What Is Branding and Why Do You Need To Do It?
What is Branding?
Branding is one of the most important things that you can do for your business. Whether you are a one-man-band or a multi-million-pound corporation you need people to be able to instantly identify who you are and what your company has to offer. Having an effective brand strategy is the one thing that makes you stand out from your competitors and give your credibility as a company.
Your brand is your window of opportunity for you to tell your customers and clients what products and services you have to offer and why they should choose you over your competitors. Your brand should reflect what your company Vision and Mission Statement are, your commitment to your customers and clients.
Your brand should reflect who you are and who your company is. To be able to successfully build your brand, you need to be clear on what your values and goals are. You need to have identified who your target ideal audience are, and who they would want to work with or buy off. A successful business does not try to be all things to all people. They have a clear identity and brand. As soon as someone sees their logo or brand, people instantly know who they are.
What is a Branding Strategy?
Your brand strategy is your plan of how you communicate with your potential or current clients or customers. What you communicate and how you deliver it are all part of your brand strategy. What you communicate both verbally and visually are part of your brand strategy.
Which methods you use to raise awareness of your business and brand are part of your brand strategy. For example, do you market your business through different Social Media channels, or do you use online business networking groups? You need to ask yourself why you have chosen those particular channels.
Once you have built up a strong brand and people recognise it, you will be enabled to charge more for your products and services as you will have credibility. Your brand will be viewed as being a premium, quality brand. For example, you pay more for a branded product like Heinz, or Coca-Cola than you would for the supermarket’s home brand.
Defining Your Brand
Defining your brand gives you the opportunity to look at your business and vision and to completely understand what your business offers and what makes you stand above your competitors.
You will need to ask yourself some questions. For example:
- How do you want your ideal clients to think of your company’s image?
- What is your USP (Unique Selling Product) above your competitors?
- What are the features and benefits of your products or services?
You will need to do market research so that you completely understand what results your company provides for your prospective customer’s needs. How you solve their problem.
Where do I start?
The first place to start is with your company logo. Once you have a logo that represents your company and that people can identify with, you can use it for your website, your Social Media profiles, your business cards, your promotional materials, and your packaging.
Make sure that your brand message is on your company stationery, website, packaging,
Ensure that your company brand is understood by all of your employees; put it on your staff notice board and induction packs. Make sure that the message that you want to convey, is site-wide.
Have your company brand on your email signatures and ensure that all of your staff use it. Apart from having your contact details on your email signature, your company brand makes you easily identifiable and more professional.
Once you have defined your brand, make sure that it is everywhere on the internet and on your company stationery.
