Everything You Need to Know About Branding and Marketing

Some studies suggest that, at present, about 50% of the global consumer make purchases depending upon the values and influence of the company’s brand.

Branding has become a popular concept and many business ventures aim to make their business a brand. This has even resulted in the establishment of several branding and marketing agencies. But, what exactly is branding, and what separates it from marketing?

Effective branding and marketing are the secrets of many successful small and huge businesses.

Follow this blog till the end for complete knowledge on marketing and branding, their differences, and relationship. This article will also illuminate the importance of branding and the proven branding strategies that you could apply to your business.

Branding and Marketing

What is branding?

Branding is a specific marketing practice used to distinguish the product or service of a company from other similar-genre products. Proper branding leaves an unforgettable impression on customers which in turn helps an enterprise to achieve a loyal customer base.

For instance, Adidas doesn’t need any advertisement piece or promo for people to buy its products. On the other hand, a newly established sports suit business struggled to get decent customers. This is the power of successful branding.

Before the dawn of the digitalization world, branding was just referred to as a label used on the company products and services. Now, however, a “brand” refers to customer trust, recognition, flawless service, enterprise identity and reputation, customer preference and so much more.

Every enterprise dreams of making its product a “band”. This has countless benefits that can change the face of your business. So, the question arises, is branding easy? How to brand a business?

The truth is: building a brand from scratch is not at all an easy task. It requires tentative strategies, experience, knowledge of the audience, branding strategies, and a clear vision of the competition. Thankfully, there are plenty of branding platforms out there like ZeBrand to help you establish your product as a brand.

Let’s first understand the basic- What is a brand?

The “brand” is the perception that the customer has of your product and business. For a successful brand, a positive reputation amongst the public and unique products that appeal to them are crucial.

No matter how unique your business is, you cannot create a loyal fan base without branding strategies and campaigns. Brand building helps you achieve this by developing a distinct and persistent image of your business in the market.

What is marketing?

Marketing is a vast collection of channels and tools used to promote the physical or online business. Some popular marketing methods are Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC), Social media marketing (SMM) etcetera. Marketing helps you communicate about the product to reach the potential audience.

All these marketing channels are highly efficient. Nevertheless, the correct online marketing tools for your business depend upon the business itself.

The advantages of marketing are improved revenues, better communication, higher client number, greater conversion, and reduced expenses.

Branding vs Marketing

People often mix up the definitions and concepts of branding and marketing. While the two are related, there is a subtle difference between branding and marketing.

The main difference between branding and marketing are summarized below-

1.Marketing is about customer acquisition whereas branding is about customer retention.

Marketing has wide sets of tools and strategies covering almost every aspect of social media and search engines. As a result, through marketing tactics, you can drive more visitors and get more customers. These customers however may or may not come back for the products and services again.

Branding on the other hand appeals to the customer because of the connection, loyalty, and value. As a result, customers are more likely to return for the service again.

2.Marketing aims at sales whereas branding aims for customer loyalty.

In the end, the main goal of marketing strategy, be it social media marketing or search engine marketing, is to motivate the customers to buy the services - marketing aims at sales.

On the other hand, the main focus of branding is brand awareness, recognition, and customer loyalty. In another word, we can say that the vision of Marketing is short-termed and the vision of branding is long-termed.

3.Marketing outcomes are temporary whereas branding outcomes are more permanent

We know all too well the importance of marketing if you want your business to succeed. A marketing method is a great way to promote your business. However, many businesses taste the fruit of marketing only for as long as they are using the marketing strategies.

On the other hand, once branding has effectively worked and your brand has been established, you will get a steady flow of customers without any efforts as well.

Of course, following the branding by brand marketing gives the best results which brings us to our next topic- what is brand marketing?

Brand marketing

Brand marketing is a set of processes to market the entire brand and products associated with it instead of promoting a distinct entity separately. Brand marketing served 2 main purposes. First- new customer acquirement with the marketing strategies and second- old customer retention with successful branding.

The scope of brand marketing is gigantic. As a result, there is some brand marketing agency which can help you build the brand marketing strategies.

Brand marketing focuses on maintaining the quality of the product and services as well as using modern marketing techniques to reach out to the new pool of possible clients.

The Importance of Branding

1.Branding increases product value

Branding makes people feel like they can trust the product and business. In short, branding increases the product value thus providing you an edge in this competitive market.

Additionally, branding also helps with product identification, customer satisfaction, quality maintenance, and a sense of comfort. All of these contribute to increasing the product value.

2.Proper branding results in customers bringing in customers

Branding leads to customer loyalty. If your present customers are satisfied with your products and user experience- brand as a whole-, they will act as advocates for your brand. As a result, in addition to customer retention, you will also be acquiring new customers through already existing ones.

The word of mouth from the customers who are loyal to your brand is the best and most powerful advertising tool there is to bring in new customers. Additionally, customers are proud of a brand that does justice to their time and money.

Branding builds confidence and connects to a like-mind audience.

3.Branding takes business to the next level

Branding makes customers sure about the products.it increases the preference over other business and competitors which are not branded. Because of this, a company’s revenues and market share increase making the enterprise stronger than ever. All these create more opportunities for the business like opening more branches and new distribution channels.

Branding also magnifies the estimated worth of an enterprise. All these factors help in taking the business to the next level.

4.Branding leads to brand awareness, recognition, and customer loyalty

Branding can be taken to the next level with the help of digital marketing. This leads to brand awareness amongst the new masses. Branding inspires trust more easily in the customers because having a well-set brand will make you appear like an expert in the field. A brand with values tends to allure customers. Customers form emotional connections with a brand they trust.

This results in immense customer loyalty. Customer loyalty will result in ample positive reviews on your product on social media sites and websites. This also soars the business recognition.

5.Branding fills company employee with pride and increases productivity

Branding makes a business and its product popular. When people are talking about your brand, it increases the pride of your employees. Additionally, due to the increased sales and revenues, the employees are paid better and also treated better.

A good brand also allures talented employees. Because of this, many talented minds will target your company for their portfolio development and career. This will increase productivity leading to better work.

How to Build a Branding Strategy

Jeff Bezos, the richest man on Earth and the founder of Amazon, once said “Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room”. To create that much of a positive perception of your business, you need to come with effective branding strategies that work.

Here are some steps to follow if you want to be successful in the branding venture.

1.Define brand and its goals

Every promising business has a powerful objective. You need to define your brand by asking yourself the following questions.

1. Why should people give your product a chance?
2. What sets you apart from competitors?
3. Do you solve problems?
4. Can people trust you?
5. What are your brand values?

The answers to these questions will aid you to build the foundation for your branding.

You can also use “The Golden Circle” to communicate your brand to the audience.

The golden circle has 3 main parts.

1. Why: It encompasses your passion, enthusiasm, and why you do what you do.
2. How: You answer how you are unique
3. What: What are your services and products.

This should help you successfully define and set your brand goals.

2.Identify and understand your target clients

What is a brand without an audience? So, the second step is to know your audience.

Only after knowing your potential clients, you will be able to make strategies that appeal to them. For this, you can create an ideal customer persona- a comprehensive profile of a perfect client- by understanding your client.

Identifying and understanding your clients will put you in their shoes and also create an emotional attachment with them. This will bring back the clients for future ventures as well.

To build a customer persona, you need to know-

1. Where could they be from?
2. What purpose does your product serve to them?
3. How old are they?
4. What’s their marital status?
5. Customer’s possible career
6. What’s their budget?
7. What can they compromise on?
8. What was their recent purchase?
9. How much are they willing to pay for your sort of product?

After knowing your clients better you can move forward with other strategies. If you skip this step and head ahead, you might be aiming randomly in a dark room.

However, with a clear vision of the audience, you can make and customize plans to make your business a brand.

3.Create a simple, effective, and intriguing brand identity

Brands are almost incomplete without unique and striking brand identity like logo, name, tagline, and slogans.

Follow the customer persona to narrow what kind of brand identity will appeal to your clients. You can also hire a branding marketing agency for brand advertising, logo making, and establishing of brand identity.

A good brand identity comprises an easy-to-pronounce name, memorable logo. It is also distinctive, legally protectable, short, and captivating.

4.Use digital marketing to magnify your brand

Many people are still not aware of the differences between digital marketing and branding. Digital marketing aims to gain more visitors which can in turn to clients via proper marketing tactics. Branding, on the other hand, is more about establishing the value and reputation of the product.

While digital marketing approaches are different from branding, they can help branding reach the next level.

Digital marketing can do wonders for branding. If you use digital marketing practices like email marketing, social media marketing, paid advertisement, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and content marketing properly, you will be exposed to a greater clientele.

With a digital marketing platform, your brand will foster even more meeting potential customers from all over the world regardless of their location.

Online or digital marketing will provide your brand more visibility, recognition, and exposure.

You can use content marketing to release branded content that will intrigue the audiences. This will help you pass your brand message to the visitors which are likely to turn to customers.

The next one is social media marketing. The power of social media networks like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter is not hidden. By using the paid pages this social media offers, great engaging contents and paid advertisement,

The horizon of your client will only increase.

Given that a strong brand has a great conversion rate, these digital marketing tools will increase your visitors with a commendable probability to turn to customers.

5.Enhance the website and know your competitors

Have an effective and captivating website that tells the customer your story, mission, vision, values, and journey. This has several benefits. First, it will help you connect to audiences. Second- customers can pass on messages about your brand with the brand website as proof.

So, you must enhance the website. For this, decrease the website uploading time, post quality content, make an easy-to-navigate website, answer the questions of customers, add visual elements, demonstrate authenticity and credibility, place effective Call to Actions (CTA), and work on the search engine optimization.

Another thing to do is keep tabs on competitors. You need to know what's going on with the competitor’s website, market value, and customer experience. Use tools like excel and google sheets to keep tabs on what your competitors are doing, what reviews they are getting, what marketing channels they are using, what’s the quality of their products and services, and so on.

6.Communicate with the audience, learn, adjust and grow

The brand owners need to be aware of how their brand is being perceived by the audience. For this, they need to connect and communicate with them. You can use social marketing channels to tailor your brand message and communicate with your prospective clients.

While communicating with the client, you need to use a consistent tone of voice (ToV) amongst all your outlets like brand websites, YouTube videos, every blog, email, and social media posts. This will establish brand consistency since the same tone on opinions and beliefs save the audiences from confusion.

Note that satisfied customers are the key to any successful business. So, you have to pay extra attention to make the user experience commendable.

Why Do Brands Fail?

Branding can take a business to heights of success. But, in several instances, brands do fail to bring any results. Why does this happen?

Below laid out are some reasons why brand marketing strategy fails to bring results:

Not maintaining consistency can result in a failed brand. If your tone is not consistent in all the social media and products, the customers will have a hard time believing you and building a connection with you.

Checking on competitors is crucial for any business and branding is no exception. You need to know what your competitors have done in the past and are doing now. One of the reasons behind this is to avoid copying the competitors unknowingly, only to come up with a strategy, product, and policy that was already released.

One other mistake people make with branding is not being patient with it. Branding is not an overnight process. It takes months and years to establish a successful brand.