Marketing And Branding Your Business

Catherine, W., Tat Pui, L. and Henrik, U. (2011) The Roles of Branding for a Brand Entering

To get back to the point, it’s important to think of branding as the DNA of your organization, and consider what people will say about you when you aren’t in the room. This is why branding also trickles its way down to the small things like how you present yourself at events, how you talk to people, and how you conduct business away from the

Brand strategy is of upmost importance when it comes to customer visualizing a company. Branding is critical to the company as well as the product. The company brand embodies what the company is about,including the product (Hatline, M.D. & Ferrel, O.C., 2014). Branding provides the company with leverage when it tries to enter new markets Whether that be new locations or new product offerings (Douglas, S. P., Craig, C. S., & Nijssen, E. J., 2001).

Since an increasing number of people focus on brand names instead of product, brands become important elements for customers to choose products (Carroll, 2008). When customers trust the brand, the benefits for the manufactures are generated. In the first place, brands can be used by products as the tool to identify and differentiate themselves from various products. Secondly, brands are helpful for companies to build a competitive advantage (Bick, 2009). Therefore, organisations take more attention to branding.

Strong brands are able to hypnotize customers by the power of their brand. Through gaining some sort of control over customers; it can be seen that branding is a sort of restriction of free competition. This is precisely the motivation of brands marketing their product or service: locking consumers in and competitors out.

Branding can be defined as “A name, term, sign symbol (or any combination of these) that help identifies the maker or seller of a product.” (Kotler & Armstrong, 2010)

“In reality, a brand is like an iceberg. The tip is the most obvious and visible part – the logo – but most of the iceberg is actually under the surface; the strategy, service offering, culture, experience and other aspects which all contribute to the overall brand.” –Millward Brown, The Disappearing Iceberg.

The economic base over the past fifty years has undergone a major shift from being production centric to consumption centric as consumers have made a transition from the sphere of rationality to the realm of desire and wants. This shift has contributed significantly towards the birth of an economy driven by people, making it resoundingly lucid that customers are now in the seat of power, compelling industries to treat ‘customers as king’ by offering them their desired products at the demanded place and time. In such markets where industries are producing homogenous products and competing against each other to satisfy the needs of ever demanding customers, branding plays an imperative role (Lafferty B,2001). It is branding that provides companies the competitive advantage by contributing towards image creation, creating differentiation and customer recognition thereby highlighting that branding in present day is paramount (Shipley D; Howard P ,1993)

Importance of Branding: It is becoming increasingly more important for companies to brand themselves so that they stand out to the customer. This has more recently become more difficult to do as the internet becomes flooded with more and more content daily. The average consumer can be captivated by one viral article or video one day but forget about it tomorrow.

In a society where corporations are constantly competing for business, branding has become the ultimate way for companies to win over customers. Defining exactly what a brand is, however, is a challenging task. ‘Brand’ has become something of a buzzword over the past decade, though this is not without reason, given the functional purpose of branding in building a competitive business. Branding is much more than a buzzword - it is, in a sense, a company’s promise to its consumers. When a product, service, or company is well branded, consumers know exactly what they’re going to get when they invest. In another sense, branding is the outward projection of what a business hopes to associate with its name. A brand includes not

For a company’s brand, this personality - based upon value opportunities, is the frame work of a good brand. Branding communicates that a company and their products share the same values as its customers.

* When people look at us, what do they see and what do they experience?

It’s important to communicate to your customers your company’s mission so it is clear what sets you apart from your competitors. Target your customers to think of your brand as a living, breathing person they can trust. They need to know that your brand is the one they should turn to when faced with a dozen choices. Offer your customers a dependable, completely trustworthy choice that will never disappoint. Find out what your customers are desiring to feel and make your brand help them feel (“How to build a brand” .www.wikihow.com. N/P. N/P. November 28, 2015).

Branding can lift what you sell out of the realm of a commodity, so that instead of dealing with price-shoppers you have buyers eager to pay more for your goods than for those of competitors. Think of some people 's willingness to buy the currently "in" brand of bottled water, versus toting along an unlabeled bottle of the same stuff filled from the office water cooler.

Long before now has branding been considered as one of the peripheral aspects of business. Manufacturers, investors and other key players focused on the product without paying much attention to the consumer. But as the business landscape got tougher, marketing became not just an integral part of business but one of the fundamental principles of success.