When you think about branding, the first thing that comes to mind is the way you have marketed your product or rather the face it has taken over the course of you introducing your product to the masses.
Branding is a process that involves a unique name and image of a product or service that is mainly done through advertising campaigns. Branding uses multiple measures to establish an image of your company in the eyes and mind of your customers. Branding aims to establish significant presence in the market and to attract and retain customers. It is an extremely important aspect in your marketing program to ensure that your brand goes everywhere.
Building a website that fully describes what products and service you offer, creating a logo, designing ads and selecting corporate colours and featuring it across your social media accounts is called branding. You are then shaping your business to build proper perceptions of your company to the people. Branding is vital because it helps your customers understand what you offer and what makes you different from your competitors. It is not only about your unique selling propositions (USP) but also all the ways used to communicate to reach out to people.
How is branding different from marketing?
The main focus of marketing is the customer. Marketing is used to create the customer, keep the customer and to satisfy the customer. Marketing is aimed at selling your product or service to your customers. For an example, Mercedes Benz is a brand known by all but when the come up with a new automobile they will still need to do intense marketing which includes the technique of promoting, selling and distributing their new product into the market. Marketing is very tactical compared to branding which involves strategy. Marketing involves getting people to buy and remain as loyal customers to your product or services. Marketing activates and attracts all potential customers and will further need to make sure they remain loyal with constant successful marketing campaigns.
Brand marketing is most effective in developing repeat business as it influences the decisions of consumers and businesses. For instance, a customer’s perception towards a brand is going to be largely influenced by their previous experience and also about what their fellow peers got to say about it. For example, coffee lovers knows that Starbucks only promises quality coffee that has gone through several levels of testing and quality control. Hence they keep going back there for their caffeine fix. Companies constantly work towards increasing their reputation and awareness through brand marketing. The way it is done is rather simple, we take Starbucks as an example again. All their coffee mugs and take-away cups has their brand logo printed on them. What better way to market your brand than having people walk around with a cup bearing your logo. Brand marketing take quality very seriously as well. This is because, poor product quality will surely affect a customer’s perception.
Source: shapetechmarketing.com
Who is then responsible of brand marketing? This is when a brand manager comes into play. A brand manager is responsible of ensuring that a company’s products and services are compatible with the current market. Firstly, a brand manager will need to conduct an initial research for a particular brand and gather data on where would the product fit in with the rest of the market. He/she will then have to conduct extensive research on market trends, demand for a product, demographics and to keep a close eye on the competitive products in the market in order to gain popularity among people and also to ask people on what makes a product or service stand out. They are also responsible of overlooking their junior team members, executing marketing campaigns, managing profit & loss, driving market growth and regularly meeting up with clients. With that, a brand manager should posses strong analytical and creative skills, to be business savvy and to have excellent communication skills.
Once you have a brand created and ready for the market you will then need a marketing strategy. You need to make sure that your marketing strategy is comprehensive in order to achieve optimum results as it is the foundation of a marketing plan. Here are some strategies that you should incorporate to achieve optimum results. You must always start by doing a market research to identify your best customers, understand their needs and focus on a product that will draw their attention. You must make sure your strategy is long-term and has a profitable relationship with your customers. Therefore, you would need to create a marketing strategy that is flexible and can easily respond to changes and demands. Once you have all your strategies defined and implemented make sure to monitor its effectiveness to maintain success for your business. A complete and effective marketing strategy will help you to outline and describe your company’s overall direction and goals and it should always articulate how are you going to deliver the best product or services that will satisfy your customers needs in order to be successful.
A marketing manager then comes into play to manage and execute the strategies prepared. He/she is responsible in managing the marketing of a company’s product or service. These creative individuals are responsible for all planned and unplanned marketing images of a company. Planned images are those that include print or video advertisements, endorsements and public speaking. Unplanned images are those that may occur when an unexpected mistake occurs in public or when the company is questioned about the product or services. In order to be exceptional in their role, they have to have good leadership and motivational skills and also capable of thinking out-of-the box to create great campaigns. Besides that, they will also need to have excellent communication and budgeting skills. The should also be spontaneous and outgoing
There is a huge different in marketing and branding. We at ThunderQuote can always help you to overcome any doubts that you have in your mind.
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