If you operate a business in 2021, then you probably know what the term "brand" means. It's a product variety that a specific company makes, and they put it out under a particular name. For instance, everyone around the world knows the Nike "swoosh" logo, and they recognize it on a pair of shoes or a tee-shirt.
Business owners also know what marketing is and why it matters. Marketing is how you put your product or service's awareness out in the world.
When you combine these two concepts, you get brand-based marketing. In this article, we'll explain why it matters and what it can do for your company.
What Exactly is Brand Marketing?
When a company engages in brand marketing, they look at their marketing department, and they try to dissect what it's doing and how well the strategy is working. The idea behind this dissection is that the company is trying to ascertain whether their product or service promotion is highlighting the overall brand in the most impactful way.
Brand marketing is all about identifying your company's values and identity. Once you do that, you attempt to link that to your products. Furthermore, you try to communicate to your audience what your brand means and what they should think of when they spot your logo or when someone mentions your company.
Why Does This Matter?
You can think of your brand as the bridge between your would-be customer and your service or product. If you don't define your brand well, then there's no real reason why someone would buy one of your services or products versus something similar that a competitor makes or offers.
Distinct branding, and the marketing strategy behind it, really do matter. When a major company comes out with some new TV commercials, they're not just trying to get you to buy their latest product. They also want you to think or feel a certain way about the company as a whole, based on the messaging that they are putting forth.
If the commercials are funny, they're going for a more lighthearted approach. If they're more serious, then they feel like that will serve them better. They might go for romance, intrigue, etc.
Brand-Based Marketing Takes Time
One thing that some businesses don't necessarily understand is that brand-based marketing takes time. Often, they can't convey what they want about what their company stands for with just one commercial or a single website blog. They probably can't do it with one social media post or satellite radio spot.
If you want to market your brand successfully, you often need to do so over a months or years-long ad campaign. Think about the Geico TV commercials featuring the gecko. They have been running those for years.
Progressive Insurance has Flo, Jaime, and other characters that they use time after time. They're trying to convey a particular branding effort, and they are willing to put some significant marketing dollars behind that.
How Can You Tell Whether Your Branding is Working?
As for your company and your branding efforts, you might not be sure about whether they're working the way that you really want them to. Your sale numbers are the most obvious way to tell. However, they are only part of a larger and more complex whole.
You'll want to look at your sales, but you can also set up focus groups and ask your would-be customers about brand awareness. You can ask them questions about how well they know your ads, your brand, and your products. You can take their answers into account and refine your strategy based on them.
You might also have website questionnaires. When someone goes to your business site, you can ask them to take a brief survey, and if they do so, they have a chance to win some swag.
You might also make up an email list using former customers. You can ask them to answer a few quick questions, and they can get an exclusive coupon code for their next purchase.
You use all this data to determine how effective your branding is, and then you can decide whether to change up your strategy. You should be sure of one thing, though. Brand-based marketing strategies matter because if yours is not effective, you'll miss out on customers.
There is no competition-free niche. The better you can nail your brand-based marketing, the more likely you can start to poach customers from the other companies you are trying to dominate.
