Branding’s Impact on the Value Chain

A company’s value chain is set in motion well before the first sale. However, it’s not something that many entrepreneurs revisit. Most business owners will hardly ever evaluate their value chain. Break that mold and reconsider your value chain. As your brand grows, the everyday duties that relate to your customers should change as well.

Creating Value That Matches

Are you striving towards becoming a luxury brand? Perhaps yours is fun and trendy. Whatever adjectives that describe what you’re going for, the value should match.

A primary example of how a disjointed brand and value chain led to the destruction of a company is K-Mart. Although recent changes in an attempt to revitalize have led it to the slogan of “love where you live” it still doesn’t fit. K-Mart is regularly associated with low and middle-income families, and the value chain hasn’t been able to accommodate that market for years.

Consider things from a customer perspective. How can you provide the best value, with what you’re working with daily? Your value chain consists of ways that you can meaningfully impact your customer while matching your brand. “Modern” brands should embrace technology, while those that are easy to communicate with should implement sales and support initiatives.

Adapting to The Customer Mindset

Customer-based branding is substantially more effective, but it may not be the vision you had of your company. Take a bottom-up stance in developing your brand and value chain together. Look at what your customers are expecting from you.

First stop, awareness. Can your customers remember yours without an ad flashing on their screen? Working with your marketing and support teams, you can develop quick recognition.

Second stop, engagement. Aside from making purchases, how do your customers interact with your brand? It’s possible that your customer base doesn’t want to communicate and that can become part of your identity. “The company that doesn’t bother you,” is a very real possibility and can cultivate a lot of engagement through social media with a cunning marketing plan. Consider out of the box approaches to promote engagement.

Changing Marketplace Environments

When first starting your company, you likely underwent a SWOT analysis and took a hard look at the current marketplace. Why does this habit stop? It’s highly recommended that you regularly audit your value chain processes and your brand. You can do these two things together on a high-level. Identify key areas where you can take on a competitive advantage without compromising value to your customers.

Fulfilling Promises

Brand promises is a big one, and it plays a vital role in directing your value chain. For example, if you run a beauty business that promoted completely vegan products but didn’t keep that promise you’d be in trouble not only with your customers but with the FTC for deceptive advertising.

What your promise, your customers expect. It may seem like the answer is to avoid promises, but that leads to distrust and a rather undeveloped image. Make promises only on what you can create and deliver consistently.