What is branding? Branding is a marketing strategy used to help consumers recognize a certain product and company. Consistent visuals across all marketing tools including custom packaging design or product label design helps a business's customers recognize and select their preferred brand.
Why branding your company is a good thing:
An estimated 61% of consumers say that they prefer a brand that offers custom content and custom products.
Take Wegman's Food Market for example: They have switched from selling just strictly brand name products to also offering their own spin-off of these food items.
One of the most successful brands in the world is Coca Cola. This soda company owes their claim to fame all thanks to their popular images and massive advertisement campaigns. Their marketing efforts used their red and white logo consistently over decades. Customers depend on quickly identifying their favorite brands. competitors mimicking your format is a clue that they are trying to benefit the the strength of your brand recognition.
63% of marketers believe that there will be a steady increase in company spending on brand marketing over the next year, so why not join the party?
How to brand a business:
1. First off, hire a branding company to help you create the brand image and message for your company. Make sure to assemble important reference materials that help to define your brand personality and competition. Advise the agency what marketing tools will be used to promote your brand: Website, stationary, logo, tagline, postcards, brochures, newsletters, packaging, etc.
2. Develop a solid mission statement that states the reason for your company's existence and what you can offer to your customers as well as a positioning statement defining target audience and reason why that audience will prefer your product
3. Work up a killer, unforgettable tagline that encapsulates the mood of the company as well as describes who you are and what you do. Short and simple statement of what you deliver or your mission. Your branding agency can help develop the tag as it creates the total brand impression.
4. Define the persona of your best audience (who your perfect customer is) and create a spreadsheet of all the people and companies you'd like to reach out to in the next year. This should coincide with a calendar and include a timetable to achieve these goals.
5. Always have a marketing team on hand to help write and send press releases to the media; this can have a huge impact on your company when done correctly.
6. Along with press releases, don't be afraid to blog daily or at least weekly about any company functions, celebrations, new products or hot industry topics. Be sure to post these on your website.
7. Have a few trustworthy employees and yourself attend at least two national and/or local industry conferences. You can even speak at them to get your name out there! Speaking will position you and your company as experts.
8. Find a new business niche by speaking, writing, presenting, or teaching the topic related to your business. You may find that you'll learn a few things about your supposedly specialized field.
9. Update your website, using an SEO marketing company, to make the site easily searchable by search engines to help land you at the top of the results list based on hand-chosen key words.
10. Lastly, always have your media team update your company's social networking accounts such as Facebook and Twitter. Having these will help you reach younger generations.
Branding your company is the best way you can reach out to your intended audience while at the same time forging a new path towards different consumer niches. A brand is a promise and seal of quality. It becomes a beacon to your loyal customers reminding them of the unique experience and becomes an emotional pull drawing them to have that experience again. Your marketing and customer service efforts should work to build the strongest brand recognition in your market. Your brand can become the most valuable company asset.