Brand Marketing: All The Amazing Details You Need To Know

Brand Marketing is a marketing technique used by companies to create the desired image of a product or company in the consumer’s mind.

Branding is a strategy designed to help people quickly identify and experience a brand and give them a reason to choose their products over those of their competitors, making clear what this particular brand is and is not.

In very simple terms, 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.

In this article we will highlight all aspects related to Brand Marketing also know as brand image advertising, paying particular attention to the meaning of Brand Strategy and why the latter is essential for companies.

Let’s start now! 😊

The 9 Key Features Of A Brand

Thanks to a well thought-out brand management, more sales can be generated thanks to the appeal that the product generates in consumers’ minds “compared to the competition”.

The features that a brand must have in order to succeed and beat the competition in the minds of customers are now in the public domain.

The main features that a brand must have are:

1. Easy to remember
2. Easy to pronounce
3. Easily recognizable
4. Ease of translation
5. It’s coordinated with the corporate image
6. It attracts attention to whether
7. It has inherent in the benefits of the product marketed
8. It differs from the competition
9. It is possible to register it legally

The 6 Main Types of Brand

The process of applying marketing strategies to create and promote a brand encompasses several components that are:

1. Brand identity
2. Brand Awareness
3. Brand Image
4. Brand Positioning
5. Brand Loyalty
6. Brand Equity

Generally speaking, when we talk about brand identity we want to indicate all the elements that together convey what the company wants to convey to the consumer.

When we talk about brand awareness we mean all those communication processes that help the brand to be better known on the market.

Obviously the main purpose of brand management is to perceive the company or a product in a certain way, and when we talk about consumer perception we enter the brand image.

Often you hear about brand positioning and you look at this concept as a determining factor for the success of a new launch.

In fact, one of the characteristics that a brand must have in order to be successful is its differentiation from its competitors.

Brand positioning is the segment of brand management that allows you to study and develop this characteristic of a brand.

What Is Brand Marketing Strategy And Why It Is Essential For Your Business?

Within contemporary business scenarios, the position of SMEs is very delicate. Overcoming the background noise of markets and emerging within their segment becomes necessary to avoid being outclassed by their competitors and succumbing to the power of large multinationals.

While it is true that multinationals have great means and unlimited resources but at the same time greater distance from people, SMEs have less distance and the possibility to dialogue more effectively with them.

The implementation of an efficient and effective brand marketing strategy within one’s own company, in fact, allows SMEs to obtain significant advantages for their business and to make the relationship between economic investments and company resources consistent with the objectives identified.

Branding Definition

By definition, a brand marketing strategy is the long-term plan for the creation and development of a brand that creates value, is able to communicate with its audiences and achieve measurable goals for its business and to establish itself in the market.

Closely related to the emotions and needs of the consumer as well as competitive environments, when well conceived and structured, a successful brand marketing strategy is able to positively affect all the indicators of a company (first of all the turnover) and to considerably increase brand recognition.

This is made possible by the assumption of a coordinated action aimed at defining a strong identity system, able to concentrate the complex of values and guarantees of the product and/or service and a system of activities to be launched to guarantee the process of involvement of the target customer (from the detection of need to the sale).

Why Your Company Need It?

Within a structured business such as that of SMEs, the brand marketing strategy is essential because it provides clarity about the competitive landscape and the position of its product in the market, and because it forces customers to reflect on their expectations.

This information is essential to design and implement effective marketing strategies in order to better meet the challenge of competitiveness and maximize results by building strong and relevant brands.

Improving brand performance in turn improves the credibility and trust of customers in the company, optimizing the investments made in terms of analysis, planning and advertising.

Is it a good investment?

Among the daily concerns of SMEs, economic sustainability is perhaps the most important.

How can the implementation of a correct brand marketing strategy help to increase business?

Thanks to the analysis and planning phases, the brand strategy allows to optimally define the necessary economic investments by focusing them on specific objectives:

• BILLING: a careful look at the markets allows to consolidate the relationship with its customers and to facilitate the acquisition of new ones, allows the growth of volume and price, contributes to the creation of differentiating categories and strengthens the negotiating power with suppliers/intermediaries;
• GOP: rationalises marketing and communication actions (target segmentation, product portfolio repositioning, alignment between channels and targets, concentration of actions on the highest value segments), improves the management of its management, organisational and motivational resources. Optimises financial leverage;
• ASSET MANAGEMENT: more accurately defines market segments and channels, aiming at the most efficient ones and, by optimizing the product portfolio, impacts on material aspects such as, for example, warehouse, technology, machinery;
• PLANNING/PREVISION: an efficient brand strategy aims to enhance the effectiveness of internal processes and focuses on the assets that are truly strategic for the company. It also strengthens alignment between customer, product, marketing, sales and support functions.

Brand Marketing strategy is an investment that pays for itself, not a cost.

If turnover growth is only the most immediately perceivable effect, the brand strategy is also able to act on MOL, in the efficient management of assets and in the planning and forecasting phases of costs and economic returns.

Is it possible to Verify the Benefits and Returns of Sustained Investment?

The benefits of an effective and efficient brand strategy are verifiable both in terms of ROI and brand equity.

To do so, it is necessary to define KPI’s (performance indicators) consistent with your business (they may not necessarily be of a financial nature) useful to monitor the progress of the business process.

Depending on the different performance criteria or priorities, each company is able to define specific KPIs to be added to some industry standards.

If by metrics we mean any element that can be measured, KPIs are metrics whose measurement of performance is essential for the business to which they refer and allows to verify trends and develop projections on the future performance of those indicators.

Building A Brand Strategy

The processes that lead to the definition and implementation of an effective and efficient brand strategy need some main phases on which planning actions are focused:

• Construction of the positioning or repositioning of the brand identity;
• Elaboration of the strategy to be developed around your brand;
• Adoption of tools and resources to implement the defined strategy;
• Constant monitoring.

Each time the market evolves, a new round of shares will correspond.

There Is No Short Term Branding Strategy

An effective brand strategy cannot be short-term.

As much as it would be desirable to think about the possibility of immediate actions capable of bringing a continuous result over time, this is not possible for two fundamental reasons.

The first is that building and imposing a brand on the market at the same time as its launch, without a strategy to guide its promotion phases, is unthinkable.

The second is that a brand strategy that respects itself has behind it an intense activity of analysis and research as well as planning.

For these reasons, the strategy underlying the development of the company and the brand equity of the product must necessarily be based on medium/long-term objectives capable of making its growth sustainable.

Naturally, a team of professionals is always able to contemplate a certain degree of flexibility in response to sudden changes in the market and consumer needs.

The analysis and planning phases are functional to make the economic investment consistent with the company resources and market objectives identified and to translate the brand strategy into action and growth.

What’s Behind A Successful Branding Strategy?

A brand strategy that works, that manages to be at the same time effective and efficient, is built through different looks aimed at achieving a single objective.

• The accurate analysis of the scenario and the economic/organisational resources of the company;
• The deepening of the strategic phase;
• The design care and the creative phases as pieces of a single complex of actions.

Only a unique vision of the product and how it can be represented and communicated in its tangible part (linked to the needs of the customer) and in its intangible part (made of the values of the company and those attributed to the product category) allows to aspire to a strong presence on the market and to achieve the maximum degree of alignment of the brand to the core business of the company.

Conclusions

In this section you can summarize and draw conclusions on all the aspects listed above, through 4 main points:

1. The brand marketing strategy is essential for an SME that wants to grow and impose itself on the market optimizing its resources and generating value for the company;
2. If properly planned and executed the branding strategy is a sustainable cost and an investment;
3. Every aspect of the planning must respect the principle of consistency with brand identity/positioning on the market;
4. The definition and monitoring of KPIs allow the return on investment to be monitored.

That’s all you need to know about Brand Marketing, subscribe to the newsletter below and stay in touch for more hot new topics! 🎯