Brand Marketing, Brand Strategy and the Elements of Branding
Branding defines the complete experience of a customer.
A strong brand helps consumers perceive a business positively and take pride in using a service or product from the business. Having this strong brand identity in place makes a business recognizable and differentiates it from other enterprises in the market.
In this blog, we will look at the various elements of branding that together help a business create a strong brand image and open opportunities for business.
- The Importance of Branding
- The Importance of Brand Marketing
- The Importance of Brand Strategy
- The Elements of Branding
The Importance of Branding
Branding influences how a customer perceives a business and helps a business communicate its values to customers. This helps build a positive brand image in the long term. Branding distinguishes a business from others and gives it a competitive edge in the market. As a result, the customer will have certain expectations when buying from a brand that they trust.
The Importance of Brand Marketing
Brand marketing is a strategy implemented by businesses to promote services and products by highlighting the overall brand. This is one of the main reasons why customers always go back to a particular brand over others in the market. Branding is not just about creating an impression that a particular product or service belongs to a business, but it also helps build a favourable image of the business as a whole.
Brand marketing acts as the link for a business to present their products in front of interested customers. People can use brands as a medium to relate with a business’ values, traditions and ethics. Familiarity with a brand creates trust among customers as they know what to expect from the business.
The Importance of Brand Strategy
A brand strategy is a long-term plan implemented by a business to be the consumer’s first choice based on successful brand reputation. Now, brand reputation is built by establishing a strategy that takes into consideration customer choices, needs and emotions. Implementing an excellent brand strategy helps a business directly appeal to customers and build a positive brand image to stay ahead of competition.
Branding helps a business distinguish itself from other competitors in the market and makes them more recognizable to customers. A brand strategy provides businesses with a clear purpose on how to attract new customers. It helps a business create a loyal customer base who are aware of what to expect from a brand. After all, a well-devised brand strategy helps the employees understand their respective marketing goals and work together towards achieving them.
The Elements of Branding
Branding comprises several elements that guide a business to create an identity for itself in the market. Here are a few of the most important ones to consider:
Brand Awareness
Brand awareness defines how aware customers are of your brand, product or services. When a customer is presented with a choice among products from various brands, it is more likely that one will opt for one from a known brand. Brand awareness plays an important role in a customer’s purchase decision.
Brand Recognition
Brand recognition implies how well a customer can recognize a company’s logo, tagline, packaging and other brand attributes. A business needs to deliver consistent marketing materials to the consumer in order to build brand recognition. Audio and visual media play an important role in creating brand recognition like slogans, jingles and so on.
Brand Recall
Brand recall is the capability of a brand to be recalled by a customer for a particular type and class of a product. It can also be referred to as the “top of the mind” recall of a brand or company when asked about a general product category like cars. Brand recall is generally analyzed using surveys where the participants are asked to recall top brands for a certain product category.
Brand Positioning
Brand positioning is the position of a brand in the mind of customers for a particular product or product category. Brand positioning sets a brand apart from competitors in the minds of the consumers and defines how a customer perceives a brand when compared to competitors in the market.
Brand Image
Brand image is the collection of the beliefs, ideas and impressions about a brand that a customer perceives while using or learning about a product. A brand image is how the customer thinks about a particular brand.
Brand Identity
Brand identity represents visible information about a brand comprising its logo, colour, design and other visual elements that help customers distinguish a brand from its competitors. Brand identity defines the intention behind a branding strategy that helps create a positive brand image.
Brand Personality
Personality is the emotional perception that a customer perceives about a brand from its brand identity elements. Taking the example of cars, Landrover is associated as a tough and bold brand compared to a BMW.
Brand Attitude
Brand attitude generally defines the positive or negative perception customers have about a brand. Customer’s opinions towards a brand comprise the brand attitude about a particular brand or product.
Brand Purchase Intention
Purchase intention is the probability of a customer purchasing a product from a brand based on the previous knowledge or experience with the brand.
Brand Equity
Brand equity represents the tangible and intangible value of a brand in the market among its competitors. Brand equity represents the power of a well-known brand in terms of its brand image and sales value.
Branding comprises the above elements that together help in building a favourable brand strategy. An effective branding strategy must consider all of these elements in order to support a business in achieving its long-term business goals.
