Branding is the process when a company, a brand makes itself special, and unique. When people hear their name, they immediately recognize the product or service. It’s all about the mental image that has been built.
In the following text, we are going to make the definition of branding clear for you and how you can make it work for your own business. Branding is not equal to marketing. When you do marketing, the products’ message is to “Buy me, I’m better” and it has a push tactic. However, branding doesn’t ask people to buy the product, people will realize by themselves that they have a need for that and they will explain the reason themselves why they want the product. The brand has a value, it lives. It generates traffic by itself in the long run.
Branding may confuse those who hear this word for the first time, but when you see the whole picture you will see that it’s not a “mission: impossible” to get success using this model.
Master branding and your company will soar!
Content:
The most famous definition of branding comes from Kotler & Keller (2015):
“Branding is endowing products and services with the power of a brand”.
The other thing that makes people confused is what the word brand is. It’s important to know that a brand is not (just) the logo, the name, the product. It’s the image a company shows to others, the impression customers have. You have to take everything you ever believed a brand is into a box and add some extras to it. After this, you will get the meaning of branding. Let’s jump into the details.
Product
Kotler and Keller also made a definition of the phrase: product. “Broadly, a product is anything that can be offered to a market to satisfy a want or need, including physical goods, services, experiences, events, people, places, properties, organizations, information, and ideas.”
Brand
A brand is a name, a logo, a symbol, a design, a message, a special feature, the color or anything that identifies a product or a service. However, a brand is not only this, I’ve mentioned. It is everything. The brand is your company itself. Find something that distinguishes your concept from others. It makes the product or service to be easily communicated and marketed.
“Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room”
– Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.
There are a lot of similar, or the same products on the market that companies want to sell. How can they distinguish themselves from others and how can they stand still and highlight themselves while being in a competition? They have to create a brand, they have to find out what makes them unique.
Branding
Branding is important if a product or service want long-term fans, this concept helps companies build customer loyalty. The aim is to give people the chance to connect with the brand emotionally—as the brand is about emotions—, or by stories that had been told. This would be ‘storytelling’ that is a marketing phrase; this lets you engage with the brand or the product/service on a higher level. Branding is a set of perceptions people have relating to your brand.
Branding is a strategy, a process.
You have to attract and retain your customers, but you have to make sure that you provide a service or a product that really meets their need, and that is exactly what you promised in advance. You have to give a meaning to what you have and provide, you need to have a message. One of the most important things is that your product, service and every interaction you make has to point to your aim and point towards the message you choose.
Having a unique message is crucial. This—and the branding itself—will help you to stand out from the competition. With everything you do, you have to be attached to your message, always keep that in mind. Don’t forget that branding is not only about the elements you create, the message you choose, the structure you build. Every interaction matters and also the public image that people who work for the company make. Each element will affect how customers view your company. Make your message clear.
If you don’t have a unique image, and you don’t care about branding, people will create it themselves, and you won’t have control over the positive or negative reputation you will have. So it’s better to brainstorm it on your own.
Branding means that your brand or your product or service evokes what you provide in people’s mind. A brand only exists in the mind and heart of the customers, it’s like a feeling, an effect. Branding gives a meaning to a company. This strategy helps people to quickly identify the company. A feature will immediately pop up in people’s thoughts about your product (for example that the certain toothpaste has a nice flavor) if you do the branding the right way.
How to do it?
You have to shape your brand through branding. It can be done using, for instance, the following tools, elements:
- pertinent brand name
- fine visual content
- design (of the logo, products, packages, ads, website—e.g. color, images)
- unique logo design
- first-class communication
- reader-friendly blog articles
- creative slogan
- excellent social media activity
- top-notch advertising techniques
- experience in the field
- nice partnerships
- superb service provided
- good, valuable prices.
What can help you succeed more?
With an application that helps you manage your products in order to make your Shopify store be always up-to-date as for the product information, you can boost your business. Also, an app like this does the management processes automatically, you can have more products in your store as you don’t have to do that manually. If you have more products, more visitors can come (but not necessarily). Moreover, it’s beneficial if that certain service has an in-app supplier directory where you can find only trustworthy companies listed, and you can get those quality items into your e-shop within minutes and with just a few clicks. Having great products is the key to have a good business. The solution is simple: Syncee.
“A product is what you sell, a brand is the perceived image of the product you sell, and branding is the strategy to create that image.” (The Branding Journal)
