Branding is not a marketing tool reserved for big-budget companies like Coca-Cola, Starbucks or Google. Branding is not a concept created to live in academic books, nor a fancy word used by gurus to sell their all-in-one marketing solutions. And, certainly, branding is not a magic tonic that will make your business profitable in one day.
So, what’s branding?
Branding is one of the most powerful marketing tools that all kinds of business, and even professionals, have to use if they want to earn the right to live in the hearts, minds and pockets of their consumers.
If you are a big fan of straightforward definitions, I have you covered, because for me, branding is:
The process of creating a brand using well-defined objectives, marketing communication strategies, protocols, and customer experiences. It is also a continuous process that must evolve at the same pace as the market, consumers and competitors do.
So, now that we have a definition of branding, let’s take a deeper look at the objectives, marketing communication strategies and protocols you can implement within your organization to improve the branding method you currently employ.
Trust me when I say… you have one even if you are the owner of a small business, a startup company or a professional career. We all do branding, at all times. And for a company that manages a set of celebrity brands, we know a thing or two about personality branding.
Well, to answer those two questions I must ask you first to keep in mind that branding is not a concept that only lives within the marketing realm. Although brands are deeply related to markets, they rely on communication to deliver messages to their customers, thus you might want to start thinking about brands as if they were people with feelings, flaws, birthdays and even pets.
Now that you see brands as personalities, we can start developing metrics to measure their progress. And yes, you might think that you can’t measure a concept like branding, but actually there are a couple of ways to know how well a brand is doing against their competitors, how it’s being perceived by people and what is the market saying about them.
Introducing: top of mind, top of heart, social mentions and a little thing called Google Search, which we discussed in this article.
How can you use these metrics for branding purposes?
Easy… create numeric objectives to measure your ranking in TOM and TOH on a yearly basis, keep an eye on Google Searches to find out what people want to know about your brand, and have someone track the social mentions related to products, services and feedback from your audience.
If you want deep analytics, which we strongly encourage as Duo Executives, we insist you try using social listening software to help you. Social listening software will not only assess ROE (Return on Engagement), but it will also detect sentiment around a particular topic by grouping certain comments together based on feelings or preferences.
Regarding the second question: the purpose of branding is to humanize a company. Let’s be honest: people like people, and the more human we perceive a brand, the more likely is that we put our confidence—and money—on them.
Which leads us to…
Show why people should pick us and stick with us.
It doesn’t matter if you own a vintage coffee shop, or distribute car parts to customers in Thailand, you will want customers to have great experiences with your brand, so they recommend your products to their pals and come back to your place whenever they need a refill. That’s why you should pay extra attention to every interaction a person has with your company, from the way a waiter presents the menu to the packaging of your product. Think of it as a first date—or a second—, where you are thorough to the last detail in order to create a long-term relationship.
The best way to get value from branding is in creating a unified experience that delivers a simple, yet powerful, message: My brand is the same here and now, as it will be tomorrow.
To make it happen you have to tell the story of your business over and over again, with a certain degree of authenticity. Take a look at Coca-Cola, a brand who constantly innovates on advertising formats, but never tells a story outside the boundaries of its philosophy. No matter where in the world, the message is clear and concise.
Through repetition your brand will develop habits, whether they come in form of slangs, visual style, advertising formats or themes. And people will notice it. In fact, they’ll start counting on them, because just like humans, brands are expected to be reliable and constant. So, the core message is: find the voice of your brand and share it with the world using the right communication marketing mix.
Here’s a great tip if you want to get better at branding: spend a day visiting your favorite brand’s company headquarters. Consider CNN, Google, and Coca-Cola in Atlanta. Immersing yourself in the culture and learning about their startup story will give you a tremendous understanding of why powerful brands are established personalities.
We’ve talked about the purpose of branding and why it’s important in the life of your customers. Now I want to talk about making branding a system within your organization. As marketing executives who have pulled companies out of horrible branding mistakes time and time again, we urge you to follow these tips to create a solid branding strategy that helps your business stabilize and grow:
Finally, I want you to take a look at how Microsoft handles branding in this article and I really hope you finish this article remembering that:
Branding is not so much about the products. Instead, consider it more about creating a personality that people can relate to, whenever they need it. It’s like that one “friend” you need at that specific moment in time. When you can have customers recall your brand at the moment you want, you’ve been branded!