Why Branding Should Be Part Of Your Marketing Plan Conversations
With increasing competition throughout the worldwide market, many business owners have started implementing sacred "corporate branding techniques" to assist in their business promotion. Terms such as brand image and brand identity are already in wide use in the corporate world.
These terms are used to describe the perceptions of a business among their customers and the public in general. For many years the topic of branding has been of great interest to marketing researchers, and was mostly specific to the corporate world.
But now we are bringing the Benefits of Branding YOUR BUSINESS!
WHAT IS A BRAND?
Part 1: The technical aspects of the definition . . . yeah, we put that technical definition of a brand stuff at the end.
Article Reading Time:
Getting thru the knowledge builder What is a Brand?: approximately 3 minutes
Approximate reading time Full Post: approximately 5 minutes
Why Branding Should Be Part Of Your Marketing Plan Conversations?
"We always think of a company logo, and the typography in the letter of the name as a Brand. Your Company LOGO is NOT Your Brand. Your company BRAND is your company's personality. It is what customers feel when they think about you. It is the impression of what customers will experience when they interact with you. " - Joanne Klee, Owner Joanne Klee Marketing
What is a BRAND? Part 2
Translated into Common English
Joanne Klee Marketing Definition of a Brand: brand /brand/ noun
"Your company BRAND is your company's personality. It is what customers feel when they think about you. It is the impression of what customers will experience when they interact with you. " - Joanne Klee. Owner, Joanne Klee Marketing.
The up front design and experience we integrate into your Business Marketing plan are all aspects of your brand. Be sure tho that the Backbone of your brand, that YOU the Business Owner will need to keep top of mind is Customer Service!
From a storefront with 9,000 products, to a freelance photographer, if you are a service provider working with patients or newlyweds, or a digital e-commerce supplier, Customer Service is the Backbone or your brand.
EXAMPLE, WHAT IS A BRAND?
Let's walk through an exercise ...
Where were you this morning? or yesterday? Buying a cup of coffee? Perhaps a train ticket or gassing up the car? Think of the clerk, or someone who passed you in the street . . .
What was your first impression when you met this person? (Brand Value)
What were they Wearing? (Brand Logo)
Based on these factors, will you go back to that place of business? (Brand Loyalty)
Think of someone in your life.
A neighbor, a friend. Now apply all those things we know about people and their personality.
Would you recognize this person on the street, casually walking by? (Brand Recognition)
In your opinion, is this person good looking? (Brand Attractiveness)
Do you like hanging out with this person? Go to dinner, seeing a movie, perhaps going for a 1 hour hike? (Brand Versatility)
You get the idea. If YOUR COMPANY is the Person in these examples, you can see how a big part of your Brand Impression, and the Message it delivers IS THRU the People Like Attributes.
BRANDING ASSESSMENT //
We have extensive industry experience, working AS the client, and AS the brand. Interacting with multiple agencies and designers. Our expertise allows us to understand your brands needs. Most business owners don't have this training. And you don't need to be the expert either, because when your partners are marketing experts, they bring this value to the table.
More in the History of Branding Development is below . . .
When we conduct a brand assessment for a company, we obviously look at the visual representation in your marketing materials inventory. But more importantly, we conduct a customer service assessment. After 20 years in the industry I can personally verify that you can have the sexiest, most amazing logo and perfect tagline, with gorgeous marketing slick sell sheets . . . but if you don't have a SOLID customer service process then your business won't hit it's potential.
Customer Service Issues are NOT Scary //
This Shouldn't Be Hard Pill to Swallow, customers have opinions. And the customer is always right, right?
CUSTOMER SERVICE EMAILS
Don't be scared if customer service is an issue. All customers want to get an answer back, if there emails go into the email BLACKHOLE then they will hurt your brand as much as they can and tell everyone.
Your customer service standards will help address most of this. If you need additional help with online reviews (you can See Our Reviews here), which DO IMPACT YOUR BRAND, we can help with that too. Contact us today!
The HISTORY OF BRANDING //
A big part of such interest is the belief that a strong brand can have long-term benefits, including customer loyalty and increased profitability (Plummer, 1985). Country branding has been accepted as an integral and influential part of a traveler‟s decision process. Country branding involves the perceptions about a place as reflected by the associations held in the mind of a tourist (Cai, 2002). Before actually visiting a location, its brand facilitates destination marketing by providing potential tourists with information that allows them to identify the country, differentiate it from competitors, and build expectations about the likely travel experience provided by the destination (Murphy, Benckendorff, & Moscardo, 2007). “Smart states are building their brands around reputations and attitudes in the same way smart companies do” (van Ham, 2001).
Thank you to Iowa State University's Digital Repository for the Academics of a Brand, the Evolution of Brand Development.
The definition below is a technical one - that’s why we put the technical stuff at the end.
Definition of a Brand: brand /brand/ noun
1. "The marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products." It's Represents Your Brands 'Promise' to Customers.
2. More detailed research shows . . . > "a mixture of tangible and intangible attributes that are visualized in a trademark, which, if managed properly, creates value and influence for a company or entity. "Value‟ can be interpreted differently: “…from a marketing or consumer perspective it is the promise and delivery of an experience; from a business perspective it is the security of future earnings; from a legal perspective it is a separable piece of intellectual property. A brand is intended to ensure relationships that create and secure future earnings by growing customer preference and loyalty. Brands simplify decision making, represent an assurance of quality, and offer a relevant, different, and credible choice among competing offerings” (Interbrand, 2006, p. 14). Branding: “the strategic and creative practice of creating brands and managing them as valuable assets” (Interbrand, 2006, p. 20)."
3. Your Brand is NOT YOUR LOGO!
A Chicago Business Marketing Firm | SINCE 2005
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