Marketing involves a variety of aspects and stages, especially in today’s hyper-personalized world where people want customized and tailor-made products and services. One of the most important aspects of marketing is branding – an activity which ensures that your company has a position and standing in the market. Under branding, marketing teams undertake a number of initiatives, from developing and implementing easily visible and identifiable features to your company to creating an image which is relevant to your target audience and thus, resonates with them. Through branding, marketing strategies find it easier to enhance recognizability and recollection of products and services, ensuring that your business gains an edge among its competitors.
In simpler terms, branding can also be considered as a veritable bridge between your company and its products, and the target audience who will access and pay for these products. Branding connects the two, ensuring that the customer feels a relationship with the business, and wishes for it to grow. This sentiment enhances the brand outreach and helps boost customer loyalty and, thereby, long-term retention. The branding initiative puts a face on the company, with a relatable name, tagline, logo and symbol, helping customers identify and remember your company and products without any difficulties.
Now that we know the different ways in which branding can help further digital marketing goals, let us take a look at some of the benefits inherent in branding –
Branding enhances marketing initiatives
Branding is not just the name and ethos of the company; it is also the way the company creates products and deals with customer expectations. Take, for example, a brand like Maruti Suzuki. There are people who will only buy cars manufactured by this brand, because they believe in the quality and values promoted by Maruti, and they trust the brand to only offer them the best. This is what branding does – it creates an image and principle which people believe in, leading to loyalty down the ages. This sort of branding is highly helpful in marketing as it offers marketers a well-built platform which they can utilize for further promotion, and thus, for generating solid leads.
Branding leads to customer recognition and recall
Imagine you are out on the road and you see a fancy car passing by. What is the first thing you do? Even before looking at the model, you look at the logo. It is more important to know the brand than the model, as, once you know the brand, you can easily figure out the model and its values. This is how branding leads to customer recognition and recall. You see a brand, you remember its logo and offerings, you feel the desire to buy the brand. This makes it especially easy for marketing to ensure success with the target audience.
Brand messaging and identity
Each of us today have smartphones at hand. Some of you may be absolute Apple believers while there may be others who believe in Never Settling. The tagline of OnePlus, one of the most popular smartphone brands today, is a factor that prompts people to choose it from among the many other brands available in the market. The company’s brand messaging has resonated with the population, and they have responded positively by flocking to buy the phones and remaining loyal to the brand. Add to it the new Red Cable club, and there is no denying the appeal of the OnePlus smartphone, especially in the target millennial population of today. That is the power of brand messaging, and it boosts sales volumes significantly, as witnessed by OnePlus.
Brand leads to trust
As we saw earlier, people buy Maruti cars or OnePlus phones because they trust the brand to offer only the best and most value-for-money products. The model of the product, and the features which may be comparable to the ones offered by other brands, matters much less than the brand itself. While a smartphone brand like Vivo or Lava may be offering the same features as OnePlus, at much lower rates, people will choose OnePlus because they trust the brand and believe in its brand messaging and ethos.
There are no undermining the enormous role branding plays in the marketing ecosystem. It is only when you combine the best branding practices, with splendid marketing efforts, that you can come up with a way to keep your company at the front and center of people’s minds. Only a strong branding can help new businesses flourish, and it is up to marketing teams to come up with the best titles and strategies in the business.
