How to develop your brand » Reset Marketing

Brand definition: The practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies a product from others.

Your brand isn’t your logo or your company’s name. In fact a brand isn’t any one thing. Simply put, your brand is who you are, who people perceive you to be and your company values all rolled into one. It should always differentiate your products from that of your competitors.

Another way of thinking about it is, that branding is a promise to your customers. It tells them what they can expect from your products or services. Your brand is not just the physical features of your product but also your customer’s feelings they have about it.

Companies use their brand to build reputations and standards that their company will strive to maintain. It can clearly influence perception and exists whether you actively marketing your products or not. If people are interacting with your business, you have a brand already whether you like it or not.

Are you the black sheep or just one of the flock? Is your product high luxury or disposable? You cannot be all things to all people, and your brand will help you to define this.

Things that can help communicate your brand are: your logo, website, packaging and communications with customers.

Things good branding can achieve:

create an emotional connection with a customer
provide justification for paying a premium price for a product
creating loyalty
demonstrate the quality of a product

Customer Loyalty:

Customer loyalty can also be developed using your brand. When we feel like a brand understands us and sells products that inspire us, we would probably align ourselves and our values with them and want to buy their products.

Developing a brand strategy:

A brand strategy is useful in conjunction with your 4 P’s marketing mix. As discussed in the 4 P’s blog, your price, placement and promotion will all depend on your brand. You wouldn’t advertise with a sandwich board on the street corner if you were selling high end luxury jewellery.

Brand consistency:

Brand consistency is also important. Design your brand and try not to divert from it. This will help cement a strong brand equity. By doing this it means added value for your products and allows you to charge more compared to identical unbranded products from your competitors.

In summary, defining your brand can be quite the journey, time-consuming and difficult at times. Stay true to your brand, if you don’t, how do you expect people to refer you to someone else if you never deliver on your brand promise?

Remeber your brand is a powerful strategy you can use to influence the way people perceive your products and ultimately influence their buying decisions.