It is unlikely that today you can find a person who cannot recognize the brand of Coca Cola, Apple, Toyota, and many other well-known companies. However, why is this happening? What contributes to the fact that these brands are so engraved in our memory? The answer to these questions is quite simple and lies on the surface: it’s all about the persistent and thoughtful elaboration of the style of your own brand. The main task of the brand development strategy is to tell potential clients about the company, its mission and provide clients with a first-class experience through visual style and other tools.
To go deeper into the topic, we will talk in more detail about the brand development process, consider a few of the most popular examples, and also check out several useful tips that will help you successfully develop your brand yourself.
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What Branding Is All About?
Before delving into the topic, it is worth clarifying one very important nuance. The concept of branding and brand development strategy is not directly related to the logo, name, trademark, or any other symbol of a business or company. In addition, do not forget that brand development is not limited to the marketing department. No one disputes that the above things are important components of any brand, but they are far from the only ones that affect how your customers see the brand.
Now, let’s take a look at what branding is. Branding aims to raise awareness about the company and the products or services it provides to customers. So, in simpler terms, you are working on customer awareness of your company and services.
You might ask, “We remember all famous companies by their logos. Isn’t the logo the most important element of a brand image?” This question is undoubtedly logical, but it is difficult to give a clear answer to it. Globally speaking, your brand and business image is the sum total of all the experiences your customers get when interacting with anything related to your business.
As a result, customer experiences are summed up from many different factors from interactions with your business or with you personally. And today, it is the interaction of the business owner with the audience that affects users’ attitude to the business as a whole. Therefore, many businessmen begin to actively communicate with clients on social networks, blogging, guest appearances on various talk shows, podcasts, and other ways of interacting with clients. This is a very smart strategy, as this approach helps to simultaneously improve the personal brand and get closer to the target audience of the business.
Any interaction is already telling customers something about your brand, even the smallest. For example, if users clearly see that a product or service that you provide is advanced and innovative, this is delayed in the minds of customers, and they begin to clearly associate your brand with advancement and innovation. Let’s imagine that your business is in e-commerce, and your brand has a main site where all purchases are made. If your website design is beautiful and easy to use, users will immediately understand that the brand and business it stands for are professional and will be able to provide them with a top-notch experience. However, if your website design is not very well thought out and it causes inconvenience or just looks unpresentable, you should think about outsourcing web development so the professionals can fix all the problems. If you neglect this, your entire business will look amateurish and most likely scare off potential customers.
Why Is Brand Development Strategy Vital For the Business?
Modern business is a constant pursuit of customers’ attention, and it is extremely difficult to win their love and appreciation. A brand development strategy should help you with this process. You need to think it over carefully, as this strategy helps you better understand your business goals and think about the perfect marketing campaign that will promote your brand in a certain way.
An effective marketing campaign is a generator of new customers for your business, which helps to expand your audience and increase revenue. In addition to loyal customers, you also increase the attraction of employees who see your brand as a strong player in the market and give reason to believe that they will achieve personal heights with this brand.
Modern business constantly pursues customers’ attention, and it is extremely difficult to win their love and appreciation. A brand development strategy should help you with this process. You need to think it over carefully, as this strategy helps you better understand your business goals and think about the perfect marketing campaign that will promote your brand in a certain way.
An effective marketing campaign is a generator of new customers for your business, which helps to expand your audience and increase revenue. In addition to loyal customers, you also increase the attraction of employees who see your brand as a strong player in the market and give reason to believe that they will achieve personal heights with this brand.
Think back to the most popular soda makers Coca-Cola and Pepsi. They have done tremendous work with their brand strategies, and thanks to this, today they are at their best, and everyone trusts their products. For example, in 1975, Pepsi ran a pretty interesting marketing campaign. Representatives of the company offered ordinary customers in the store to taste colas from mugs on which there were no labels. After that, they were asked which coke and from which mug they liked the most. As a result, almost everyone pointed to the Pepsi mug.
However, the interesting fact is that despite the fact that most of the tasters chose Pepsi as the tastiest drink, Coca-Cola had a significantly larger market share, and this situation is still observed today.
This result prompted scientists to conduct research and understand why the tasters made such a choice. In short, they conducted research using machines that track brain activity.
The first test was the same as Pepsi’s marketing campaign. The test participants did not know what brands of cola they drink, and for taste, everyone again chose Pepsi. This was recorded by a brain activity tracking machine.
At the second test, the tasters were immediately told that they would drink, and then the machine determined that Coca-Cola was the winner in this stage. To not go into physiological details, when we taste a famous drink or any other product, our brain evaluates not the taste but the memories and experiences associated with a certain brand. Scientists have confirmed that these are all consequences of a correct brand development strategy.
This whole story is a clear example of the incredible importance of branding. And these metrics apply not only to the food industry but also to any other industry: software development, agriculture, cosmetics, and more.
How To Conduct The Right Brand Development Strategy On A Limited Budget
So, we’ve already figured out why branding is vital for any business. Now is the time to talk about how to conduct a brand development strategy without having extensive financial resources. We will highlight some useful tips to help you do everything without mistakes.
Determine Your Buying Persona
Buying Persona is a fictional representation of the ideal customer and the traits they possess. In addition, these personas represent the needs and goals that your potential buyers may have and that you want to satisfy. Once you have compiled all the information, you will have a clear understanding of who is using your product or service, why they are doing it, and more.
Establish A Social Presence Of Your Brand
So, now you understand who your potential buyers are. Now is the time to identify social networks where they can most often be present. This will allow you to identify the top social media platforms where your brand will be most active. Once you decide on social media, you will need to be constantly active and maintain a presence. For example, your company’s Facebook should be regularly updated with new posts because the company page where the last update was half a year ago will raise suspicions among customers. As a result, you will lose potential buyers who could use your service or product.
Make A Blog Of Your Company
If your brand has its own blog, it dramatically increases the flow of qualified leads and buyers. You can also achieve this effect if the blog is updated with high-quality content that will be useful to users and will entice them to use your services. All people are always in search of new and useful information that will help solve their problems. A blog will help you highlight your brand, show the value of the brand to users, and inform customers about what they are actually looking for. In addition, the blog will be an excellent source of information for posts on social networks, which is important for their active maintenance of social presence.
Make A Customer Service A Top Priority
A happy client will not only come to you again but also share his positive experience with friends, family and bring new clients with him for your business. To achieve this, you must concentrate most of your attention on first-class customer service. Just provide your customers with good service, help them make their shopping experience memorable, and you will get word of mouth to do all the advertising for you.
Use A Co-Branding For Your Advantage
If your business is just starting to take its first steps in the market, it is a great idea to partner with a well-known company. The tips that we listed above are also aimed at the right brand development strategy, however, they take time to function, and you need patience. If you are limited in time, you can become partners with an already established company in the market. However, to do this, you should also know a few helpful tips:
- Study the audience of a potential partner. You must clearly understand that your product will be of interest to your partner. In addition, it will make it clear how difficult it will be to interest this audience without any partnership.
- Your cooperation must be beneficial to both parties. Otherwise, you will not get an agreement.
- It is a good idea to partner with a nonprofit organization as it positively affects the brand image. Buyers tend to base their buying decisions on brand social responsibility.
Wrapping Thins Up
As you can see, creating a brand development strategy is a rather difficult task that requires some preparation and considerable effort. However, you can do this without investing significant funds, which allows you to start developing even a small business that is recently on the market. In return for your diligence, you get a new brand face that will attract customers, improve your bottom line and push your business ahead of the competition.
Author’s bio:
Vitaly Kuprenko is a technical writer at Cleveroad, a web and mobile app development company in Ukraine. He enjoys writing about tech innovations and digital ways to boost businesses.
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