The Kenyan Coast region is made up of 6
counties namely Mombasa,
Kwale,
Kilifi, Tana River,
Lamu, and Taita-Taveta.
Mombasa City is the largest seaport in Kenya and the second largest city in
Kenya.
One of the ways to get into the coast region is through the Standard Gauge Railway.
To get to the region, one can either travel by road, rail, or air. Moving around, it is easy to get a tour guide or hire a vehicle or hail a taxi. Accommodation is easily available based on your preferences but in case you intend to go to other towns, you can book hotels online.
Mombasa Kenya
The Coast region has an abundance of cuisines, more so the ones derived from the sea.
The importance of strategic communication for brands
Strategic communication is important for brands in order to
attract, influence and build relationships with customers. With increased access
to the internet in our society, effective communication can be one of the most
powerful tools a brand has at their disposal. In this blog post I will discuss
what strategic communications is and why it is so important for brands today.
What is strategic communication?
Strategic communication is sharing the value of your brand in a way that resonates with your target audience and stays true to who you are as a brand and your goals. Moreover it follows a plan and is guided by clear goals.
To implement strategic communication you first need to understand your brand and its goals. Once the goals are identified, there needs to be a plan on how to achieve them through communication. There also needs to be a clear understanding of who your target audience is, where they spend their time and what they want from your product or service. This will help in crafting messages and will determine how they will be communicated. Strategic communication also relies heavily on feedback from your audiences and on consistency that fosters trust.
One of the main goals of branding is to influence positive perceptions about your brand. Communication is a powerful branding tool since it’s the most effective way to actually influence perceptions. Strategic communication allows you to set the intention of how you want to be perceived and then create messages that consistently communicate that. This ensures that your desired perception is registered in your customers mind, and they are therefore more inclined to engage with you, buy from you and form relationships with your brand.
Increase consumers’
willingness to purchase products and services.
In his book ‘Start With Why’, Simon Sinek emphasizes that people don’t buy what you do or sell, they buy why you do it. It is the heart and soul of your brand that draws and influences like-minded people to do business with you.
Your ‘Why’ allows customers to trust your intentions for
being in business. Additionally sharing what you stand for, your values and
beliefs helps to establish commonality with your customers. People have a
natural tendency to gravitate towards and grant influence to those with whom
they share similar interests, values and beliefs.
Improved customer
insight
Strategic communication allows you to know your audience and
their needs more clearly. First through coming up with detailed customer
profiles and then through engagement and soliciting feedback from them. This
enables you to better target them with the right messages that will influence
them to action, and that will foster lasting relationships.
Effective and efficient
messaging
When brands have a specific message they want to
communicate, it is important that the audience gets the same message. Strategic
communication ensures there are no miscommunications with customers or potential
customers through intentional messages that resonate and speak directly to
them.
Additionally it is possible to check the effectiveness of
your messaging, first by comparing your results and your goals, and through
soliciting feedback to check if the intended perceptions are being formed in customers’
minds.
Identify new opportunities
Since strategic communication focuses hugely on the customer
it’s easy to spot gaps, deficiencies and new opportunities. This could manifest
in new products, sometimes entirely different from the products currently being
offered by your brand.
When your focus is on making the lives of your customers
better, the possibilities and potential for growth are limitless.
Build stronger
relationships
Communication keeps relationships alive. Engagement through
intentional messages that offer value and resonate with your audience lets them
know you understand them and care for their success.
Additionally through feedback you can improve your offerings and your messages which further fosters relationship because your audience feels heard.
Through an in-depth understanding of your brand and your target audience, you can come up with clear and harmonized messages to navigate all customer interactions and communication. This enhances consistency and helps to prevent contradictory and confusing messages, which can hurt the reputation of your brand. This is especially helpful during times of crisis or controversy.
Conclusion
The importance of strategic communication in the modern world cannot be overstated. If you are interested in developing your brand’s reputation or would like help with how to communicate effectively on different social media platforms, let us know!
Our team will work closely with you to develop a strategy that emphasizes what makes your company unique while simultaneously highlighting any potential pitfalls along the way. We’ll make sure that everything we do maintains consistency across all channels so there is no confusion about who you are as an organization.
A brand story is a narrative that paints a clear, distinct and detailed picture of what the organization is all about. As a marketing technique, brand stories go beyond the traditional show and tell methods that have been used so rampantly in the past; they delve deeper into what the company is at its core- its very soul. Therefore, a brand story is not just a marketing tool, but rather an all encompassing account of the company’s aspirations and tribulations. Such stories humanize the brand by giving it a unique persona, allowing people to relate to it in a deeply emotional way.
Here’s what you
need to tell your own brand story:
Know your story
You can’t tell
an effective brand story if you don’t have a clear grasp of it in the first
place. Your company’s story is more than just the products you are trying to
sell. It starts from the very idea behind the foundation of the business and
covers the ups and downs on the journey to the present, as well as where the
organization aims to be in the future, and the people that have been and will
be a part of it.
Your story
should explain what your brand is, why it was created and for whom, while also
explaining how the product itself is made and where to find it.
Authenticity is
paramount here. It does no good to lie about your story because in this digital
age, sooner or later, the truth will come out. Moreover, the point of sharing
your story is to build a lasting bond between your brand and its consumers, and
it is highly unlikely that they would remain loyal after realizing that they’ve
been duped.
Know
your audience
Brand stories
aim to foster deep and meaningful relationships between the brand and its
consumers. It would be very difficult to successfully market a competitive
brand to the whole world, or even just one country, given how different
people’s tastes and preferences are. As such, targeted advertising usually
provides much better results when it comes to overall sales and customer
loyalty.
By targeting a
select demographic with narratives showcasing your brand’s unique capabilities
in solving their specific problems, you will foster the growth of a
long-lasting emotional bond between the consumers and your company. The only
way to do this successfully is to learn as much as you possibly can about your
audience- their day to day lives and struggles, their consumer trends, their
finances, their hopes and dreams- really anything that will help you find a
narrative they can relate to.
Craft your
narrative
Once you know
your story and the audience you are going to share it with, it is time to craft
your narrative. All it takes for a brand story to be good is making sure it is
loaded with emotional value. The story needs to be completely unique to your
brand and easily relatable for your target audience.
Simplicity will
serve you well in the making of your story. Audiences are more likely to
respond to a straight-forward account of how effective your brand is against
their specific problems, such as using your own customers to illustrate how the
product satisfied their needs in the past, and how their lives are better for
it. A story like this, presented in visuals and dialogue, will feel very real
to the audience and will in effect leave a distinct impression in their minds
that will last a long time.
Share your brand story
For your story to have the desired effect, it needs to reach as wide an audience as possible. Make sure the story is easy to access and share by spreading it across any and all platforms possible in as many formats as you can. Actively encourage people to share your story by engaging them in conversations about the brand, which will also serve to make them feel like they are a part of something bigger than themselves.
Airbnb is an
online market where, among other activities, homeowners can offer their
property up for rent to travellers. The company doesn’t own any properties
itself, but rather acts as a platform for other people to offer up their own.
As such, Airbnb makes their customers their central marketing point through the
personal stories they share on their travels.
The company
started with its three founders renting out a mattress on the floor to earn
some extra cash for bills. They began by first telling their story as one of a
service where travellers can find homes to stay in, not just accommodations.
After holding interviews with hosts and travellers all around the world, their
story evolved into one of simply belonging and created the tagline “Belong
anywhere”. The company’s brand now revolves around the central mission of
creating a world where people can belong anywhere.
While
undertaking these interviews, Airbnb realized that the best and most credible
information about their operations lay with the people who used it every day.
These people were able to share their travel experiences in so many different
and genuine ways, not to mention it was a lot cheaper than sending people to
all their hosted properties to collect information. Having different people
sharing their own personal stories about Airbnb also helped the company reach a
wider range of people since different aspects of a place appeal to different
kinds of people.
These shared stories use stunning high quality content to showcase different travel experiences around the world and help introduce the property owners to potential renters who would be hesitant to stay in a stranger’s home. Without its brand of storytelling, Airbnb would not be as successful as it is today.
Recent years
have seen a tremendous change in how people relate with the brands they use.
Consumers are not only searching for solutions to their problems but also
genuine human connections while they do it. With the advent of new technologies
and multiple social media platforms, companies have been steadily realizing the
importance of a good brand story. People forget mission statements and logos
but not a good story that they can relate to and once people form an emotional
connection with your brand they become loyal customers for life. Therefore, a
good brand story is essential if you want your company to succeed in the 21st
century.
How to build lasting relationships with your clients
Lasting relationships with clients are some of the most lucrative resources a company could have. It’s no secret that long time clients tend to spend more over time, which could be advantageous to your company’s overall growth efforts. Building these relationships, however, is not easy. Whenever you attract first time clients to your firm, you want them to stay on board for the long run. Moreover, you want them to have you as their only preferred choice and bring in as many people around them as they can to do the same.
Just as is the case with personal relationships, gaining the client’s trust and loyalty will not be easy. You have to go well beyond the basic contractual obligations you have towards them by investing your time, effort and resources.
Here are some top tips on how to go about it;
Know your client
As a firm, you can’t truly satisfy the needs of your clients
if you don’t understand them. Every client will be different, meaning you have
to take the time to research what each of them wants and the specific reasons
why they want the products. Once you learn your client’s needs and routines, it
will be easier for you to create a much more effective experience for them with
your company.
For example, following your clients on social media keeps
you acquainted with their lives and helps you tailor your services to better
fit their operations. Moreover, it helps you understand their world enough so
you can speak their language- that is having industry specific knowledge that
gives you a deeper understanding of their culture.
Showing persistent care for your clients’ lives beyond mere
monetary transactions is a sure way to develop trust and form a lasting
relationship.
Communicate
What’s out of sight soon slips out of mind, thus the key to
any good relationship is constant communication. It’s important for you to
check in with your clients regularly to make sure that they have everything
they need and to solicit feedback on your services, which lets you know whether
your operations need improvement.
Communication doesn’t have to be monotonous- there are so many different kinds of content your company could utilize to stay in touch with its clients. Apart from conversing about your services in general, you could share how-to videos for your products, before and after videos from previous customers (with their permission) or educational and spiritual posts related to your brand, like a coffee company sending good day wishes in the morning alongside a cup of their steaming beverage.
To build a lasting relationship with your clients, you need to cultivate trust. The client trusts you to satisfy their needs in a professional manner, and you must do everything in your power to never break this trust. As a firm, you need to know that not everything will go according to plan. How you handle such situations will have a great impact on client attitudes towards you.
In such cases, it is best to openly acknowledge your
shortcomings, apologize for any inconvenience caused as a result, and find a
way to make amends quickly. Denying the problem will cause your clients to
question your principles and lose trust in your dependability, thereby losing
your future business to another firm.
Exceed expectations
When first meeting your clients, it is important to set
achievable goals in terms of quality and timeframe. It is even more important
that you stand by these goals and do your best to achieve beyond them because
one of the most effective ways of building lasting relationships with your clients
is being an exceptional service provider. Customers will pay for the service
they expect but will stay on board with your company when you go beyond the
bare minimum service requirements for them.
Exceeding client expectations requires you to have a
client-centric operation. Every move you make needs to be geared towards
creating the best client experience possible. Some of the ways to add that
extra touch include sending thank you notes to clients, checking in regularly
to see how they are doing, sending warm wishes for personal events like
birthdays and anniversaries, as well as sharing relevant and helpful
information with them in an expert capacity.
Be accommodating
Most clients’ needs are different and they will expect
custom solutions to solve their specific problems. As a company, it pays to be
open minded in serving your clients’ needs. It may take extra effort and
resources to accommodate all the varying expectations, but it will all be worth
it when the clients chose to keep you on as their sole provider for years to
come.
A restaurant for instance, could offer special menus to
cater for people with specific dietary needs such as lactose intolerance, or
make slight alterations to recipes as per the customer’s preference. It also
helps to make your business friendly for people with disabilities by adding
things like ramps for wheelchairs in your premises or training your staff to
deal with people with mental impairments in the right way.
Reward Loyalty
Loyal customers are important to any company. They not only
spend more with you in time but also encourage other customers to come to you
through referrals, all of which goes a long way in increasing your profits. To
earn and keep this kind of loyalty, you have to constantly reward it.
There are a number of ways to reward customer loyalty. You
could come up with a loyalty programme such as the credit point system where
customers earn points for purchases in retail outlets like supermarkets. Your
company could also offer its longtime customers exclusive discounts, early
access to products, free samples or even invitations to special holiday events
like a new year’s party. Having a system to reward customer loyalty will keep
them satisfied and happy to be part of your organization.
Building lasting relationships with clients is not easy. It
takes time to build trust and loyalty between you and them, just as it takes
time to build a brand that is strong enough to withstand the test of time.
These relationships are what will keep your business on top; therefore,
building them should be your top priority.
What makes your brand or organisation stand out? What will make customers pick you out from a crowded market place, locally and globally?
There may be no magic wand that you can wave to stand out. However, effective branding will work just like magic.
What is branding?
Branding is the process of distinguishing your brand and its offering from that of the competition. Branding ensures consumers can identify and differentiate your products from other comparable products.
Exterior customization is a great place to start. Brand elements such as a unique logo, brand colors and brand fonts make it possible for consumers to identify your campaigns and your products with ease. A combination of these elements and a great product or service is what ensures that your brand is at the top of your customers’ mind.
Brand elements act as your silent marketers when it’s just the consumer and the product. Nevertheless, it takes more than a beautiful logo to get a customer to make a purchase. A logo may make you stand out, but ultimately it is the perceptions that the buyer has towards your brand that will drive the sale.
The way you truly become distinguishable is by ensuring that consumers have a strong positive perception of your brand. Whatever opinions they have about your brand will influence their buying choice.
Brand is the sum total of how someone perceives a particular organization. Branding is about shaping that perception.
– Ashley Friedlein
Effective branding goes beyond the exterior.
Elements of effective branding
Unique brand elements
Strategic Communication
Brand storytelling
Consistency
Unique brand elements
Unique brand elements make you intriguing. They pique the customers interest,which leads them to discover more about your brand.
Avoid generic brand elements that have nothing special or different about them. Your elements should only be recognized as your own.
Strategic communication is intentional, with well-crafted messages that are conveyed through the most suitable channels to the ideal audiences, and with the aim of achieving a desired long term effect.
It is how you control and stay ahead of all narratives and perceptions. Most importantly, you get to unfold what your brand is about on your own terms.
Strategic communication not only allows your audience to know what makes your brand unique but it also demonstrates an understanding of who your audience is.
Brand storytelling is the use of narratives to communicate what your brand is all about in an interesting and engaging way.
Storytelling goes beyond what you do. It is aimed at fostering deep and meaningful connections with your audience based on shared values, trust and assurance of value.
The good thing about stories is that no one can copy them. Your brand has real and unique stories that you can use to connect deeply with your audience.
Stories have the power to provoke emotions, which greatly influences behaviour.
Secondly be consistent in your communication, ensure all your touch points are sending out harmonized messages to your audience. Finally let all your actions be in harmony with who you say you are as a brand.
Consistency over time positions you as a reliable and trustworthy brand in the minds’ of your customers.
Products are made in a factory but brands are created in the mind.
A brand book is also referred to as a brand guideline orstyle guide.
The primary reason for having a brand book for any company, is to maintain a consistent visual look and feel in all communications. Every designer, marketer or communications professional will present their ideas differently. There is nothing wrong with a variety of these ideas, but a brand needs to differentiate itself from its competition. Opposing design styles and communication approaches will make the brand appear confused in the eyes of the consumer. Worse, it may water down any earned value, identity and perception.
A style guide explains how any brand functions and what its objectives are, and must cover two approaches of corporate identity: visual school of identity; and the strategic school of identity.
Under the first approach, the visual or tangible aspects of an organisation or individual i.e. the name, logo and general architecture are defined. In the second scenario, the ideas behind the organisation such as values, vision and mission statements are outlined. This assists brand managers to align their brand books to the overall organisational strategy and image.
Adds depth to your brand position by aligning it with your business strategy.
Useful for new employees. It helps them get a grasp of the brand rules and aspirations much quicker.
Components of a brand book
It is critical to consider having balanced guidelines. Creativity should be at the fore, pushing the envelope but maintaining key standards throughout.
Introduction:
Give an introduction of the story behind your brand and how its visual identity has developed over time. Has the company changed its visual identity in the past? If so, how has the evolution been to the current visual identity elements? These are some of the pertinent questions a brand manager needs to address in this section of a brand book.
Logo Guideline:
The Logo is the most important element in a brand’s visual identity. Without proper guidelines on its correct usage, it may be stretched, resized or recoloured in a variety of wrong ways. When a logo becomes distorted or deformed due to incorrect application, misrepresentation of the brand occurs.
Colour palettes:
Each brand has colors that are associated with it. For example, Coca Cola is associated with red, Skype, Facebook are associated with blue, apple is associated with black/white/grey and so on.
Brand books should clearly dictate which colours should be used to keep the brand identity. This involves defining different color schemes for different end users. For instance, what colour codes apply when printing branded collateral? What are the color for digital press and so on. Colour is therefore a crucial aspect in branding as it sets the visual tone or mood of any brand. You can learn more on colour combinations by reading colour theory for designers.
specify your colour schemes
Typeface:
Like colours, every brand has its own set of typefaces (fonts) which are used on all online and offline communications. The rule of thumb among most designers is to select a combination of not more than two or three typefaces. Where one typeface family can be used, the better. However, combining typefaces requires you to have an understanding of the different typefaces and their principles. Different fonts project different ‘feels’ and as a brand manager or creative professional, you need to thoroughly think it through.
Taglines:
Taglines are also referred to as slogans. Companies mix logos with taglines to communicate what the brand is about, who is their target market or which products/services they offer. Slogans are kept for using in specific campaigns, attached to email signatures or used in tv or radio advertisements.
Creativ Razor’s tagline is ‘Let Your Brand Stand Out’
Photos and infographics:
Generally it is important to pay attention to the mood of photos/images that an organization shall be using. Quality of photos must align with the brand core values and brand story. In the guidelines, one needs to outline the parameters/requirements or Dos and Don’ts that are acceptable and have some few examples.
Page structures:
You may think that it’s just about a company’s website, but it goes further than that. There are many brands that require that their brochures be tri-fold or that all adverts be comprised of thirds: one-third text and two-thirds images. So, make sure to write information about the page structures in your brand book as well.
Dos and Don’ts:
Dos and don’ts is a great section that is present in many brand books. It is a part that explains what you should do and should not do with the visual elements i.e. logo, fonts, images and all brand architecture.
Do’s and don’ts
Brand Tone
Tone simply means the personality of your brand. In other words it is the impression or perception that you want your brand to convey when interacting with people. Good messaging takes your competitive positioning and brand strategy to the next level. The tone of the brand should consider the target audience, channel preference among other factors as these have an impact on how your communication is received.
Your brand tone can manifest in your:
Brand’s elevator pitch
Positioning statement
Vision and mission statements
Tagline and slogan
Press releases
Social media communication
Blog posts and articles
Choice of communication style – via email, phone or face to face
brand identity system
Designing an Effective Brand Book
Decide for whom you create a brand book:
Before creating a brand book, you should clearly identify who the end user is going to be: who is receiving, reading and using the style guide?. It’s really important to know your target audience, so you can tailor your content accordingly. For example, if you are going to distribute it outside of your team, make sure to not use any jargon or technical knowledge that would be difficult for others to understand. Write with friendly, simple and clear language that will attract and engage the audience.
Keep it simple:
Brand books need to be easily understood and interpreted by different groups of people: your employees, your partners, customers and even competitors.
Think in a creative way:
They should express the brand’s creativity. If you have created a new brand book after a re-branding exercise, all communication channels and materials need to be updated promptly. For instance, if you have a new logo, then you should change it in all websites, social networks, email footers, presentations, documents and so on. Thus, a creative needs o visualize different applications of brand elements on all interaction points and ensure they fit seamlessly across platforms.
Design the book in your brand style:
The brand book should truly be the representative of your company, its culture and style of working
Make your materials available:
To make sure that people won’t use old or wrong versions of your visual elements, make the guidelines readily available. This is easy in this digital era as the style guide may be posted on the official website or on other platforms like ISSUU.
Involve your staff:
A style guide ensures that For this purpose, create a project team consisting of employees from all levels in your company and ask regular feedback from them during brand guideline development.
Anticipate questions:
At the end of your brand book, make sure to include some relevant contacts and email addresses where you can receive questions and feedback regarding the guide.
Review your brand book regularly:
The main goal of brand books is to explain, advise and guide people to use and reproduce your brand. However, this does not necessarily mean that your brand is set in stone forever. Naturally, your brand will evolve and change over time, and your brand book should be revised and updated accordingly.
In conclusion, a brand book is an excellent tool for any organization. First it makes the work of Marketing/Brand Managers easier by helping them deal with all stakeholders. These include printing shops, consultants, media houses and even staff members. Second it saves creative designers precious time since they don’t have to come up with ‘new’ artworks every time. They can therefore easily ensure that a consistent visual outlook is maintained in all campaigns. Finally a style guide ensures that as an organization your brand stands out from the information ‘clutter’.
