Powerful brands are developed through careful planning and extensive work. Brands are not only memorable names, but a set of differentiating promises that link a product or service to its customers. The brand owns itself and communicates consistently, whether through advertising and packaging or pricing and customer-service policies. A successful brand generates consumer loyalty and long-term financial return. Think John Deere, Starbucks, or Nordstroms.

Branding is the process of determining your competitive advantages, building a culture and business strategy around those advantages, and then communicating the brand effectively and consistently to the target audience. Here are ten tips to build a better brand:

1. Analyze the Competition: In order to be different from your competitors, study them closely. Understanding the strategy and dynamics behind competing brands will provide the backdrop against which to craft a distinct brand with long-term competitive advantages. Find out how consumers perceive your competition, as well as the competition’s strengths and weaknesses.

2. Identify Your Strengths: Uncover potential sources of competitive advantage through internal research and target market analysis. Determine which key benefits provide maximum relevance and differentiation for your product or service.

3. Validate Your Advantages: Strengths are important to the market or a segment of the market. Do some research to find what services your company provides that others do not. What do your employees take great pride in?

4. Know Your Customers and Their Value: To establish customer value, evaluate metrics such as:

• How much money is a customer currently spending on your product/service?
• How much money will the customer spend in the future?
• How often does the customer buy the product/service?
• Is the customer a loyal buyer or does the customer switch brands often? Does the customer pay full price or a promotional/discounted price?

5. Brand compatibility: Compatibility is best described as how good the match is between a brand's unique value proposition, and the customer's attitudes and behaviors. Mindset (attitudes and/or lifestyle) and environment (media behavior, purchase behavior, geo-demographic descriptions) are required to achieve brand compatibility with the customer. Brand compatibility helps determine how to speak with the customer in a relevant way.

6. Align Your Value Proposition and Business Processes: A name, logo, ad and packaging can all trigger the positive associations that position your product on a customer's "short list." Ultimately, it is the customer’s experience that validates and sustains your brand. Because of this, everyone involved in customer relations must present a good attitude for valued brand positioning.

7. Develop Your Brand Positioning: Brand Positioning is based on detailed market research and planning. A good positioning statement describes your product or service uniquely and defines your relationship with your customer. The positioning statement needs to be clear and concise, in order to articulate how you want users to think, feel and act toward your brand.

8. Send a Consistent, Integrated Message: A brand must consistently provide quality and satisfaction to be successful. The brand must meaningfully distinguish itself from the competition and create customer preference. It is important for the brand to be relevant, convenient and easily accessible to its target audience. Be consistent and cohesive with the use of your name, logo and message points; it will present your organization in the same fashion to everyone.

9. Measure the Results of Your Branding: Branding strategies can be linked to brand attitudes, purchasing habits and brand loyalty. This feedback/modification cycle is a loop in which quality improvements are continual.

10. Deliver on the Brand Promise. Keeping brand promises is more important than just having good intentions. The claims must link back to the brand promise and must be fulfilled. The top-ranking brands consistently reflect a top-down commitment to investing in the corporate brand as a long-term strategic asset.