Month: October 2021

With so many different branding strategies to select from, it can be tough to determine which ones are right for your company. In this blog, you will find the different branding strategies, their uses with examples, and most importantly, how to select the best branding strategy for your company.

But before we jump into the strategies, let’s have a look at what ‘branding’ is:

What Is Branding?

 Branding is a marketing strategy that allows customers to distinguish your company’s products or services from competitors. Branding frequently entails the creation of features such as a logo, mission statement, and design that are consistent across all marketing communication channels.

Remember, your brand is a reflection of who you are as a company, and employing good brand strategies can help you expand beyond your core market. That’s why branding is very important for any company’s success.

Now lets’ learn these key branding strategies, before diving deep into – which one to choose?

A branding plan for an established company will differ significantly from a startup. A business/company that is already up and running, for example, can decide to use a line extension plan to create new items in order to reach a new audience or meet a demand that their current audience has. That could be a strategy you pursue in the future. For a startup, though, getting the brand out there and establishing a core is more important than expanding out too much.

Here Are Some Important Branding Strategies for New and Old Businesses That Could Potentially Work for Your Business:

A. New Brand Strategy

This strategy focuses on building a brand around a single product. It allows you to place your product in your brand’s core, allowing your audience to associate your brand with that product. This method can also be used by established businesses that want to develop new goods and reach new consumers.

 

B. Flanker Brand Strategy

This is a wonderful option if you want to reach the largest possible audience. Create product versions that appeal to diverse consumer segments to establish this strategy. For example, you might develop a high-end tech product with a stripped-down lower-end variant to cater to consumers who want something more economical but don’t require all of the bells and whistles. The high-end and low-end items can share the same fundamental brand, but they should be distinguished by name or designation, such as iPhone 8 against iPhone X.

C. Attitude Branding Strategy

It’s less about harnessing brand loyalty for a business and more about portraying a personality. Rather than marketing a product or service, attitude branding focuses on marketing a way of life, a feeling, or an emotional connection. Nike is a perfect example of this kind of branding; their branding encourages people to live a healthy, active lifestyle reflected in their products. As a second example, you can consider Colgate Max Fresh Gel; their branding is all about freshness and enthusiasm.

D. Competitor Brand Strategy

A corporation may already have a market share in a niche market, but it wants to outperform its competition. If this is the situation for your business, you should consider pursuing a competitor brand strategy, which entails pursuing a current audience rather than pursuing a new one. Finally, the benefit of a competitor brand strategy is that you already know your product has a market. All you have to do now is find out how to outperform your competitors and gain a larger market share.

 

Related Post – Why Branding Is Important for Startups

Selecting the Best Branding Strategies for Your Business

A. Define Your Brand Identity

You should define your brand identity before deciding on the best brand strategy for your company. This entails posing a series of questions to yourself and those involved in the marketing and sales process, such as:

• What are the mission and key values of my company?
• What three words would I use to describe my company if I had to?
• In the marketplace, what do I want to be known for?
• What type of impact do I want to have in my field?
• What do I want the visual representation of my brand to be?

These questions will assist you in determining your goals and direction as a unique brand in the marketplace.

B. Determine Your Brand Objectives

You should be able to decide your brand objectives once you’ve identified your brand identity and answered the important questions outlined above. Your goal, for example, could be to establish yourself as an industry leader in a certain amount of time or to increase consumer interactions through reviews, website visits, or online product purchases. You’ll be able to choose a brand strategy that corresponds with your company’s aims and objectives this way.

C. Define Your Brand’s Audience

 

Find what your audience is interested in, where they’re located, their age, what they think of your brand right now, and how you’ll attract them to your services or products – In short, define your target audience properly.

Knowing your target market allows you to collect enough data to strengthen your message and choose the best brand approach for your target audience.

Related Post – To-Dos Before You Build Your Brand Strategy

Conclusion

Each company is likely to have its own set of aims and objectives in mind. And each brand strategy has something unique to offer your company. However, not every strategy will be appropriate for your business.

Consider performing a competitive study with your industry’s competitors to assist you to select which brand strategy to pursue. Conducting such an analysis will assist you in identifying your market’s prospects and risks.

Ultimately, the goal is to select a branding strategy that is consistent with your brand and provides good reach and interaction with your customers. Remember, if you align your branding strategy with your brand personality, you’ll be able to build a plan that will help you achieve all of your objectives.

In case you need professional support, you may get in touch with the branding strategists at Seagull Advertising. They rank among the best brand strategy firms in Pune. 

Branding is important because it creates a captivating impression on the audience and informs your clients and customers about what to expect from your business.

It is a method of distinguishing yourself from competitors and specifying what you offer that gives you an edge over them. Your brand is created to accurately represent who you are as a company and how you want to be interpreted.

Because of the overall impact, it has on your company, branding is absolutely critical to any business. Branding has the potential to change how people perceive your brand, drive new business, and increase brand value. However, it also can have the opposite effect if done incorrectly or not at all.

Different Types of Branding:

• Personal Branding

 

The practice of marketing people and their careers as brands is known as personal branding. It is the ongoing process of establishing and maintaining a person’s, group’s, or organization’s reputation and impression.

Personal branding defines success as a type of self-packaging, whereas some self-help methods highlight self-improvement. Your personal brand has the power to make or break a wide range of growth opportunities, regardless of your industry or professional status.

When developing your brand begins to feel like a job, remember that it is important to grow your career. Also, keep in mind that the majority of your resources, time, and effort will most likely be spent upfront.

Creating and improving new profiles, creating content about yourself and your work, evaluating your goals, and designing a brand strategy can all feel overwhelming. However, once you’ve laid a solid foundation, you’ll have a blueprint to follow that will make the entire process much more manageable.

• Product Branding

The process of branding a product is known as product branding. It is the identification you give your product to stand out in a sea of competitors and connect with the people with whom it is most compatible.

That distinct identity is your product’s brand, and each of its tangible aspects is your product’s brand identity. Branding is more important for some products than others because factors such as perceived quality, sourcing, perceived value, and functionality matter more with some products.

Accurately defining your brand recommends some introspection. Take some time to research who your product is intended for, where it fits into its specific market, and what distinguishes it.

• Service Branding

Service branding creates a healthy pressure to provide excellent services. While all brands should do their best not to risk alienating their customers, service branding goes a step further; it focuses primarily on adding perceived value to customer service and uses it as a marketing advantage.

• Cultural Branding

Cultural branding is a useful tool for figuring out how brands affect and influence culture over time. To remain relevant, the most influential brands have used cultural branding teaching in some form.
Finally, it is a lens through which to see how a brand relates to and embraces the feelings of a group or society.

• Retail Branding

When you walk into a physical store, it has a distinct look and feels that is unique to that brand. This is an example of retail branding activity. Intentional design choices such as its layout, light fittings, interiors, background music, display fixtures, and even the type of flooring are all carefully selected to create a living brand experience for every buyer who enters the store.

Retail branding is essential for any company that operates in a geographical place. Online shopping has experienced tremendous growth in recent years, and this trend is unlikely to change anytime soon.

So, in order to keep customers coming through the doors, retailers must up their branding game and transform their stores into experiences that customers want to return to and revisit.

• Corporate Branding

If a company were a person, its corporate branding would be how it expresses its personality. Corporate branding is a series of design decisions and actions that converse key aspects of the brand, such as its:

1. Exclusivity
2. Values
3. Mission
4. Vision
5. Pricing
6. Target Audience

Corporate branding extends beyond website design and advertisements. It involves the company’s social and professional conduct, such as collaborating with specialized charitable organizations or responding to current events. In addition, corporate branding frequently extends to a company’s outreach efforts and company culture, which shape how the audience sees the company.

• Online Branding

As the name implies, online branding is branding that occurs online. In contrast to specific types of branding, such as personal or product branding, online branding is a broad category that encompasses all types of branding that occur on the internet.

It is how a person positions on social media, the type of online ads that a service provider runs, and all design decisions that go into email newsletters, landing pages, responsive web design, and automatic message responses.

Digital customer service guidelines usually include the use of the same vocabulary as the brand’s in-store associates. Otherwise, you might notice that a brand’s digital design choices are similar to those of its physical store, effectively bringing its offline atmosphere online.

• Offline Branding

Merchandise and printed products are examples of offline branding. Offline branding is retail branding. Personal branding is also essential to bring to a client meeting or an industry convention.

That could include your wardrobe, the location of your client meetings, the make and model of your company cars, and even the brands of equipment you and your team use.

Related Post – How Branding and Online Advertising Help Businesses? 

In The End…

Most of the time, it’s challenging to make a brand stand out because there are so many different methods to describe a single brand. Marketers should, in any case, ensure that their brands add value and are consistent with the broader brand strategy. Furthermore, in order to create a successful brand, one must ensure that it remains relevant and, above all, that it can be differentiated in any context in which it is used.

In case you want to know more, meet our experts in a one-on-one call or face-to-face. Seagull Advertising is one of the best branding agencies in India. We are known for our meticulous approach and a to z solutions.