Whether we think it or not, every company follows a set of values to achieve its main objective. From building brand loyalty to improving business operations, brand values can give several benefits to a company. But what are brand values exactly? How do they work? And what is the difference between a brand value and a core brand value? In this blog post, we will explore how a brand’s values and how choosing the right one will benefit your fitness brand.
Knowing Your Brand
To better understand how a brand’s value benefits businesses, it is important to know your brand. This might seem like a stretch since if you own a brand, it is quite implied that you know it. However, it’s one thing to know your brand than it is to understand it. In the brand development process, there are a lot of things that come into thought. The goals, the target audience, the product/service it will offer, the message it wishes to convey, etc. The previous are some of the first things that come to mind when someone is building a brand. But there are two important factors to consider as well when it comes to your brand.
What do You Want Your Brand To Represent
To understand your brand, it is necessary to have a vision of where you want your brand to reach. Many brands develop their values around what they want their brands to represent. To create trust from the customer, a brand can show its brand values. That way, the customer feels more connected to the brand and can begin to establish brand loyalty towards it.
Your Mission Statement
The mission statement, in simpler words, is the explanation of the company’s reason for existence. A brand without a mission is helpless in terms of brand building. That’s when core brand values come into play. Brand values are the channels that spread the mission of the brand. Depending on the brand message that the company wishes to convey, the core brand values they’ll choose.
What Are Brand Values?
Now that we’ve established the importance of understanding your brand, we’ll discuss what brand values are. Brand values are the key principles that guide a company. From the operations to achieving the mission statement, brand values are what set the structure of a brand. Brand values are the channels in which a company can communicate the essence of its brand. Not only do they share the heart of the brand, but they also give a competitive edge to your company. From boosting the brand’s credibility to assisting in transmitting the 3 P’s (Proposition, Personality, Purpose) of your brand. In short words, we could say that the brand’s values are what shape the path for your brand.
Core Brand Values
Though they sound similar to the values in which a brand stands, they are different in terms of goals. Core brand values are the guiding principles that shape the business’s culture. Brand values play a different role in the structure, unlike core values. Core values focus more on what the company is internally rather than general values that just focus on highlighting the brand strategy.
Some examples of core brand values examples are what business owners and general managers want the employees to have when working for the company. Let’s say, for example, that a business values integrity as one of its core values. Managers will look for their teammates to work following that value since it would tie directly to the brand story.
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Benefits of Having Brand Values
We’ve established that a brand’s values are an advantage to have in a business. However, there are multiple benefits that can come from having brand values.
Attract New Customers
Brand values enhance the vision that a brand has for itself. Nowadays, customers look for a brand that connects with their own values and beliefs. They are willing to put extra effort into research for companies that fit those values. By establishing and sharing your company’s brand values, you can get on the radar of your target audience and attract consumers. That way, you will ensure that your brand will be seen and followed by the consumer you are after.
Build Affinity and Loyalty
Customers that are able to relate to your brand values, will become loyal to your brand. Since the brand values are about building trust and relationships with customers, that enhances an emotional connection with the customer. As well, it gives the customer the feeling of “doing something good” when purchasing from a brand that has strong brand values.
Nowadays, customers look for companies with a strong set of values rather than a business with creative products or services. And it is a smart brand that looks to communicate that to its potential customers.
All brands look to have long-term relationships with their customers, but it’s not also with them that they want to build a relationship. Employees and investors are also on the lookout for building lasting relationships with a brand. Not only cause they’ll be dependent financially on how well the brand performs but cause they have to believe in what the brand stands for. Companies that have strong brand values are more appealing to investors and employees associated with them.
Build Company Culture
As mentioned previously, employees prefer to work for businesses that have values that they can relate to. Back then, employees only focused on gaining a paycheck rather than working for a brand they believe in. That is not the case today.
Employees look to work for businesses that they believe in. Not only to gain a sense of pride when mentioning their workplace but also to build a long-term relationship. Something to assist you when building brand values is to include your employees. Not only do you show trust in your team, but it also allows your employees to better organize their tasks to follow the strategy built from the company’s core values.
Establishing company culture builds up a stronger sense of loyalty towards the company. Having a stronger company culture sets a channel to build customer relationships. And that leads to loyal employees and loyal customers.
Improve Business Operations
Something that gives an additional point to brands is having organized operations. Usually, business owners prefer to go for “cheap over fairness,” but new business owners are proving this wrong. How, you may ask? With their brand values.
Here’s an example.
Let’s say that one of the main suppliers for this brand performs unethical practices on their employees. But they give you fair prices. You, as a brand owner, can choose to keep this supplier for their prices or look for a new one with values that align with yours.
That’s how brand values affect business operations. It might seem like something not that important, but as mentioned previously, customers do deep research when choosing brands to purchase from.
Stand Out From Competitors
And finally, brand values can give you an advantage over your competitors.
Let’s face it, you as a brand can have multiple competitors inside the market you are in or even in your niche. But being a competitor based on your brand values can give you an extra push with your competitors.
It comes down to what the customer wants. Your brand can be exactly the same as your direct competitor, but if you have brand values that resonate with customers, it’s likely they’ll choose you over your competitors.
How Brand Values Can Benefit Your Fitness Brand
We’ve explored the benefits of brand values; now, let’s see how they can help your fitness brand.
What brand values do for a fitness brand is give a map of where the brand can reach its mission. Fitness brands are all about working hard, being persistent, and challenging yourself. Translating this into brand values gives an opportunity to create better relationships with the customers and adds another benefit to having brand values.
However, something additional that happens when building brand values for a fitness brand is that they have to go hand in hand with the brand identity.
Having a strong brand identity facilitates the message that a brand wishes to spread. And since the main focus of a brand value is to be a channel for the brand’s message, brand identity allows us to come up with better communication channels.
Let’s put it this way: brand identity is the brain, and brand values are the legs of a brand.
That’s how useful these two aspects are. What brand identity does is ensure that the fitness brand is recognizable. In our post on fitness branding, we discuss that the more your brand can be recognized visually, the more consumers you attract. That’s the visual recognition side of a brand. Brand values do the mental recognition of the brand. With firm brand values, a brand can ensure that customers recognize a brand just by relating it to things they believe in.
Examples of Brand Values in Fitness Brands
We’ve explored how brand values work, their benefits, and how they can help your fitness brand. But now, we’ll be focusing on brand values examples in fitness brands.
Crunch Fitness
Looking into Crunch Fitness, we need to understand its mission. Crunch Fitness’s mission is “to make working out a good time”. We can see that they value customers’ happiness and satisfaction when exercising. This can mean several things. It can mean giving a safe space for a customer to work out and feel comfortable, or it could mean that they offer activities to do during their workouts to excite them to exercise.
In terms of core values, we could say that they are:
- Diversity
- Tolerance
- Positivity
Gold’s Gym
Now, let’s check Gold’s Gym. Its mission is “give dynamic fitness experience focused on strength and performance.” In this case, Gold’s Gym considers tenacity and energy to be what they want to transmit to their customers. This can translate to offering an experience where the customer can reach their full potential while working out.
The core values for Gold’s Gym could be:
- Integrity
- Passion
- Pride
MuscleTech
In the case of MuscleTech, their vision and mission go to a different place than the two previous examples. The mission statement for MuscleTech is “to continuously research, develop, patent, produce, and market the most effective diet and sports supplements in the world.” MuscleTech prefers to build a trustworthy relationship between the customer and its products. Unlike the other brands, MuscleTech’s main concern is the health and trust of its customers.
Therefore, the core values for MuscleTech are:
- Trust
- Welfare
- Effectiveness
BPI Sports
And for our last example, we reach BPI Sports. BPI Sports has a similar business model as MuscleTech, although, their goals have a different approach. In the words of BPI Sports “make high-quality supplements for fitness enthusiasts looking to improve their physique.” Like our previous example, this is a brand that is more centered on a product rather than on a service.
As we can see from the mission statement, one of its goals is to make high-quality products for its customers. Although it’s not as specific in health aspects as the previous brand, BPI Sports also considers it important to create trustworthy products.
Based on the goals of the company, we can say that BPI Sports’ core values are:
- Trust
- Integrity
- Perseverance
Seeing all of these examples, it makes it easier to see how our brand values can be set from the beginning.
Not only that, but it also shows the core values of competitors. And that can lead to setting values that can compete directly with them.
Developing Brand Values for Your Fitness Brand
We’ve seen the benefits of establishing brand values, as well as giving brand values examples in fitness brands. Now, we’ll see how to integrate brand values into your fitness brand.
Developing the proper values for your brand strategy has a lot to do with your brand mission. As we’ve seen in the previous examples, the brand mission is what the company believes in. So, if a company wishes to set strong core values, then its mission needs to express that.
Something really great about fitness branding is that it could be considered edgy branding. Why, you may ask? Not only does its branding process revolves around visual identity and strong core values, but it’s also about the personal values that each customer can relate to.
When we think about fitness and working out, we associate it with perseverance and health. And if we look deeper, we can see that these two can be the core brand values for every fitness brand. Even though each company might have different brand strategies, in terms of generally speaking, many fitness brands can share the same core brand values.
In the end, it comes down to your brand strategy and goals.
See Your Brand Values In Action
Communicating your brand’s core values can be difficult. A lot of things can get lost when delivering the message behind your brand’s values. That’s why choosing the right values can benefit a brand.
Having a good set of brand and company values allows the customer to see the
Some great results are:
- Leadership
- Integrity
- Diversity
- Quality
- Supportive
These are just a few examples of how a company can look if they follow a strong set of values. Not only does it boost the brand image, but it also allows a customer to see what a set of great brand values looks like.
Elevate Your Brand Experience!
We’ve told you how to accomplish developing strong values for your company can benefit you. Now it’s your turn to establish clear values inside your business.
We’ll leave you with a quick list of tips on how to elevate your brand and customer experience inside your business.
- Maintain consistency with your mission and spread your brand’s message
- Know which core value best describes you as a business
- Building many values for your company ends in deeper connections with customers
- Not only focus on one-time customers but also build brand loyalty!
- And finally, stay consistent with your brand image and strategy.
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