Posted: March 23, 2021
By: Janet A Johnson
We cannot discuss successful brand management without first highlighting branding, so let’s dig right in. Branding is a pretty popular topic in the business world today. This is mainly because of the increasing awareness of business owners to the idea. So, what is a brand? This question often comes up among business owners today, but unfortunately, many people do not know what a brand really is. Your business brand has to do with the name of your business, the design of the business, it’s positioning in the market, the core values and the promise of your business, the target market, and what the business is well known for. Yes, this definition seems a bit long but really anything short of this is just a partial definition.
Now that you know what a brand is, how do you incorporate the idea into your business to cause a growth in the business? That is where brand management comes in.
Before we go into what brand management is, let’s look at brand perception, which is an important element in branding. Brand perception is the process where a customer or consumer puts a face to a brand. It results from a customer’s experience with a brand and is the basic element that elevates a business or product into a brand. Your customers own brand perception – so no matter what you say or do, your brand is what people think and say about your brand.
Successful Brand management involves using various techniques to improve the positive perception of your brand. It is a process that takes a bit of time and it enables the price of the brand to go up without any negative consequence. It also involves building and maintaining brand equity. Suffice to say, brand management is the process of creating and maintaining a strong brand identity.
When branding, it is essential that you focus and highlight values that your customers cherish, which is evident in the fact that 64 percent of people say shared values is the major reason they value a brand. For more on this, see How Shared Values Improve Your Brand Marketing.
Perhaps you don’t know how to get started on creating and building your brand identity. Here are four effective principles for you.
The unique selling proposition (USP) of your brand is what sets you apart from your competitors. It is a key to brand differentiation and is a much deeper way of separating brands apart from their names. You can think of it as what you have that your competitors don’t, or a quality that is unique to your brand. It could be “highest quality,” “lowest cost,” “first ever,” and so on. Having a strong USP is very crucial especially for businesses in highly competitive industries and niche markets.
Before creating your USP, you need to understand where your business fits in the market, and what makes it different from others. Once you discover what makes your company or product stand out, turn it into an interesting message, and use the message as the backbone of your marketing.
It is very vital that your brand is developed from within your company. Before you can create a brand that will drop everyone’s jaws, you need full buy-in from your workers and stakeholders. This allows you to incorporate various helpful views from all the parties involved to create a strong and unique brand.
Your employees are ambassadors for your brand, so it is essential that you get the necessary buy-in, so your brand can be communicated from various areas of your company. This ensures that there is a consistency in all employees’ interaction with customers. About 23 percent of revenue is attributed to the consistent representation of a brand.
One of the most effective marketing strategies is having someone do the marketing for you. The third-person effect has to do with the fact that someone who doesn’t have a vested interest in your brand would be more believable and trustworthy. Using an influencer further improves the result, as they have already gained trust from most of your target audience.
Maintaining a good relationship with an influencer is crucial here, but you should ensure that you respect their impartiality.
Another result of various innovations in technology is the availability of software for brand management. This software is quite important because it makes it easy to maintain a steady brand. Processes and products may change, likewise, personnel can change at any time, but your brand remains solid as a rock. Using a software will allow you to maintain your brand regardless of any change in administration or personnel in the company.
The value of a strong brand identity cannot be overemphasized, as it forms the basis of a fast growing successful business. A positive brand perception is the best marketing tool you can ask for, as your brand will speak for itself. This basically means that the bigger your brand, the less you have to spend on recognition, then you move from recognition to building brand loyalty in your customers. If you don’t know how to go about all these, then this article is a good place to start.