Being the odd one out isn’t bad every time.
From a corporate standpoint, creating your distinct personality in the crowded market is imperative for success. Brand identity is much more than products or services. It includes the visual representation of your company and sets its unique characteristics.
Circe Research found that 77% of B2B marketers believe branding is crucial for growth.
If you fail, there might be a cost hike in other segments, like wages. As per Smart Dreamers, brands with poor branding strategy pay 10% higher salaries.
Thousands of retailers today sell the same stuff. But it is the customer service, pricing, marketing, physical environment, and packaging that determines their value in customer’s minds. For instance, look at how many stores sell sweatshirts today. You will find them at Forever21, Old Navy, and at the thrift store too. The shirts might be different, and so is the fabric and the cut. However, the products are almost identical.
It is the value created in the minds of the consumers that enables a brand to charge differently. Hence, it is proven that unanimously following industrial directions isn’t always a gateway to success.
In case you want more convincing on why branding should be the primary focus of every business, get your pens out. Below, we have listed a few notable benefits brought by branding:
Branding brings recognition
People tend to do more business with companies they recognize well. If your brand is consistent and easily recognizable, customers feel more comfortable choosing your product/service. Take Apple, for instance. It has been successful at creating a loyal fan base worldwide. They’d identify its half-eaten apple logo from afar, and that indicates colossal success.
Logo design is the most critical element of branding as it serves to be the company’s face. You should get a professional logo design team, such logo design valley, on board. According to Crowdspring, 10 seconds are enough for people to form an opinion about a logo. It needs to be simple yet catchy.
Cultivating a brand image, so people identify the company name by its logo is a sign of successful identity-building.
Branding increases business value
Branding helps to increase the overall value of your company by reinforcing your position in the market. It attracts quality leads with higher retention rates and enhances the perceived value of your products/services. It gives more leverage to the company and increases its business value.
It allows you to take ownership of your niche in the market as people start associating you with that domain. For example, every time someone talks about eating fries, the name McDonald’s pops in your mind.
Such a strong establishment in the field makes it quite hard for competitors to come in and overtake your position. As per The Coca-Cola Company, 94% of the world’s population recognizes its logo. It has earned a global reputation and off-the-charts recognition through its remarkable branding strategy. Its business value is, thus, unbeatable.
Branding generates new customers
Strong branding means that the company holds a positive reputation in the industry. They are likely to do business with the brand because of its familiarity and positive word-of-mouth circulating in the industry.
There is nothing more potent than current customers turning into brand ambassadors. When people have favorable experiences with your product/service, it circulates a good word for you in the industry.
According to Edelman 2019, 81% of the consumers said they need to trust the brand to buy from them. Therefore, if people talk about your product/service quality, more leads will eventually come rolling in.
Branding improves employee satisfaction
As per the Career Arc, 55% of the job seekers said they abandoned a job application after reading a negative review about the employer. Talent acquisition will be a considerable challenge for the company with tarnished reputation or a scandalous past.
In contrast, when an employee works for a strongly branded company, they feel more satisfied. Their pride in their workplace is of a high degree too. Such individuals delightfully associate them with the organization and enjoy working for the brand. This fact is constantly proven by the systems used for monitoring employees.
Moreover, there is no need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on employee training. According to Lyfemarketing, having a great brand can decrease hiring and training expenses by 50%. You can hire high-quality candidates without much effort. When a pool of talent becomes part of the team, they work together to reach its goals. This leads to a higher sense of achievement and self-actualization.
Branding supports advertisement
Branding and advertising are two vital aspects that run parallel for every venture. Each plays a crucial role in the marketing strategy of a company. Advertising helps to introduce the brand to the market using social media, magazines, the internet, newspapers, etc.
Advertising comes with extreme control and measurement methods to take your products and services to a whole new level. You get a direct path to get in touch with potential customers and portray your brand’s image that you are willing to set in the market.
Good advertising contains a clear brand message. These days, many companies, non-profit organizations, and political campaigns use adverts to catch customer attention. Yours must be able to cut the clutter and stand out. Unique and powerful advertising supports the brand to establish a distinct identity in the industry.
Although both branding and advertising are different, they complement one another to achieve set targets for sale. Nestle, for instance, gives us a lot to learn from its advertising campaigns. The brand advertisement illustrates that Nestle is determined to do more in assuring its product quality and share its progress with consumers.
Branding creates your story
Story is the best way to catch the attention of consumers and businesses alike. Tell your story is the advice every successful entrepreneur has given to their followers. So, to tell your story, you need good branding. A good logo, a name that connects with it, and a relevant and succinct tagline are the starters.
Let’s define it by an example here. If you plan to start a coffee company, you have to make sure to be sustainable about it because otherwise, you will get lashed about it. So, you need to showcase your story of brewing great coffee while being environment friendly through your branding. You have to tell them the struggle of your company and the satisfaction it offers for people to listen to you and connect to you.
Once you have a story to tell to your consumers, they would come to you to listen to it. If it is solid enough to be believable, they will convert.
Branding leads you to directions you did not expect
You usually start your brand with a specific vision in mind. However, if you are flexible and hold branding holy, your business can take you to places. Let’s take an example of McDonald’s, it started with serving you a regular hamburger and built its empire to become the number one property holder in the world because his branding allowed him to own places which people would not miss which led him to hold places which were the priciest.
If your branding is good and you are flexible with your business, one thing will only get you to bigger and better. So, keep the branding strong to lead your business to keep growing out of one thing to another.
Branding sets you unique
If you have started a clothing business, you need to set it apart because there are a thousand of fashion-related companies. The industry is too big to compete. So, branding is what is going to set you apart. For example, if you are promoting inclusivity and bridging the gap between genders, make sure your branding represents that.
However, since there are many fashion lines that are branding themselves through their inclusivity, what you can do to set yourself apart is have unisex clothing only and make sure you tell your unique story through confident branding.
Branding targets emotions
You know by now the strategizing for a good branding is important and why is it so. However, one of the things that most brands miss is one of the biggest benefits branding offers. It targets the emotions of your audience. If you are telling them a reliable and believable story and fulfilling the promise that you are making through it, your customers connect with you. They come to you because they found you new and attractive. However, they come back to you because of how you reached them, served them, and made sure they were happy. So, if you are able to get some emotional value out of your branding, your customers are going to stay.
Parting Notes
If you showcase confidence in your branding, there is no way you cannot win. Look at Nike, the confidence they manifest in their product photography, product description, logo, and advertisement is what makes them the top company out there to buy anything athletes might need in their journey towards becoming the best. They have grown in myriad directions just because of the confidence they show in building their understanding and connection with the lives of athletes.
There is only one statement that sums up our discussion – branding and doing it with confidence is your way to achieve all the goals you aspire for. If you are yet to work on branding strategies, start them right away with the ways mentioned above to ace the game!
