21MM101 – BRAND MANAGEMENT

LECTURE MATERIAL – LP4

Brand Building

Brand building is the process that implies using direct advertising campaigns to
boost brand awareness, promote a specific product, establish connections and
provide value to the target audience. It increases customer satisfaction, customer
loyalty, and brand recognition.

Contents

1. Why is brand building important?

2. 7 Steps to Build a Successful Brand

In this article, we’ll unveil the importance of brand building and the 7 steps to building a
successful brand.

Why is brand building important?

A brand is a crucial asset since it helps shape a positive perception of your business in
consumers’ minds. With its help, people become aware of your company’s values, brand
personality, and mission. If you succeed to create a strong brand, you can reap the following
benefits:

 Increased recognition;

 High level of customer loyalty;

 Word-of-mouth promotion;

 Trust;
  Credibility.

Moreover, you can attract new leads and convert them into customers. People who share your
values and mission will be interested in your product and ideas. Besides, it will also help you
gather an excellent team of like-minded people. Employees who support your company’s
values and principles will shape a dream team for future business development.

The most crucial aspect is that a strong brand can generate brand awareness, establish
connections with the audience, and gain trust. Brand identity enables you to stand out,
encourage customer loyalty, and increase your value among consumers.

Now that you know why it’s important to consider brand building, it’s time to delve into our
guide to explore steps to build a successful brand.

7 Steps to Build a Successful Brand

Brand building can be broken down into seven key steps. Let’s review each of them in more
detail to find out how to develop a successful brand.

1. Define your target audience and research competitors. Conducting a comprehensive

analysis of ideal customers and competitors is a must for every successful brand. Direct
your efforts to explore the market. You need to identify and describe your ideal
customer and define the level of competition. To understand your target market and its
needs, conduct a short survey to ask potential customers about the brands they prefer to
buy. Besides, you can look through social media accounts of companies that offer
similar products. Analyze their strategies to figure out the preferences of your potential
audience.

2. Work on your brand personality. One company can’t be a perfect choice for
everybody, that’s why it’s essential to create a brand that will be suitable for a specific
audience segment. You need a clear brand personality to communicate your message
and drive customers’ attention to your product. For this purpose, you should think of
your positioning statement that covers your claim in the market. Besides, you need to
determine your unique value proposition. It should be something significant your
company can offer, and others don’t have. To become closer to your customers and
 establish strong connections, you should identify individual qualities that suit your
company. This way, you’ll be able to communicate the feelings and emotions you
associate with your business.

3. Decide on the business name. A brand is a vast concept that covers many different
things. The brand name is essential too. Since the name of your future company
influences your marketing strategies, logo, domain, and trademark registration, you
need to choose a relevant and memorable name. It should be unique, easy to remember,
and short. If you plan to expand, keep in mind that your company name should be broad,
for example, if you want to create new product lines.

4. Choose a catchy slogan. You can use a slogan on your social media networks, business
cards, and website. It helps describe your product and deliver the necessary message to
the audience. A catchy slogan can hook customers’ attention and keep a specific brand
in mind. It’s also critical for your brand identity and reputation.

5. Think of your brand design. Color scheme and font play an important role when you
create a company. Using the same brand design across different marketing channels
allows you to be more recognizable among customers. The design should visually
represent your company. With the help of the right colors, you can communicate the
necessary message and feelings.

6. Create a unique brand logo. The logo also belongs to the most important elements of
a brand. A unique and recognizable logo enables you to make a strong first impression,
serve as a foundation for brand identity, grab attention, and increase customer loyalty.
Remember, a brand logo is the face of your company, and it should be outstanding for
people to pay attention and memorize it. Once you develop a great logo, make sure to
include it on your website, social media accounts, product, banners, all possible ads,
etc.

7. Share your brand story. Apply your branding across different marketing channels to
educate people about your company’s values. You need to tell people a brand story with
facts and feelings to evoke emotions in customers and encourage interaction. Ensure
that your mission and purpose are clear so that people can find out about your brand
and values more and decide whether to become your customer. For example, TOMS,
the famous footwear company, is widely known for its aim to improve lives. The brand
 contributes to people in need and donates shoes to children through charitable
programs.

If you strive to connect with the audience and hook their attention, you need to have a strong
brand and values. Once you succeed in building an outstanding brand, you’ll be able to increase
awareness and drive conversions.

Steps in Building a Brand Name Product or Service

At times, organizations are often inspired by a variety of ideas to create products and services
which can be offered locally or globally. Generally, such products or services require the
establishment of a brand or company name. Often these brands include both logo and lettering
and can do a long way in advertising such products or services. Therefore, one of the most
important steps in building a Brand is decide upon a brand name for the product or service one
wishes to sell.

Branding is a process that allows an individual or a group of individuals the ability to

provide a brand image and lettering to an idea. Upon doing so, one has a better chance of
selling such items to a broader audience whether that be on a local or global level. Therefore,
while the old adage “nothing happens until somebody sells something,” still stands true to some
extent, at times almost seems as if the process of advertising and branding has overtaken the
desire to sell.

Although branding generally identifies the company and philosophies behind same, it can also
be representative of those working for such a company. This is a good thing as it generates the
right type of audience to the product or service being sold based on personal relationships with
those running the company. Therefore, benefiting both the organizations selling the branded
product or service and the dealers buying same.

One of the most important steps in selling any product or service is the belief one holds in
relation to the item. Therefore, only those who strongly believe in the products and services
offered by the company are going to be good at selling same. Otherwise, one may want to work
from an advertising or graphic artist perspective in relation to advertising rather than sales when
it comes to time to market same.
Another step is to build a brand that maintains loyalty with its customer base and has a strong
customer service department. For, having such a department in today's world where one is both
experienced and knowledgeable when it comes to helping others can be a rare find. So,
companies who represent oneself has having a strong customer base and even stronger
customer service department are often more successful than those who do not.

A very important step in marketing a brand is to identify the target audience before creating
the logo and lettering in relation to marketing. This is because different age groups react
differently to a variety of logo and lettering especially as so much is misrepresented by a variety
of gangs and others using such material inappropriately. Therefore, if one can define the brand
name, logo and lettering and present same to a marketing research review panel or the like, one
may be able to gain a better understanding of which audience one needs to direct their product
or service to in order to create the most sales.

Still, if one can communicate the use of their product or service clearly, establish trust within
the community, be that locally or globally, aim marketing at the right audience, build a base
of buyers and customer loyalty and offer great customer service, then one is on their way to
not only creating and advertising an excellent brand but selling one as well.

Therefore, when looking for steps in building a brand, there are many steps which one can
complete to help make the creation of such brand an easier task. These include, knowing your
audience, building your brand, finding a great logo and lettering to represent same, targeting
the appropriate audience and placing a number of ads in as many online and offline advertising
venues one can find. For, after doing so, one may just find that they are selling even more
products and services than one had ever dreamed possible.

Tenets of Brand Building

The 5 tenets of brand building

Pragmatism requires a commitment to finding and maintaining clarity across your brand's
ecosystem.

When you have clarity around your brand's vision, what you stand for (and don't), how you
want your customers to feel, employees to act, and the criteria for success, you have the
blueprint through which to drive all brand decisions, strategically, tactically, and economically.
Being pragmatic may be the most important piece of the puzzle, but also the one that most
marketers find the hardest. It's essential because it's the one that makes the other three possible.

Using the following tenets is a good place to start when building a relentlessly relevant brand.

01. Be consistent

Be clear and consistent on what your brand is and is not. A strong brand vision guides every
decision and action you take.

When Prophet partnered with T-Mobile to help it become the “Un-Carrier” in wireless, we
knew it would only be credible if T-Mobile lived up to that vision by walking away from
historical practices that irked consumers like long-term contracts, termination fees and
predatory data plans.

It worked: T-Mobile gained 1.1 million customers after announcing the Un-Carrier strategy,
quickly gaining market share from competitors.

02. Be willing to fail (fast)

Brand leaders must know precisely what success looks like in every metric and key
performance indicator available. With metrics in place at all levels, companies can accurately
assess how well they are delivering.

Capital One conducts thousands of test-and-learn experiments and pilots every year to continue
to hone in on what is resonating with customers from an offering, experience, communications,
and brand perspective. They try and limit their spending on each, succeeding or failing fast and
scaling the successes even faster.

03. Empower employees to be brand ambassadors

Creating a shared mindset across an organization enables employees to wow customers with
consistent and compelling experiences. Nordstrom, Southwest Airlines and Zappos seem
worlds apart from competitors because their employee training goes beyond what to do and
instead teaches how to think.

Our client Chick-fil-A is a shining example of this cultural clarity. Their brand experience
embodies Good Gracious, by living in the hearts of their operators and coming to life through
simple employee interactions. Employees don't follow a script; their actions are guided by
genuine belief in the company's values.

04. Have a clear, compelling message

Think about Apple, Patagonia and Disney. All three of these brands stay on message, on
strategy and on brand. They make it easy for customers to follow their plot lines and even easier
for customers to want to stay connected with their brands.

Clear and consistent messages lead to clear expectations which lead to customers feeling
empowered and loyal.

05. Create an experience that reflects your vision

The brand's vision is a critical lens through which all business decisions should be made. Some
of today's most respected brands live this day in and day out.

Think about the power of these brands' policies and actions: Chipotle stopped selling carnitas
when its sources didn't meet its standards, eBay provides buyer protection with easy returns
and money back guarantees and the Orange Aprons at Home Depot are encouraged to stay as
long and as patient with every single customer as needed to make sure their home dreams come
true.

Conclusion

Living all five tenets "relentlessly" allows brand builders, customers and all stakeholders to all
be on the same page.

By striving to be customer obsessed, distinctively inspired, pervasively innovative and

ruthlessly pragmatic, you are creating a brand that will continue to deliver value to both
customers and shareholders for many years to come.

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