A strong brand is a must if you want to stand out in your customers’ minds. If you have a name they just can’t remember, a bland website or confusing and disjointed messaging, you’ll find customer loyalty slow to build.

Creating a strong brand is a commitment – it’s about having values that permeate your business – but it’s vital if you are to grow your business from a small enterprise to a household name.

Whether you’re a professional event organiser, a small business or a charity, here are five key areas to consider to help you create a strong brand for your business.

1. Know what you stand for

If your brand were a political party what would its manifesto be? As a company, it’s important to be clear on who you are, what you’re offering and why people should ‘vote’ for you. This is called your ‘business identity’ and should embody your core values and beliefs, not just what you look and sound like.

What is your overall business mission? This should go beyond sales targets to define the manner in which you wish to do business and, ultimately, how you touch people’s lives. Successful brands have this identity at the heart of their business.

For a fantastic primer on why knowing what you stand for can give your brand a huge competitive advantage, check out this video on ‘How Great Leaders Inspire Action‘ by Simon Sinkek, one of the most popular event talks on TED.

Related: 6 Ways to build a more engaged audience for your brand

2. Be consistent in your tone of voice and messaging

Once you have defined your brand’s ‘character’ this should flow seamlessly through everything you do. You want your customer to get to know your brand, like a friend, and to feel familiar and at home with it. This is impossible if you present inconsistent messaging by, for example, having glossy and glam advertising, but a boring and staid website.

Your business collateral should appear like a family; all clearly connected to one another. The language you use, fonts, colours and style should remain consistent so your brand is instantly identifiable – logo or no logo.

Related: Building a great design culture

3. Hire people who care about your shared mission

Would you date someone who you had nothing in common with, didn’t share your values or had conflicting beliefs? Perhaps if they were very attractive, but the relationship probably wouldn’t last that long! For relationships to thrive it’s necessary for the couple to be compatible. The same holds true for strong brands and their employees.

If you are clear about your brand values and character you should naturally attract people who echo your beliefs. However, it’s important to continually communicate these values to your staff, which means regular meetings and team events to make sure everyone stays on message.

This doesn’t mean you have to hire a bunch of clones who all look and sound the same – uniformity can actually be harmful to businesses – but it does mean you should hire people who share your sense of mission and the core values you hold dearest.

Related: 8 Ways to increase your brand awareness in 2015

4. Deliver amazing customer service

There’s no point in successfully attracting your target audience only to blow your advantage with shoddy service. Bad customer reviews can be immensely damaging to your brand reputation, so it’s vital to not let any complaints slip through the net.

Social media leaves brands wide open to public criticism, with the potential for negative comments to quickly go viral. What processes do you have in place to deal with this and, more importantly, how do you go above and beyond to care for your customers and prevent complaints in the first place?

Related: Take these 5 steps to be more customer centric

5. Stay close to your supporters

No one likes a one-way friendship. Strong brands are always reaching out to their customers to maintain their relationship. This shouldn’t always be in the form of email marketing.

People will quickly stop opening your emails if all you ever send are sales messages. Crafting useful and entertaining newsletters, developing exciting competitions and fun, interactive social media campaigns are all a vital part of brand building.

Events, too, can be used to bring your brand to life, like the Red Bull Air Race or Adobe Summit. On a smaller scale, you can host exclusive preview events for your loyal customers, launch parties, exhibit at exhibitions and run experiential events, like product sampling or giveaways.

These are all great ways to provide a human touch to your brand and interact with your customers (and fans) out in the real world.

Conclusion

It’s time to put a strategic brand definition plan into place. While it might seem like a lot of effort, the benefits of an emotionally connected customer base include brand loyalty and advocacy, paving the way to long-term success for your business.

What makes your brand stand out from the crowd? How do you express your company’s unique character? Share your experience and expertise below.