Things we know about a product or service we use is because of branding. It is an important link that connects the company to the customers and the customers to the company. Today, branding is a must for every startup, small and big company. If you ask what branding is, we can explain it as a marketing practice in which a company creates a name, custom logo, or design that is distinguishable to the company. Branding helps to identify a product and distinguish it from various other products and services. Is branding important? Yes, it is, because branding not only leaves a memorable impression on customers, but it also allows customers to know what they can expect from your brand. Not clear? Let us understand branding in detail along with the importance of branding.
It is a method of differentiating yourself from your competitors and clarifying what it is you offer that makes you the right choice. Your brand is the true representation of you as a business and how you want to move ahead with it. There are several areas that are involved in developing branding. These are customer service, advertising, reputation, logo, and promotional merchandise.
All these elements work together to create one unique and (hopefully) attention-grabbing professional profile. Several decades ago, branding was explained as a slogan, name, symbol, design, or sign, or a combination of all these elements, that classifies one company, product, or service from another. These days, branding is complex and even more significant. Not convinced? The importance of branding discussed here will change your thoughts.
What should a Brand Do?
Branding is not simply about getting your target market to choose you over the competition. It is also about getting your prospects to see you as the only provider of a solution to their need or issue. This way, branding is a problem solver. A good brand identity must:
- Deliver a message clearly
- Confirm the company’s credibility in the market
- Encourage the buyer to make a purchase
- Connect with the target prospects emotionally with products or services
- Develop user loyalty
Branding and Knowing your Customer
To be successful in branding, you must understand the requirements and wants of your prospects and customers. You can attain this by combining your brand guidelines across the company at each point of public contact. Consider branding as a person. Think of this person defining who they are, why they are important, and what they offer.
As customers start to identify with you, your brand will live in the heart and mind of customers, prospects, and clients, and they will connect with each other on an emotional level. In simple language, it is a small statement of who you are and what you can do for somebody. When you find a method to sum up your company’s whole promise of what it will be like to work with you and what is in for them to a few small emotional words, you have discovered your brand.
Simple, isn’t it? So, you must be thinking then why is branding important? Why are we even discussing it if it is a basic thing?
Because many people have faced a difficult time while doing these two things. A lot of companies cannot concisely tell you about what they do, who are their target audience, and what is their purpose of doing it. It is as if this swirl of nuance and details start swirling down their feet stirring up mud till the waters are so dark that it is impossible for anyone to see through them. And what happens when something is tough?
People do not try it. They give up. Simple!
Even though branding may seem simple and you may think that you can do it later when you have enough time for it, imagine what you will gain by doing it the right way now. A branding machine that is defined, true, and humming along will carry your business to the next level. It affects much more than just sales. A good branding strategy will reshape what you, your customers, your investors, and your employees think about your organization.
A good brand conveys a clear story
Organizations with clear stories have a high value from customers and investors. Companies with clear stories have employees who understand what they do and the reason behind doing it. Companies with clear stories can move the emotions of people, which plays an important role in moving sales. Everyone wants to work for companies who do great things and great things are those which are easy and simple to understand.
Put all these together and you can drive real money into your brand. Ultimately, as discussed before, nobody seems to be interested in buying things that they do not understand.
Brand Explains the “You” in your Business
For beginners, branding is something more than simply a lustrous dash of colors. It includes all the things which you do or claim to do as a business-even if your brand is all about you.
Your brand is the total of your client’s perceptions, experiences, and notions. It is the personality, face, and the values espoused by your brand- and all the things in between.
More significantly, every single part of your business- whether it is your social media profile, the tone of your email, or the way how you present it, market and deliver a service- holds the essence of your branding and delivers an absolute message about how much respect you have for your business. Apart from this, your brand represents who you are, what you believe in, and how you want the audience to see you. Therefore, it is said that brand identity plays a significant role in an organization.
What should your brand achieve?
These days, game changers have understood that branding can no longer be considered as a medium to attract your prospects to prefer you across the competition. Your objective is to get them to see you as a dependable influence/ thought leader who targets their issues or requirements with panache and hopefully, better than anyone else. Against this main theme, your brand must achieve these objectives:
- Provide a message succinctly and clearly
- Reiterate your trustworthiness
- Create an emotional link with your audience
- Generate loyalty and goodwill
- Encourage your potential customer to purchase or take the next step
Brands Indicate your Intent
Branding shows a bold proclamation that your brand makes. It tells your customers that you mean business and are here to keep all the guarantees made by your organization.
Everything that your company exemplifies must be easily identifiable across the brand. Or else, your customers will be fast to see the gap between what was pledged and what was delivered ultimately. This gap can be catastrophic not only for your brand awareness but also for the whole well-being of your business. This means that if you are reluctant to back your intent with the right action, you might as well not combine it in your company.
Branding Goes Past Ordinary Transactions
The beauty of the brand is that it is not restricted to what happens before a customer makes a purchase. In fact, it has got more to do with the type of experience it delivers to your customer at different touch points in their entire journey, mainly after a business transaction.
- Was the quality of a product as good as you had guaranteed?
- Was it able to serve the purpose it was supposed to?
- How was the whole customer service experience?
By answering these questions, you give yourself a chance of developing a loyal audience base that looks forward to having trust in you. In addition, it also allows you to align your branding strategies with your business objectives effortlessly. In fact, a rising number of businesses are realizing the significance of branding in advertising.
Questions You Must Ask Before Branding your Organization
If we are going to discuss the importance of branding, we must make sure that we know what it is and what it is not.
Think of your logo as a signature, a shorthand reminder tool, an emblem you burn into the hides of your client’s hearts. The first important rule about branding is it must be authentic. Remember, you cannot sell lies. Maybe, it will work for a while, but, if Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes have taught us anything, it is, that building an organization on overpromising and under-delivering at its best, makes for horrible customer experience and, in extreme cases, results in fraud investigations.
So, before you even start identifying or redefining your brand, ensure you have the answers to these below-mentioned questions:
What is the vision of your company? Where will we be in the coming 5,10, 30 years?
Sometimes it may feel like a brand’s vision is a finish line that is always “over the next hill.” All of us know that there is no finish line. Neither in life nor in business. All of us know where we are heading to, what is our aim. That is known as the vision. That is the ever-elusive target that you want your whole team firing and must have in place before you can brand your company. It is difficult to argue that there has been an impactful business leader during the modern age compared to Steve Jobs. Someone who has changed the way of communication with each other. But, have you ever thought how was he able to do it?
By having a fascinating vision.
What do we stand for? What are our values? What we do and why we do it?
There is a reason why “vision, mission, and values” are linked with each other like that- one leads to others. While imagining through and articulating your dream, you will invariably start to pull out different concepts of why that vision matters. What type of values will you need to live by to attain it? What type of culture and workplace do you want your people to use?
What sets us apart?
If you want to tell an interesting story, first you must know why you are winning today. Discuss with your customers and understand what they are doing well and why they are interested in doing business with you. If possible, discuss with recent consumers where the decision to purchase is as fresh as new in their mind. Market research plays a significant role in understanding the importance of branding, but it also has a few pitfalls.
Importance of Branding
Here, we are discussing why branding is important for a business.
Branding builds confidence
This is the most popular importance of branding. Great branding takes strategy, gut, intelligence, and at times risk too. To tell your customers what makes you different, confidence is important.
Imagine it this way: Some of the most successful brands in this world reach the position where they are today due to a sense of confidence, and not because they were providing a specific product or experience.
Let us take the example of Lululemon. Many fashion companies manufacture and sell athletic wear, but there is something that makes them different from their competitors.
For instance, many of their stores offer yoga classes, with a bold statement which says, they do not simply sell exercise clothes- they want their customers to sweat it out too with them.” While their competitors may copy Lululemon, they are persistent by their brand and remain to be the leader in selling athleticwear.
Branding enhances recognition
One of the main components of a brand is a logo. It is regarded as the “face” of a business. It is the thing that people instantly recognize. A professional custom logo is simple enough to keep in mind, but it is strong enough to give the required impression of your brand.
Though the company, “Discover, Learn & Grow had a logo, it did not show the educational nature of the learning center. Guardians and parents needed to know that the business was a preschool program run by a professional with over 25 years of experience in the sector of education.
Branding supports marketing
Another importance of branding is advertising. Both the medium and targeted demographic for ads help in building a brand. Discover, Learn & Grow added their Logo to apparel, printed, and packaging materials to spread the word about the business and stand away from the competition.
As Discovery, Learn & Grow hosted birthday parties, they started adding their logo on the goody bags for kids. This offered another brand impression to parents of kids who are attending the parties, and it would turn the logo into a walking billboard- free ads to make the business noticed.
Brand identity explains and forces focus
Once you tell somebody who you are, you implicitly tell them who you are not. And, when it comes to positioning your organization to win, that is often much more significant. Brand identity becomes your purpose and positioning statement. It becomes the most important thing on which you can always depend on whenever a “new opportunity” comes your way.
Does it match with who you are and what you promise to offer to your customers? Anything that does not match with that can be discarded or ignored. It does not matter how good it may sound. It is not great if you cannot stay on target.
Branding helps in building financial value
Another importance of branding includes financial value. Organizations that trade on a stock exchange publicly are valued at different times the real hard assets of the company. Most of this value is because of the branding of the company. A strong brand most of the time guarantees future business.
Whether a company borrows money for growth or rolls out to an IPO, being perceived as more important will make the process beneficial for the owner. The greater a brand’s devotion to establish its brand value, the better will be the financial return from its attempts.
Branding encourages employees
Encouragement of employees is another popular importance of branding. Most of the employees need more than simple work- they require something to work for. When the employees understand the objective of a business and its reason behind its being, they are more likely to feel that similar pride and work in a similar direction to attain the goals the business owner has fixed. Having a powerful brand is like converting the company logo into a flag around which the rest of the company can gather around.
Branding generates new clients
Branding can also help a business attain word-of-mouth referrals. After all, will you be able to tell your friend about a specific brand if you yourself do not remember the brand’s name? The most profitable companies, be it large and small, have one thing in common. They have established themselves as a leader in their specific industry by creating a strong brand, starting with a solid custom logo.
Branding is everything. So, always be good for your brand and take enough time to curate your brand identity carefully. Always keep the importance of branding in your mind if you feel confused about whether you should use branding or not.