An effective business component is a brand. If there is a successful image of the company, a successful promotion strategy, then the brand helps the business go through the crisis without major financial and reputational losses. It happens that the company, on the contrary, can expand during a crisis.
One of the important benefits of a brand is attracting shareholders and increasing sales. How does this happen? It is thanks to the brand that the company can stand out from its competitors. A good image about the product creates awareness about the company, expands the user audience and affects the increase in profits. Therefore, a successful brand is one of the ways of conducting business, which forms the individuality of the product.
Development of brands during the crisis
Product concept plays a key role in driving a business forward in challenging times. When a brand evokes emotion in the buyer, cares about people and motivates them to do good things, then such a product will not disappear from the market even during a crisis. These are stories that inspire pride in the brand, demonstrate the team’s professionalism and resilience. Some nuance is that the consumer is more demanding during the crisis. In this case, the brand improves its product at each stage of promotion, and also adapts it to market conditions.
A brand overhaul is when a company revises its product from scratch and can completely change its promotion methods. From packaging savings to changes in production. When there is a crisis, the company studies the behavior of customers in detail, identifies the most important needs and determines the ways in which these needs can be satisfied. What should the budget be? It is not important, it is better to pay attention to these aspects: the product or service quality and the economic efficiency of branding. At this stage, you need to remember the business promotion strategy and emphasize the consumer’s interest in the original offers.
If there is a strong brand, it will help to effectively overcome the crisis. You need to work on the brand image for a long time and indefinitely. This is a full-fledged PR company that needs a lot of effort to create a positive image about the product. How not to lose a brand name during a crisis? You should not separate the brand from the product, otherwise it will be difficult to keep the brand in the market.
How do consumers perceive brands during a crisis?
They set priorities in shopping: what they give up, forget about something for a long time, choose something cheaper. If the price for the product is not justified (low quality, for example), then such a brand won’t be able to hold on to the market during economic problems. The extent to which the brand cares about them and whether it is in demand in the market depends on the evaluation of consumers.
An effective way for audience analysis is a survey. You should ask buyers about:
- – how they feel when they buy your brand;
- – which image your product is associated with;
- – what makes the brand useful, unlike others.
A user who is interested in your brand can go to your website or Instagram. If you successfully beat the needs and pains of a potential client, then he will follow you or immediately purchase a service or product. Usually, this works for small and medium-sized businesses. Big businesses are promoting themselves through TikTok for visibility and audience engagement.
If a brand is chosen only because of a low price, then such a product won’t withstand competition for a long time and will leave the market. A product that is chosen because of its quality and utility is called a trademark. When a crisis comes, you need to pay attention to the statuses of people who are the consumer audience. If these are people with an average income, then they are less likely to buy your brand because of lower wages or job cuts. If these are people with a high income, then even in times of crisis they won’t change their own habits, so it won’t affect sales in any way.
About long-term retention of the brand on the market
The crisis is about the increase in the cost of imports, so domestic brands have more chances to maintain their positions. However, the product must be popular and of high quality for the brand to survive the crisis and increase profits. Do all products need branding? If the market is highly competitive, then yes. This will help to promote the brand in the long term, as well as avoid large financial losses during the crisis.
Products that sell during difficult times for business are the most dependent on consumer opinion. Therefore, it is important to emphasize the uniqueness of the brand and attract customers through a specific benefit for them. Emotional benefits work best in promotion strategies, but rational benefits become limited in times of crisis. You have to analyze what a person experiences when buying your brand, what influences the purchase and what are the reviews after using the product.
Engage your buyer
The less you remind yourself of yourself, the more often your brand is forgotten. Especially in times of crisis, when consumer priorities are changed. The next step is to continuously prove the value of the brand. When a person understands how his life will change after using this brand, he will more likely decide to buy your product. Often, a crisis opens up new prospects for the company’s development and opportunities for business expansion. All this is due to the fact that the brand more carefully monitors the quality of the product, analyzes the behavior of the consumer and immediately attracts the product to various platforms. It is the approach that allows the brand to stay on the market for a long time and survive the crisis.
