Five Strategies for Creating a Consistent Brand Image in a Global Market

Creating a brand image in today’s market is a big project. You might already have a brand in mind or even one in hand, but what is the next step? Maybe you want to work up to expanding your company into a franchise. If you already have a network of franchises, the next step would be to expand further and take your business global.

But even as you do that, you need to ensure brand recognition everywhere you take it. While some localization is necessary to reach your target audience, what makes your brand unique needs to extend through all markets.

Here are five steps to create a consistent brand image in a global market:

1. Understand Brand Image

“Brand image” describes the perception of your company’s brand among potential and current customers. The most successful companies spend a lot of time and energy building their brand image, and it can have a huge payoff.

Think back to before you ever entered a Starbucks, Target, or Best Buy. Do you remember how you felt about them before buying your coffee, clothes, groceries, and electronics from them? Even if you don’t shop at any of those companies, their brand recognition is so high that you know what to expect when you go to one of their locations.

Customers often associate the brands they choose with how they perceive themselves. Where they buy their clothes, food, and accessories and how they spend their entertainment money all feed into their perceptions of themselves and their community.

You need to determine how your customers might feel about your business and market toward that. Depending on the type of business you run, you may want them to feel like they’re being frugal but still getting a good deal, or that they’re supporting a good cause, or that they’re doing something exceptionally healthy for themselves and their family. Leaning into your brand’s image can help people associate your company with good feelings.

2. Establish Your Unique Value Proposition

How does your business stand out from your competitors? This can be the most challenging question a business owner answer. You have to find the aspects of your business that set it apart. Some options include affordability, quality, or novelty.

The best way to follow this technique is to create a unique value proposition (UVP). Your UVP is more than a tagline or a slogan. It’s more like a mission statement that defines why your target customers should choose you over your competitors.

How does your product or service solve their problem? Once you display this on your webpage or incorporate it into your marketing campaigns, things will start to take off as more people pay attention.

When figuring out your UVP, you can do some simple market research by gathering a small, unbiased group of people in a focus group. Have them read your UVP and collect their initial impressions. For your second draft, try out an A/B test: write two versions of your statement and test them to see which performs better with your audience.

3. Keep a Unified Vision

It might seem like an obvious tip, but this can be a little like herding cats if not everyone in your network is on the same page. It can be easier if you’re a small business just starting to think about franchising. However, if you’re a larger business maintaining a global network, consider everyone you have to keep organized.

Not only do you have your senior leadership, designers, copywriters, and translators, but you also have all of your employees. Whatever strategy or marketing campaigns you have going, you need to ensure everyone follows the same guidelines and uses the same materials—all the way down to the correct letterhead.

Having written brand guidelines helps to maintain them. Include as much context as possible, and at the very least, include your brand mission, how your product is relevant to your customers, and guidelines on how you want your brand to be promoted. Of course, different regions might respond differently than customers at your original location, which means your regional brand managers need to be flexible.

4. Quality Translation

If your company is located in the United States, and you want to expand into a market serving a non-English speaking populace, you will need to hire a skilled translator. Using Google Translate isn’t going to cut it; you need someone who understands slang and local traditions and customs. If the other country you’re expanding into already speaks your primary language but is in an area you aren’t familiar with, you will need a local to help navigate local trends and colloquialisms.

The key here is to create a localization team that knows the language and the territory. Extra points if your translator and your localization team live in the area you’re trying to market to; they’ll be able to determine firsthand if your marketing campaign has any effect.

Once you find a team you trust, they can help spread your message and help tweak your local campaign to fit the needs of this new community. You won’t need to compromise your brand recognition—it’s the best of two worlds.

5. Agility is Key

Companies that can find current trends and pivot to follow them are the more successful in today’s global economy. For instance, Starbucks is an American coffee company headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It turns out that Starbucks Japan is wildly successful. Why? Because the marketing team did their homework. They created local favorite treats for the menu such as green tea and Sakura cherry blossoms. Also, when they opened their first locations, they had done enough market research to know they needed to market to nonsmoking women in their 30s, a risk in 1996.

No matter where you are in the process of expanding your company, the experienced professional marketing team at InnoVision is eager to help your business flourish and increase brand recognition. Our team members are branding experts and have a network of resources at their fingertips—both domestic and international. Contact our team today to help your business grow!