The image of a logo or a name that comes to your mind when you are thinking of buying something is branding.
“I need to get a Xerox” means “I need to get a photocopy” in India. Xerox is a famous brand of photocopiers in India. It has become so popular that Indians have substituted the word photocopying with Xeroxing. This is an illustration that the first thing that comes to Indian minds when they think of making a photocopy is the company Xerox.
Using brand substitutes for products is an everyday example of branding.
What is branding?
A brand is something that differentiates your offering from that of other brands. It can be a symbol, a name, tagline, or anything relating to your company.
Branding is the process of establishing the identity of your brand. It is how your customers remember your services. So, a brand is a noun, while branding is a verb.
The expectations of the customers are based on the way you carried out the branding for your outlets. Be it low-price, high quality or high-price, high durability the client’s anticipations result from the identity you have established for your business.
This activity involves building awareness for your brand and reputation in the market.
Establishing your trademark for your commerce is not a destination, but a journey. It can take years to establish yourself as prominent in the market among competitors. It can be a tough job, time-consuming too. But uncomfortable as it may be, it is no doubt an important and unavoidable step if you wish to gain success in your entrepreneurship.
How is it important?
1. Distinguishing from other brands
Branding is the face of an organization. It is how the company is identified by the buyers.
You can decide how you stand out from the crowd of competitors. This method of brand positioning assists you in conveying to the audience how you are unique, special, and worthy of their resources.
It gives reason to your customers as to why they should buy from you and not the others.
2. Attract new customers
Efficient branding means a positive impression of the company in the market. Justifying the reason why consumers are willing to participate in commercial activities with you. The trustability and familiarness are what drives customers to buy from you.
Make customer interactions mesmerizing. Adopting unordinary approaches for customer care to stay in their memory for a long time will make them come back to you over and over again. You can do this with social media, through your website or maybe in-person.
Branding is people’s description of your brands to others.
When your customers have faith in you, they will refer you to their loved ones who have never bought from you. This will result in getting you a fresh purchasing population without even having to advertise to them.
Thus, branding will be a low-cost method for getting new customers as well as maintaining loyalty from your old customers.
3. Employee satisfaction
The staff of an established company will be proud of their jobs. It will be a pleasure for them to talk about their work-place with friends. Contrasting to this, talking to people when you work at an unpopular firm can at times be embarrassing. People generally avoid conversations about their jobs in such a case.
When you have a recognized brand, you end up recruiting better talents. As a result, gaining supremacy in the market over your competition.
Not only that, when employees are aware that they are working for a huge company where there is much competition among the workers themselves, they will make sure to give their best. So the quality of work done is higher in this case.
4. Gain credibility
A professional appearance will portray quality and authority. While a friendly one shows reliability and relation. It is up to you to choose which kind of identity you want to go for.
A brand label that is well-organized will aid in gaining credibility among the potential clients, and end-users. This will enable people you to picture as trustable along with giving your business the impression of an expert in your industry.
Gradually, people will start appreciating the way you handle customers and your manner of providing service. When brands build an emotional connection with the consumers, they take a step forward towards success.
The transformation of potential clients to a loyal customer is a result of this emotional bonding between the client and the company.
5. Increase value
Once you have achieved a good rank in the market, people would not mind a little increase in the selling price. Hence, you can increase your profits too with an efficient branding strategy.
How can you carry out branding?
As an initial step, knowing these will help you initiate the branding process.
- The company’s mission
- Features of your products
- Benefits the products will provide to the users
- What customers think about your company?
- The picture you want of your brand in the customers’ mind
Once you have gathered data on these, move forward to assure that you are being true to what you promised before. Make sure that you are giving the people you told them you would.
Craft a brand statement. It can be a description of your service or feedback or some expression. Choose whatever suits best. Design a logo for your business line. If you already have one, check whether it is effective. And if not, it is never too late to make some modifications where necessary.
As you can see, Mc Donald’s has time has been modifying its logo for decades. The present logo has been more impactful. So it has decided to stick with that bold and bright M logo since 2006.
Conclusion
Make use of advertising on different platforms to enhance branding. Traditional marketing tools like TV, radio, newspapers, hoarding can be used. But since they are out-dated it would be a better choice to go for a digital marketing service instead.
Digital methods like website, mobile applications, social media, search engines can be used for cost-effective and impactful marketing.
Besides, you can partner with other well-established brands to add speed in gaining familiarity. Be consistent in your product designs. You can also make a unique pattern for the packaging of your items.
Make the in-store experience for shoppers memorable. Outstanding work-space experience for employees also helps in getting better brand recognition. Because a satisfied employee will do informal promotion for your firm as well as get you new footfalls.
Now you are well aware of why branding is crucial for any business. And that a clever strategy will move you closer to your goals.
Let us know how this article helped you in the comments below.
