Are you a Brand? If not why you should strive to define your brand?- Branding
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Branding
“If you don’t define your brand, your competitors will brand you, and that’s not something you may even remotely represent”- anonymous
Importance of Branding your Business
Branding your business can make you realize a lot of different things. You may be inspired, overwhelmed, confused on where to start, why to start, how to start or should i even start.
Of course yes, you should start. Branding helps to create an identity, more like transforming your business from a relative unknown to a go-to product or service in the minds of the targeted audience i.e, ‘current and potential clients, employees, financiers, investors and many more stakeholders’. It challenges you to manifest what you want to be, who you want to be and how you want to go about it.
That being said, branding is a way of life. It is much more than the traditional ‘advertising’ or ‘selling’ itself.
Research shows that companies with strong brands generate much higher sales and profits. In other words, taking the time to define and build a brand can give you a huge competitive advantage
Before making significant branding efforts, you will first have to answer a few key questions. These are the ones you need to think about when branding your business.
MANTRAS to implement effective branding strategies and tactics in your business
- Standing out from the competitors
- Targeting the right audience
- Focus on a unique value proposition
- Determine what makes you unique in terms of designing a product
- Communicating your story consistently
Standing out from competitors- How Branding Help?
First take time to review what your competitors are doing. Notice what they are doing right, and what they might be doing wrong.
Look at a competitor closely in these areas:
- Brand identity (how they appear or sound)
- Product or service offering (quality, features, benefits)
- Website user experience (navigation, call-to-action, messaging)
- Content publishing (blogs, videos, case studies, lead magnets)
- Social media (size of community, engagement, content types, frequency)
- Advertising in Social media channels
- Google Ranking Google Analytics or SEMRUSH TOOL etc.
Who is your Targeted audience?
Secondly Think from a customer or client perspective. We can know the customer or people’s engagement in different ways.
Conduct effective market research
- Who is your Targeted audience?
- How are you perceived in the market?
- How do customers view your brand compared with others?
- What characteristics do customers associate with your brand?
- Why did you start your business?.
- Where to start and How to start?.
Research current trends
When you are creating a new brand from scratch, you should do market research to see what is happening in your industry.It is very important to do even when you are an established business so that you can stay current with your branding. And, what is appealing to your target market.We can make use of different social media platforms such as Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram,Twitter, Youtube etc. We can analyze the user engagement by creating Polls or Questionnaire or Webinar or by just a post in social media platforms
What is the point of this business? Who does it help and how does it help them? .
Point of Business and point of Sale are the foundation for the rest of your brand because any time you get stuck or need some creative direction. Study the scope of your business in the market and determine the values of your mission and specify who your business is for. So our point is, what you offer will matter to certain people and not matter at all to others… and that’s good!
Because it tells you exactly who your audience is and who you should be going after
Down your niche
Who is your target audience? We’ve all heard the saying, “If your audience is everyone, it’s no one.”Next on our list of target marketing examples is also about your customer. No matter which digital marketing platform you’re utilizing – whether it’s Google ads, Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube
This are some ways to find your ideal customer:
- First, eliminate who isn’t your audience
- Look at Google Analytics or other Analytic tool like Semrush, Google Tag Manager etc. ,if you have a website
- Conduct a survey to existing customers
- Conduct a survey on social media
- Have a real conversation with a customer
Focus on a unique value proposition
Your brand is your promise to the customer. So, it’s important you develop a brand that conveys a unique value proposition to customers—something that stands out
Think about why your customers choose you over the competition. Are your products more dependable? Do they have a longer life? Or are they less expensive than others in the market? In many sectors such as fashion, furnishings or manufactured goods, unique styling can be a key differentiator
Determine what makes you unique in terms of Designing a product
For a business the important thing is visual representation. Designing is great to further highlight exactly what the eye should gravitate towards. One simple way to do this is through the effective use of colors.. They all can help to reinforce an effective brand name. Some companies even use music to build brand identity. So, here are a few things your brand guide will need to include
- Your logo and slogan – you can create a brand logo. A slogan or tagline is a short phrase that exemplifies the essence of your brand, its personality, and positioning.
- Your fonts, and which are okay to use in places such as headline text, paragraph text, etc.
- You’ll also need to include your colours along with their hex code
You need a Website or a web platform for that. There are a lot of open source web development platforms available in the Market. You can use any of these web development platforms such as Squarespace, WordPress, Drupal, Wix, shopify etc. depending on what your business is about. Free ranking checker tool can help you determine your website’s SEO ranking and find high-traffic keywords that will move you to the top of Google’s SERP results.
There are so many factors the Google algorithm considers when ranking your site. Along with that Search Engine Optimization is very important. It determines the Google Ranking,Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager will help you to analyze your website and Business with competitor websites. This not only helps you to learn more about your competitors and market but also help you to improve your website or business
Create an emotional connection and Deliver consistent communication
Once a company has developed an effective brand and corporate identity strategy, it must be implemented consistently through every “point of contact” with customers, including in advertising.
One key is to get employees on board. Your company’s employees are its greatest brand advocates. Creating an internal branding model will help them understand and connect to your core brand(s). They’ll then be better equipped to communicate that brand message to your customer.
Once you have your brand name, logo, slogan and story, make sure to promote it. Develop a Digital marketing plan and implement it and it is equally important. Foundation elements of a digital brand strategy should include:
- Content marketing
- Social media marketing
- Email marketing
- Paid advertising
- Affiliate Marketing
- Native Marketing
- Online PR
- Growth Marketing
- B2B Marketing and B2C Marketing
- Brand Marketing
- Word of Mouth Marketing
Wrapping Up
So, at this point, with all of this information and instructions, how are you feeling about branding your business?
Pretty confident and ready to get started?
Post By Ansu Sara Sunny.
Branding help transform your business to a professional brand in minds of the targeted audience “current and potential clients”
Branding help transform your business to a professional brand in minds of the targeted audience “current and potential clients”