How to strengthen your brand

with your marketing strategy

Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in
the mind. - Branding pioneer Walter Landor.

The physical value of your products may be easy to calculate,

but your consumers' perceptions are what really determine
the value your brand and products have in the marketplace.

Because of this, your ability to build value into your brand and
communicate that value to customers through your marketing
is essential to the long term success of your company .
The benefits of building a good brand

Brand equity is the perception customers have of your

products and services based on what they think of your
brand. Apple, Google and Microsoft are all considered to have
high brand equity.

It’s difficult to assign a monetary value to a brand, but no

matter how intangible brand equity may seem, a strong brand
reaps considerable business benefits from:

 Awareness

 Credibility

 Reputation
 Customer satisfaction

Those benefits serve as tools to marketers in the effort

to attract that mindful consumer  who wants to buy from a
brand high in value.
The mindful consumer
In his TED talk, 'The post-crisis consumer' , John Gerzema
asserts that buyers are no longer in retreat (as they were
during the economic crisis), but have become what he refers
to as mindful consumers.

The mindful consumer is willing to buy, but craves value. In

the search for value, they consider factors like:

 Research. Sixty seven percent  of the buyer’s journey is

completed digitally meaning the mindful consumer wants and has a
lot of information on their side about which companies have what
they want.
 Social proof. Having a great product isn’t enough. The mindful
consumer looks to online reviews, peer recommendations and social
media profiles for evidence of a well-liked product .
 Identity and preference. Customers are mindful of
a relationship between their purchase decisions and their identity .
They are looking to make a purchase decision which suits their
personal brand.
These factors all play a part in a purchase decision and all
are aboutmore than just the product. At the core of their
search, customers are looking to form a bond with a brand
they perceive as high in value.
6 ways to communicate brand value
 If ‘brands are created in the mind,’ it’s vital to understand
how to market your company to positively so as to affect the
perception leads and customers have of your brand.

1. Work from the inside out

‘The world is full of boring stuff – brown cows – which is why

so few people pay attention,’ Seth Godin writes. ‘Remarkable
marketing is the art of building things worth noticing right
into your product or service.’
To be perceived as valuable, your brand has to stand out from
the herd -be a purple cow. A strong brand is about
superlatives: the best customer service, most innovative, the
happiest employees .
If you want to build a strong brand, marketing can’t be limited
to one department. All areas have to demonstrate value to
the customer. The customer experience is the foundation
from which you build the rest of your marketing strategy to
strengthen your brand.
2. Target your brand message

‘You have to find a group who really desperately cares about

what you have to say,’ according to Seth Godin in his TED
talk How to get your ideas to spread . Godin asserts that
building value means finding the crowd that would find your
brand and products valuable in the first place, rather than
just casting a wide net. This means:
 Find the marketing channels  your ideal audience is on
 Tailor your brand message  to that marketing channel
In the 2014 World Cup, Nike and Adidas , who share a target
audience, each created a campaign. While Adidas went for
the ‘win or lose’ sentiment, Nike appealed strictly to football
fans with inside jokes only enthusiasts who follow the sport
would understand. Nike’s message was stronger-more
valuable-because it was more specific to its audience.
3. Maintain high standards for design

Design is visual communication. How you use colour, shapes

and font or organise elements on a website page, email
campaign or even a product package will dictate whether or
not your brand is perceived as valuable.

How you package your brand affects how your brand

is perceived and interpreted . A ‘strong visual branding
system’ can make a small company seem more powerful or
demonstrate a large company’s strength. Bad design has the
adverse effect - just watch this insightful spoof:

4. Give your brand meaning

In the same way beauty is in the eye of the beholder, all value
is perceived value. To give meaning to your brand:
 Make it a status symbol. In Rory Sutherland’s TED talk , he tells
the story of a king who, to prevent famine, decreed the potato a royal
crop and put guards around the fields to make the previously
rejected vegetable desirable. The king changed the perception of the
crop's worth, not the crop itself. He advises that 'anything worth
guarding must be worth stealing.' You may not be able to decree your
products or brand a ‘royal crop,’ but you can strive to create the
same kind of perception of your product.
 Make it symbolic. In the same talk, Sutherland notes that
during a war, the wealthy in Prussia were encouraged to give their
jewellery to support the war effort. The pieces were replaced with
replicas made out of cast iron. Though they carried decidedly less
intrinsic value, the pieces came to have great symbolic value to the
people of Prussia because of the sacrifice they represented and
became desirable during that time period. A modern example would
be TOMS shoes. Their business model, built on symbolic value of a
TOMs purchase, enabled them to grow into an international brand
with several product lines.
 Connect to emotions. According to Nielsen’s VP , ‘emotional
preference is important: while services may be similar, that
emotional connection can create the perception that the
“connected” brand exceeds customer expectations.’ It means
presenting a product, no matter its function, in an empathetic way.
Google Chrome achieved this in their Dear Sophie ad. Email is a
straightforward product. However, Google used the message to
connect with customers on an emotional level.

5. Provide thought leadership and valuable

information in your content

Content is a prime way to communicate your brand’s value

and continuously increase its strength. Content can
demonstrate thought leadership to your audience, helping to
 build trust, as well as delight customers into becoming loyal
brand advocates.

Content that adds value to your brand must be about quality

for your audience, not quantity for your company. So, how do
you keep your content focused on adding value for the
customer?

 Buyer personas. These semi-fictional profiles representing your

ideal buyers should include details of your customers' interests,
concerns, pain points and other details to guide the creation of
content.

 Buyer stories. Again, to create brand equity, the buyers have to

realise the value. So content can’t correlate to your marketing goals.
It must correspond to the content leads and customers are looking
for.
 Plain language. The language you use in the conference room
is not appropriate for content if you expect to add value for the
buyer. The writing in your content  needs to cater to the audience to
whom you are speaking.

6. Build loyalty

Tailored content is the start of a long term relationship. If you

continually produce content that interests leads and
customers, you can keep them coming back to your brand
and build loyalty.

 Content on social media is a way to delight customers  and put

them back into the sales funnel for future purchases. Learn what
 channels your customers are on and the type of content they want to
see and then put consistent, tailored content on those channels.
 Map email campaigns according to what products customers
are interested in or where they are in the sales funnel. The more
tailored and personalised the content, the greater the value of the
email to the customer.
Customers are your best allies  when it comes to
strengthening a brand. In a connected world where
perception determines your brand’s value, having customers
on your side gets you the recommendations, reviews and
social proof you need.
Strengthen your brand and evolve your marketing
strategy
In the end, brand value comes down to distinction: your
ability to set your brand apart in the industry. You have to be
able to tell a better story  and it has to be consistent across
all marketing channels to remain strong.

Once you’ve built value into your brand from the product to
the campaigns, it’s important to understand where your brand
falls on the value scale and to continually adapt your
marketing strategy to suit.

Everyone in the company is responsible for developing a

strong brand. However, it is your responsibility as a marketer
to communicate that value to the mindful consumer who goes
in search of a strong, high value brand they want to be a part
of.