WHAT IS BRAND MARKETING

Marketing is how you see your company
Advertising is how you portray your company to potential customers
Branding is how your customers see you

What Is Marketing?

Marketing consists of the activities you use to attract customers to your products or services; it will include marketing research and advertising. It is important to build your brand before working on your marketing strategy, because your marketing strategies will be affected by how you want to portray that brand.

What Is a Brand?

An identity mark burned on livestock with a branding iron. Well ….. we’re not livestock but the concept is the same as it is a logo, name, or identifiable mark that is recognized as to belong to someone. Take some of the biggest names in marketing and advertising such as Nike or McDonald’s, whether it is their name that is immediately recognized or their stand-alone logo, everyone recognizes it and knows exactly who they are. Branding is building awareness with potential customers, managing reputation, and influencing the attributes associated with a company’s name. A strong brand is the most important advantage a company can own.

If branding is how customers see you, and marketing is how you see yourself, then what is brand marketing?

Brand Marketing Defined

Brand marketing is the process of establishing and growing a relationship between your brand and your customers, consistently and clearly. It is HOW you portray and advertise your business or product by telling a story that connects the marketing to the brand. In other words, how you bridge any gaps between how you see your company and how customers see your company.

Why Is It Important?

Let’s face it, you think of your product as great and your service as the best otherwise you wouldn’t be trying to sell it. But how do your potential customers know who you are if they have never heard of you or if they have been using someone else for many years and do not know “the new guy on the block”, how will they perceive who you are? Whether is by what you are saying, or what you are not saying. Do you want them to hear about you through your competitors’ words? Or do you want them to hear about you through YOUR words? If you have not already built your brand identity and pursued a marketing strategy than you are potentially allowing someone to tell your potential customers who YOU are.

What does Brand Marketing Do For You?

Defines who you are
Sets you apart
Adds value to your name

How We Will Help?

Create Your Vision

At the heart of your brand is your company. To effectively market your Brand, you need to know what your company stands for first. For example, Nike’s vision is “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.” To be truly successful, your brand has to be more than “Make more money”, think of the values behind your brand such as “Providing the Best Service in Your City’. What is it that you want your brand to be?

Determine Your Target Audience / Who is YOUR Ideal Customer

Who are you targeting? What is their need or problem that needs solved? Why should they use you to solve that problem or fill that need? We’ll help you deep dive into how to ACTUALLY understand your customer to better portray your business to them and have them coming to you as the expert in your field.

Develop Your Brand Identity

This is where many fail because it sounds easier than it really is. This is one area we can help you shine because we think of the details. Think about Apple products, what comes to mind? Their operating system, their user interface, or maybe the Apple Store. Sure, these all make up Apple as a whole but what about the color white, or the packaging that has defined how personal electronics are packaged and sold. Now what comes to mind? A clean elegant excitement? Some things we’ll help you drill down into to develop your brand:

– Logo – This can be either icon-based or text-based but your logo will be your potential customers constant reminder of who you are.

– Brand personality – Describe your brand as if it were a person. Are you funny and quick? Are you Modern and Elegant? Are you Hard-working and Quick to Respond? Your Brand personality will help create your Identity in the marketplace.

– Typography – This can set different tones and moods which represent who your brand is or what is represents. Imagine Rolex Watches having a graffiti font type, yes, we know that is an extreme but it paints a graphically visual picture of how important typography is in creating a brand image.

– Brand imagery – What images are “acceptable” for your brand to use across communications, this would include colors, icons, symbols, photos, infographics, videos, charts, and a variety of other types of content that brings out an emotion in your potential customer when they see it. You want them to have an emotion when they see imagery that represents your brand, like driving down a highway on a long trip to see Golden Arches up ahead, we need to create consistency so when your customers see your imagery, they have a positive emotion which makes them WANT to hire you or purchase from you.

Determine Your Marketing Strategy

Effective tactics will combine all of the Brand Identity efforts and content we helped you create, and use them to bridge the gap between your brand and your customer. Make your customers feel like they are part of your brand rather than an outsider, conjure up that positive emotion that draws them in.

Raise Brand Awareness

Marketing yourself, not just your products. When you want a nice shirt, what brand do you think of? Nike, Under Armour, St. Johns Bay, Ralph Lauren, or Nine Line. Why? What makes a customer think of your company when they need your service or product. You may think it is just because “they have been coming to you for years”, and sometimes it may be, but there’s usually a deeper reason. If they have it is because you have always provided them a good service or a great product. And if you are trying to gain customers from competitors, you will have to break their feelings and ties to that customer to convince them to come to you for that service or product. How do you raise your brands awareness so they think of YOU when it is time to purchase?

Build Brand Loyalty

This takes time and while it is true that quality products or services can foster brand loyalty, it is often because all the effort we put in such as your brand’s personality and values combined with the emotions you conjured up in your customers is what makes them loyal to you. We want to reach past loyalty and create an advocate for you, once they are loyal to your brand AND advocate your product and/or service to potential customers, then we have created a loyal customer for you.

We know you thought creating a brand was easy but we just skimmed the top of the iceberg.

Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that approximately 20% of new businesses fail during the first two years of being open, 45% during the first five years, and 65% during the first 10 years. Only 25% of new businesses make it to 15 years or more.

According to U.S. Bank, 78% of small businesses fail because they lack a well-developed business & marketing plan.

Great Brands Don’t Happen By Chance!

STAY CASUAL, WE HAVE YOU COVERED!

LET THE MARKETING AND ADVERTISING SPECIALISTS DO THE WORK FOR YOU!