing knowledge and expertise into everything we design.
Unless you are 100% certain that you know what your customers want, we encourage new clients to invest in a one hour marketing mentor session. This will highlight any potential gaps and ensure informed decisions are made regarding your business.
Creative design gives your business a competitive advantage
We eat and breathe creativity and naturally our core values include creativity and curiosity. However, before we begin designing your project, we always conduct marketing research to understand what type of design and words will engage your perfect client.
We guarantee that our creative design solutions will help your business to grow because our Chartered Marketer because our in-house Chartered Marketer injects tried-and-tested marketing knowledge and expertise into everything we design.
Unless you are 100% certain that you know what your customers want, we encourage new clients to invest in a one hour marketing mentor session. This will highlight any potential gaps and ensure informed decisions are made regarding your business.
Get in Touch
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.
We would love to hear from you. Call us now.
• 01903 898977
• 020 3904 7667
• 07909 693172
Business Hours:
9am-5.30pm Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays)
Please contact us if you would to strengthen your brand to the very best it can be. Marketing strategy will help make your business flexible and future proof it so it is ready to face anything, however unexpected. Our creative services will help your business stand out.
The post Design or default? How creative design can grow your personal and business brands first appeared on Business Branding, Rebranding and Logo Refreshes - The Brand Surgery, West Sussex.
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The Brand Surgery® is excited to be sponsoring the communications category in the 2020 IESE Public Sector Transformation Awards.
Having served as a Borough Councillor between 2010-2018, our CEO, Vicky Vaughan, understands that authentic communications are essential to keep improving council services for communities.
We have been enjoying reading entries which demonstrate how communications have enhanced transparency, built meaningful partnerships, improved leadership, communicated effectively with traditionally hard-to-reach communities and promoted a commercial mindset and culture in councils across the UK.
The Brand Surgery® works with community groups, local government, building energy management system providers, consultants and charities. Vicky has been helping iESE public sector consultancy with marketing research, strategy and creative since 2012. More recently she has been helping IESE to future-proof its product portfolio and communications, maintaining relevancy so they can continue to provide effective solutions for public sector challenges.
The entries for the Communications category which we are sponsoring are:
The campaign achieved a huge reach across all social media of over 5.5m. The campaign gave clear and simple messaging about what the changes meant for residents, used social media content showing the new logo in iconic locations and showcasing employees working together to improve residents’ lives. A post-campaign survey with residents a 30% increase in awareness of the Council compared to pre-campaign levels. No customer service complaints were received as a result of the change.
London Borough of Havering: On track
The use of apprenticeships is a core part of the council’s medium-term transformation plans. Havering Council used Apprenticeships to create opportunities that enabled junior and middle management staff to progress and set a standard of management across the organisation. The ‘On Track’ campaign was designed to engage staff with opportunities to undertake Level 3 or 5 Management Apprenticeships. In just over two weeks, it engaged at least a third of the workforce and generated over 60 applications for 30 places. It also unlocked £257,500 of our apprenticeship levy and promoted Havering as the leading London borough with the largest cohort of Management.
All three are winners in our opinion and we are looking forward to meeting all involved on Wednesday 4th March in London.
Contact The Brand Surgery on 01903 898977 or email hello@thebrandsurgery.co.uk for further information about any of the above.
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]]>The post Proud to be sponsoring the IESE Local Government Transformation Awards first appeared on Business Branding, Rebranding and Logo Refreshes - The Brand Surgery, West Sussex.
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The Brand Surgery® is excited to be sponsoring the communications category in the IESE Public Sector Transformation Awards. Having served as a Borough Councillor between 2010-2018, Vicky understands that authentic communications are essential to keep improving local government.
We are looking forward to reading entries which demonstrate how communications have enhanced transparency, built meaningful partnerships, improved leadership, communicated effectively with traditionally hard-to-reach communities and promoted a commercial mindset and culture in councils across the UK.
The Brand Surgery® works with local government, building energy management system providers, consultants, charities and community groups. Vicky has been helping iESE public sector consultancy with marketing research, strategy and creative since 2012. More recently she has been helping IESE to future proof its product portfolio and communications, maintaining relevancy so they can continue to provide effective solutions for public sector challenges.
The entries for the Communications category which we are sponsoring are:
London Borough of Havering: On track
All three are winners in our opinion and we are looking forward to meeting all involved on Wednesday 4th March in London.
Contact us on 01903 898977 or email hello@thebrandsurgery.co.uk for further information about any of the above.
The post Proud to be sponsoring the IESE Local Government Transformation Awards first appeared on Business Branding, Rebranding and Logo Refreshes - The Brand Surgery, West Sussex.
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How much do they trust your brand? | What are you doing to earn that trust ?
According to the Edelman Trust Survey, the least trusted of all the markets is media which includes social media platforms. Having said that, trust in UK’s Government, Media, Business and Social Causes have increased by 4% since 2012, however, this figure has decreased by 1% since 2017.Â
64% of survey respondents expect business CEOs to take the lead on societal change rather than expecting Government to impose it. Wouldn’t it be amazing if the one-use plastic manufacturers pledged to stop manufacturing such packaging rather than waiting years for the Government to develop a 25 year Environmental Plan.
How can social media increase brand trust?
If we expect people to feel safe and buy into our brands, brands must evoke a feeling of trust. Digital marketing platforms can help us to promote trust, but trust building strategies are essential because otherwise social media will simply amplify mistrust.
Here are two social media trust building formulas that we have seen published:
- Trust = Influence + Reputation(Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, ‘Trust Agents’)
- Trust = Authority x Helpfulness x Intimacy / Self-Promotion(Steve Rayson, director of BuzzSumo)
I have taken these formulas one step further and created the 4A Brand Trust Marketing Model:
(Authenticity + Agile Adaptor + Authority) x Amplification = Brand Trust
(4A Brand Trust Marketing Model created by Vicky Vaughan, The Brand Surgery®)
Some of the other models divide the good work by Self-Promotion, however, the 4A model naturally reduces temptation to self promote because it promotes authenticity.
Authenticity
Authenticity is essential to maintain stamina and consistent behaviour even when the going gets tough. Having researched Transactional Analysis, it is apparent that inconsistent behaviour leads to mistrust. I have included Authenticity into this brand trust formula because leaders who create trust are authentic, transparent and honest. Authentic brand leaders tap into their souls and admit their weaknesses before expecting others to trust them. They easily walk the talk because they only make promises which align with their values and purpose, therefore, delivering on brand promise comes naturally which creates trust. Promoting and living by your values online creates transparency and also manages expectations; the writing is on the tin, for everyone to see, which again creates trust. If your tone of voice, communications, brand attributes align with your values, this will also create a consistent message and people will feel safe on your website, want to do business with you and become your brand ambassadors.
Authority
. The Edelman Trust Index survey 2018 reveals that if you are a technical expert, academic expert, financial industry analyst, social cause organisation, board of directors, journalist or government regulator, you have gained credibility and people are more likely to trust you. What this means is that the quality of the content you produce, will gain trust or invite mistrust – depending on how authoritative it is. It is recommended that marketers enrol on a CPD programme in their chosen field to keep up with the latest industry research and insights on a regular basis.
Agile adaptor
A trusted personal or business brand must be agile Learning Organisation. If not, they will be less resilient to change and let it’s customers down, breaking their trust. A brand can use digital technology for research. It must learn how to gain insights from big data. It must be ready for Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0. Only when leaders are ready and agile will they continue to offer customer value. Once achieved, the message that is amplified via social media will be relevant, personalised and even intimate.
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Accessibility
Social media enables your business to be much more accessible and for your customers to quickly interact with you. Ensure you have adequate resources to quickly answer customer questions otherwise you will lose credibility and they may shop elsewhere to find answers. Everyone in your business should be responsible for customer service to some degree. Allow frontline staff to make decisions.
Amplify
Once a brand is authentic, has authority and is agile, it can amplify all of the above and it’s intent and purpose (Corporate Social Responsibility) and become / remain trusted. Maybe, Iit can begin to make societal change as consumers now expect businesses to. As the media is currently the least trusted institution on a global scale, you must promote authenticity by backing your news up with evidence to avoid being branded as fake news. Digital marketing content must be communicated with purpose. Insights gained will help the brand choose the most suitable channel communications to seize opportunities for trusted communications to make positive change. Brands must also amplify our purpose to benefit more stakeholders than just one greedy shareholder.
If brands follow the above guidance, Government wouldn’t need to step in with laws because we’d all be living and promoting our purpose for the right reasons. I saw a quote the other day which said, if we all lived by our values every day, what would the world look like?
Do you agree that it is up to businesses to make societal change?
- If so, how well is your brand doing at this?
- How well is your industry doing at this?
- What would make it easier for you to do this?
Here’s a few interesting brand trust facts from Edelman Trust Index 2018 …
- In the UK,53% of people trust journalism and 36% trust search engines and social media platforms
- 50% of people globally are disengaged with the news and 66% of us think that news organisations are more interested in increasing their audience than reporting.
- 63% of average people can’t tell the difference between fake news and real news.
- Trust in the UK brand has declines and is only 57% – this may affect overseas trade.
- India (86%) and Indonesia (90%) employees trust their employers the most. 71% of people trust UK employers which is an increase of 14% since 2016.
- 56% of employees believe that companies only think about themselves and their profits and 60% agreed that CEOs think about profits before making a difference in the world.
- The Top 3 priorities that businesses should focus on, according to the public are safeguarding privacy, driving economic prosperity and providing jobs and training.
- Globally, the lowest trust is in Consumer Packaged Goods, Automotive and Food / Beverages.
- Globally, the highest trust is in Technology, Health and Energy although there is a slight drop in the five year trend.
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If you have enjoyed reading this and you would like help in gaining trust in your brand, call us on 01903 898977 or contact us using the form below.
The post The 5A Brand Trust Model applied to Social Media Marketing first appeared on Business Branding, Rebranding and Logo Refreshes - The Brand Surgery, West Sussex.
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Over the past month or so, we’ve met many B2B businesses who wonder what the relevance of Facebook is for their business, especially if they don’t have clients on Facebook.
B2B Facebook Facts
According to Social Examiner Industry Report 2019, 48% of marketers use Facebook for B2B marketing vs only 30% on LinkedIn. Facebook has lost some of its share to Instagram however, as Instagram is owned by and Facebook actively encourages marketers to boost their Facebook ads on Instagram, this not surprising. Why do so many marketers prefer Facebook for B2B? We share our thoughts below …
Laser-focused targeted marketing
Facebook has data on everything and you can use this to your advantage. Through Facebook Insights, you can find out which Facebook pages and websites your clients and potential clients visit. Then you can target campaigns to lookalike audiences. To check out Facebook Insights for yourself, set up a free Facebook business accountand have a look around Audience Insights. You will be amazed. You can target by location, language, age, relationship status, education, study, schools, employer, job titles, industries, income, home ownership, ethnicity, life events, generation, parental status, marital status, interests, hobbies, entertainment, preferences, favourite foods, charitable donations, competitors pages read, books read and more. Remember that B2B is H2H (Human to Human) so even if you think your clients aren’t personally using Facebook, you can bet members of their team are.
Improved search engine rankings
A stunning website is not enough on its own. It needs to be found on search engines like Google or Bing, therefore you need to direct people there through website marketing including Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Higher Google positions can be achieved if your website is seen to have credibility and be authoritative aka Domain Authority (DA). You can improve your website’s DA by engaging on social media; as Facebook serves a third of the world’s population (over 2bn), your engagement rate may be higher than on other platforms, especially if you correctly target your audience using Facebook Insights. You can increase social media engagement by sharing content such as your business blog posts on Facebook. Links from Facebook back to your website will be indexed and search engine spiders will be able to find your blogs easily because they are shareable.
Increased brand recognition
As The Brand Surgery is all about digital branding, it would be odd not to explain how Facebook increases your brand’s recognition. Brand recognition is all about memory recall of your brand. Even if you don’t think your clients are on Facebook, as mentioned above, nearly one third of the world’s population is, so we guarantee you will have potential clients on Facebook. These potential clients will engage with your business brand if you communicate correctly. When you boost your post on Facebook, Facebook offers you many objectives e.g. page likes, traffic, brand awareness. Facebook will choose people who are more likely to engage with your business in the manner you prefer because they know who engages and who doesn’t. Neat hey? The most important thing is to ensure that when you have your perfect audience directed to your website, that your website design and readability will motivate your perfect prospective client to contact you or purchase from your website and not your competitors.
Call The Brand Surgery on 07909 693172 to find out more growing your brand digitally via Facebook and other social media, with absolutely no obligation to commit. We’d love to hear from you.
Call us now.
• 01903 898977
• 020 3904 7667
• 07909 693172
Please contact us if you would to strengthen your brand to the very best it can be.
We will make it flexible and future proof it so it is ready to face anything, however unexpected.
• Creative design
• Chartered marketing consultancy
• Executive coaching
Business Hours: 9am-5.30pm Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays)
The post Why B2Bs should consider Facebook even if they think their clients are not using it first appeared on Business Branding, Rebranding and Logo Refreshes - The Brand Surgery, West Sussex.
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This article is written for small to medium business owners and consultants who are, or maybe, donating to charities on an adhoc basis and/or sponsoring community events. It explains how adopting a philanthropic mindset can be fun and will build your brand if thought through systemically, and I also share valuable lessons I have learned from launching our own community group.
Why bother with CSR?
“Corporate Social Responsibility” is rather a mouthful and doesn’t sound that sexy. “Not more responsibility” I hear you groan! This may be why most startups and SMEs I meet are not excited by it and may view CSR as expensive and time consuming. However, CSR has been proven to significantly grow brands and is a powerful marketing tool. CSR brings many financial and wellbeing benefits for business brands if you choose the right solution for your business.
I personally think CSR should be rebranded to Creative, Savvy & Revitalising and here are five reasons why:
- CSR creates wellbeing for you, your team and the community you enrich: Research shows that compassion, care, love and trust create biochemical changes in our brains and bodies such as lowering blood pressure, increasing immunity, enhanced cognitive function. This reduces sick days and boosts productivity.
- CSR enhances trust in your brand: Apart from the obvious sponsorship opportunities available, being part of an innovative CSR scheme provides opportunities for collaboration and partnership marketing. CSR also provides an opportunity to boost your content marketing and makes your brand more interesting.
- CSR offers free training and development: Being part of a a CSR scheme provides members of your team with an opportunity to use and develop different skills e.g. communication skills.
- CSR protects your brand: We are human and occasionally make errors. If your business is seen to be good most of the time, then you are more easily forgiven if you make a mistake.
- CSR appeals to Generation Z: The youngsters of today demand transparency and good practice, CSR will help you tap into and build trust with the younger generation.
All sounds good? But ….In turbulent times, with the B word in the forefront of our minds, it seems natural to focus on generating return for shareholders and building resources for turbulent times. Even with 125 million small to medium sized businesses generating trillions of pounds, hardly any of this money is trickling down to those in most need.
How to choose the best CSR project to grow your brand
Being socially responsible should be fun and align with your values. That way, when you are busy and the financial pressures are on, committing to CSR is far easier. There are many ways to build CSR into your business brand including sponsoring (or donating to) a local community or charity. A more interesting venture is offering employee time for volunteering at various initiatives. Or you can go the whole hog and launch a community group like I did!
Here are my 5 important tips for choosing a CSR project, and below that, the 5 most important lessons I have learned.
- Do you have an inner desire to fix something? When you watch or read the news, what gets you agitated? Is there a cause or issue that you feel compelled to support, whether it’s the homeless, narrowing the poverty gap or providing clean water? If you need inspiration, visit https://www.globalgoals.org. It is important you choose a cause that matters to you and your team.
- Does it align with your company values? Both Talent Within You® and The Brand Surgery® have similar values which are close to my heart. If you core values are part of your culture, then your employees will naturally be as excited as you. This is also a fantastic opportunity for co-creation within your business.
- Does the cause align with your company strengths or do you want to develop a new skill? Talent Within You has enabled me to strengthen my partnership marketing, volunteer management and youth marketing skills.
- Does it compliment your business? Does your business have a natural connection? For example, The Brand Surgery® creates strong business brands through identifying marketing niches and creative design. Talent Wtihin You® enables teenagers to grow their personal brand and nurture their niche, so there is a natural synergy.
- How much time and resources can you commit to? Whether you choose to support financially or become further involved is down to you and your time constraints.
CSR Case study – The Brand Surgery® and Talent Within You®
I launched Talent Within You (TWY) to unleash the niche in teenagers in Worthing age 13-16. I had an inner desire to do this because my grandmother had been mugged 20 years ago by a ‘bored’ 15 year old, and my vision ever since, has been to make street crime history. The idea behind TWY is that all volunteers use and develop their strengths to unleash the niche of our members aged 13-16.
I’ve used my graphic design, marketing, branding and coaching skillsto create a seven month programme of workshops for a members. We have been offered a minimum of two exciting internships and / or work experience from McLaren Automotive and a scholarship from Glendale Theatre Arts. Each monthly workshop focuses on a different topic and spells out the word TALENT; Talent, Attitude, Leadership, Effort, Nurturing and Trust. Each workshop has it’s own workbook which must be completed by our members as evidence to apply for work experience and internships.
Our volunteers are all DBS checked and have experience of working or parenting teenagers and/or coaching and/or teaching. One of our volunteers is a horticulturalist and scientist and runs related workshops. Our Youth Engagement Officer is a county council youth worker and has been sharing his engagement skills which are crucial to achieving our vision. Please see the Talent Within You website or further information.
The SIX most important things I have learned since relaunching Talent Within You.
- I am still taken aback just by how kind people and businesses have been in donating their time which has enabled me to reach out to more teenagers and move towards achieving our vision.
- My passion for Talent Within You enables me to tell a compelling story which has assisted me in attracting amazing sponsors like McLaren Automotive and Glendale Theatre Arts, inspirational speakers and a team of loyal volunteers known as #teamtalent.
- Dividing my time between The Brand Surgery® and Talent Within You® has been interesting. The result being, little R&R time. Having said that, I really enjoy everything I do and empowering our clients and members to be the best they can be, therefore, my work feels more like a hobby.
- Founding Talent Within You has taught me how important shared values are in collaborating for societal change. If you and a partner organisation both have the same sense of purpose, it is easy, effortless and fun to work together.
- Building trust with parents and their teenage children has taken far longer than I originally anticipated. Building interest from the schools has not been easy. Teachers are overstretched and even though we don’t require input from them, there was initially resistance. We have a few on board now.
- Stepping outside my comfort zone has made me think more creatively. Originally I was offering coaching and mentoring through The Brand Surgery®, however, while working on a Talent Within You workshop, I had one of those AHA moments and we are now in the process of building The Niche Nurturer® website.
If you would like help choosing a CSR initiative which best matches your business, call Vicky Vaughan FCIM FInstLM, Chartered Marketer and Coach on 07909 693172. You don’t have to go as far as creating your own community initiative like me! I can help you with creating values and matching you to a project that will fit and grow your business.
- The Brand Surgery website
- Talent Within You website
- The Niche Nurturer website(under construction)
The post Five tips for choosing the best CSR initiative to make societal change and grow your brand in the process first appeared on Business Branding, Rebranding and Logo Refreshes - The Brand Surgery, West Sussex.
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Does your website create brand trust?
Whether you are B2B or B2C organisation, your website may be the first window of opportunity for people to glimpse into and explore your business. Therefore, it is essential to maintain interest. Does your website create brand trust? You have 7 seconds to make a first impression. Does your website create brand trust? Stick with us as we explore marketing segmentation, website design, live chat and more.
First impressions count
You’ve only seven seconds to make that vital first impression (Cotlier, 2001). In general, these days, people are being bombarded with confusing, conflicting and complex information, so it is essential to make sure your website stands out for the right reasons.
Research reveals that errors, incompleteness, and poor style on your website affect users perceived quality of you and your organisation (Source: Everard A, Galletta D, 2003).
- Poor style includes includes loud or noisy backgrounds which fight against body text making your website difficult to read. Of course, this may negatively affect user accessibility. Poor spacing between words and lines can also create a barrier to an enhanced user experience, breaking brand trust.
- Incompleteness includes structural issues such as Error 404 pages which will also damage your Google listing. If you have pages which are under construction, this can also damage trust in your brand.
- Flaws include errors such as spelling errors, punctuation and grammar. Remember to get your facts right because exaggerations and lies also damage brand trust. “spelling errors distract users and make them suspect a generally poor quality” of a system (Source: Molich, Nielsen, 1990, p.344).
Research indicates that people tend to remember flaws more than a neutral experience because flaws have a higher novelty value. All of this negatively affects User Experience (UX) and brand trust.
Is your website relevant to your audience?
If your website is not relevant, people will search else where. Marketing segmentation is key to target the best customers which fit with your core competencies; this also reduces the risk of your website becoming bland. For example, There are many different ways to segment your market, customer behaviour and customer needs are the most effective. To successfully segment your audience based on customer behaviour, it is essential to research your customers so you understanding their needs, rather than guessing what you think they want. This information should form the basis of your integrated marketing plan.
Live chat can enhance brand trust
If you have an e-commerce website, many of the actions you are asking your clients to perform involve confidential and financial transactions. Therefore, any flaws will prevent trust and instead create a barrier to potential customers wanting to shop on your website.
Many shopping carts are abandoned through mistrust or a potential customers becoming distracted when they can’t find what they want. Therefore, it is worth considering the inclusion of a live chat facility. “Many online consumers want help from a live person while they are shopping online; in fact, 44% of online consumers say that having questions answered by a live person while in the middle of an online purchase is one of the most important features a Web site can offer.” (Forrester)
Website design to enhance trust in your brand
The key to obtaining trust is to create a space where prospects feel safe to shop with you. Apart from the colours, tones, word of mouth, there are many other basic points to consider. It is important to have the right style of website to appeal to your chosen target market. This branding tool will help you to think about who your are targeting your website at.
If your website was built in 2014 or earlier, there is a good chance that it is not responsive or mobile friendly. This means that your website may not be found so easily on Google because it will lose Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) points. Also it may not have SSL installed where it is hosted and this will show on the URL bar as an ‘untrusted’ site which once again damages trust in your brand.
Contact The Brand Surgery® today for further information. We would love to hear from you. Either call 07909 693172 or use the contact form below.
References
- Everard A, Galletta D (2003), Effect of Presentation Flaws on Users’ Perception of Quality of On-Line Stores’ Web Sites: Is it Perception that Really Counts?, Proceedings of the Second Annual Workshop on HCI Research in MIS, Seattle, WA, December 12-13, 2003
- Forester, Making Proactive Chat Work, [cited: 22/8/18, www.forrester.com]
- Fiske, S.T. (1980), “Attention and weight in person perception: The impact of negative and extreme behavior,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 38, 889-906.
We would love to hear from you. Call us now.
01903 898977 / 020 3904 7667 / 07909 693172
Please contact us if you would to strengthen your brand to the very best it can be.
We will make it flexible and future proof it so it is ready to face anything, however unexpected.
- Creative design
- Chartered marketing consultancy
- Executive coaching
Address: Harrow Road, Worthing, BN11 4RB
Phone: 01903 824229 / 07909 693172
Business Hours: 9am-5.30pm Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays)
Contact us today if you would like help strengthening your brand.
The post Does your website create brand trust? first appeared on Business Branding, Rebranding and Logo Refreshes - The Brand Surgery, West Sussex.
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We are very proud of our client, Chesterman Homes. They have completely embraced our brand trust advice and integrated their Corporate Social Media (CSR) strategy and Core Values into everything they do.
The team at Chesterman Homes is working hard to reverse the decline in hedgehogs. They are making hedgehog friendly gardens by making hedgehog sized hole in fences and placing hedgehog boxes into every garden where they renovate a property. Hedgehogs can walk six miles in one night in search of a mate, and we are helping them on their mission.
This authenticity helps to enhance brand trust, so homeowners are more likely to choose Chesterman Homes over another property developer who has no niche or brand trust. Of course Chesterman Homes must also demonstrate their expertise in building homes (brand authority) via their website and customer service.
If businesses are not trusted, then they are wasting their marketing budgets by amplifying mistrust. To create brand trust, businesses and their leaders must be authentic, be authoritative and be agile. We developed the Chesterman Homes’ brand strategy and their website to do just this. Their agility shines throughout, Chesterman Homes has tapped into an emerging market – with pressure on the UK to build more houses, Chesterman Homes’ is reaching out to homeowners who may have a large back garden which is difficult to maintain, or a side access to their property which is screaming out for a new home to be built. You can see some of the exciting properties that our client has completed and how they are implementing the 4A Brand Trust Tool™.
To see how to create brand trust, download our 4A Brand Trust Tool today. If you amplify mistrust, the whole world will know. You only need to think about the recent data security breaches; if these businesses had embraced security into their brand values, the whole team would understand the message and data breaches are less likely to happen.
It is also very important to consider whether the sector your business serves is trusted; if your sector is trusted, your business is more likely to be trusted. The least trusted sector is journalism. Trust in the charity sector has also reduced by 6% this year to only 54% (Charity Times).
Did you know that 53% of Britons can’t identify between fake news and real news. Trust in social media is declining which is why it important to articulate brand trust at every customer touch point.
If your business is not trusted, your potential customers will shop where they feel safer to do business. Call us today on 01903 898977 to discuss increasing the level of trust in your brand.
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Please contact us if you would to strengthen your brand to the very best it can be.
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