Marketing will help you increase profit by attracting attention to the product. But if the product looks gray, then marketing tricks are unlikely to work. But Branding can help you with it.
Do you know what Branding is?
Many people understand what Branding is, but they cannot formulate a definition. This definition includes a lot of things. For example, the concept of Branding comprises creating an image for a company, searching for unique qualities of a product, and presenting it to a consumer so that he has clear associations associated with your product or service. Branding is a strategy by which your product will become unique, and therefore increase in price.
Marketing is an essential component of any business, but marketing is not omnipotent. You need to consider some features for this to work. And in this article, you will learn about these features.
The purpose of Branding is to create a vivid image of the company and competently formulate the direction of communications with the target audience.
To set up communication with the target audience, you will have to spend a lot of time and energy because you need to know what to say and determine how you should report it to get the desired result. That is why Branding includes work on market research, product positioning, creating a brand name, slogan, and much more. All this, to varying degrees, should convey the idea of the brand. It is these processes in aggregate that we call Branding.
What are the elements of Branding?
The brand is built from several components:
- concept or main idea;
- slogan;
- logo;
- font;
- color spectrum;
- character representing the company.
When developing each of the components, the specialist considers the target audience of the customer, the niche that the company occupies in the market, as well as the brands of competitors. A comprehensive analysis allows the marketer to find the optimal strategy by which Branding will develop.
Each of these elements is important and worthy of a separate article. Pay attention to these points if you want to understand why branding is so important in marketing.
Concept
A concept is where Branding begins. The concept encrypted a message addressed to the target audience. This message still needs to be thought out, because it is not always laid down in the product that you are going to sell, but it can and should be closely related to it. The concept is the main idea that can be divided into goals, mission, value, tasks, and advantages of your company over other companies of the same niche. Usually, the concept of a company is spelled out in a brand book.
Slogan and logo
Your slogan and logo are what your company is primarily associated with. With their help, the customer identifies your product, easily distinguishing it from similar competing products.
The logo should also be different. Its originality is your main advantage. Don’t save on creating logos. If you need help with this matter, you can contact our specialists. Also, look at our website for an article on how you can create your logo.
The slogan performs the same task as the logo, but it can also inform the client about the unique properties of the product. It is embodied in the form of a short capacious phrase or company motto. The main feature of the slogan is easy memorability. Work on it. Come up with as many options as possible. Show them to entirely different people. Gather their opinions on your slogans. And that’s how you can choose the appropriate motto for a good brand. With this, you need to achieve identity between the brand and the perception of your brand by potential buyers. It doesn’t matter what you sell products services. It’s important how you do it.
Corporate font
Depending on your company’s general style, which can be either strict or free, or bright or restrained, you need to choose the appropriate font that fits seamlessly into the concept of your brand. Don’t be surprised that Branding consists of such trifles because you need to use as many tools as possible to evoke the necessary emotions from a potential buyer. The feeling is the path to success.
The corporate font performs the same function as the logo; in other words, it expresses the uniqueness of your brand on the background of others. The task of Branding is to come up with a story for your product and distinguish it from competitors.
Besides, the font helps customers identify your trademark even without reading the text. If your target audience is prone to impulsive purchases, display this in a corporate typeface. Create a genuinely memorable font.
Brand colors
Even a marketer beginner knows that each color has its meaning. Therefore, choosing a specific color scheme for your brand will help express an idea or ruin it. In general, colors are a powerful means of influencing the buyer, since each of them causes specific feelings and associations.
Of course, everyone knows that red is associated with danger. But also, don’t miss the fact that each color can have several values, and shades of these values can have even more. Therefore, red won’t always mean danger, and blue won’t always mean confidence. Experiment with color if the result is significant to you. This has its influence on the perception of your brand by the target audience.
The one who represents your brand
Branding cares not only about the logo or slogan but also about the general image. A character can help with that. For example, Nesquik has a funny hare, which you are unlikely to confuse with anyone. And when you see this hare in a shop window, on a counter, by public transport or on the Internet, you will understand what kind of goods are in question.
Some companies want to stand out among competitors as brightly as possible or increase their credibility and come up with whole worlds in which their characters live. This will be a great advantage, and primarily if you produce goods for children. For these purposes, the development of a corporate hero that will appear in advertising or on the packaging, as well as the invitation of a media personality as an ambassador of your product on the market, is suitable.
A corporate character must have positive qualities that somehow resonate with the properties of your product. Create such a role to be ahead of the competition. So, by creating advertising with your character, you create a brand identity and teach your buyers to trust.
Brand building strategy
Only a few of the thousands of companies succeed without resorting to Branding. Marketing doesn’t give such a good result without Branding. Marketing will help you sell, but if your product doesn’t look attractive, who will buy it? Branding helps make almost any product attractive. This is the importance of Branding in marketing. And yet, first, you need to create your brand strategy before you begin to plan even further.
When thinking about a brand of marketing communications, you should be guided by the following requirements:
- branding should be able to attract the attention of the buyer in a single contact;
- product messages should form a lasting impression of the properties;
- the potential customer must understand that this product compares favorably with similar ones, in other words, from competitors’ products.
The strategic goal of Branding is to create the basis for the formation of a long-term relationship between the buyer and the brand. This is largely based on irrational feelings and thoughts, emotions, and even possible memories.
It is precisely these points described above that must be referred to when creating a brand formation strategy.
All of this will help you earn customer loyalty.
The exception to the rule
It would seem that it is impossible to imagine a company that would not pay attention to Branding at all in our time. After all, if a company doesn’t do this, can it count on success and good profit? It turned out that it could be.
Most of you have heard of a clothing store like Zara. The first store with this name opened in 1975. To date, there are already more than 2,500 stores worldwide. At the same time, Zara doesn’t engage in Branding in the sense as we describe it in this article. Then how did they succeed? Now we will consider it.
First of all, Zara is known for its reputation as a company that uses technology and automation to analyze the latest trends. In other words, this company transfers fashionable clothes from the catwalks to the shelves of stores in a matter of days. In the days of instant messaging, such responsiveness is much appreciated by the audience. And this has become a great advantage of the store.
Besides, Zara knows its target audience for sure. They accurately determine the price segment and make cheap fashionable clothes, paying great attention to details. Also, they produce a limited batch of each model to create the effect of an urgent purchase. Together, these points led Zara to succeed without resorting to traditional Branding. But this is more an exception to the rule than a rule.
