Branding Basics

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What is Branding and How Important is it to Your Marketing Strategy?

The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines a brand as a "name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers.

Therefore it makes sense to understand that branding is not about getting your target market to choose you over the competition, but it is about getting your prospects to see you as the only one that provides a solution to their problem.

The objectives that a good brand will achieve include:

1. Delivers the message clearly
2. Confirms your credibility
3. Connects your target prospects emotionally
4. Motivates the buyer
5. Concretes User Loyalty

To succeed in branding you must understand the needs and wants of your customers and prospects. You do this by integrating your brand strategies through your company at every point of public contact.

Your brand resides within the hearts and minds of customers, clients, and prospects. It is the sum total of their experiences and perceptions, some of which you can influence, and some that you cannot.

A strong brand is invaluable as the battle for customers intensifies day by day. It's important to spend time investing in researching, defining, and building your brand. After all your brand is the source of a promise to your consumer. It's a foundational piece in your marketing communication and one you do not want to be without.

How To Define Your Brand

  This is the first step in the process of developing your brand strategy. By defining who your brand is you create the foundation for all other components to build on. Your brand definition will serve as your measuring stick in evaluating any and all marketing materials and strategies. You will begin this process by answering the questions below.

What products and/or services do you offer? Define the qualities of these services and/or products.

What are the core values of your products and services? What are the core values of your company?

What is the mission of your company?

What does your company specializes in?

Who is your target market? Who do your products and services attract?

What is the tagline of your company? What message does your tagline send to your prospects?

Using the information from the previous steps create a personality or character for your company that represents your products or services. What is the character like? What qualities stand out? Is the personality of your company innovative, creative, energectic, or sophisticated?

Use the personality that you created in the previous step and build a relationship with your target market that you defined in Step 5.

How does that personality react to target audience? What characteristics stand out? Which characteristics and qualities get the attention of your prospects.

Review the answers to the questions above and create a profile of your brand. Describe the personality or character with words just as if you were writing a biography or personal ad. Be creative.

Brand: The Sum of All Its Parts

Despite what many believe, brand isn’t about your logo, tagline and glossy brochure. Instead, a strong brand integrates multiple components, all of them necessary, including customer interactions, employee communications, corporate philosophy and advertising/marketing efforts. Your brand extends to your employees, customers, the media and even the general public as the above story illustrates. If these components don’t consistently reinforce your brand, customers will become dissatisfied. The negative impact of their perception, should they voice their opinions to other potential customers or even the media, could have a ripple effect on your business. This can erode your brand equity and create misperceptions about your company in the market, that in turn could lead prospective customers, employees and investors to pass on your organization.

On the other hand, brand consistency throughout all levels of the organization helps drive an organization to grow and prosper.

1. Strong brands can drive an increase in sales.
2. The company is better suited to attract and retain the best employees.
3. Vendors can see value in your brand and look to establish partnerships with your business.
4. Investors will see the business and your valuable brand equity.
   

Branding Through Your Employees

Your employees are one of the most critical touch points for your customer. Here are several steps to ensure that they are representing your brand in the best light possible.

1-Develop a Company Philosophy.

A thoughtfully planned philosophy that guides how your company operates is the first step to reinforcing your brand among your workforce. The prestigious Ritz Carlton Hotel Company is an excellent example. They have created the following five “Gold Standards” for their business operations that reinforce the brand and detail an employee’s role in delivering on this brand:

A vision to revolutionize hospitality in America by creating a luxury setting for guests and a credo that states the company’s commitment to the genuine care and comfort of its guests.

A motto that exemplifies the level of service for its guests: We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.

Three Steps of Service:

A warm and sincere greeting that uses the guest name, if and when possible

Anticipation and compliance with guest needs

A fond farewell that uses a guest’s name, if and when possible

“20 Basics” that outline the responsibilities and expectations for how the company delivers on its service (including #13—Never Lose a Guest)

The Employee Promise (“At The Ritz-Carlton, our Ladies & Gentlemen are the most important resource in our service commitment to our guests.”)

2-Maintain Brand Consistency

This step is essential to building a strong brand. However, it is often one of the first steps to unravel. You must establish consistency throughout all aspects of your organization. But setting the standards is not enough. You must constantly evaluate your actions. Establish checkpoints for each aspect of the business that interacts with customers and the general public. Ensure that each employee is empowered to identify and address inconsistencies in your brand. Fail to deliver on brand with one customer, and he or she might forget. Fail to do so for another, and he or she might not be so forgiving. It only takes a scant few to dispel the brand you are touting.

3-Practice What You Preach.

The best way to lead is by example. If your brand projects your organization as one which supports its employees and then reneges on that promise, your brand (and sales) will suffer. Case in point: Wal-Mart. The company says, “We believe that one of the keys to our success is our people and how we treat them.” However, the retail chain has been the subject of unfair employee wage practice lawsuits. Moreover, though they say they value their target customer (the hard working middle class) their actions aren’t necessarily consistent with the rhetoric.

4-Implement Brand Guidelines.

In order to ensure brand consistency, your organization must establish a framework or set of brand guidelines for all to follow. We’re not merely talking about logo or corporate identity guidelines, but actual brand guidelines that communicate the company’s brand positioning statement, key messages, core values, brand attributes, measures of success and processes for handling customer issues or feedback. Federal Express was an early pioneer in this idea. The international shipper utilizes an Internet-based program which outlines the company’s brand guidelines. This detailed approach provides guidance on everything from the graphic standards for use of the company logo to how cultural differences affect brand (particularly important for global companies). Establishing brand guidelines leaves no room for misinterpretation and helps maintain consistency throughout all levels of the organization.

5-Understand and Address Cultural Differences.

With advancements in technology, communications and the Internet, we are truly becoming a global economy. Considering cultural differences when building a brand is more important than ever, particularly if your business has international reach. Words and phrases in America might not translate to the same meaning in another country. What customers value and perceive as positive in the United States may be perceived radically different elsewhere. In the past, the United States was the model that all others wanted to emulate. That isn’t necessarily the case today. Therefore, it is incumbent on corporations to ensure that their brands can transcend these cultural differences, if they are to have a greater geographical reach. Brand extends well beyond your marketing efforts. Your brand is only as good as the people behind it...and the people in front of your customer. Take the time to effectively build a corporate culture that mirrors your brand. Train your employees to represent that brand. Evaluate your consistency in delivering your brand across all aspects of your business. In doing so, you will strengthen your brand equity and position your company for greater success.

Do The Research

In Marketing You Must Know Your Target

Identifying your marketing targets enables you to find opportunities and tap into them. It gives you the information needed to focus on the buyers that are interested in what you have to offer. This can save you both time and money in an ever-changing society.

There are three prime areas that you must identify when it comes to developing your marketing strategy. They include:

Target Market

Purchasing Target

Communications Target

It's not enough to be familiar with these terms, you must understand how these components work together.

Your target market is who you aim your marketing efforts to. This is the group that you want to sell your products or services to. They have an interest in what it is that you have to offer. Your target market can be broken down into segments that can include demographics, psychographics, income levels, and age levels.

Your purchasing target are the individuals or businesses within your defined target market that needs your product or service and can actually afford to purchase it.

The communication that you use to target this market is referred to as your communication target. It is the different methods or styles that you will use to reach your defined target market or audience. The message you send through your communication target can be presented both formally or informally.

As you can see each piece is equally important and works together like a jigsaw puzzle. By identifying and knowing who your target is it is easier to develop your marketing effectively and aim for the bull's-eye. It will enable you to design special offerings and promotions. It will also increase your ability to convert your marketing efforts into sales.

How To Write Your Positioning Statement

A positioning statement provides direction or focus to a business or organization. It is a no nonsense statement of how your company is perceived in the minds of your target market. Develop your statement by following the steps below.
Here's How:

Write down who your business is.

Write down what business you are in.

Think about and write down who your company serves. Who does your target market represent?

Brainstorm and write down what it is that your target market needs.

Make a list of your competitors.

Write down and explain what makes your business different from your competitors.

Make a list of the unique benefits that derive from your product or services.

Use the above information and in the second session focus on refining it to the final statement.

Publish the final statement shortly after the second session ends to prevent changes, additions, and more meetings.

Tips:

Use the first session to brainstorm each question.Use the second session to focus on refinement and agreement.

Make sure your statement is clear and defensible.Keep in mind that a statement of position expresses how your company wishes to be perceived.

Your statement should create clarity, consistence, and continuity to the target market that your organization serves.

Keep output unfiltered, this will help in the final production of the statement.

Types of Branding

1-Personal Branding: Is It Right For You?

I am often asked how an individual can brand themselves and if personal branding is as valuable as corporate branding. Personal branding can single an individual out as an expert in their field, but are there downfalls to personal branding vs. company branding?

Truth is personal branding is easier than company branding. Why? Because if you believe in your talent, in your skills and ability - it's easier to sell what you believe in. Your image is already created - you just have to market it. How do you market yourself? That's easy. You must become:

 A pro in your industry; an expert in your field.

 With that said are there downfalls to personal branding? Absolutely. Unless you plan to work until your last living day, it will be difficult to transition the brand to someone else. After all you are the BRAND! If you are ok with the fact that in order to transition out of the brand you will need to create a new one that your consumers can grasp onto then personal branding may just be for you.

 When branding yourself remember that you must create a strong and consistent brand. You cannot skimp just because it's about you.

 Strong brands are clear about who they are and what they are not; which is why branding yourself can be an easy process. You already know who you are and what you are not. Strong brands are also consistent; it's easy to be consistent in who you are.

 Let's take for example Madonna. She was her brand. Since the start of her career she has had the ability to change consistently throughout her career. This made her stand out from among other performers. This in essence strengthened her individual brand.

 By branding yourself effectively you will:

 Establish yourself as an expert in your chosen field.


Build a solid reputation within your industry.


Increase your notoriety and improve your perceived value in the marketplace.


The key to successfully branding yourself and doing it effectively is to first establish a personal brand identity. Once you have done that focus that message on who you are and what you stand for within your chosen field. Your final step is to get the word out through a variety of media channels that are viewed by the people most likely to be interested in your message.

As people begin to see your name and become aware of the benefit and knowledge that you offer, before you know it thousands of people will not only know who you are but they will begin to seek out your services and expertise. They will identify with your brand which is YOU.

2- Internal Branding - Branding From the Inside Out

We spend days sometimes weeks developing our "marketing message." Examining and experimenting with taglines and logos. It's also not unlikely to spend hours of overtime determining our company colors before we set out to launch. There is however an area that is almost always forgotten in the planning phase of a new company or the restructuring of an old company. That area is training staff to understand and reflect our message and brand.



Truth is marketing starts from the inside out. Do your employees believe in your product and the services that you offer? Are they standing 100% behind you in the mission of your brand? Are they living your brand? It is important that your employees are informed and involved in new initiatives and strategies that are taking place within your company. If your staff is unable or unwilling to support your marketing efforts it can have detrimental results. How can you begin your internal branding campaign within your company?










Step 1: Synchronize Your Brand Personality, Values and Corporate Culture


Your marketing team should be working closely with your Human Resources team to ensure that the common values of your company internally and externally are in sync.



Step 2: Get Your Employees Behind Your Brand


Align your criteria for recruiting and rewarding employees with the criteria of the brand value. Look for the right skills and aptitudes that will represent your brand promise effectively.



Step 3: Reinforce and Repeatedly Explain Brand Values and Behaviors


Use your internal communication to reinforce and explain the values and behaviors that reflect your brand promise. Continuously do this until they become second nature.


If you thought the process of involving your staff was not important take into account that your employees meet, greet, and assist your customers in many different ways. They are the face of your brand. Engage your staff right from the start and encourage individual input. Use your staff as a focus group - after all who knows your clientele better than they do? By doing this you will not only get support from your staff but you will be given insight and ideas that you otherwise may not have considered.