What Is Branding? Why Is It Important For Your Business?

46% of surveyed consumers said that they would pay more for brands they trust. And consistent presentation of a brand has been seen to increase the revenue by 33%. (Study:Oberlo). But the question is “What is branding?”

Let us start with understanding an example. And nothing would be better in this case than Amul Dairy products. Amul’s iconic animated girl is seen on the cover of the products. The brand always remains active on social media platforms. It use the meme-styled content with the same animated character to connect with their audience and keep them engaged. This is called branding.

Let us read further to understand in detail.

What Is Branding?

Branding is creating a unique identity and image for a product, service, or company through design, messaging, and other marketing elements. It helps to differentiate it from competitors, establish credibility and evoke emotions, memories and associations with customers.

In an example here you may know how Asian Paints-3rd largest paint company in Asia today succeeded in their branding.

In the initial days of marketing and branding, the company got a mascot “Gattu” designed by the famous artist RK Laxman. The brand found their fan base in India’s middle class population. The brand mascot helped the target audience to resonate with the brand. The makers wanted the brand to be accepted as a more consumer-friendly brand.

Soon after a few years, the brand started with their campaign “Har Ghar Kuch Kehta Hai” around the festival season. It became a hit because the Asian Paint still executed a customer-centric approach.

Why Is Branding Important For Your Business?

The last name that a consumer recalls after listening to a name of the product or commodity is called a brand.

For example, talking of stains on clothes and ways to get rid of it, you might recall Surf Excel with its powerful branding and campaign “Daag Acche Hai”.

Branding is important for a business because:

• It makes a memorable impression on the target audience. The last image that consumers recall about a product is branding. Think of Maggi.
  Maggi was started by Julius Maggi, to help working mothers with two of its new launches pre pre-cooked soup and sauce brands. Much later the company wanted to provide an after school easy to cook snack. Maggi then created a “2-min Maggi” brand.
  Now, a quick snack that can be healthy and tasty for your family gives you the first image of Maggi in mind. Because it was marketed as  “Taste Bhi Health Bhi”.
• It allows the company to stand out from the competition. Despite the opposition and ban on the product, Maggie still holds the biggest market share of 60%. The product faced its low in June 2015, but came back in the market with a bang after six months. Nestle launched Maggi with the emotional connect stating that it offered the consumers:
  • Convenience: 2 mins noodles
  • Health: Taste bhi health bhi
  • Fun and Happiness: 2 minutes mei khushiyan

  Maggi also launched it in different packaging, sizes and flavors to appeal to its target audience. Through different campaigns like “Me Meri” and “Miss You” Maggi always revived its brand identity and held the market share.

• With a brand you can clearly spell the things you assure to deliver to your customers. For Maggi, the makers promised that they wanted to be remembered for:
  • Quick snack that could relieve mothers from the pressure of cooking.
  • Making Maggi was easy as it was just about cooking noodles and add spice mix to it.
• Emergence of social media has elevated the level of competition. The consumers now have plenty of options in the same segment, but for a business it is harder to keep their target audience engaged.
• More people will recognise your brand as you promote it via different channels and mediums. Keep your brand colors consistent and messaging the same across different platforms to send the same information.

Benefits of Building A Strong Brand

A visually appealing, memorable, and strong identity your audience owns for your products is brand. You can understand it as the mental picture that is formed in the mind of the customers.

• Customer Recognition: Customers typically look for three things in products and services: fast, dependability, and affordability. You still need to invest work into your overall brand messaging even if you can easily provide all of these items. Why? When people are familiar with you, they are more likely to purchase from you. This is made possible through effective branding. If your branding is distinctive and memorable, one-time clients might become devoted ones.
• Easy to offer new products: You effectively have a whole army of beta testers at your disposal, ready to try out new product launches, thanks to a foundation of customers who are familiar with and confident in your brand.
  This implies that you can test particular goods and services on your existing clientele. An existing customer (who is familiar with your brand) is much more likely to be understanding if something turns out to be a failure. Even if your new product launch fails, you probably won’t be destroyed by it. Your bottom line may be barely impacted by it.
• Higher customer loyalty: More than just raising awareness, a great company brand has other benefits. It also motivates current clients to stick with you. Want proof? Customers connect more with the brand name as it gives them a pleasure and satisfies them. This is why spending on branding brings more loyal customers. Customers will purchase what they are comfortable with and what is familiar to them. Over and over.
• Attract influencers and their target audience: Your brand will draw proper influencers if it is mission-driven, focused, clear, engaging, and positive. You can express that through effective branding, the influencers would associate with your brand. Further, the brand can connect with their target audience and improve the prospect of sales.
• Higher social media presence: When you have a strong brand identity, the presence on social media is easily widened. More the brand awareness, the higher the possibility of sales.

 

Also Read : Why Is A Good Logo Important For Your Business?

How to build a Brand?

Building a brand is a strategic activity that helps people connect with your brand easily whenever they think about your brand.
You can follow these steps to build a brand:

• • Define your brand identity and mission:
    • Identify your brand values: What core values define your brand and guide its actions?
    • Define your target audience: Who is your brand trying to reach, and what are their needs and wants? For example Nykaa has positioned itself as a trusted beauty destination for modern Indian women by offering a wide range of products and personalized services.
    • Analyse your competition: Know the players in the market. Finding out their strategic moves is important for you to know what sets you apart.
    • Define your unique selling proposition (USP): Spell and shout out loud why is your brand valuable to your target audience? For example fashion and beauty brand Nykaa is committed to customer satisfaction. It offers fast and reliable delivery, easy returns, and a dedicated customer service team. The brand has partnered with leading beauty brands that offers a wide range of authentic, high-quality products to its customers. It increased the credibility for Nykaa.
    • Develop your brand personality: What personality traits would you like to associate with your brand, and how should it communicate with its audience?
    • Create a brand tagline: A brief and memorable phrase encapsulating your brand mission and values.
    • Design a visual identity: This includes a logo, colour palette, typography, and other visual elements that reflect your brand personality and values. Nykaa has a distinctive logo and a bold color palette that reflects its confidence in beauty and wellness products.
    • Write a brand mission statement: A clear and concise statement summarizes your brand’s purpose and values.
    • Establish brand guidelines: Guidelines ensure consistency in how your brand is presented across all touchpoints.
    • Regularly review and revise your brand identity and mission: As your brand evolves and your target audience changes, your brand identity and mission should be reevaluated and adjusted as necessary.
  • Conduct market research
    • Lay outline for your research objectives: What is the objective of the market research and what do you want to establish is the first point to start with.
    • Identify your target audience: Who do you want to reach for your product and services is important for branding activities.
    • Gather secondary data: Use publicly available sources such as industry reports, market data, and competitor analysis to gain insights into your market.
    • Conduct primary research: This includes surveys, focus groups, and in-depth interviews to gather data directly from your target audience.
    • Analyse your data: Read the trends and stats of the data collected during research. It will help you design strategies for branding.
    • Evaluate your findings: After the research results determine what they mean for your brand and what changes you need to make to your brand strategy.
    • Monitor your results: After implementing the branding strategies, you must evaluate the success of your brand and make changes as necessary based on new insights and market trends.
  • Determine target audience:
    • Define your customer personas: These are people who are most likely to purchase your products or services.
    • Gather and analyze data on your existing customers: After you have decided the persona, use data from your sales, customer service, and marketing channels to finalise your current customer base. Observe changes in patterns and trends in your customer data, such as age, gender, income, location, and behavior.
    • Find your competition: Know your competitors targeting, and explore what strategies are they using to reach their target audience?
    • Study market patterns: Study the market trends and industry data to understand what the customers prefer for their needs.
    • Ask your customers: You can conduct surveys to gather direct feedback on customer’s needs and behaviors.
    • Evaluate and refine your target audience: Based on the insights you have gathered through your research, you can refine your target audience.
  • Develop a unique brand message:
    To develop a unique brand message, you will have to do this:
    • First have to define the core value of your brand.
    • Identify the unique selling proposition.
    • Understand the target audience.
    • Craft your brand message.
    • Incorporate your brand message.
  • Design a visual identity:
    To design a visual identity of a brand, you can do this:
    • Start with defining brand’s personality and tone: It is the personality you want your brand to convey. It relates to the image that you want your target audience to perceive your brand.
    • Research your competitors: Post that identify the competitors and explore how do they work in your industry.
    • Consider your target audience: You should be aware of what visual elements will resonate and connect with your target audience.Think and select those.
    • Choose a colour palette: Finalise a colour palette that connects your brand’s personality and appeals to your target audience.
    • Design a logo: You should then create a simple, memorable, and versatile logo for your brand. Use it across all the marketing and branding channels. Make sure that your visual identity is consistent across all your marketing channels, from your website to your social media presence.
  • Establish brand guidelines:
    Lay brand guidelines as it gives a standard message to the audience across all platforms.
    • Protect your brand: Define the do’s and the don’ts of the brand. It helps people to know how they must represent your brand.
    • Maintain brand consistency: Branding elements like logo, color, fonts, and typography should be same across. It will help your branding team in decision making with quality visuals and messaging elements.
  • Consistently communicate brand messaging:
    Communicating brand messaging is essential because it helps convey your brand’s core values and benefits to your target audience. Communicate with your target audience in a way that they can establish a relationship with you. Encourage customers to choose your brand and remain loyal to it over time by consistently communicating your brand’s core values and benefits.
  • Provide an excellent customer experience
    A happy customer will always come back to you. This is why you must provide excellent customer service.
    If you take care of your customers, it will help your brand:
    • Build customer loyalty: A customer who gains a positive experience from you are who are more likely to return and recommend your brand to others. A happy customer is satisfied with your services is more likely to leave a positive review. And these customer testimonials are a great tool in building brand authority.
    • Drive repeat business: They will come back to you. Encourage customers to make repeat purchases and become loyal brand advocates by providing a seamless and enjoyable customer experience.
    • Differentiate from competitors: Stand out by offering a unique and memorable customer experience that sets you apart.
    • Enhance brand reputation: Improve your reputation by delivering high-quality customer experiences and fostering positive customer relationships.
    • Increase customer lifetime value: By providing an excellent customer experience, you can increase the time, and money customers spend with your brand over their lifetime.
  • Continuously evaluate and adjust brand strategy
    Building a brand is a continuous process. You need to evaluate your brand strategy continuously because:
    • Respond to changes in the market: Stay ahead of changes in the market and in customer preferences by regularly reviewing your brand strategy and making adjustments as needed.
    • Remain competitive: Stay competitive by evaluating your brand strategy and making changes to stay ahead of the curve and meet evolving customer needs.
    • Maximize brand potential: Ensure that your brand is achieving its full potential by continuously evaluating and adjusting your brand strategy.
    • Stay aligned with brand mission: Ensure that your brand is staying true to its mission and values by regularly reviewing your brand strategy and making adjustments as needed.
    • Respond to feedback: Respond to customer and market feedback by continuously evaluating and adjusting your brand strategy to address customer needs and preferences.
    • Measure success: Continuously evaluate your brand strategy to measure its success and identify areas for improvement.
  • Collaborate with influencers and partners.
    Influencers and partners have their own set of followers and audience. When you collaborate with an influencer, you make your brand value stronger in the head of the target audience. They trust you more because they follow the influencer.
    With influencers, your brand reach grows by manifold and the revenue increases in time less than expected.

• Best Branding Examples

  Here are some best branding examples:

  • Apple:
    • Apple’s brand is known for its minimalist design, innovation, and premium quality.
    • The company’s branding strategy focuses on creating a seamless user experience across all of its products.
    • Its brand image is consistently communicated through its advertising and product packaging.
  • Coca-Cola:
    • Coca-Cola’s brand is known for its iconic red and white logo, jingle, and long history of successful advertising campaigns.
    • The company’s brand strategy focuses on creating a solid emotional connection with consumers.
    • The brand image is consistently communicated through its advertising and product packaging.
  • Nike:
    • Nike’s brand is known for its “Just Do It” slogan, high-quality athletic products, and innovative marketing campaigns.
    • The company’s brand strategy inspires and empowers consumers.
    • The brand image is consistently communicated through its advertising and product packaging.
  • Amazon:
    • Amazon’s brand is known for its wide selection of products, fast shipping, and customer-centric approach.
    • The company’s brand strategy focuses on delivering convenience and value to consumers.
    • Amazon’s brand image is consistently communicated through its website, advertising, and customer service.
  • Starbucks:
    • Starbucks’ brand is known for its high-quality coffee, welcoming atmosphere, and commitment to sustainability.
    • The company’s brand strategy focuses on creating a premium experience for consumers.
    • Starbucks’ brand image is consistently communicated through its stores, advertising, and product packaging.

  A Branding Case Study- Boat

  From morning breakfast to the long playlist you listen to right before leaving for office, we are surrounded by technology in every sphere of life.

  One such example is the rising demands of headphones by the generation who blend music in life with other tasks also. And ever since the smart phones came, life and other related needs have changed. Now every member has a strong desire to listen to their own kind of music, the moment they want without disturbing anyone. 

  Considering the whopping demand of earphones, Aman Gupta launched Boat. Read further to know how a small idea became a superhit business in the Indian economy.

  About Boat:

  • • • An Indian firm called the boAt specializes in audio technology and primarily produces wireless speakers, earbuds, smartwatches, headsets, and earphones. 
      • They are all reasonably priced and available to most people. 2016 saw the establishment of the boAt by Aman Gupta and Sameer Mehta. 
      • The company’s primary goal is to offer customers cutting-edge technology and become a part of their daily lives. 

  Branding Strategy

  • • • Boat started in the market with the intent of solving customers’ problems.
      • It started making anti-destruction cables for Apple chargers to help people get rid of the cables that were getting damaged without any reason. 
      • Soon, the company started manufacturing headphones and earphones.

  Target Audience

  From the beginning, boAt was focused on the youth who are into fitness; they made all the products by keeping their target audience in mind. 

  Promotion 

  • • • Boat’s products were promoted as workout wearables that people can wear during their intense workout sessions.
      • Boat chose influencers to reach the target audience faster.
      • Apart from this, the brand also collaborated with Lakme Fashion Week and promoted its product to show that electronic gadgets are a lifestyle.

  Pricing

  • • • Boat was priced as a mid-priced segment as it was neither too expensive nor unimaginably cheap. It was priced keeping the younger generation in mind who would invest in the product without giving much of a thought

  Final Word

  Branding helps the companies increase customer recognition and loyalty. It enables the brand to differentiate themselves from their competitors. A brand, if it communicates its values and personality, can easily attract a new target audience. Ultimately, it has a loyal audience and more potential buyers.
  For more on branding, connect with us at hello[at]noboruworld.com.

  FAQ

  What is Branding cost for small businesses?

  The cost for branding for a company is INR 50,000- INR 2,00,000/-

  What is Personal Branding?

  Personal branding is creating and promoting a unique image or identity for an individual to distinguish themselves from others and establish themselves as an expert or thought leader in their field. It involves creating a strong online and offline presence, showcasing one’s skills and achievements and building a reputation as a trusted and knowledgeable professional. Personal branding can help individuals advance their careers, attract new opportunities, and make a strong network of contacts and professional relationships. It requires ongoing effort and self-reflection to maintain and improve one’s personal brand, including regularly updating one’s online profiles, engaging in networking and professional development activities, and consistently delivering high-quality work. Overall, personal branding is a way for individuals to differentiate themselves in the job market, build a strong reputation, and establish themselves as leaders in their field.

  Competitor Reference- 

  Why Branding is important for your business?

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