To quote the Business Directory, branding is “the process involved in creating a unique name and image for a product in the consumers’ mind, mainly through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme. It aims to establish a significant presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers”
To summarize: branding embraces all the actions you can take to develop and manage your brand. To understand the importance of branding in your project, you need to know the business environment your brand moves in.
Your company is operating in an increasingly competitive world, where technology plays an essential part and consumers are becoming more and more demanding and difficult to persuade. This is why you need to launch a two-pronged attack!
On the one hand, you have to stand out from your competitors and, on the other hand, you need to devise strategies to win over your customers. It is true that you have already had these challenges, but now you have a double-edged sword: Internet and the social networks. New technologies can become your best allies to promote your brand image. Of course, these technologies can make you vulnerable to criticism from an unsatisfied consumer too.
Why Branding?
The reason for branding is the need to properly manage your brand in a changing and complex environment like the one described above. It could well be that, as a company, you have always striven to offer the best products and services, using all your marketing techniques to achieve that aim, but now, it is just not enough.
Branding goes a step further and aims to get your consumers to associate your brand with positive values. It gets your product to stick in their minds and helps them to fall in love with it.
Keyword exercise part of my branding workshop in Barcelona
What is branding for?
For you as an entrepreneur or small business owner, branding is the core element that helps you to present your value proposition to your consumers. It is the tool that allows you to communicate the vision you have of your company to the public. Your brand is much more than the products or services you are marketing. Branding evokes emotions, and emotions are like the bait to attract the consumer to your product.
So what use is branding? Let’s have a look at the benefits of including a good branding strategy in your communication plan:
It lets your product stand out from the rest: In a market full of so many similar brands all desperate to reach the eyes of the consumer. Branding helps you to stand out from the rest, using the emotions that your business portrays.
It transmits your ethos: Branding helps people to better understand the spirit, values and ethos of your brand.
It is essential for brand placement: It stimulates customer loyalty and helps you to establish yourself faster in the minds of the consumers.
It makes your brand memorable: It makes it easy for your audience to recognize you and remember you. It also promotes customer loyalty.
It gives you credibility and dependability: A solid branding strategy will convey that your business is responsible and reliable.
It unites your employees and partners: Branding also creates important bonds and enhances the feeling of belonging to a team. It is important that your team clearly understands the branding and the important place it holds in the project.
How does branding work?
Brand building is a process that has a beginning, but not an end. It starts from the moment you choose the name for your brand and the design for the corporate image. The next step is to take the necessary actions to achieve your desired positioning for it in the market. Developing your brand is not the end of the story. It is essential to keep maintaining it
How to develop a successful branding strategy? That is the crux of the matter:
WRITE DOWN YOUR MISSION AND YOUR VISION.
Before we start, we must know where we want to go. The vision is our goal, our destination, whereas the mission sets out the steps to reach it.
IDENTIFY YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE.
Carry out research to get to know your audience. Who they are, what they like, how they behave, who they relate to and how.
DEFINE YOUR BRAND PERSONALITY.
How can you show the public what you are all about? Think about the qualities, attributes and values that define the organization and how you can convey them.
CHOOSE THE KEYWORDS OF YOUR BRAND.
If you are sure about the 3 keywords that define your business, it will be easier to develop a cohesive brand image that truly identifies you.
Finally, remember that branding doesn’t only apply to companies. It can also be applied to personal branding. Our own image can itself become a brand and so it is important to work on it to achieve the desired results.
I hope that you now have a clearer idea of what branding is all about, and why it is so important in order to have a successful business.
Look at some examples of my own exclusive brand designs on my Pinterest page. Or some identity projects I have carried out in the studio
