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Branding a Service: 3 Strategies That Work

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Black and white photograph of a hand pointing toward a cube made up of green, pink and blue BE-branded squares.

Branding a service poses unique challenges compared to branding a product. Unlike a tangible item you can see, touch, and evaluate before purchase, a service is an experience—an interaction that hinges on relationship management and consistent delivery. This distinction makes the strategic approach to service branding crucial for businesses aiming to build trust and loyalty in an increasingly competitive market.

In this article, we explore strategies for effectively branding a service to ensure it stands out, builds lasting relationships, and resonates with clients. We delve into defining the service, standardizing its delivery and  leveraging the unique benefits of service branding. These essential insights will help you strengthen your brand and spur success.

How is Service Branding Different?

Although branding is crucial for products and services, service brands face distinct challenges due to their intangible nature. Customers can judge products based on their physical attributes and features, but the quality of a service is entirely dependent on the customer’s perception of the value they receive.

There are no objective benchmarks that denote the quality of a service. What matters to one customer may be entirely different for another, and that difference can lead to unmet expectations or disconnected priorities that result in  a service brand’s downfall if it isn't properly managed..

Additionally, services rarely come with a standardized price tag, and this makes it more difficult for a customer to compare options than with product branding. While products compete with neighboring products on the shelf, the point of sale for a service typically occurs later, after the customer has expressed interest and contacted the brand.

Even though these unique attributes of service brands make them challenging to evaluate, they also provide an opportunity for differentiation and personalized customer experiences. Next, we’ll cover some key considerations and strategies for building a service brand that addresses these challenges and creates opportunity for growth.

Strategy #1: Defining the Service

Because one of the trickiest parts about service branding is its intangibility, brands can begin to tackle the issue head-on by defining specific parameters about what services they provide. In other words, turning the invisible benefits of a service into understandable value propositions will help customers understand what they receive by working with a service brand.

One way to make your service more tangible is by illustrating what it looks like in action. Case studies can accomplish this with examples of prior work that showcase the tangible benefits of working with your brand. They serve to tell a story about your brand’s methods and accomplishments, demonstrating real-world results and success stories. These are most effective when they can cite specific, measurable results that improved your prior customers’ outcomes.

Defining a service may even involve naming it and developing its own visual identity. This can give your services a concrete shape and allow you to more easily communicate the exact service offerings that make up the branded package. Naming a service also allows your customers to talk about it with ease, making it easier for word of mouth to spread.

Brands exist within the minds of your customers. That means you can’t control every aspect of what people think about your brand, but you can manage your brand by setting clear parameters around what your brand does and doesn’t represent.

For prospective or incoming customers, make your service more concrete by providing a clear timeline and expected deliverables. By doing so, you start to create clear expectations about what the outcomes of your services will look like. This is a crucial step that reduces the likelihood of your customers’ expectations being different from what you provide. 

This alignment tells your customer exactly what to expect and cuts down on surprises that fray the relationship with the client and result in a lack of trust. The client shouldn’t be wondering what the next step is, or when they can expect the next phase of a project to begin. That should be established up front so that they can see the service in action and know that it meets the promised benchmarks of success.

Strategy #2: Ensuring Consistency

Defining the parameters of your service is a solid first step towards a strong service brand, but if your services don’t meet the expectations you’ve established upfront, your customer will walk away dissatisfied. That’s why ensuring a consistent experience is crucial for any service provider’s brand.

The quality of your service shouldn’t depend on the person performing it. With proper onboarding and a strong focus on establishing a culture of service, you can begin to standardize the level of quality provided with every customer interaction. This standardization requires thoughtful work on your internal brand,  ensuring that the necessary ingredients for successful service delivery are baked into your organization's core values. 

Next, bolster your internal brand with internal documentation about the proper processes necessary to achieve your brand’s goals. Establish clear procedures for delivering value to your customers and give them a reason to keep coming back.

By doing so, your team will be better aligned on the vision of your organization and the steps that make it successful. There will be far less confusion about the specific methods and processes you use to achieve your organization's goals. This, in turn, makes the service more consistent and reliable for your customers, ultimately improving your brand’s position in the marketplace.

Selling a service, as opposed to a tangible product, makes it harder for customers to know exactly what they will receive. In a way, they’re paying for something that doesn’t exist yet—a service that will allow them to accomplish their own goals. Consistency through careful internal standardization alleviates this uncertainty and helps build your brand’s reputation as one that delivers on its promises.

Strategy #3: Build the Relationship

Your customer isn’t just concerned about what you’re providing—they want to know how you’ll deliver it in a way that will enable their success. Your service brand will heavily depend on the experience of working with you and what it feels like to interact with your team. Defining the type of experience your customer can expect will make it easier to cement your brand as a reliable provider in their mind.


This experience starts even before the sale is made—it encompasses the pitching process and their interactions with you at every stage of the sales cycle. Because the pricing of service brands are not standardized or easily comparable with competitors like product pricing is, the relationship between your brand and your customer becomes  your most valuable tool for justifying your value.

Service brands are constantly proving why they charge what they charge. Without  product specs to point to, it can be difficult to justify the cost, especially if competing services offer lower prices. By the time of sale, a prospective customer has likely researched your offerings and is more interested in the potential intangible benefits of working with your brand. What you sell beyond price is your relationship that is uniquely beneficial to their goals.

That relationship, along with its corresponding brand promise, transforms the price of your service into more than a summation of costs for time and materials. It reflects the years of experience and care that go into your work and drive the results your customers seek. It instills your services with a deeper purpose and helps your brand rise above commoditization.

Ultimately, service brands live and die by the experience customers receive each time they work with you. While every customer is different, the advantage lies in  the ample opportunities to get it right. Unlike a product that is finished when it comes off the production line, the experience of your services can evolve and improve through continuous reevaluation and refinement. 

A Few More Insights

Branding a service is an ongoing process requiring agile strategies to improve customer experience. Using these key strategies as a framework, you’ll be better equipped to effectively meet your customer’s needs and grow your brand over time. If you’d like expert guidance on your brand’s positioning, don’t hesitate to reach out. We can share insights unique to your brand’s needs and goals. Here are a few more resources that might help inspire bright ideas:

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