Sending a Message: The Importance of Branding for Success
What does it mean to create your brand? It might be simple enough to create an image of your choosing, but what goes into developing a brand image that suits your aspirations and vision? This is a question every entrepreneur needs to ask themselves if they hope to achieve their ambitions.
The unfortunate reality is that most of us are too willing to hop onto whatever trend seems hot at the moment when trying to position ourselves in our niches, taking the easy route of adopting what seems to work for others rather than developing our own organic and authentic brand identity.
Sadly, there are plenty of people who will forgo any branding initiatives entirely, operating under the delusion that all you need to do is tell people about your product and how great it is to achieve your goals. You leave everything else regarding who you are as a company and what you stand for to your potential client’s imagination.
If you’ve found yourself falling into this trap, don’t take it too badly – it’s a highly prevalent problem area, especially in the digital age we live in, where markets, industries, and demographics are in constant flux. The good news here is that you can fix things on your end. Getting things back in proper working order will be a challenge, and it’s important to start at the root of the trouble – by disentangling the meanings behind the concepts of ‘branding’ and ‘marketing’ and detailing how they apply to your pursuit of success.
Let’s get right to it.
Branding vs. Marketing: What’s the difference?
Branding, as per the dictionary definition, refers to the process of communicating a differential or unique selling proposition. It is how businesses and individuals define themselves in the minds of their audience. It can often boil down to a gut feeling regarding your product or service and often determines customer loyalty.
The process involves a consistent effort to tell your story to your target audience. Without your efforts here, nobody will know about you, and you might find yourself struggling despite offering a superior product. It is your brand that will generate the magnetic attraction that pulls people towards you.
Marketing, on the other hand, refers to the actions undertaken to promote or sell a product, and these efforts will include any market research or advertising initiatives. The point of significance here is that branding should always come first. A successful business needs a good brand just as much as it requires a quality product. Marketing is how these two elements are presented to your target audience in the most effective way and at the optimal time.
Positioning with Purpose
A useful way to approach branding as a concept is as a way of communicating your purpose to the world, helping potential clients understand why they should come to you rather than any one of your competitors, even in cases where they might have superior products on offer.
The purpose at the heart of your business is what will motivate your employees, attract new clients, and ensure that existing customers stick with you. Moreover, it will guide all your efforts and the methods you deploy as you strive towards your objectives.
Going Beyond Words
Cultivating or influencing clients so that they develop loyalty to your brand takes patience, intelligence, and a good understanding of your target market’s nature. Even so, figuring out why people stick to certain brands can be exceedingly difficult, which accounts for the cases of billion-dollar companies facing competition from startups with very little in the way of marketing funds.
You will need to go beyond simply telling people about yourself and what you offer. Logos, tonality, platform choice, colors, songs, your name, visualizations, and more can also go a long way in familiarizing yourself and building affinity with your audience.
The Milkman’s Route
Another way to consider things is to look at marketing as a milkman’s daily path as they deliver to their clients each day. It is a consistent and efficient way by which you manifest or demonstrate what your brand is about while generating leads and new clients. The message needs to stay fresh, engaging, and non-repetitive. Don’t flood people with calls, emails, and so on, as they will quickly become irritated.
You need to have all the qualities of the milkman on the job, never forgetting that no amount of friendliness or punctuality will make up for spoilt milk or a substandard product.
Do Not Blend In
The idea behind branding is to stand out so that people will not get bored by you while not being forced to radically change your image every couple of months. It takes at least two to three years for a brand to take hold of your audience’s mental map, and this changing things up too often will be counterproductive.
Keep the core of your brand the same while regularly introducing innovation, excitement, or any other means by which you can keep levels of engagement high.
Final Thoughts
Yellow-Steps thoroughly understands what the difference between branding and marketing is, and we are here to help you apply these powerful concepts to your journey. We are in the business of helping our clients effectively develop and project their brand out into the world in the most consistent, creative, and impactful way possible. Partner with us, and we’ll take your brand to the next level and beyond. Call us today!
