5 Steps to Ensure Positive Marketing Brand Value
Your brand determines the value and visibility for your product/organization and let’s everyone know what you stand for. Your branding represents who you are, what you do, how you do it and most importantly, why others want to use your product or service. Branding is not just your logo but the efforts behind the logo, including messaging, online efforts, your product(s) and customer service.
Branding also directs your positioning in the market. Successful branding can ultimately position your product into various market categories (low cost to premium) which could demanding a higher price value based on your positioning. A good example is bottled water.
When no branding is created for a bottled water, the value of this water can be at $.99 a bottle but a well branded bottle of water can demand $2.99 for the same product of water.
Make it part of your Strategic Plan
Branding is not something that happens overnight. You must plan strategically to ensure how you will create a positive, recognizable and valuable brand. This should include how you define your brand and also how you promote it. Defining your brand should include a SWOT analysis, determining what expected and influential messages for your audience through testing. Promoting your brand should start with your inbound marketing efforts including social media but branding is a company wide effort, not just for the marketing team. Don’t stop at just inbound marketing efforts, include it in everything you do from signage and apparel. Create the spoken and unspoken brand balance within your organization. The end goal is to develop a brand people are willing to identify and talk about in a positive manner.
Tell your Story & Create an Image
Through branding, create an image or visual of what your product stands for that goes beyond your product benefits. Every time you pass a McDonalds, you know the Golden Arches stands for inexpensive fast food, clean building, and consistent tasting food. This is your expectation created from decades of marketing and advertising.
Every organization has a story to tell.
Focus less on the features and more on the benefits. Answer the question, how did we solve your problem? While branding value includes the tangible benefits, such as safety, convenience or quality, they should also address intangible benefits such as trust, transparency, and expectations.
Make it Consistent
Don’t send mixed messages about your brand. Remember to stay the course and do not confuse the public and your users about who you are and what you are all about. A good example is your slogan.
A good slogan sums up a company’s strategy. States, Laura Ries of Ries & Ries in her book “Battlecry.”
Keep your slogan in line with your value proposition by answering the same question again, How are we solving your problem? This consistency reinforces what your brand stands for. Too many times, we want to tell everyone all the benefits of our product or service. Some companies have 15 or more benefits they want to let the audience know about but this becomes overwhelming for anyone to take in and confuses them. Focus on one or two benefits and should be simple and true. Consistency will create brand loyalty over time.
Create Longevity
Too many times, organizations are quick to change the branding efforts in our ever changing world. Adaptability is great but don’t get caught up with changing your branding efforts too quickly. Give your branding efforts time to resonate with your audience. While some say your branding should last 5 years, there is no time frame to say when you should change your branding efforts. I recommend changing your branding efforts when times are changing within your organization or your audience segments.
Back up Your Brand
Your brand represents your organization and how things are done. So your brand is only as good as your organization and its efforts. If you pride yourself on customer service but your customer service begins to falter, this affects your brand and the value of the brand loses trust and loyalty. The key is understanding the brand value you created over time and also what are your customer expectations.
Your brand represents your organizational values but it also sets the bar to keep the organization in check should the organization lose focus.
Frank Anastacio Trevino Jr
Founder and CEO of iLLUMULUS, a Global Marketing & Customer Strategy firm. I work with companies to connect with customers, Creating Value through the marketing digital experience. I share my time between South Korea and Denver, Colorado. You can find me on Linkedin or follow me on Twitter