Brands from a Consumer Perspective
Brand Research
· Identify one well-known brand and research why consumers are drawn to it. Describe a major competitor of the brand and compare the two brands in terms of positioning.
· Are they positioned differently?
· What are the points of differentiation? (1 page) Research Required.
Brand Message Analysis
How do the brands communicate with their target market? Analyzing the message strategies now and over time is an excellent exercise to understand how the brand remains successful.
Find an older and one recent commercial for each of the brands. Note: YouTube has numerous vintage and new commercials. New commercials may also be found on the brand’s website.
How to cite and reference a YouTube video
.
Describe the two commercials and include the video link.
What is the overall message of the brand? Explain in depth. (3/4 of a page for each brand)
Brand Application
Analyze the brand messages. Consider how the messages build brand loyalty. (1/2 page) Research Required.
No quotations are permitted in this paper. Each paragraph (except the introduction and conclusion) must contain at least one in-text
citation
.
Since you are engaging in research, be sure to
cite
and
reference the sources in APA format
. NOTE: failure to use research with accompanying citations to support content will result in reduced scoring “Level 2-Developing” on the grading rubric.
This is a professional paper, not a personal one based on feelings. It must be written in the third person; this means words like “I”, “we”, and “you” are not appropriate.
8 Ways to Build Brand Loyalty with Social Media
March 11, 2020 3 Comments Animalz
Di you know that it’s up to five times more expensive to get new customers as it is to retain current ones? If that’s not enough reason to aim for brand loyalty, you also have a 60-70% chance of selling to existing customers, compared to a 5-20% chance for new customers.
But how do you get loyal customers?
If you want customers to keep coming back to your brand, you have to connect with them in meaningful ways. Social media is the perfect place to build these relationships.
You can have one-on-one conversations with customers so they feel connected to your brand, and you can showcase your unique brand personality through humor, images, and videos.
To help you get started, we’re providing eight strategies to build brand loyalty through social media.
We’ll show you how your business can implement each strategy, and we’ll provide examples of how other companies are using similar methods.
1. Be Responsive
Shoppers often ask questions or leave comments for businesses on social platforms, whether that’s chatting through Facebook Messenger or tweeting at a brand. While you might not be able to respond to every customer, it’s important to engage with as many as possible.
Why? Because responsiveness shows customers that you care about their needs, which builds their brand loyalty. In fact, 72% of millennials said they would be more loyal to a brand that responded to them. On the flip side, being unresponsive can decrease brand loyalty: 15% of Twitter users will unfollow a brand if the brand isn’t engaging with them enough.
Starbucks engages directly with customers by promptly replying to comments.
They are quick to respond to just about every comment or question, painting themselves as a responsive and communicative brand that cares about their customers.
2. Share Positive Customer Feedback
When a customer leaves a glowing review, don’t keep the great feedback to yourself. Share the input publicly on your social media accounts (with the customer’s permission, of course).
By posting positive reviews, you’re likely to attract new customers and reinforce current customers’ trust in your business. This is because of social proof, the psychological phenomenon of people’s tendency to follow the crowd. In the case of shopping, that means people place a high value on the opinions of other customers.
It’s OK to ask for positive reviews directly. When a customer leaves a positive comment about your business on your social media page, reply back or send a direct message thanking them for their comment and asking them to share their opinion in a review. You can then share the review on your social media page.
Classic Photographers regularly shares positive reviews from customers with the caption “feeling thankful.”
Not only does Classic Photographers enable potential customers to see how happy current customers are, but the company also shows their appreciation for existing customers at the same time.
3. Share User-Generated Content
Another way to build brand loyalty through social proof is by sharing user-generated content (UGC). UGC refers to photos, videos, and other content that shoppers create about using a brand’s products. This content builds trust in shoppers because it is created by customers, not the brand.
Invite users to tag your brand and use branded hashtags so you can find UGC more easily and share it on your page (with the creator’s permission, of course!). If you share UGC frequently, you’ll encourage participation from shoppers who want their content to be seen by all of your brand’s followers.
A great example of a UGC-driven social media campaign is GoPro and their Photo of the Day campaign.
The campaign encourages GoPro users to post their GoPro images and tag the company for a chance to have their picture featured. In one fell swoop, the company attracts new customers by showcasing happy current customers and builds brand loyalty with existing customers by featuring their content regularly.
4. Keep Customers in the Loop
Make your followers feel like they’re a part of the business by keeping them updated about what’s going on at your company and taking them “behind the scenes.” Since 63% of customers prefer brands that are honest and transparent, being open about your business’s practices is a great way to encourage a positive customer-brand relationship.
Your social media channels are the perfect platform for taking your followers behind the scenes. You can post walk-throughs of your products, interview employees, show pictures or videos of your office space, or share company events.
Glossier did this with their Milky Jelly cleanser.
In the video, Glossier details why they created this cleanser and what makes it different from other cleansers. Seeing the behind-the-scenes details of Glossier’s production, shoppers have reason to believe their skin-care products are well made and have reason to buy from Glossier rather than other brands.
5. Be Open about Your Values
Customers want to support companies that share their values. Share your company’s fundamental principles and you’ll encourage brand loyalty from customers with similar beliefs.
Create posts about causes and charities that are close to the heart of your business to show shoppers what your brand stands for. Patagonia, for example, has made environmentalism an integral part of their brand identity.
The company regularly posts about environmental advocacy, informing followers about current events and clearly illustrating that their brand cares about the environment. This attracts their target customer: people who love the natural world and are serious about protecting it.
Whatever your brand’s issue is, always be authentic with your advocacy. Don’t just say what you think your target audience wants to hear. Today’s consumers are discerning, so they’ll be able to tell if your value-driven posts are genuine.
6. Partner with an Influencer
More than half of social media users prefer to get product information from influencers rather than directly from brands. Users trust influencers and look to them for product and brand advice. So if an influencer your target customer loves raves about your brand, there’s a good chance their followers will start loving your products, too.
The first step is to find influencers who are relevant to your brand and image, such as someone who is popular with your target audience or specializes in your industry. A makeup company, for example, would likely want to partner with a beauty influencer.
You can use tools like Facebook’s Brand Collabs Manager to find influencers and then reach out to see if they will do product reviews or other collaborations with your brand.
Covergirl, for example, partnered with the beauty influencer @valerialipovetsky to promote their Clean Fresh Skin Milk product.
The influencer is showing that she trusts the product enough to use it herself and saying that it has done wonders for her skin. This encourages her followers to try the product as well.
7. Use Dynamic Ads to Promote Brand Loyalty
Brand loyalty is built over time. The more customers use your products and get value out of your brand, the more loyal they will become. Dynamic ads encourage users to return and make a purchase by showing them products they have viewed before or that are similar to products they viewed.
You can set up dynamic ads on Facebook and Instagram by connecting your product catalog to Facebook. Once the ad template is set up, Facebook’s algorithm will choose relevant products to show to customers, based on their previous site behavior.
eBay uses dynamic carousel ads to show users products that are similar to ones they viewed on eBay’s site.
Facebook can tell, based on recent product views, that the user is interested in handbags, so the dynamic ads grab the customer’s interest by showing them other handbag options on eBay. These promotions reignite shoppers’ interest in the brand by showing them products they love.
8. Retarget Users with Custom Audiences
Once users are aware of your brand, keep your business at the top of their mind with retargeting. Retargeting is when you show ads only to people who have expressed interest in your business.
With retargeting, you can give people who know your brand the incentive they need to come back to your store. For example, you might use a retargeting ad to offer an exclusive deal on a previously viewed product. Or you might use retargeting to promote a price drop for items that are currently in the shopper’s cart.
You can choose exactly who to show these ads to by building a custom audience for your ad campaign. For example, you might edit your custom audience to target users who have interacted with your ads before.
11 Effective Ways to Turn Your Customers Into Loyal Product Advocates
A business’s best advertisement is a happy customer.
Opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of Rolling Stone editors or publishers.
Word-of-mouth has long been touted as one of the best ways to attract new customers. Prospective consumers want to know how your product or service can directly and positively impact their lives, and customer testimonials can clearly demonstrate that value.
However, it can be challenging to build up a loyal base of advocates who will promote your business to their networks. Here, 11 members of Rolling Stone Culture Council explain a few strategies that have helped them create true product advocates and why they’ve been so effective for their businesses.
Deliver an Exceptional Customer Experience
We’re very focused on delivering an exceptional customer experience and making it easy for our customers to post reviews and share how their experience at Velvet was. We’ve partnered with a company that allows our customers to create “one-click reviews.” Timing these messages to our customers when their experience is fresh has proven to drive more engagement and feedback via reviews. – Matt Morea , Velvet Cannabis
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Put Them in the Driver’s Seat
We are big advocates of putting our consumers in the driver’s seat of their experience. We do so by giving users the ability to invite their peers with them when they workout, helping our partners build company cultures centered around fitness and wellness and giving our stellar Client Services team the flexibility to “surprise and delight” our users at their discretion. – Ed Buckley, Peerfit
Let Them ‘Brand Manage’
Give the consumer ownership of the brand and let them “brand manage.” Ask your customer base what they think of the state of your brand. Constructively accept the answer. They know when they are over you, so ask them to stay by involving them in the brand directly. – Michael Polk, Billboardology.com
Do Something to Surprise and Delight Them
Do something for your hardcore consumer base without asking them to do anything or expecting anything in return. The sheer act of doing something purely because you want to be kind to people who support you will help gain their loyalty and trust. “Surprise and delight” and doing things “just because” really goes such a long way. – Cassie Petrey, Crowd Surf
The Rolling Stone Culture Council
is an invitation-only community for Influencers, Innovators and Creatives.
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Share Their Stories
It’s super simple. We share stories of our core customers honestly, truthfully and with detail. They’re the most real examples of how our products are used and make people’s lives easier and better. Let customers advocate for themselves. This will allow new customers to identify with these stories and involve themselves organically and immersively. – Meg He, ADAY
Work Hard to Impress Them
The best strategy is to work hard and consistently deliver above client expectations. When you impress them, you build trust, and clients are way more likely to refer, post, share and return. – Wes Meyers, Burning Tractor
Thank Them
We have a really strong and loyal local following with our businesses. Twice a year, we email our subscribers to thank them for supporting our small businesses. Then we invite them to continue their support by giving us positive reviews on both Facebook and Google. This boosts our search engine rankings and strengthens the positive brand perception we’ve worked so hard to build. – Buck Wimberly, ULAH, LLC / ULAH Interiors + Design, LLC
Create Shared Experiences
The best thing you can do for your consumer base is to create shared experiences between them and your brand. A shared experience can be emotional, transactional or even experiential and should be achievable across all messaging platforms and through the purchase funnel. Aiming to create shared experiences drives loyalty and humanizes your audience members, who are too often thought of as data points. – Matt Blackburn, ORDER
Brand Loyalty 101: Turning Customers Into a Lifelong Community
Cam Gray
March 11, 2021
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We all have that one brand that successfully has, in a way, stolen our hearts.
Brand loyalty is when a customer chooses your product/company over any of your competition, every single time. It’s when customers don’t need to be marketed or persuaded to make the purchase; they will always choose a certain brand regardless of other brand’s services or prices, even if they are cheaper. These companies have formed trust with their customers that runs deeper than reasons like pricing and they typically dominate their corner of the industry.
It’s important to make the distinction between customer loyalty and brand loyalty. While the former is all about prices and services, brand loyalty has more to do with people’s perception of your business and emotions associated with it. And in 2021, a lot of newer companies are lacking brand loyalty because shoppers are have easy access to compare aspects like pricing and reviews online.
Building brand loyalty is no easy feat, and in today’s blog, we’re going to break down the best strategies for building brand loyalty and turning your customers into soldiers for your business.
Be Engaging and Do It Consistently
It’s vital that you’re engaging with your customers through every channel of marketing. This includes but is not limited to emails, social media, and SMS. Customers are people, and people innately respond to connection.
Being available to connect with your customers across all channels helps personify your brand. It builds trust and lets your customers know that you and your business can be relied on. Listening is half the battle. To really show your customers that you’re hearing them you need to enact change based on what they have to say.
Now with that said, we can’t stress enough how important it is to be consistent with your communications in order to build a high level of brand loyalty. It doesn’t matter if you’re communicating to people from all channels if you’re not consistent with it.
Customers notice inconsistencies and view it as a sign of what it is – someone being unorganized and unprofessional. By maintaining a strong brand voice and outlook, customers will grow to accept that tone as who your company is and subconsciously remember. Apple is a phenomenal example of a brand that is consistently communicating across all channels with their customers, and their brand loyalty is among the highest in the world.
Reward Your Customers
People like to be cared about. When your brand rewards customers for their loyalty, they feel cared about, and in return show even more loyalty. This a cycle that becomes stronger and stronger every time a customer redeems a reward.
Take Starbucks. A brand that offers a common product at a more expensive price but has retained a ton of brand loyalty. Part of why they’re so great at this is because of the way they have “gamified” their rewards program in a way that makes customers excited to use it.
Take some time to download the Starbucks rewards app as well as some other companies’ apps that dominate their industry (McDonalds, Nike, etc.) and see how seamless and creative they’ve made it to get rewards back. Use them for inspiration and try to replicate their success on your website or through a company app as a way to build more brand loyalty.
Another great way to reward your customers is in unexpected ways. Sending them a small gift or even just a message on their birthday, or during the holidays shows that you’re thinking about them. People love to be delightfully surprised, especially when it’s from someone they wouldn’t expect it from.
Building Trust and a Community Takes Time
The best of the best didn’t do it overnight. All the brands we’ve mentioned so far have taken decades to build the loyalty they have with their customers. So if you don’t get what you want right away, it’s okay. You’re in this for the long haul and building brand loyalty is one of the things that take the longest.
A good place to get started is by building yourself up as an authority on trust. You need to position yourself as an expert in your field for customers to trust you. This requires taking reputation management very seriously and being dynamic in terms of tweaking your tone in order to earn trust from your customers.
Reviews are really important in 2021. Responding to bad reviews can be difficult, but it is important. When you respond to poor reviews it shows your customers that you care about what they have to say and will respond in a matter that remedies their issues.
It’s within our nature to show loyalty to our communities. Use this trait of human psychology to build more loyalty and trust in your company. Create online communities either on your website or even through social media with a simple hashtag. It will serve as a place for your customers to communicate with each other as well as you.
Share and Celebrate Your Customers
There’s no one customers believe more than other customers. Don’t underestimate the power of word of mouth. A good way to highlight and share this with your customers is by creating a testimonial page on your site.
A testimonial page is where people can see the best experiences that other people had with your brand. It differs from a review section, because you have the option to select and highlight the testimonials that you want shared. When customers see this, they can subconsciously think “if they had a great time with that business, then I will too.”
Word of mouth to this day is still the most reliable form of marketing. If you celebrate your customers by rewarding them or sharing their experiences, there’s a chance they’ll tell their friends and family about your business. So never doubt what you’re doing just because you can’t see results like word of mouth – those results will be seen in your sales.
Working with Influencers
You can build up your brand loyalty by leveraging relationships with people who have already built loyalty with their customers or fan base. Whether that is partnering with another brand or with influencers, it’s a great way to get new people to trust you.
Take the “average influencer” for example. They have tens of thousands (sometimes millions) of followers who already respect their opinion and trust them. If that person touts your brand, there’s thousands of people who will see it and at least be interested in trusting your company or learning more about it.
It’s important to remember that building brand loyalty isn’t something that you do overnight. Keep working hard on it and don’t lose patience if you don’t see it right away. In the long run, you’ll be very happy when you have a dedicated group of customers who stand by your brand regardless of what other brands in a similar category have to offer them.
How The Right Content Can Generate Brand Loyalty: 15 Valuable Tips
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With a loyal customer base, a company has an established audience for sharing promotional and education information about its products and services. Businesses employ many different methods to increase customer loyalty, and in recent years, content marketing has become a favored strategy of brands worldwide.
Combined with other existing methods of boosting customer affinity for a brand, such as through loyalty programs and rewards, using content as a marketing tool can create stronger bonds between businesses and their core audiences and, in turn, a healthier bottom line.
Below, 15 leaders from Forbes Communications Council discuss the best ways to develop content geared toward increasing brand loyalty.
Forbes Communications Council members offer tips for creating content that will help build brand loyalty.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS.
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1. Check With Your Sales Team
Creating brand loyalty through content requires a solid understanding of customer needs and what you have “authority” to provide. Not sure what it is? Ask your sales team. The people who have regular interaction with customers offer the best insights, but you have to distill the information through a marketing lens. Find ways to deliver value through content based on customer needs. – Emily Negrin, Inari
2. Create Engaging And Helpful Content
I think you have to stay true to your heritage and brand archetype while appealing or providing something to the customer. What does the audience most care about? If you are known as a leader in that space or topic, what can you share that is helpful to the customer? “Creating content to drive brand loyalty” is a bit of a misnomer. Create engaging, helpful content, and loyalty will follow. – Cheryl Miller, Promethean
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3. Create Informative Post-Purchase Content
Creating informative and useful post-purchase content and designing a customer experience with touch points for strategic content delivery builds brand loyalty. For example, a customer who bought a set of brake pads will find value in a step-by-step installation guide delivered straight to their inbox. Content that creates clear value can help turn regular customers into brand advocates over time. – Houman Akhavan, CarParts.com
4. Offer Value With No Strings Attached
It’s important for consumers to know that your business exists beyond transactions. Be willing to provide curated, relevant information through easily digestible media, and your audience will undoubtedly see your brand as a unique part of your industry. – Mason Burchette, Best Buy Metals
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5. Break Down A Complex Topic
Break down a complex topic into simple terms, or teach people how something works, and they will come back to learn more. Sooner or later, they will pose questions, which opens a dialogue. – Jeff Harris, Keysight Technologies
6. Focus On Solving Their Problems
As the saying goes, content is king; however, content should focus on serving the customer. How does your product or service solve a problem they are facing? If you start from this perspective, then it almost becomes a disservice if you don’t tell them about your product or service. Be customer-centric in your content, and you’ll find that a sense of gratitude helps fuel brand loyalty. – Marisa Salcines, Cielo Nuevo Communications
7. Provide Expert-Level Content
One of our initiatives this year is to provide expert-level content for our customers. To do this, we’ve added staff, hiring an analyst specifically for this purpose. We believe that by giving customers data-driven insight that helps them succeed, we will encourage them to stay in closer touch with us. That way, we’re right there when they have a deal that mutually benefits everyone. – Robert Neely, Lima One Capital
8. Have A Take And Share Insights
Strive to be the go-to resource for your customers through knowledge sharing. Help them improve, solve problems and think outside of the box. You may even go so far as to challenge their thinking and ideas. You will increase brand loyalty when your prospects and customers see you as an integral part of their business operations, improvement and future planning. – Sara Wesche, 45th Parallel Marketing
9. Make The Customer Your Superhero
Brands must think about the “story arc” of their content and keep the customer as the superhero of the story. Brand loyalty often comes from customers’ emotional connections to the brand and the experiences impacted by the brand’s products and services; yet most consumers do not want to hear about the “brand” itself. Approach your marketing with the consumer as the focal point, and you’ll find success. – Kurt Uhlir, Showcase IDX
10. Co-Create Content With Users
Co-creating content with users is powerful and drives brand loyalty. This, coupled with developing an emotional connection with the customers, goes a long way. Another strategy is to take consumers on a unique journey that they wouldn’t be able to make on their own. The exclusivity and the uniqueness of the experience helps drive brand loyalty. – Arati Mukerji, Tata Communications Ltd
11. Use Customer Insights And Feedback
Brands must take the voice of the customer into account when producing content. The brands with the most loyal customers regularly collect feedback from transactions and experiences, and then use that to develop content that resonates. For example, the craft brewer Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. uses insights from the 1 million visitors it receives at its breweries to develop new content, campaigns and products. – Michael O’Connell, AnyRoad
12. Leverage Humor In Your Content
Be funny. Humor is tricky to get right (and many brands get it wrong), but it’s essential for generating brand loyalty. Most content marketers can’t face the fact that their customers couldn’t care less about their content. They like your product because it solves a particular problem of theirs, not because you had a cool blog post. But if you sprinkle in humor, you might just earn their loyalty. – Patrick Ward, Rootstrap
13. Speak To Your Brand’s ‘Why’
Speak to the “why” of your brand. To create brand loyalty, communicating to the customer how your product or service can meet their needs and grow alongside them throughout life is key. When you look at how iconic brands stand the test of time and create brand loyalty, their products or services become personal for the customer and a staple in their daily lives. – Callie Johnson, PhD, Bold Lines Consulting Firm LLC
14. Document The Company’s Life
The best way is to document the company’s life. In an era when marketing and entertainment have merged, brands need to become “discoverable.” Your marketing content is then documenting the life of the company itself. It is faster, real and more interesting than most staged content. Brands need to become media production machines. – Andrea d’Agostini, American Power & Gas
15. Leverage Advanced Technologies
Businesses need to leverage advanced technologies and frameworks to diversify their content efforts. With technologies such as augmented reality, virtual reality and 360-degree videos, businesses can create interactive and immersive content experiences that can go a long way in improving brand loyalty. – Michael Georgiou, Imaginovation
The Importance Of Branding In Business
Forbes Councils Member
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Serial entrepreneur, best-selling author, and founder/CEO of SEO and top 5 digital marketing agency LSEO.
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A business’s branding is more important than you might think. On the outside, your brand may seem like it consists only of elements such as logos and colors, but your brand is actually the entire identity of your business. Your brand gives you personality.
Branding has always been a vital part of business, but it may be more important now than ever before. With social media, consumers get exposed to new brands every day. This can be great for consumers who have plenty of options and are able to do research to find the best one, but it makes it harder for businesses.
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There’s a huge amount of competition today, so businesses need to go the extra mile of ensuring they stand out in a crowd. To do this, you should invest in creating a strong brand that will get and keep people’s attention. With the right branding, you have the chance to get some control over how people perceive your business, so you don’t want to overlook this.
More People Will Recognize Your Business
One of the most obvious reasons that businesses need branding is to help them get recognized more often. If you have strong branding for your business, people will naturally take note of it much more than they would a business without it. A business that doesn’t really have any cohesive branding isn’t going to stay in someone’s mind for very long.
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However, a business with elements such as a distinct logo, attractive colors and other visual elements will be much more memorable. Someone might see your brand for only a moment, but if it sticks out in a positive way, there’s a good chance they won’t forget it, even if this person isn’t ready to use your products or services just yet. Eventually, when they’re ready to take the next steps, if your branding has stuck with them, they’ll come back to you.
Branding Can Help Build Trust
Trust from your audience is one of the most important things you can have as a business, but this isn’t always easy to gain. A business that’s missing key elements of branding will have an even harder time getting people to trust them.
Branding is something many of us expect to see when we look at businesses in any industry, and missing this could be a red flag to some. Without branding, you have very little to show for your business.
If you had to choose between a business with clear, professional-looking branding and a business that hasn’t made this effort, you probably know which one you’d trust more. Branding helps you show potential customers that you’re an established, credible business. You can use this to tell people very early on what they can expect from your business. This is an investment your business is making to improve itself, and potential customers will recognize that you put in the work to create your brand.
You Can Improve Your Advertising
Your business won’t be able to get very far without advertising. Branding and advertising go hand in hand. If you want to have better advertising for your business, you’re going to need to work on creating a brand first.
When you’re advertising your business, you want everything to be cohesive and represent your business’s identity and values. This can be a challenge when you haven’t taken the time to form your brand. If you’re advertising without solid branding, you’re missing out on a lot of great opportunities to create an effective campaign. Incorporating branding into your advertising will help increase recognition of your brand when it’s all tied together.
It’s Great for Your Employees
Branding provides value inside of your company as well. Of course, you want your employees to love working for your company and feel like they’re a part of a team. A company with great branding will have an easier time getting employees to feel like they’re involved with something more than just a job.
In addition to branding that can help draw in new customers, you also want to invest in the aspects of branding that keep your team motivated. This includes little things like branded apparel and merchandise, but also the look of your entire office space. If you can motivate your employees by creating a sense of unity through branding, you could end up seeing great results all around.
Branding Creates Loyal Customers
You don’t just want customers who recognize your brand and use your business once — you want to create customers who continue to come back. With good branding, you can give your brand a more human side, which your customers can relate to more than a company that’s strictly all business.
In many ways, you can appeal to people’s emotions through branding and make them feel more connected to your company. Branding allows you to build relationships with your audience, which can eventually turn them into loyal customers. You can create a brand that people actually care about and put yourself ahead of businesses that aren’t using this to their advantage.
What’s the Difference Between Marketing vs. Branding? And Why You Should Know
While there is some overlap in what marketing and branding can do for your company, there are significant differences in their essential functions that you should know.
By: Sean Ludwig, Contributor
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While there is some overlap between the two, there are several key differences between marketing and branding and both can benefit your business. — valentinrussanov/Getty Images
When it comes to marketing your business — whether it’s running ads, posting on social media channels, sending emails, creating newsletters, etc. — there is often some discussion of branding, as well. In some cases, business owners may even think of marketing and branding as the same thing, despite the two playing different roles in telling people about your company.
Let’s dive in and discuss the roles branding and marketing play and how branding informs marketing.
What is branding?
In essence, branding is the process of establishing who your company is and what it stands for. As you initially develop (or perhaps reinvent) your company, you should make a serious effort to determine your brand’s personality and voice. You need to do the work of finding out what features set you apart from other companies.
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Mission and values
One of the most important parts of branding is establishing a mission statement, which will help set the tone and what you should expect your employees and customers to know about you. Your mission can help you determine your overall goals and your presence in the market.
To help establish your branding further, your company should be asking and answering questions, including:
· What values and principles do you support?
· What do you believe in?
· What type of culture does your company support?
· What sets you apart from other companies in your space?
· What emotions do you want people to feel about your company?
· How do you want customers to perceive you?
· How will people identify you?
· Why do you exist?
Look, feel and guidelines
Another critical aspect of branding is establishing your general visual aesthetic, which includes things such as company logo, typography, color palette, photography, icons, patterns and shapes. Your senior leadership should work together with a graphic designer or an agency on all of these things, which will create your visual identity. The materials you make will then be able to be used on your website, ads, social media channels, sales collateral, branded content and much more.
To help you keep all of your visual aesthetics consistent, your company should create a set of brand guidelines and a brand style guide. Guidelines and a style guide can provide details such as how your logo should appear, what colors you should use in each circumstance, what fonts you use, what type of photography and images should be used, the tone of your copy and more.
Advertising creates opportunities to connect your company with potential customers.
What is marketing?
The purpose of marketing is to bring your brand and what you offer as a company to a general or targeted audience. Your marketing department may use all kinds of tools and strategies to help raise awareness and sell your company’s services or products, but your branding should remain consistent throughout.
Advertising
One of the most significant components of marketing is building compelling advertising campaigns to help sell your products or services. Advertising can typically be split into two buckets — traditional and digital. Traditional advertising methods include print ads, billboards, television and radio. Digital ads include search engine ads, social media ads, sponsored content, online video pre-roll ads and website banner ads. The majority of ad budgets now go into supporting digital and online advertising.
Advertising creates opportunities to connect your company with potential customers. You should perform research both before and after you advertise to reach your desired customers and understand them better. As you learn about your customer’s needs and desires, your advertising methods can evolve.
Enabling sales
Advertising and other aspects of marketing primarily exist to help your sales team do their jobs. No matter the style of the campaign you are running, they should all lead people to engage with your company and then give salespeople the opportunity to close the deal. Your sales team should be talking regularly to your marketing department in order for them to understand what aspects of marketing customers are responding to.
How branding informs marketing
Now that you understand the basics of branding and marketing, it should be easier to see that they are different but related. As you develop your company, branding should come before marketing because you should fully establish your mission and personality before trying to attract customers. Think about it this way: If you don’t know your company voice and you don’t have a logo and tagline, you can’t effectively create meaningful advertising campaigns. Or if you do go about creating ads without doing some branding work, your ads will likely be haphazard and inconsistent.
Branding can and should have a serious impact on how you perform marketing. If your brand has a playful or serious tone, for example, that should be reflected in your marketing campaigns. Additionally, marketing can reinforce your brand to instill loyalty that will keep your customers coming back for more.
Why Branding Is Important in Marketing
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Table of Contents
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Branding and Understanding Your Customer
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The Importance of Branding and the Three Key Questions
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A Basic Checklist to Evaluate Your Brand
BY
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Updated on January 04, 2021
FACT CHECKED BY
Decades ago, branding was defined as a name, slogan, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of these elements, that distinguish one company, product, or service from another. Today, branding is more complex and even more important.
The Balance
What Should a Brand Do?
Branding is not just about getting your target market to select you over the competition. It’s also about getting your prospects to see you as the sole provider of a solution to their problem or need. In its essence, branding is a problem-solver. A good brand will:
· Clearly deliver a message
· Confirm the brand’s credibility in the marketplace
· Emotionally connect target prospects with a product or service
· Motivate the buyer to make a purchase
· Create user loyalty
Branding and Understanding Your Customer
To succeed in branding, you must understand the needs and wants of your customers and prospects. You can achieve this by integrating your brand strategies throughout your company at every point of public contact.
Think of branding as though your company or organization were a living, breathing person. Imagine this person explaining who they are, why they’re valuable, and what they specifically have to offer.
As consumers begin to identify with you, your brand will live in the hearts and minds of customers, clients, and prospects, and they’ll connect on an emotional level.
The Importance of Branding and the Three Key Questions
Your brand is the source of a promise to your consumer. If you’re billing yourself as the manufacturer of the longest-lasting light bulb, your brand has to live up to that.
It’s important to spend time researching, defining, and building your brand.
In developing a strategic marketing plan, your brand serves as a guide to understanding the purpose of your key business objectives and enables you to align the plan with those objectives. Branding doesn’t just count during the time before the purchase—the brand experience has to last to create customer loyalty. You can create that by answering these three questions:
1. Did the product or service perform as expected?
2. Was the quality as good as promised or better?
3. Was the entire customer experience positive?
If you can get positive answers to these three questions, you’ve created a loyal customer.
Beyond Loyal Customers
Branding not only creates loyal customers, but it also creates loyal employees. A quality brand gives people something to believe in and something to stand behind. It helps employees understand the purpose of the organization they work for. They feel like they’re a part of something significant and not just a cog in a wheel.
A Basic Checklist to Evaluate Your Brand
How do you know if your brand is strong enough to give you the internal and external value that you need? Start by asking yourself the following:
· Does the brand relate to my target audience? Will they instantly “get it” without too much thought?
· Does the brand share the uniqueness of what I am offering and why it’s important?
· Does the brand reflect the promise made to my target audience and hold value for my internal audience?
· Does the brand reflect the values that I want to represent to my customers?
Let these questions serve as a guideline in the development of your brand. If you’re not sure about the answers then you may want to revamp your branding efforts.
