Introduction
When people think of a brand, they usually think of the logo, slogan, or identity of a business. While these things are important components of branding, they aren’t what make up the heart and soul of your company’s brand. Branding is all about understanding who you are as an organization and how people perceive you in the marketplace. During times like this economic recession, it’s even more important that companies build their brands so that they can survive tough market conditions.
Stay Relevant
To stay relevant, you must stay informed about your industry and its trends. You should also be aware of how other companies are reacting to the current economic climate. If they’re doing something you think is effective, try it yourself. If they’re making mistakes that are hurting their business, avoid them at all costs (unless you want to go under as well).
Be Proactive, Not Reactive
Don’t wait for a problem to come to you: In fact, sometimes the best way to solve a problem is by anticipating it and preparing for it beforehand. It’s not uncommon during a recession for businesses to cut costs by hiring fewer employees or outsourcing work that they can do themselves. In this case, it’s important to keep in mind that your competitors may be doing the same thing—and if you want your business to remain competitive, then there might be some tasks where it makes sense for your company’s productivity level if there were more employees rather than less.
If this isn’t an option for your company (or even if it is), one helpful tactic would be finding ways around taking on additional work without adding more staff members—for example: getting creative in how you organize yourself so that while each individual employee is doing less work overall per week (say because they’re sharing certain duties with another person), each person still feels like their efforts are contributing enough towards making sure everything gets done right on time; or working with external vendors instead of trying something internally first which could mean saving time overall while still maintaining high-quality results from whatever task needs doing next week (or month).
Stay Focused on Your Goals and Objectives
In a recession, it’s important to stay focused on your goals and objectives. A recession is no time to let your brand’s weaknesses go unaddressed. Take the time now to review your brand’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT).
Take advantage of low costs during a recession by out-innovating competitors who are unable and unwilling to do so because they’re too busy cutting costs or avoiding price cuts. You can also expand into new markets that have been untouched by competitors in an attempt at cost-cutting.
Review Your Brand’s Weaknesses Before the Recession Hits
When you know your brand’s strengths, it’s easier to assess your weaknesses. If you have a website that has poor rankings in Google, for example, this could be due to a number of reasons:
If you don’t have enough content on the site (or if the content isn’t optimized properly), then you would need to add more information and make sure it was up-to-date.
If there are broken links or other technical issues with the site, these would need to be fixed immediately.
If people can’t easily find what they’re looking for on your site (for example, if there are no categories or filters), these things should be implemented immediately.
Start Planning Now
Planning is the first step in the branding process. A well-thought-out plan can help you to identify your business goals and develop a strategy for achieving them.
Start by deciding whether or not you need a plan at all. If your business has been going on for years without one, it might be time to get one now. If you’re just starting out, planning will help you avoid mistakes down the line.
When preparing a branding plan:
- Be specific about what you want from it. It’s easy to be generic when writing up an outline or proposal; however, if someone receives something that has no direction or purpose behind it, they may lose interest quickly and disregard your ideas entirely! Make sure that everyone involved in the project knows why they’re doing what they’re doing—and make sure this purpose stays consistent throughout its lifespan (even if things change along the way).
- Consider how each feature relates both within itself as well as with others around it (especially those who aren’t directly related). One way of doing this could be through creating diagrams showing how each element interconnects with another (or several others).
Out-Innovate Your Competitors During a Recession
Keeping your brand relevant is more important than ever. You might have to innovate your way out of a recession. Innovations can be small, but they’re the little things that make a difference. For example, when you introduce new products or services to the market and make them available at an affordable price point (like with Groupon), you’ve innovated. When you come up with new ways for customers to interact with your company (like Twitter or Facebook), that’s innovation too!
When it comes down to it, there are many different kinds of innovation: product innovations (new products), service innovations (improved processes) and marketing innovations (new ways of getting customers’ attention). These are all important because they help keep your brand relevant in today’s business world!
Innovating doesn’t just mean creating something completely new though–it also means improving on existing ideas or concepts so they’re better than before–like making an already good idea even better by adding value or taking away some costs associated with running it day-to-day operations.”
Take Advantage of Low Costs
There’s a lot of talk about how low costs are good for your business, but there’s just as much to be said about how they can help your customers. When you are able to offer products and services at lower prices than your competitors, you’ll be able to draw in more customers. This gives them an opportunity to try new things that they might otherwise not be able to afford. Once these customers develop an affinity for your brand, then it becomes easier for them to buy from you again—and again and again.
As we’ve seen with fast food chains like McDonalds and Burger King, this kind of loyalty can really pay off during times of economic hardship when people are looking for deals on food items (and other services). Consider what would happen if one company started offering $1 burgers all day long while another only offered $2 burgers between 2 p.m.-5 p.m.–it would almost certainly give them an edge over their competition!
Keep Working on Growth and Expansion
It is important to keep working on growth and expansion. If you are in a position where you need to downsize, be flexible and adaptable in your approach. The key here is not to panic or make rash decisions—you will get through this! Don’t give up or think that it’s all over; instead, ask for help if you need it.
If you’re going through layoffs, don’t forget how much work went into building your brand and company reputation before the recession hit—and don’t let anyone take away all those years of hard work just because they’re scared that things won’t get better any time soon!
Branding is important even during a recession.
Branding is important in a recession because it:
- Helps your customers understand who you are and what you do.
- Helps your employees understand the company’s culture, values and vision.
- Builds trust between your business, investors and community.
- Displays professionalism within your industry by setting standards for quality products, services and customer service that other companies can emulate (or follow).
Conclusion
If you’re going to survive a recession, you need to be more than just resilient. You need to be proactive and innovative — and branding can help you do that. It’s never been more important for businesses to have a strong brand strategy, because this is what will get them through the tough times ahead.