Whether your business is B2B, B2C or even P2P, your brand is vital to the long-term success of your venture. However, what is the difference between building a brand and creating awareness, and why does it even matter?
Brand Building
Brand building is establishing your company and promoting your business using strategies and techniques developed by your marketing team. Brand building is vital as it develops the voice of your company and presents a visual representation of who you are.
This initial process is when you have the opportunity to present your customer with your value proposition, inform them of how you want them to feel and influence how they think of your brand. Taking the time to consider how you want to build your brand, and doing the market research to ensure that your approach is correct, will yield longevity from your brand.
Product brand: A physical product or items or goods are a product brand. Brand building is about ensuring that your product is presented to the customer as a quality product backed by a reliable brand. This is achieved by visibility, packaging, warranty and other aspects related to the product.
Service brand: A non-tangible offering, such as eCommerce, is a service brand. Brand building is most dependent on the customer experience. Your value offering needs to focus on your service and commitments to customers.
Retail Brand: Retail brands are a combination of service and product; products that are sold through a service offering. Brand building has to ensure good customer experience as well as high-quality products.
Steps
While brand building is an organic and creative process, there are some steps that can help you to stay focused.
Describe your brand: You need to develop your brand equity in order to know how to describe your brand. The description can be visual or written, however, it is important that this description forms the foundation of all that you do. This clear and concise definition will inform your choices about the future of your promotions.
Brand differentiation & positioning: It is vital that your brand is differentiated from the competition with a unique value proposition. To understand how to position the brand correctly, extensive market research should be conducted. Without understanding your positioning you could miss your target market.
Evaluate the brand: Once you have established your brand based on market research and comparisons, you must continue to monitor the performance and message for effectiveness. The biggest brand names in the world rework tag lines and tweak their brand on a regular basis to ensure relevance of message and connect with consumers.
Brand promotion: Advertising and promoting the brand using multiple channels is one of the most important pillars of brand building. Correct communication and effective use of media channels can help build a strong brand and helps increase brand recall. This is part of the development of your brand awareness strategy.
Brand Awareness
Brand awareness is the extent to which customers can recall and recognise a brand. It is part of developing a successful company and should be considered with a combination of data, research, sensitivity and creativity. The idea of brand awareness is to become a household name, or at least to become the first brand people think of when considering your product or service.
To achieve this goal, the foundations of your brand must be strong. Next, your strategy needs to be targeted and consistent, and based on your brand identity. To build connections and gather your loyal following, your awareness campaign needs to reach the right audience.
In today’s crowded marketplace, the best place to begin your awareness campaign is online. There are opportunities for organic growth and paid advertising. If you develop a smart online strategy that follows, or even sets, the trends of your industry, you can expect fast brand awareness growth. While you might not have the advertising budget of Google, you can become an industry name by using the search engine provider to your advantage.
An online campaign can include:
- Referral Programs
- Impressive Guest Content
- Infographics
- Freemium With Credit
- Local Partnerships
- Freebies
- Social Media Contests
- Social Focus
- LinkedIn Publishing
- Podcasts
- PPC Advertising
- Remarketing Campaigns
- Paid Social Advertising
- Influencer Marketing
What Matters
Establishing your brand in the marketplace is a priority, however, before you can take this step, the company must establish the brand. Forming an identity should be a well-informed aspect of your marketing strategy.
Defining who you are, what your value proposition you offer and how you are different from your competitors is time consuming, however, if done with care your brand building should provide a solid foundation for your marketing campaigns for the life of your business. This does not mean that things do not have to be adapted, but that the fundamental value of your business has a timeless appeal.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post.
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