In marketing, what is branding?
Branding is the act of combining features such as a logo, design, mission statement, and a consistent theme throughout all marketing communications to create a strong, favorable perception of a company, its products, or services in the minds of customers. Effective branding allows businesses to stand out from the competition and cultivate a loyal consumer base.
What Is the Importance of Branding?
A distinct brand can have a significant influence on your bottom line by offering you a competitive advantage over your competitors and lowering the cost of acquiring and retaining clients. An established brand can be a vital asset in drawing clients and producing profit in eCommerce, where new companies (and hence new competitors) are cropping up every day.
Whether you put time and effort into creating an engaging brand or don’t give it a second thought, your company has a distinct identity. However, it’s possible that it’s not how you intended to be perceived.
You have the potential to shape your customers’ expectations and create a unique bond that extends beyond the buying-selling relationship by carefully establishing your brand through stories, relationships, marketing messages, and visual assets.
In eCommerce, the Importance of Branding
Branding is a complicated process that involves meticulous planning and a determined strategy. To avoid working backwards to try to align your online store with customer expectations, you should have your branding strategy planned out before you launch your online store. A successful brand is easy to relate to and draws on qualities that the target audience finds appealing. A strong brand can also be a safety net for an eCommerce store, preventing it from having to compete on price.
So, how do you go about establishing an internet store’s brand? The following are the essential steps in eCommerce branding:
.Know who your customers are. To communicate effectively, you must first identify and leverage the components that affect your target clients. What do they enjoy doing? What entices and motivates them? What aspects of your brand do they find appealing?
.Create a brand persona. A brand persona is your company’s personality through which you will deliver consumer experiences. The information you obtain about your target clients will have a big impact on it. What tone of voice will be most appropriate for this audience? Which kind of words will have the most impact? What photos will pique their interest?
.Make a clear statement about your brand’s promise. What is your most important promise to your customers? What will your products/services do to improve their lives? How are you going to keep your word? One of the most appealing features of a brand, according to 66 percent of consumers, is openness.
.Make the most of your graphic assets. Because online buyers do not have the luxury of touching and feeling the items they purchase, the visual experience is critical. All the front-facing parts of a brand, such as the website design, typefaces and typography, colour palette, logo and ad designs, as well as the packaging and unboxing experience you produce, are considered visual assets. It’s a potent branding tool that’s at its best when all of the moving pieces are in sync and working together. According to studies, having a memorable signature hue increases the likelihood of people recognising your brand by 80%.
.Customer service should be improved. Although you have little control over how your customers feel about your brand in the end, you should make every effort to ensure that every engagement and touch point you have with them is consistent with your brand promise and adheres to your brand rules.
“Knowing them,” according to 69 percent of consumers, is the most critical thing brands can do to improve their experience. This will cover anything from your return policy to your shipping arrangements to your email marketing messages, among other things.
.Remember to return the favour. Thanking your loyal consumers for their business can go a long way toward improving your brand’s reputation. Show your appreciation by operating special loyalty programmes or promotions, giving away free presents on occasion, or offering discounts. It’s a guaranteed approach to personalise your brand and develop long-term relationships with your customers.
Examples of Branding in Marketing
The History of the Word “Brand
The procedure of ranchers putting a mark on their cattle to distinguish their individual cows is referred to as “branding.” These marks began to distinguish the grade of the meat in addition to providing proof of ownership. Some ranchers, for example, fed their cattle salt to get them to drink more water before weighing in order to increase the sale price of each cow. Some ranchers drove their cows hard to market, gaining muscle in the process. Ranchers who correctly raised their cows and charged a reasonable price had a stronger “brand” than their competitors.
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Developing a Brand
If you offer shampoo, it is your product, not your brand. That’s your brand — exclusivity and quality – if you sell a high-end, high-priced shampoo that’s only available in salons. That’s your brand – affordability – if you offer low-cost shampoo at big-box stores.
Quality, pricing, reliability, a guarantee, customer service, and other criteria can all be used to build a brand. Craftsman tools, for example, offered a lifetime warranty on their items, establishing a high-quality brand. With its hosting and website services, GoDaddy provides free 24/7 tech help, making it a user-friendly brand for low-tech customers. KFC’s main product is chicken; it does not sell pizza, tacos, or burgers. It has established a reputation as a fried chicken expert.
Your pricing strategy can help you establish a brand. Some businesses want to have the most expensive goods in their market to create perceived value (“They could only sell it for this much if it’s the best!”). Lowering the price in order to compete with discount brands would be detrimental to the brand. If the high-price plan fails, the company may need to pivot, adjusting the messaging as the product transitions from a high-end item to a reliable, inexpensive, or effective one. This would give the product a new identity.
A business can brand itself, particularly if it only sells one product, such as insurance, bicycles, or phones. It would use consistent messaging to highlight its unique selling proposition (e.g., quality, affordability, customer service, or a long warranty).
Management of a brand
The practise of protecting your brand is known as brand management. For example, if you brand your shampoo as a high-end, exclusive product and then offer it in big box stores to boost sales, you will harm your brand by cheapening the image of your product. You might see a spike in sales and profits in the short run as customers who couldn’t otherwise afford your product rush to test it, but buyers will soon regard you as a cheap shampoo, and you’ll lose your main clientele.
You will confuse the market and cause your Millennial customers to perceive you differently if you target Millennials with your fashionable fitness gear and add a line of products for senior adults.
A brand manager ensures that any new product features are appropriate for the product’s brand, that price changes do not clash with the product’s brand goals, and that the product’s advertising and sales channels are consistent with the brand strategy. Brand managers examine branding activities (message) to ensure that they complement the brand and do not contradict it.
