Products never remain ‘mere products’. Brands take them out from the shells, making them an essential component in customer’s day to day life.
Certain brands become so powerful that, they take over whole of the market. Certain products and services are often known by its name. Why is that so? Photocopying of papers are generally called Xerox. But how many of you know that Xerox is just a company who happened to manufacture first ever photocopying machine?
Today, brands are the drivers of sales. Strong and powerful brands often have loyal customers in their pockets. Studies prove that, 59% of customers prefer to buy new products from brands familiar to them.
How do you build a brand? Branding isn’t all about a cool logo and advertisement. When it comes to building your brand, there are three vital B’s you need to understand about —brand, branding and brand identity.
Let’s take a quick look at the basics of these three B’s, before striding into brand building.
What is a Brand?
Before comprehending what branding and brand building is, it is important to understand what a brand is. With a lot of explanations available across internet, brand has become a term, that revolves around humongous chaos. Some of the explanations that search engines might provide you are;
‘Brand is the emotional and psychological relationship that you have with your customers.’
‘A product manufactured by a particular company under a particular name.’
‘The name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that discern a seller’s product from other sellers.’
‘It is the idea or image of a specific product or service that consumers connect with, by identifying the name, logo, slogan, or design of the company.’
All of the above mentioned definitions are indeed answers for the question, what is a brand. But, all of them are only partial answers.
In addition to customer’s overall perception, brand is the personality of a business.
What is Branding?
Branding is the act of shaping a unique and distinctive brand; it’s the dynamic exercise of bringing a brand to life.
It incorporates process of researching, developing and applying an idiosyncratic feature to your organization, so that consumers can associate your brand with your products or services. Branding is important; apart from making a memorable experience and impression in customer’s mind, it also gives a clear portrait of what to anticipate from your brand.
Branding helps in defining points of parity and points of difference, thus differentiating your brand from your competitors.
When branding your business, start small and remember to focus on your target audience first. With time, your brand loyalty may grow enough to expand your reach.
What is brand Identity?
Brand identity is the collection of all elements that a company creates to portray the right image to its consumer. Brand identity is different from “brand image” and “branding,” even though these terms are sometimes treated as interchangeable.
Brand identity includes visible elements of a brand, such as colour, design, and logo, that helps to identify and distinguish the brand in the minds of consumers.
Just like your personal identity makes you uniquely different, your brand identity is the special constituent of your business that sets you apart from every other competitor.
Now that we have understood what the three B’s of Brand Building are, it is time to move on to the next step.
What is Brand Building?
Brand Building is generating awareness, establishing and promoting business using strategies and tactics. It enhances the brand equity using advertising campaigns and promotional strategies.
At present, augmentation of brand building can be done through various digital marketing activities including;
User Experience
SEO
Content Marketing
Social Media Marketing
Email Marketing
Paid Advertising/ Pay Per Click
These channels aid in creating brand awareness among the target market.
Building a brand cannot happen overnight; many strategic and purposeful ordeals are associated with it. Let’s go step-by-step and understand how to build a brand.
- Determine your target audience
- Establish a Brand Mission Statement
- Competitor Analysis
- Outline point of differentiations
- Create a brand logo and tagline
- Form your Brand voice
- Build a brand message
- Give prominence to your brand personality
- Stay true to your brand building