Christo: Today I’d like to share with you the five c’s of branding. Basically five c’s, um, I’d say in relation to how to create an irresistible and really attractive brand. Even if you have a brand that’s been in existence for 20 years, we need to review these to make sure you’re continually staying, you know, fresh, up to date, and, um, attracting people in the right way, attracting the right customers and making your brand look irresistible.

So number one, brand character. So it’s character consistency, credibility, culture and contribution. I’ll break these down. Brand character. You should give your brand a personality. You should share that personality with all of your team so that when they are or contractors or people, you outsource any work to. So that when they do work for your business or do anything in implementation, they know the personality that’s supposed to come through for the brand.

Humans connect with personality. We like our friends because of their personality or we dislike that person because their personality. We loved watching Seinfeld because the personalities of George and Kramer and Elaine, you know, um, we connect with personality and we remember personality. So brands and products and services don’t have a personality, obviously.

However, as marketers, we give them one. So humans build that kind of like human connection, almost human relationship with the brands. We love. Brand consistency. Number two, brands consistency. Not just most people, when they think of consistency, they think it needs to be consistent in terms of like the colors you use for your brand, colors and fonts.

Now you should be clear on what they are. You might have a bunch of say, like, um, three primary colors for your brand and then you might have, um, uh, so non primary colors that might have another like three or four colors that you use. But you need to be really consistent with the colors you use, the fonts you use and so on, and all the visuals and the styles of images and so on.

You also need to be consistent with the personality of the brand so that people do build that bond. As I was explaining in, um, the first three, you need people to build that connection with the personality. So that has to be consistent, especially if you have different people working for your business.

Also, consistency, a little bit outside of marketing, you should be consistent in the delivery of your product or service. People love knowing what they’re going to get. We love buying from Amazon. It’s so successful as an e commerce store because of the consistency, the delivery, we know if something goes wrong, we’re looked after.

Like people go to McDonald’s because they just know what they’re going to get. It’s less risky than going to a local burger joint where you don’t know what you’re going to get. We need to be consistent with the delivery, uh, as well. Number three, brand credibility. Three ways to build your brand’s credibility.

You should say you are great. Like, hey, we’re great. Like most marketing, text marketing copy, um, you should have others say you are great. Use of testimonials, reviews, maybe um, association memberships that you can display or accreditations that you have or a business award that you’ve won. But basically something that states that others say you are good too.

And uh, the third way to build credibility is actually show it. So if you can demonstrate, like maybe on your website, you could have a, uh, behind the scenes video of you at work and showing how good you are or how you map things out for a customer or client.

Or maybe create a few really good articles on your website and just have those as the three key featured articles where you put a lot of effort into those to really show, you know, your stuff. So people see it, they think, oh, wow, these people know this stuff. Um, that’s great.

Or some video tips or something like that. Uh, number four, so the credibility is say you are great, have others say you’re great and demonstrate that you are great. Number four, the fourth c is culture. So people want to feel they’re a part of something when they interact with your brand.

They want to feel like they’re kind of part of a movement, something, you know, like what is it all about? What is the culture of your brand? Even if you have a business where they just come and go or it seems quite dry, you sell insurance or whatever it is, um, you want to make people feel part of a culture, share what the culture is.

A good way to do this is you can brainstorm for yourself, get a piece of paper, roll it in half. On the top of one column, say, um, everything we stand for. On the top of the other column, write everything you stand against and you write down all the things you stand for as a brand and the things you stand against.

And even if you’re a personal brand, this still relates. You write down all the things you stand for, things you stand against, and then look to differentiate from your competitors as you do this. And then this will impact how you communicate. It might also impact the character that you want to display, how you talk, the sort of wording you use and you know, and the writing style you use within your marketing and so on.

But basically, um, even the images and then you can also create company values, the brand values that you highlight. This might impact those as well. So people get a feel for what’s the culture, what’s it all about? And the fifth and final c that I’ll share for today is contribution.

People want to feel like they’re buying from brands that have a conscience that you’re doing something decent. Now, it doesn’t mean that you have to give away all your proceeds to a charity or something like that, but maybe you’ve got good intentions in some other way. Maybe you are, um, aiming to reduce plastic in your office and show you so you can, you know, demonstrate that.

Here’s our reducing plastic initiative in the office. We’re buying the team keep cups or whatever, you know, like little things. Um, maybe it could be that you do a beach cleanup once in a while. That’s something that we do. Maybe you can sponsor a charity or sponsor children or something like that.

Maybe you can just be, um, aiming to leave the world a better place in some way. You’re going to state that and get it out there, but basically showing that you do have a conscience, um, with your brand. It doesn’t mean, once again, that you have to give away all proceeds, but, uh, people tend to buy from those brands that, you know, appear to be doing good things.

So there’s our five c’s for today. I trust you’ve got some value out of this and make sure you implement. That’s the most important thing. If you’ve got any questions for us at, uh, basic bananas, just send them through. We’d love to help. And, uh, maybe you’d like to see something on a future tip.

Send it through. Any ideas? We’ll, uh, put them together for you. Uh, cool. Awesome. And, um, yeah, look forward to seeing you in the future. Bye for now.