DOES BRANDING REALLY MATTER?
Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it’s not going to get the business. – WARREN BUFFET
It may be any type of business, retail or B2B but, Branding is one of the most crucial aspects. An effective brand strategy gives you a major edge in progressively competitive markets. But what exactly does “branding” mean?
Simply put, your Brand is your promise to your customer. It tells how your brand is out of the box offering and what they can expect from your products and services
Are you the innovative individualist in your industry? Or the experienced, reliable one? Is your product the high-cost, high-quality option, or the low-cost, high-value option? You can’t be both, and you can’t be all things to all people. Who you are should be based to some extent on what your target customers want and need you to be. In simple words you can’t mean everything to everyone but you have to be Unique among your competitors.
Brand Strategy:
By definition, brand strategy is a long-term plan for the development of a successful brand in order to achieve specific goals. But what does that really mean?
As you develop a brand strategy, it helps to begin with your plan. In other words, begin by setting your business goals. Why are you creating a new brand? What do you hope to achieve by launching the new brand? Use those long-term objectives as a basis for all of your strategic branding efforts. It helps you answer the “WH” questions.
For example, are you trying to reach a new audience? Your brand strategy for achieving that goal is likely to be quite different from a business that wants to steal market share from a category leader, and that’s why goal definition is a fundamental starting point for any brand strategy. The first question you have to answer is, “Why?”
It’s easy to get caught up in the short-term activities and tactics that drive business today, but when it comes to building a brand, that’s a big mistake. Brands aren’t built overnight, so your brand strategy shouldn’t be focused on short-term tactics but rather on long-term goals and sustainable growth.
A brand is one of the most powerful tools an organization can use to demonstrate accountability and leadership in the area it does business. It can also be one of the most misunderstood.
Honesty must be at the heart of any brand. If the brand story doesn’t ring true, customers see through it. If you stay true to your brand, your customers will get behind it, live it and really believe in it. It’s the same for employees, too.
If you position your brand competitively in the market and expressively in the hearts and minds of your customers, you’re giving them reasons to trust your brand, be loyal to your brand, he/she becomes a source of referrals.
Conclusion: A successful Brand builds a loyal customer base and creates employee advocacy which helps in establishing stronger internal and external atmosphere.
Jessica M
Asst. Professor
BGIMS
