Whether you’re taking your baby steps with your business or it’s been years – if you’re here, we can tell things aren’t working well for you. Your business is barely surviving, let alone getting any attention.
There’s something severely wrong with your branding. And you can’t seem to put your finger on what exactly is so wrong.
But well, it’s okay. Now that you’re here, we’ll sort the matter out for you.
In this post, you’ll learn about some basic pillars of branding as well as some tips to do it better. With the help of both, you can have your brand standing out from the crowd in no time.
So, let’s get to it.
Table of Contents
What is branding?
By definition, branding refers to the act of advertising a business in a particular way. That’s a vague definition – we know. So, let’s study an example.
Consider Canon, for example. We know that the brand sells innovative imaging devices. Be it cameras, inkjet printers, or photocopiers. We know that the brand doesn’t offer mobile phones or laptops.
How so? Is it the tagline? Is it the logo?
No! It is a common misconception nowadays that branding is all about brand assets. Today, bloggers and amateur marketers have begun defining branding as merely the use of a uniform logo, a certain set of colors, a tagline, and a certain style of speaking in public.
But that’s not true. Originally and authentically, branding comprises four P. These include:
- Product
- Price
- Place
- Promotion
So, as you can see, it’s primarily your product that lays the foundation for the branding of your business, such as in the case of Canon. The pricing strategy of your business further defines your brand.
For example, Canon cameras are more expensive than Nikon’s. Hence, we recognize Canon as a high-end camera brand, while Nikon is a mid-range camera brand.
By place, we refer to the positioning of your brand. In simpler words, it is the answer to the question: what are the unique attributes of your product or services? Or, perhaps, what differentiates you from your competitors? Most businesses tend to neglect this aspect, which is the primary reason why their branding suffers. We will discuss how to address it appropriately in the later section of this post.
Now, coming to the most popular part of branding, i.e., promotion. This is where marketing strategies kick in. It’s relevant to how you communicate your product to the audience. It includes your brand assets as well as your means of advertisements (print media or digital media). These days frequency of posts and types of posts (text posts, video posts, or audio-based content) also contribute to the branding of a business.
Why is branding important?
You know, what’s branding. Now let’s check out why is it even important? Like what if you decide your own set of P’s (or maybe don’t even abide by any except the first one) – what happens then?
Well, according to entrepreneurs, your business collapses in that case. And that’s because you never connect with your audience on a gut level. They cannot recognize in an instant and this creates a distance from which competitors will benefit. Your customers will be stolen from you midway and you won’t be able to do a thing about it.
Why? Because you don’t have an identity! They don’t know who to cling to. You will never establish credibility and reliability. Your business’s name will be known to none, and hence, your growth graph will only go down.
On the contrary, branding is necessary because:
- It increases business value.
- It generates new customers.
- It improves employee satisfaction & pride.
- It secures a reputable place in the industry.
For further authenticity, let us reveal some surprising statistics to you:
- 86% of consumers support a brand based on its authenticity.
- Consistent branding increases revenue by 23 percent.
- 73 percent of people expressed love for brands with helpful & cooperative customer service.
- Businesses with poor branding tend to pay 10 percent higher salaries to their employees.
We hope this clarifies the importance of branding. Now, let’s get to making your brand stand out from the crowd.
How to make your brand stand out?
Know that there are several businesses in your very own industry. And each business is trying to establish a unique identity. Now that makes the market saturated. It’s difficult for you to get to your target audience even as you brand your business. Hence, we encourage you to take the extra mile and implement the techniques given below.
1. Be Authentic
Brand authenticity is about calling it quits on imitation. Just because you’re a part of the industry, it doesn’t mean you’ve to do anything and everything that everyone else is doing (irrespective of whether it’s useful or not). Or, let’s say if it’s right or wrong.
Instead, come up with your own unique vision for the product or service that you offer. Establish a mission. Note that this mission should address a pain point that no one else has yet. Communicate your mission and vision with your audience through your website and social channels.
Now your claims and your performance are two different aspects. If you successfully bridge the gap between your claims and your performance, you’ll develop a positive reputation. The fact that you’re capable of keeping your word will give you an authentic edge.
So, what’s the point to grasp? Deliver exactly what you promise. Deliver the quality and experience that you promise. Do not make false claims just to sell. Be absolutely and thoroughly honest.
2. Know Your Audience
The more targeted your branding strategy, the better results it will yield. The development of a targeted branding strategy begins with the knowledge of the target audience.
So, get to the roots of your target audience. Figure:
- What’s their geographic location?
- What’s their age group?
- Can you group them by gender, ethnicity, or something else?
- What are their interests?
- Why would they be interested in your product or service (their pain points)?
Once you have the answers to these questions, you will be able to come up with effective marketing techniques. For example, if your target audience is someone who would like to learn video editing, you would create informational content. If you know that this student lives in the USA, you will create informational content in English. Now, if you also know that your potential audience is below 20, you’ll create content with non-technical terms, so they’re able to grasp the concepts quickly.
3. Do a thorough Competitor Analysis
Here we’ll rewind things a bit. Remember, the positioning P we mentioned earlier? Well, here it comes into play.
Competitor analysis refers to identifying your competitors in the industry and studying their marketing strategies. You’ve successfully developed a unique product. But now, to position it, you need to determine an appropriate price. And you can only determine this by knowing your competitor’s approach on the matter.
Study their approach. Find out what are they missing out on? You can direct answers to this question by checking out their reviews, comments, etc. Identify issues and solve them with your products or services.
Doing so will help position your brand where you want it to be.
4. Produce Arresting Content
Perhaps, the biggest way of winning your audience in the present times is to create arresting content. Be it textual content or visual content.
By far, visual content seems to outrank textual content in terms of reach. According to statistics, video content generates 1200 percent more engagement as compared to both texts and
So, our best recommendation for standing out would be to produce more and more quality video content. And the recipe for quality video content is:
- Unique Idea
- Professional Editing
You can take care of the first part and come up with a unique, engaging, and relevant idea. We, at editvideo.io, will take care of the second part for you. On a minimal budget, we’ll edit your video to perfection, making it a complete show-stopper for your audience.
5. Value your Customers
Customers are the backbone of your business. Without them, there is no growth, revenue, or success. Hence, valuing your customers and making them feel like it is an integral part of brand building.
An effective way to create customer satisfaction is to express your appreciation. Offer personalized thank you notes on every purchase. Or, you can make a thank you call and get their feedback on the product/service.
Similarly, you can incorporate the ‘thinking-of-you’ strategy into the branding plan. In this, send out special cards/emails on occasions to your customers. As a result, your customer will become touched by the remembrance and will probably want to use your service again.
Last Tip: Make Branding a Habit
Lastly, make branding a habit. And, by that, we mean that you should incorporate the tips above in your business culture and strategy. So that you don’t have to go out of your way to make your brand stand out from the crowd.
Establish a unique identity and culture using the tips above and practice until you find yourself perfect. Good luck!
